E-Mail This Article to a Friend PROTEST Cuban exiles lobby to visit their families BY MIKE MILIARD

The fluorescent yellow sign held by a teenage girl put it plainly: MR. BUSH, I CHALLENGE YOU TO SEE YOUR MOTHER ONLY ONCE EVERY THREE YEARS!

There has been increasing — and increasingly bipartisan — support for easing US travel restrictions to Cuba over the past several years. But the Bush administration has responded by ratcheting up efforts to strangle Castro’s communist government by keeping visitors (and dollars) away from the island. Families split between Cuba and the States are being abused in the process, says Merri Ansara of the Ad Hoc Committee for Family Reunification and the Right to Travel, a group that gathered roughly 75 people to protest in front of the State House on Tuesday. "They think that they can hurt people so badly that they’ll do anything to see their families, including turn against the government."

Last May, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, established by Bush and chaired by then–secretary of state Colin Powell, released a report recommending new ways to goad the country toward democracy. Among them: further curtailing the frequency with which people could travel there. While Cuban-American exiles were previously allowed to visit their loved ones back home once a year, they’re now allowed to do so only once every three years, for a maximum of two weeks. Parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings, and spouses only. There are no exceptions for hardships or emergencies.

It’s a perverse position for a president and a party that claim to represent "family values." At Tuesday’s rally, Somerville’s Ramon Bueno declared that "no family member should ever have to contemplate breaking the law, much less face legal consequences, simply to satisfy their basic human right to be there for their closest relatives." Flora Gonzalez announced that her beloved Cuban uncle and cousin were "no longer my family" now that the federal government has taken it upon itself to define who her relatives are.

State Senator Jarrett Barrios, who is of Cuban descent, expressed his support for rescinding the restrictions en español. Afterward, as he walked back down Beacon Hill, an older man across the street hollered his name, crossed through moving traffic, and began loudly berating him in Spanish. I don’t speak the language, but was told by people who do that he was criticizing Barrios for "supporting" Castro’s depredations.

The man was missing the point. "One thing we said is ‘no politics.’ Not from the left, not from the right," says Ansara about her group. "We’re pro-Castro, anti-Castro, pro-Bush, anti-Bush, and everywhere in between. This is not just a lefty political issue. It’s something that is felt by everybody. The stories are just heartbreakers. Cuban families are very close-knit, and they feel this keenly."

The Beacon Hill gathering was meant as a local precursor to Wednesday’s Cuban Action Day, which saw intense lobbying on Capitol Hill in Washington. Massachusetts representatives James McGovern and William Delahunt both issued statements of support for the rally. "If a Cuban-American travels to Cuba next week, and her mother is on her death bed next year, she will be denied permission to see her or attend her funeral," McGovern wrote. "The ban on travel to Cuba has always been an irrational policy, but now it is simply inhumane."

For more information, visit http://www.cubaactionday.org/