Editorial: A welcome step in 50-year U.S.-Cuba grudge match

Good news appears to be coming soon on one of the last remaining fronts of the Cold War, with signals coming out of Washington in the last couple weeks that President Obama may order some travel restrictions dropped for Americans wanting to visit Cuba.

The plan currently being floated wouldn't come close to lifting the nearly half-century-old embargo on the communist nation, but it would make it far easier for students, academics and researchers to get to the country 90 miles away from Florida. Essentially the move would restore policies in place during the early years of Bill Clinton's administration, when more "people-to-people" contacts were being encouraged as a way - policymakers here hoped, at least - for Cubans to interact with Americans, learn a little more about freedom and see why our way of life really isn't so bad.

It was a good idea then, and it remains a good idea today. Moreover, this is absolutely the proper moment to be considering it.

Shortly after being inaugurated, Obama lifted some restrictions on travel for Cuban-Americans who still had relatives living on the island, and made it easier for them to send money home to support them. When he did that, his administration indicated they wanted to take other steps, but would hold off until they saw some kind of positive, reciprocal gesture from a Cuban government that still restricted freedoms, locked up dissidents and tightly controlled the nation's economy by keeping the vast majority of businesses under state ownership.

Slowly but surely, dictator Raul Castro's government has shown not just a willingness to occasionally engage - last year conceding the policies toward America championed for 50 years by him and his brother Fidel "could be wrong" - but also to make some of the changes the U.S. had hoped to see. In the last year he's liberalized the economy some, if still not anywhere close to enough. More importantly, he's made some significant moves on the human rights front.

The government there pledged earlier this summer to release the last 52 political prisoners still being held from the regime's last large-scale crackdown on dissidents in 2003. So far 32 have been let out of prison, with most electing to leave the country altogether. They've also allowed a public protest from the mother of a prominent dissident who died in prison after thwarting her previous attempts. Another dissident - the ailing son of a prominent leader in the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power - just received permission to get necessary medical treatment in the U.S., no small concession from a government fiercely proud of its own medical community.

Granted, those three steps aren't conclusive - there are, in fact, still indications that other dissidents are still being harassed or temporarily detained - but they are are at least progress. In all the recent cases, it has been Cuba's Catholic Church that has been urging the government along toward better behavior.

Now, critics of any change here will surely argue that the brothers Castro are solely interested in getting America to loosen any restrictions simply because it could ease the flow of U.S. dollars into their economy. Perhaps so, though it's hard to see how they're strengthened in the long run by their people getting exposed to more Americans, more free thinking, more overseas goods. If anything, the Cuban populace is less likely to embrace a status quo of isolation, oppression and privation when they see the alternatives. Essentially that's why the U.S. has pursued a policy of "constructive engagement" in other countries like China that are hardly shining beacons of democracy.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., is a proponent of the current plan - and of lifting the trade embargo. He told Fox News earlier this month, "This is a way to infiltrate Cuba and change the system gradually. ... Whether they are going in as farmers selling their goods or as tourists, the better off Cubans will be." Indeed, this page has long argued the trade restrictions ought to be lifted as well. They don't work and never have. All they've done is make it more difficult for everyday folks to get goods, leaving them dependent on their government to provide their food and other basic needs. Just what you want to encourage if you hope to topple a so-called socialist paradise, right?

No, from where we sit, the benefits to Americans, to the Cuban people, to local farmers eager to sell their grain to a nation that needs it, and to companies like Caterpillar that can sell equipment in a place in desperate need of a modern infrastructure all far outweigh any warm feelings the remaining cold warriors out there get from a largely symbolic embargo.

But loosening the travel restrictions is a necessary first step here, one that will have to be met by other positive steps from the Castro government. If that occurs, then both sides should continue to work to slowly dismantle a half-century worth of outdated policies. Doing so is in both our interests.

Journal Star of Peoria, Ill.