Reaching Out to, But Not Touching, Cubans

“It’s absurd,” laughed an elderly Cuban woman to her companion. “How do they think we are going to buy food from the U.S.? It means nothing for people like us.” That comment, overheard at a Havana bus stop earlier this week, reflects the sentiment of many Cubans regarding recent adjustments of U.S. policy toward their country. While the Cuban government has adopted a cautious wait-and-see approach, many individual Cubans have already concluded that the new initiatives President Clinton announced on Jan. 5 will mean little to their daily lives.

If the measures really are intended to “send a message of hope” to the Cuban people, as Clinton claims, the White House has a lot more work to do.

Many Cubans, both in intellectual circles and at the street level, argue that the new measures--permitting U.S. food sales to private restaurants and agriculture input sales to private farmers--are meaningless, because imports cannot clear customs without government permission. Since the measures are designed, in Clinton’s words, “to provide the people of Cuba with hope in their struggle against a system that for four decades has denied even basic human rights,” Cuban authorities may be ill-disposed to such sales. Why should they approve a measure openly intended to weaken them?

The Cuban government is already curtailing the activities of small private restaurants because they do better than their state counterparts on prices and service. The government also is carefully monitoring private farmers amid accusations of profiteering.

In addition, Cuban authorities are well aware that private activities reduce government leverage on citizens by providing a source of income outside of state control and may therefore be reluctant to approve private-sector requests to purchase items from the “enemy.”

Even if the government decides to authorize the purchases, only those citizens with dollars will be able to participate, and they will sell their products in hard currency. The very small portion of Cuban “haves” will get richer but there will be little impact on the “have nots.”

In addition, the decision to extend to all Americans the right to send remittances of up to $1,200 per year to Cuban families, a right previously restricted to Cuban Americans with relatives on the island, is not expected to benefit many Cubans. Because of U.S. travel restrictions, few Americans have developed relationships in Cuba that are sufficiently strong to trigger such generosity.

The provision permitting even larger remittances to “entities in Cuba that are independent of the Cuban government” is assumed to be meaningless, since those recipients deemed “independent” by Washington may be considered counter-revolutionary by Cuban authorities.

The last time a U.S. administration tried to “reach out to the Cuban people,” it turned out badly. In the early 1990s, Washington quietly sought to facilitate greater contact between U. S. and Cuban scholars. In 1995, when conservative critics complained this was “helping Castro,” the Clinton administration abandoned its past discretion and proclaimed that such contacts were part of a “Track Two” policy designed to “subvert the Cuban system” by exposing Cuban scholars to “democracy and capitalism.”

The hard-line element within the Cuban government, already uneasy about greater contact with Cuban scholars, used the U.S. rhetoric to justify a crackdown that damaged many academic careers.

Because of this history, repetition of “Track Two” language in the new proposals rings alarms. Scholars hold U.S. officials’ impolitic language partly to blame for the crackdown. Though terminology in the new initiatives is slightly more tactful than that of four years ago, the unmistakable message is that contacts are intended to hasten a transition to a new political system.

Finally, Cubans feel these new measures are a poor substitute for the much-touted commission proposed by 24 U.S. senators from both parties to conduct a comprehensive review of Cuba policy. Rightly or wrongly, many Cubans believe Clinton abandoned the commission proposal due to pressure from the Cuban American right-wing and that this proves he lacks the courage to provide genuine leadership on Cuba policy.

If the Cuban people are to believe that the new measures are genuinely meant to assist them, two things must happen.

First, the “Track Two” style “we-are-opening-contacts-in-order-to-subvert” theme must be further minimized. The fact that the language of the Jan. 5 measures is slightly less provocative than that of 1995 provides grounds for hope that some members of the administration appreciate the need for discretion. Whether they will be able to mute the subversion theme further in the face of conservative pressure remains in doubt.

Second, the implementation of the new initiatives must maximize the opportunity for average Cubans to benefit from U.S. largess. Specifically, “entities independent from the Cuban government,” and thereby eligible to benefit from the new policy adjustments, must be defined broadly enough to encompass more than Cuba’s small private sector, religious institutions and dissidents. This will require a sharp departure from past practice, since the departments of Treasury and Commerce have placed restrictive interpretations on previous presidential decisions to adjust aspects of the embargo.

Without these steps, Clinton’s new measures could simply consolidate popular Cuban cynicism regarding U.S. intentions.