CUBA - US: The Vicious Circle

By: Dalia Acosta, Inter Press Service (IPS)

Gradual progress towards an easing, and eventual lifting, of the four-decade U.S. embargo against Cuba was cut short this month by the stiff sentences handed down to 75 dissidents and the execution of three men who hijacked a ferry and took hostages in a frustrated bid to sail to Florida.

In the past few decades, periods characterized by a slight thaw in relations between the two countries have inevitably been abruptly broken off.

This time around, the move towards a ''normalization'' of ties was driven mainly by agribusiness sectors in the United States keen on making inroads into the Cuban market.

Analysts consulted by IPS said rapprochement, growing flexibility, and a renewed toughening of the blockade are the components of a vicious circle that is seen every time observers start to predict an end to the embargo.

Official statements issued by Cuba's socialist government in the past few days have basically repeated over and over that the United States continues to provoke and attack Havana and finance ''internal subversion,'' while Cuba has been merely exercising its legitimate right to self-defence.

Caught in the eye of the storm, Cuban authorities push all other considerations to the backburner: the internal situation in Cuba, the economic crisis that has held the country in its grip for over a decade, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and east European socialist bloc, and the state of relations with Latin America and the European Union.

According to that logic, pressure applied by Washington and the ''servile grovelling to the empire'' by other governments are the only explanations for the fact that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights approved a motion Thursday rebuking Cuba for its human rights record.

The resolution, authored by Costa Rica, Peru and Uruguay, reiterates the Commission's call for a special UN envoy, French magistrate Christine Chanet, to be allowed to carry out a fact-finding mission to assess respect for civil and political rights in Cuba.

In the end, the winner of these clashes tends to be the most vociferously anti-Fidel Castro sectors of the Cuban exile community in Miami. Analysts say it is those groups that also have the strongest interest in seeing the economic sanctions against Havana remain in place, as well as a continuation of its political isolation.

Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack announced Tuesday that he was canceling plans for a trip to Cuba to explore the possibility of farm sales, ''until things improve dramatically for the Cuban people.''

Observers say that a more complete assessment of the impact on relations between the two countries will have to await the reaction of the U.S. agribusiness industry, which for over a year has been doing business through direct sales to Cuba.

As the New York Times pointed out Thursday, a toughening of Washington's Cuba policy is the expected response to the recent crackdown on dissidents and the Apr. 11 execution by firing squad of three of the eight people who commandeered a passenger ferry on Apr. 2 and ordered it to sail to the United States.

A ban on food sales to Cuba, direct charter flights between the two countries, or remittances sent home by Cubans in the United States are several of the possible responses by Washington.

Tens of thousands of Cuban-Americans, mainly in Miami, depend on charter flights to visit their relatives every year.

Another possibility that has already been announced is stricter controls on visits to Cuba by U.S. citizens, which would especially affect growing cultural and educational exchanges between the two countries.

''Remember the small plane shootdown,'' an analyst who asked not to be identified told IPS.

''We are in the middle of a process similar to the one surrounding the small airplane crisis, but the context is different,'' he said, referring to a February 1996 incident in which the Cuban air force shot down two small civilian aircraft flown by the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.

The group had routinely invaded Cuban air space, at times dropping anti-communist leaflets over Havana and other towns. The planes were shot down after express warnings by the Cuban government.

That episode cut off an incipient thaw, and led to the hasty passage of the Helms-Burton Act by the U.S. Congress, which provides for sanctions against companies from third party countries that do business with Cuba.

Although the victims -- the pilots flying the small airplanes -- came from the anti-Castro Cuban exile community, the groups in Miami nevertheless scored a triumph. Instead of the expected loosening of the economic embargo, a law that stiffened it was passed.

The analyst said the difference between that incident and what is happening today is that ''in 1996, Cuba benefited by a near-universal backlash around the world against the Helms-Burton Act due to its extra-territorial reach, while today it is very difficult to find any support for the measures applied'' by the Cuban government.

The government even appears to have underestimated the broad opposition that the summary trial and executions of the three hijackers would generate among the Cuban population.

As in 1996, those who will be hardest hit by a strengthening of the embargo will be the members of hundreds of thousands of Cuban families separated by the Florida Straits.

''Those who will be punished are many families that have adapted their lives to the economic standards and the considerable benefits provided, under the current conditions in Cuba, by the small remittances'' sent from the United States, said an official statement by the Cuban government Friday.

Expatriate remittances, mainly sent from the United States, amount to around one billion dollars a year, which makes them a key source of foreign exchange and income in this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million.

María de los Angeles Martínez, a 64-year-old woman, said she gets by thanks to the ''small amounts of money that my two children send me every month from the United States.''

Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said Cuba was considering withdrawing its application to join the 78-nation Cotonou Agreement, a programme through which the EU provides trade benefits and aid to former European colonies.

The minister said Havana might withdraw its request because some EU nations want to set conditions on Cuba's membership. He also reiterated the government's refusal to allow special UN envoy Chanet to visit the island.