Weighing the Response to Cuba’s Brutal Attacks : Clinton’s task is to punish Castro, not the Cuban people

The Cuban air force downing of two civilian aircraft last weekend, and the resultant deaths of four Cuban Americans aboard, was a blatantly illegal and needless act of provocation by Fidel Castro’s government. President Clinton is right to condemn it in the strongest terms.

But Clinton must not allow Castro’s latest act of brutality to push him too far, and he sensibly appears to have a hard but well-measured course in mind. To be provoked into a shortsighted overreaction could damage U.S.-Cuban long-term relations even further. The Administration’s strategy may not please some of Castro’s most ardent enemies in this country, but it will make it easier for Washington and Havana to resume normal relations in that not-too-distant future when Castro is gone and the long communist dictatorship comes to its inevitable end.

Clinton has announced that he will seek legislation to compensate the families of the four missing and presumed dead fliers from Cuban assets that have been impounded in this country. He also announced there will be new restrictions on the movement and number of Cuban diplomats in the United States and the suspension of charter air travel to Cuba. Lastly, he will expand the reach of Radio Marti, the U.S. government broadcast service into Cuba, a longtime bur under Castro’s saddle. These are all reasonable responses.

Less reasonable, and possibly counterproductive, is Clinton’s willingness to discuss with Congress possible administration support for the so-called Burton-Helms bill, legislation that would tighten the existing U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. While bills like Burton-Helms reflect an understandable U.S. frustration with the Castro regime, that legislation, like the embargo itself, would cause ancillary problems in Washington’s relationship with other nations, including important allies and trading partners like Canada and Spain. Unless the State Department can help Congress rewrite Burton-Helms so that it aims toward the normalcy of key international trade agreements like NAFTA--a prospect that seems highly unlikely--it is best tossed in the congressional trash bin.

It is expected that the United Nations will soon join the United States in condemning the irrational order to set Cuba’s MIG warplanes upon the small civilian craft flown by the anti-Castro pilots. Perhaps U.N. debate will bring out more facts about this incident than are now publicly known. For instance, what were the exact whereabouts of the planes at the moment they were attacked? The U.S. and Cuban government versions differ enormously. The Cubans say that the planes were inside their territory, while Washington and Brothers to the Rescue, the Cuban American organization to which the planes belonged, maintain that the aircraft were flying over international waters. It is, in fact, illegal to shoot at any unarmed civilian aircraft, according to international civil air agreements. Havana will have a lot of explaining to do if it hopes to come close to justifying the deaths of these four people.

At least some of the blame for this tragedy may lie with Brothers to the Rescue. Since 1991, the organization of Cuban American pilots has flown 1,700 missions in the skies around Cuba. At least twice, Brothers to the Rescue pilots have flown all the way to Havana to drop anti-Castro leaflets. Were the Brothers trying to provoke an incident with Cuba on the eve of Congress’ consideration of the Burton-Helms bill? Possibly, but even if they were, and no matter how provocative those flights might seem, they cannot justify Saturday’s brutal response.

Is Castro trying to send a message to Miami and Washington, not to mention the Cuban people, with this bloody incident? Is he trying to prove, yet again, that he will tolerate no political dissent from his aging and increasingly weak regime? Perhaps, but ultimately his attempts to hang onto power are futile. Someday, the sooner the better, the aging dictator will be gone and a new era of relations between Havana and Washington will begin. As Clinton ponders how to react to this latest outrage, the president must keep in mind those long-term prospects. Exact payment, squeeze Castro, but don’t derail the future relationship between the two peoples.