Posted on 05/13/2003 12:24:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON - When Cuban diplomats in Washington wanted to buy a car, they would go to a showroom or a used car lot or check the Internet - just like Americans. Not any more.
Now they will have to import cars, much as American diplomats in Havana are required to do when they buy vehicles.
With echoes of the Cold War, the Bush administration and Cuban authorities are in an escalating tit-for-tat reminiscent of darker days in U.S.-Cuban relations - but involving mundane issues like fixing embassy plumbing.
Last week, frustrated by what it called harassment of U.S. diplomats in Cuba, the Bush administration informed the Cuban mission here that it will have go through the State Department for maids, drivers, electricians, plumbers, air conditioner repairmen and other service personnel, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
That measure matched a Cuban requirement that U.S. diplomats in Havana go through the Cuban Foreign Ministry to obtain such services.
The Bush administration official said there is suspicion that the personnel sent in response to service calls have other skills, such as planting bugs.
Efforts to obtain comment from Cuban officials were unsuccessful.
The U.S. action recalls a similar measure applied by the Reagan administration during the Cold War when the Soviet Union and its allies were forced to deal with the State Department's Office of Foreign Missions whenever they needed help for a leaky faucet, faulty electrical wiring or other problems. The rationale then, as it is now, was the same: reciprocity. After the collapse of European communism, the successor governments were allowed to deal directly with service companies.
U.S. officials were unable to say whether Cuba is the only country now barred from such contacts with these companies.
According to the officials, harassment of American diplomats in Havana is commonplace and extends well beyond the need for official intervention for routine service calls.
As examples, officials said tires on diplomats' cars have been punctured on occasion. They also suspect that traffic "accidents" involving official U.S. vehicles were actually planned and staged by Cuban agents.
The State Department, the officials said, does not plan to respond in kind.
There is, of course, more substantive friction between the two countries.
Philip Peters, a vice president of the Lexington Institute, a public policy group, said the tit-for-tat over diplomatic missions is a secondary issue to those more weighty disputes.
"The higher issue is how the administration will respond to Cuba's crackdown on dissidents," Peters said referring to the arrests and long prison sentences handed down against opposition leaders earlier this spring. The Bush administration is currently weighing its options.
Two months ago, Cuba decided to clamp down on travel by American diplomats, demanding that each trip beyond a specified area around metropolitan Havana be approved. Before, the only requirement was that Cuban authorities be notified of such trips beforehand.
The State Department responded immediately by imposing the same condition on travel by Washington-based Cubans.
The Cuban measure apparently was triggered by Havana's unease over the travels of the chief U.S. diplomat there, James Cason. He logged an estimated 6,200 miles motoring around the island, sometimes meeting with dissidents.
Cuban President Fidel Castro saw these contacts as subversive and used them partly as an excuse for his March crackdown on 75 dissidents, many of whom were described by the government as traitors. All were sentenced to lengthy prison after brief trials.
The State Department defended Cason's travels, saying he was seeking a peaceful transition to democracy on the island. It rejected Cuban allegations that U.S. diplomats have provided money to dissidents.
Venezuela has been a democracy since 1958, when a courageous leader, Rómulo Betancourt established representative government following a dictatorship. In the early 1960s Betancourt beat back Castro's efforts to overthrow Venezuela's democracy. Now Chávez wants to turn back the clock. He's cozied up to terrorist groups around the world, including those waging a murderous guerrilla war in neighboring Colombia.
Venezuelans of all classes and occupations have taken to the streets to protest Chávez's actions. He was thrown out briefly in a coup last year, but the coup collapsed when it became clear that the old corrupt elites were going to return to their money-grabbing ways and would take their time restoring democracy. Chávez's smile, however, was soon wiped off his face as spontaneous protests continued. There was a general strike a few months ago, the effects of which sharply reduced Venezuela's oil production. But Chávez has clung to power.
Whether Chávez's rule should continue is supposed to be the subject of a referendum in August, but this Castro wannabe has made it clear he won't leave office voluntarily. He will either try to postpone the election or use his armed thugs to rig the results.
