On travel to Cuba, think liberty first

Commentary

It has now been 63 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations, in 1948. Both the United States and Cuba ratified it, and neither has withdrawn its consent.

The declaration sets out a list of human rights that signatory countries agree to respect. One of them, Article 13(2), states that, "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

As the Castro dictatorship celebrates 52 years in power, both Cuba and the United States are embroiled in domestic controversies over the right to leave and return to one's own country without having to ask for government permission.

The Castro brothers — Fidel, 85, and Raul, 80 — have exercised rigid control since 1959 over Cubans' ability to leave the island and return. No Cuban can leave, even when another country has authorized a visit, unless Communist bureaucrats issue a permit known as "the white card." Similarly, to travel to Cuba, Cubans living outside the island must request an entry permit.

In August, Raul Castro announced that he was going to review and possibly modify "the reigning migration policy." While those words evoked hopes of liberalization, on the day before Cuba's annual "Nochebuena" (Christmas Eve) family holiday, he threw the proverbial bucket of cold water over those expectations. The issue is "complex," he said, and requires further study.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the embargo commenced by President Kennedy in 1960, after Fidel Castro "nationalized" (i.e., stole) the properties of United States citizens and corporations in Cuba without compensation, in violation of international law, continues to affect the ability of United States citizens and Cubans who live in this country to travel to Cuba. By law, all those wishing to travel to Cuba must request U.S. government permission. Unlike the situation in Cuba, the United States government does not attempt to totally control egress and ingress, but it imposes burdens on the exercise of those rights when the destination is Cuba.

Current policy regarding travel to Cuba has been criticized on many grounds, including that it violates U.S. citizens' constitutional "right to travel." While such a right is not found explicitly in the U.S. Constitution (as it was in the Articles of Confederation of 1781) the courts have found that such a right indeed exists, by implication. Nonetheless, in decisions in 1965 and 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that travel restrictions to Cuba are valid.

I am not among those who hold the naïve belief that allowing free travel to Cuba from the U.S. will make the Castros embrace democracy. Millions of Canadian, European, Mexican and other tourists have traveled to Cuba for five decades, and all they have accomplished is helping finance the dictatorship.

However, if Cuba and the U.S. mutually agreed to honor their promises from 1948, everyone in both countries could at least make his or her own free decision regarding travel in or out of Cuba. Raul Castro and Barack Obama should include such a pledge among their New Year's resolutions.