Escape From Cuba

The picture on our front page today, of a 1959 Buick converted into a boat and loaded with 11 Cubans headed to Florida to seek freedom, is yet another reminder of the desperation with which people flee the brutal Communist regime of Fidel Castro. The Miami Herald reports that two of the 11 were trying for a second time; their attempt to make the passage in July in a converted 1951 Chevy flatbed truck had

been thwarted by the American Coast Guard. Yesterday, the Buick-boat was sunk by the Coast Guard and the would-be immigrants were returned to the communist isle, the Herald reports.

This is American policy under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy of returning to Cuba those refugees who are intercepted at sea before landing on American soil. It's a morally bankrupt policy in which America turns its back on those seeking freedom.

It's not just the fleeing Cubans and some hard-line conservatives here in American who know that the human rights situation in Cuba is intolerable. Amnesty International, a left-wing human rights group, late last week named four new "prisoners of conscience" to its list of 75 that were rounded up by Fidel Castro last spring. One, Miguel Sigler Amaya, had been arrested earlier for the crime of — horrors — trying to celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Another, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, seems to have angered the communist authorities by taking part in a hunger strike to ask for the release of another political prisoner.

Even President Bush — the commander in chief of the Coast Guard that yesterday sank that homemade boat — understands the issue at its heart.

As we've noted before in these columns, when he was asked about the Elian Gonzalez case by Jim Lehrer on April 27, 2000, Mr. Bush made clear that he understood what was at stake. He spoke of a Cuban-American who said of Elian, "he can't go back to Cuba, because he's not going to realize the wonderful freedoms I've realized."

A change to this policy so that Cubans saved at sea would be admitted to America would be a welcome shift for all Americans who care about freedom. It would be particularly appreciated by Cuban-Americans in Florida, a state in which Mr. Bush triumphed in 2000 only by the narrowest of margins. This is a case in which good policy makes good politics.