SOREN TRIFF

  Cuban Americans see their migration to the United States as African-American former slaves saw the Underground Railroad to the North -- the only way to freedom. But it is almost impossible for other, well-intentioned Americans to see it the same way because the Cuban migration issue has been left in the hands of interest groups for too long.

  It is true that it's up to Americans to make a decision on whether Cubans travel to America to escape from a dictatorship or just to enjoy the American way of life. They also have to ask politicians whether there is an ethical and political action available to respond to the migration of Cubans in the short and long term. Another question to be answered would be whether Americans will let bureaucrats and politicians use the ''securitization'' of foreign policy to cover for the lack of a foreign and migration policy.

  But to do so, we have to be willing to move on to a post-Cold War scenario. If we look into the present situation from the perspective of a civil/international conflict, we will see that Cuban migration is a consequence of an unresolved civil internal conflict sustained by the structure of the Cuban government. Simply put, the system constantly produces educated middle-class people, but it does not have a place for them inside the authoritarian society. It has to expel them one way or another.

  The system cannot sustain both their middle-class dreams and a mere survival economy. The bureaucratic structure is not capable of finding a place for all of them, even as modern-day slave workers. On the other side, the regime doesn't allow them to find work for themselves as free agents inside the restrictive society. In this condition, a civil conflict easily 'overspills' into an international conflict.

  The U.S. government needs to see the Cuban migration as an ''overspill'' to international conflict from civil struggles similar in many ways to what has happened in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Ivory Coast and now Liberia.

  VIOLENT CLEANSING

  In these countries, we can see the same pattern, no matter how different their social, political and economic status. In all, a small group takes control of the resources, proclaims itself guardian of the sovereignty and self-determination of the people, finds the support of a foreign state, promises to end the nation's ills and starts a ritual violent ''cleansing'' -- be it through firing squad, exile, prison, torture, disappearance or forced migration. The rest must submit to a modern-day slavery condition.

  In countries where the concept of capitalism and citizenship existed already in some way, society reverts to a pre-capitalist structure where people give up the right to own property and their civil and political rights. Citizens become ''subjects.'' The concept of equality for all is substituted by privilege for the few. Obedience is the only accepted relation between the governor and the governed.

  The public should be able to see that Cuban migration to the United States is only a small part of an insidious machinery. Regime treatment of the ''subjects'' includes different forms of modern-day slavery, migrant-worker abuses, forms of manumission disguised as payment for legal documents and human trafficking. A failure to understand that Cuban migration is part of a vast apparatus that uses humans as merchandise means that it will be difficult to find an answer to the problem.

  ROLE OF THE PRESS

  Understanding the nature of Cuba's ''underground railroad'' is the best way to prevent a civil war today or a humanitarian intervention tomorrow. Washington bureaucrats, Cuban government and Big Business benefit from public ignorance and the status quo. If the American liberals and the press don't make people aware of it, who will?

  In the meantime, Cuban Americans will continue to see migration as an ''underground railroad'' to freedom without understanding why others don't see it as such. Others in turn will give way to suspicion and fear without considering what is behind those menacing faces coming unexpectedly from the sea.

  Soren Triff is a columnist for El Nuevo Herald.