CARIBBEAN : U.S. Cuba Policy Undefined, but a Thawing of Relations Is Evident

The American government has killed TV Marti, its anti-Communist propaganda voice aimed at Cuba, while making plans to improve telephone communications between the United States and the Caribbean island.

The Clinton Administration also is preparing to allow more Americans to visit Cuba, since Cuban President Fidel Castro is granting exit visas to some dissidents for the first time in years.

Castro’s most strident external critics, meanwhile, are seeing their clout diminished in Washington after 12 years of Republican rule. Cuban-American hard-liners from Miami find they now must share the government’s ear with exile groups pushing for moderation in dealing with Cuba, which is suffering a profound economic crisis.

Clinton has yet to fully define his Cuba policy. But clearly the end of the Cold War and the Democrats’ arrival are leading to a gradual thaw in relations between the United States and the island 90 miles away, despite recent tensions over incidents involving Cuban border guards firing on asylum-seekers.

Still, no one among Cuba-watchers expects a dramatic shift in the 30-year policy of trying to isolate the Castro government politically and economically to bring about democratic change.

The American trade embargo--stiffened last year by the Cuban Democracy Act--is expected to remain in place until political and civil liberties are increased in Cuba. Nonetheless, hostilities between the two countries have lessened considerably since Clinton took office.

“This new Administration does not show the same level of hostility and aggressiveness as its predecessors,” Castro said recently, while also criticizing the crippling trade embargo, but in more tempered language than usual.

In the wake of the Cold War, Cuba has ceased to be a strategic foreign policy issue for the United States. There is no more Soviet Union, and Cuba no longer represents a Soviet foothold in the region; Russian troops have left the island, and the economic crisis has forced Cuba to reduce its own army. Castro has withdrawn his support for Third World revolutionary movements, many of which have fizzled.

“There’s no rational reason we could not normalize relations with Cuba tomorrow,” said Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and a fellow of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. “But I don’t expect any major (policy) changes anytime soon. The President has a lot of problems on his plate. Cuba is not a priority. It is a minor domestic problem.”

Clinton’s “domestic problem” is the well-funded Cuban exile community in Miami led by Jorge Mas Canosa’s Cuban-American National Foundation--a lobby group and contributor to American political campaigns.

Such groups believe that the embargo is finally paying off after the withdrawal of former Soviet Bloc aid to Cuba and should be left intact. The Cuban economy is about half the size it once was with severe shortages of food, fuel and raw materials.

Clinton is distancing himself from Mas Canosa, who was not invited to the annual Cuban Independence Day celebration at the White House in May.

Meanwhile, newer exile groups such as Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo’s Cuban Change and Armando Valladares’ human rights group, the Valladares Foundation, are increasing their influence in Washington. They call the trade embargo inhumane and fear an eruption of political violence on the island.

Sources say this debate is echoed within the Administration, although Clinton has not indicated he is even considering a policy shift.

Still, Castro has held out several olive branches. Last February, he said he might be willing to step down if his departure would eliminate the trade embargo. He is allowing Cuban exiles to bring more dollars and goods into Cuba. And last month, his government reiterated its willingness to discuss payment for American properties confiscated in the 1960s.

There are 5,911 outstanding claims worth an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion. Cuba wants to negotiate the claims in exchange for frozen Cuban bank accounts in the United States, payment for the Guantanamo military base and reparations for the cost of the U.S. trade embargo.