By Maya Bell
Miami Bureau

MIAMI -- Almost every year, Zenaida Liens scrapes together her savings and returns to her native Cuba, bringing medicine, soap and clothes for her aging mother, her two daughters and their children.

To her family, the Little Havana clerk is a godsend. But to Miami businessman Rudolph Babun, she is akin to a traitor.

"The people who want to see their families in Cuba, they should have stayed there," said Babun, 71, who hasn't returned to Cuba since fleeing Fidel Castro's communist revolution 44 years ago. "I understand the way they feel, but it's like Fidel Castro has emphysema, and they're giving him oxygen."

But those infusions of "oxygen" are about to be sharply curtailed. Starting Wednesday, the Bush administration will attempt to choke off the Castro regime by limiting travel to Cuba and drastically reducing the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars that exiles pump into the Cuban economy every year.

Rules strengthen embargo

The initiatives, designed to hasten a democratic transition by strengthening the 42-year-old trade embargo against the island, are dividing exiles and igniting a groundswell of opposition from humanitarian, religious and academic organizations. And some analysts think they could possibly hurt Bush's bid for re-election.

One Florida congressman already has filed a bill aimed at reversing the measures.

Under the new rules developed by the U.S. Treasury Department, Cubans living in the United States will be able to visit relatives on the island only once every three years, instead of annually. The restriction is retroactive, meaning Liens, who last went to Cuba in September, won't see her family again until September 2006.

"Three years!" said Liens, 55, tears welling in her eyes. "Imagine -- my mother is 80 years old. In three years, she may not be alive."

The rules also reduce by more than a third the money exiles can spend per day in Cuba and limit which relatives they may visit or to whom they can send money. Only parents, spouses, children or siblings will count as family. Aunts, uncles and cousins are excluded.

The new regulations also limit the packages Cuban-Americans may send or bring to Cuba to medicine, medical equipment, certain foods, batteries and radios. Clothes, toys, videos, soap and other personal-hygiene products will no longer be permitted.

The changes were proposed by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell. The president announced the creation of the commission in October, three months after Cuban-American Republican leaders in Miami wrote letters warning the White House of frustration in the politically powerful exile community. Get tougher on Castro, the letters said, or risk losing votes.

In 2000, Cuban-Americans in Miami gave Bush 80 percent of their votes, helping seal his 537-vote victory over former Vice President Al Gore.

For now, the new measures seem to have quelled the discontent, drawing widespread praise from U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, and other stalwart hard-liners, the majority of whom fled Cuba shortly after Castro came to power. Few still have family on the island and, like Babun, think Castro's harsh repression needs harsh measures, even at the expense of those with relatives still on the island.

"The whole object is to cut down the amount of money the government receives," said Ninoska Perez Castellon, a popular commentator on Miami's Radio Mambí, WAQI 710 AM. "If Castro can't pay to keep his repressive machine in place, people will realize there is more to life than sitting in Havana waiting for relatives in Miami to send you toothpaste."

Some applaud rules

That argument sells well among some Cuban exiles in Orlando, too. Joseph Torres, 42, a doctor born in Miami shortly after his parents left Cuba, said the restrictions are overdue.

"We need to put some pressure on Castro and stop maintaining his regime," Torres said. "I hope this affects Cuba very much, and especially Castro, who's been punishing our families for years."

But other Cuban-Americans, Evelyn Villacís of Azalea Park among them, said they think the Bush administration is punishing Cuban families, not the Cuban government.

"It's not fair that our families, who have nothing to do with Castro, have to suffer because Bush wants to punish Castro," Villacís said, while shopping at Medina's Grocery in Orlando.

Though born in the United States, Villacís' sentiments are common among newer arrivals from the island, especially those who have came after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union sent Cuba into its worst economic tailspin. In sheer numbers, they now outstrip the old guard, and political analysts say they could change the political dynamic in Miami.

Many newcomers don't vote

Many of the newcomers consider themselves more economic than political refugees. They return to the island as often as possible and have no qualms about helping their families endure the shortages that are hallmarks of daily life on the island. But like Liens, who arrived in 1992, many are not yet citizens or don't bother to vote.

But Sergio Bendixen, a Democrat and a leading pollster of Hispanic opinion, said the ire about the new measures might galvanize newcomers to register for the first time -- and vote for the presumed Democratic nominee, John Kerry. The Massachusetts senator supports family travel and unrestricted aid to the island.

"The Bush administration took a political risk," Bendixen said. "They made a tactical calculation that higher turnout among hard-liners who support the measures will neutralize the newcomers who oppose them. We'll find out in November, but this could backfire."

Rachel Farley of the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit human-rights group, agreed. "People are mad about this, and especially for Cuban-Americans in Florida, it's going to affect what they do in November," she said.

Farley's organization and a growing number of other groups are joining more-moderate exiles in condemning the measures. They are organizing letter and e-mail campaigns hoping to pressure Bush to change the rules, which are interim proposals, before they become final in the fall.

Opponents also support but hold out slim hope for a bill that U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, filed last week to reverse the measures. A likely candidate for governor in 2006, Davis said he was motivated by heartbroken constituents and other Floridians who fear they'll never see loved ones again.

"This is ultimately about who we are as Americans and what we stand for," Davis said. "And above all, we stand for supporting people and families."

Walter Pacheco of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Maya Bell can be reached at 305-810-5003or mbell@orlandosentinel.com.