Miami Libre?

Miami Marlins manger Ozzie Guillen is set to return to his baseball team Tuesday for a matchup with the Chicago Cubs, following a five-game suspension for sort-of, kinda praising Cuba's maximum leader, Fidel Castro, in Time magazine.

Feelings about the Castros - Fidel and brother Raul - run high in Miami, as I was reminded recently on a trip to northern Spain with a group of journalists that included two Cuban exiles. Their families originally came from northern Spain, so it was a sentimental journey for these two ladies. They were not, however, one bit sentimental about the Castros, whom they blame for forcing their families to flee communist Cuba. Exiled as teenagers, they now live in Miami.

I have long had mixed feelings about the Cuban Revolution and the exiles that oppose it. The Castros are repressive and dictatorial.Their predecessor, Batista, was a dictator, too, however, and the fierce, fixed positions of the Cuban exile community of South Florida are not always attractive. On the other hand, I haven't had their experiences, and if I was forced to leave my homeland, I imagine I'd be angry, too, perhaps for a very long time.

The Marlins have built a brand-new baseball stadium in Miami's Little Havana, and Cuban American fan support is important to the team, so Guillen's comments were inflamatory and ill-considered, to say the least. A long-time manager of the Chicago White Sox and a fine shortstop as a player, the Venezuela-born Guillen has a long history of crude, off the-cuff remarks. This latest transgression, coming at the beginning of his first season with the Marlins, is no real surprise.

Many people who follow major league baseball more closely than I do think the guy is a jerk. Maybe, but jerk or not, he was suspended by the team solely for voicing an unpopular, tactless political opinion, not for anything he did in the clubhouse or the dugout. Political speech in the United States is supposed to be protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Freedom of speech means nothing if it does not apply to unpopular speech, too.

Guillen's suspension leaves a sour taste. Over the years, people have rallied to cries of "Cuba Libre!'' Fair enough. What about "Miami Libre''? It might be a good idea to opppose repression in Cuba by also supporting freedom outside it.


Oh, and it might be a good idea for Washington to lift its ineffective and unfair ban on leisure travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, too.


In the meantime: Play ball!

Travel Ban: Don't Ease It, End It

Now is the time to end, not ease, the U.S. ban on tourist travel to Cuba.

The communist-run island nation has been under embargo by the United States since shortly after Fidel Castro, his brother Raul Castro and their guerrilla fighters overthrew the corrupt, unloved Batista dictatorship in 1959. In the mid '90s under U.S. President Bill Clinton, Washington loosened rules on travel to Cuba and on sending money there. However, the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 - passed under pressure from ferociously anti-Castro Cuban American leaders in the politically pivotal state of Florida - soon closed that opening.

Today's New York Times - amplified by the Wall Street Journal - reports that the Obama administration plans to return to the moderate policies of the Clinton administration's first term. Citing unnamed congressional aides, the newspapers report that changes - which wouldn't need Congressional approval - could be implemented as early as this Fall.

Mind you, Americans - who pride themselves on living in the freest nation in the world - still won't be able to travel freely to Cuba, as do people from practically every other nation on the planet. But athletic, academic and cultural organizations would have an easier time getting U.S. government licenses to send representatives to Cuba, remittances - presently permitted only to Cuban Americans with relatives living on the island - could be sent by a broader range of people, and the number of U.S. cities permitted to host flights to Havana would be expanded from the three that now have them: Miami, New York and Los Angeles.

Any loosening of the vindictive, ineffective and discriminatory travel ban is welcome, even the half-step represented by this possible change. After nearly 50 years, it should be clear that denying U.S. citizens the cherished right to travel and spend tourist dollars in Cuba has not worked to bring down the undemocratic Castro government but only further impoverished ordinary Cubans who could otherwise share in the benefits of a more-robust tourism industry. Moreover, the paucity of opportunities for Cubans and Americans to meet face to face only reinforces mutual ignorance and national stereotypes.

Some time back, I lived briefly in Canada. Practically every Canadian I met had traveled to Cuba as a casual tourist, as many Canadians do now. Most people around the world are free to do the same. Americans still don't have that right.

It's well past time they did. And it's time the embittered leaders of a small but influential minority are no longer given veto power over an important piece of U.S. foreign policy. President Obama: Don't merely ease this long-standing, ill-advised travel ban - end it.