Carter pushes rights agenda on Cuban visit

The visit to Cuba by former president Jimmy Carter is remarkable in many ways. He is the highest ranking American to step foot on the island nation off Florida since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

While a lot of attention has been given to Carter's apparent contretemps with the Bush administration over Cuba's involvement -- or lack of it -- in biological weapons, perhaps the key event of Carter's visit is his role in spreading the word about a dissident movement seeking changes that would tilt the country toward democratic reforms.

Cuba's constitution, often cited by Castro as the basis for his authoritarian rule, provides for citizen initiatives. But those options for reform have never been used, mainly because the Castro regime effectively controls all information about the government and has the ability to block all channels of communication with Cuba's 11 million people.

Thus, any effort to start a petition drive -- the constitution says the government must act if petitions bearing 10,000 signatures of Cuban citizens is presented -- is practically doomed to failure because no one knows about the petitions and petition supporters are thwarted by the government at every turn.

Nonetheless, organizers of what has become known as the Varela Project have chipped away under this repressive system and have obtained 11,020 signatures on a petition seeking a national referendum on such rights as free speech, free assembly and opportunities for opening businesses, which currently are state-controlled.

Fortunately for Cubans seeking more rights, President Carter has a special relationship with Castro dating back to Carter's presidency in the early 1980s when he advocated improved U.S.-Cuban relations. As a result, Castro gave Carter unprecedented access to the Cuban media and to dissident leaders.

In a televised speech while in Cuba last week, Carter -- speaking in Spanish -- praised the Varela Project and its aims. For most Cubans, this was the first they had ever heard of the petition drive or what it hoped to accomplish.

Government-controlled Cuban newspapers published Carter's comments, providing even more information about the effort to develop key civil rights for all Cubans. Those same newspapers also included responses to Carter's comments from Community Party officials. As might be expected, those comments were less than supportive of basic freedoms that are taken for granted in democratic societies.

It is unlikely that anyone but Jimmy Carter could have pulled off this level of support for the Varela Project. Cuba has become a magnet for special-interest visitors from the United States, including politicians, professors, students and journalists from Southeast Missouri. These visitors have been accorded limited access to the Cuban population. Only Carter has had access to virtually the entire nation by way of television and the press.

It will be interesting to see what comes of the Varela Project now that Carter has given it such visibility. The former president is to be commended for his efforts in this area.