The U.S. has reacted gingerly lest Chávez play the anti-U.S. card--always an option in Latin America--to shore up his sagging popularity. The U.S. should make clear that a clean August vote must take place--that Chávez must not be allowed to set up a virtual dictatorship, even if that means oil prices go up because we embargo Venezuela's oil exports. When Venezuelans see that we're serious about Chávez, perhaps their army will do what it should have done a long time ago--send Chávez to Havana on a permanent vacation--and then promptly return to the barracks. [End]
The bags are shipped to families of Cuban dissidents imprisoned for alleged crimes against the Castro government.
''This is the meat and potatoes of our work, what families of dissidents need to survive,'' said Frank Hernández Trujillo, executive director of Support Group for Democracy.
It is one of more than two dozen organizations, several of which are based in South Florida, that form the USAID Cuba Program, an ambitious U.S.-funded initiative to promote and bolster democratic movements on the communist island.
In recent weeks, the program has drawn a firestorm of criticism from Castro and other top Cuban officials who have denounced it as an orchestrated campaign by the Bush administration to subvert the island's government.
The program, whose scope ranges from supporting human rights activists and independent journalists to producing post-communist plans for Cuba, has become ensnared in the recent tensions between the United States and Cuba, triggered by Castro's severe crackdown on dissidents.
''Today, the so-called dissidents, actually mercenaries on the payroll of the Bush Hitler-like government, are betraying not only their homeland but all of humanity as well,'' Castro said at a May Day rally.
The program's director says the U.S. government does not provide money to dissidents and is simply trying to help budding, but struggling and oppressed, democratic voices.
''If discussing democracy and providing books written by Martin Luther King . . . and others is subversion, I don't think by American standards that's the case,'' said Adolfo Franco, an assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. ``We are not doing anything subversive. It's to support the growing civil society movement on the island.''
NARROW FOCUS
But some critics say the program is too narrowly focused on a relatively small dissident movement and should reach out to a broader spectrum of Cubans, and that many funded groups are dominated by Cuban exiles with conservative viewpoints.
''We should express our support for a more open society, but we must not be involved in efforts to bring about a different system in Cuba,'' said Wayne Smith, senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for International Policy and a former head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana. ``That gets into regime change and away from a diplomatic role.''
But Franco said the recent wave of repression in Cuba shows that the program is making inroads in helping establish a more independent society.
''The outrageous arrests and violations of human rights that have taken place in Cuba . . . in and of itself demonstrates that the program has had an impact in Cuba,'' he said.
The Cuba program grew out of congressional measures passed in the 1990s to assist people and groups in Cuba working for nonviolent change. The first grant in 1996 was awarded to Freedom House, a human rights group in Washington, D.C, to ship books, videos and typewriters to dissidents.
Since then the number of groups and the amount of money allocated for the program have grown significantly. This year, the federal government is distributing $6 million to Cuba program organizations. Over the years, about $23 million has been allocated for the program.
Many groups are based in Washington, but several are in South Florida, including CubaNet, which publishes stories by dissident journalists; a Florida International University program to train Cuban reporters by mail; and a transition project at the University of Miami.
''The goal is to prepare the Cuban people to understand the process of reconstruction in Cuba,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, director of UM's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. 'That's why we are casting a wide net in academia to do research and provide the best thinkers, the best ideas and policy options. We are not laying down dictates to the people of Cuba and saying, `Here, this is what you must do.' We are just giving them a menu of options from which they can pick and choose what they want to do.''
While the Cuba program funds a variety of groups, it is difficult to assess how effective it has been in carving out a democratic niche in Cuba. An independent evaluation three years ago noted that it is virtually impossible to gather data in Cuba's closed society.
SOME CONCERNS
But the report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers did raise some concerns. The program, it said, has not done enough to encourage ``solidarity or coalition building among human rights activists within Cuba. To the extent that the democratic opposition is splintered, it is vulnerable to repression, penetration and manipulation by Cuban government forces.''
While the report cautioned against drawing parallels to Eastern Europe, some of the methods used to encourage change there could be applied in Cuba as long as they are tailored to conditions there.
''The AID Cuba program is a pivotal source in making sure that folks in Cuba have access to information, to disseminate their materials and access to computers, faxes and radios,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami. ``Low-tech or high-tech, it's an opportunity to discuss important topics such as democracy and liberty, freedom of expression, basic principles the United States holds firm.'' [End]
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