It’s Castro Who Keeps His Nation in Isolation

When Pope John Paul II visits Cuba next week, many Americans will wonder why U.S. policy cannot overcome its Cold War preoccupation with Cuba and normalize relations with the last dictatorship in the hemisphere. Few Americans know, however, how recalcitrant Cuba can be to the overtures of friends.

In 1996, the European Union attempted to offer Fidel Castro international legitimacy, improved trade and even a new relationship with the United States if he would commit personally to gradual economic and political reform. President Castro’s response was to arrest Cuban human rights activists and to authorize his air force to take action that resulted in the deaths of four Cuban Americans.

The force behind the EU initiative was Spain. As its socialist government prepared to assume the EU’s presidency in 1995, it decided to carry out a major opening to Cuba. When U.S. policymakers became aware of this push for a “cooperative agreement” to encourage trade between Cuba and the EU, we debated two possible responses. One, a long U.S. tradition, was to marshal support from those EU members sympathetic to U.S. concerns and block or delay the Spanish effort. The second option, the one we chose, was to work quietly with Spain and the EU to strengthen the conditions attached to any agreement, in particular to include a “democracy clause” that the EU had itself added to other trade agreements.

Throughout 1995, I traveled to Madrid, Brussels, Rome and London to explain U.S. policy on Cuba. I acknowledged our disagreement over the utility of the U.S. economic embargo in achieving our shared objective of a peaceful and democratic outcome in Cuba. But I also stressed new emphases in U.S. policy where we and our European friends could agree:

* Selective openings in the embargo to encourage contact and communication with the Cuban people.

* Recognition that the development of Cuba’s civil society--those institutions between the state and the family that are the wellspring of modern, democratic values--was the best way to encourage change.

* A commitment by the Clinton administration to making “carefully calibrated responses” to any movement in Cuba toward reform, as argued by the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992.

The Europeans were skeptical of U.S. sincerity and confident that they could achieve in Cuba what U.S. policy had not. But over time the logic of the U.S. position had its effect: We were only holding the Europeans to standards of democracy and human rights that they themselves practiced. Several governments were wary of Castro’s real intentions and made it clear that they wanted meaningful conditionality on any agreement between the EU and Cuba.

This yearlong effort culminated on Feb. 6, 1996, in the office of Manuel Marin, the vice president of the European Commission, a leader in Spain’s ruling Socialist Party and the force behind the EU initiative. Marin was leaving that day for Cuba to meet privately with Castro. He had told his Cuban interlocutors that he also would meet with the newly formed human rights group, the Cuban Council, and extend to it the protection of the EU.

In his meeting with Castro, Marin would stress the importance of Castro’s personal commitment to specific economic and political reforms. These included the revision of Cuba’s laws criminalizing speech and thought and the encouragement of microenterprise. Marin explained that he would bring to the Cuban leader not only the prospect of a cooperative trade agreement with the EU but also the offer of an observer seat in the Rio Group, an organization of the largest and most powerful Latin American countries.

Those of us in the room were struck by how far we had come in closing the gap between the U.S. and the EU in just a year. I gave Marin my word that, if his mission were successful, I would work to obtain from President Clinton some important signal recognizing that real reform was underway in Cuba.

Marin’s meeting with Castro did not go well. After 11 hours of contentious debate, Castro rejected every item on Marin’s agenda. As Marin’s plane cleared Havana air traffic control, Castro ordered the arrest of Cuban Council leaders, including those who had met with Marin. Sometime during those early days of February, Castro also gave Cuba’s air force the authority to shoot down two U.S.-licensed civilian planes on Feb. 24.

Having few alternatives except risky military options, President Clinton decided on Feb. 26 to end the administration’s efforts to block passage of the Helms-Burton bill. I was sent to Capitol Hill to negotiate a compromise. On March 11, the president signed into law a version of Helms-Burton that sent us into direct conflict with the European allies who had supported the previous year’s efforts.

For the sake of 11 million Cubans and the cause of democracy, all must hope that the pope has more success in convincing Castro of the need to lead a transition. But it is sobering to review how far the West went to offer Castro a dignified way out of Cuba’s isolation and economic suffering, and how firmly he rejected that offer.