Posted on 05/20/2002 9:16:01 AM PDT by xsysmgr
In a dramatic departure from long-standing foreign policy toward Cuba, President Bush today is unveiling a new initiative that marks, for the first time since the Bay of Pigs, an active attempt to undermine Fidel Castro.
Without lifting the travel ban or trade embargo, Bush is attempting to infiltrate Castro's island prison with humanitarian assistance and democratic values in an approach dubbed by a senior State Department official as a "frontal assault against Castro."
The basic thrust is that the U.S. will attempt to make an end-run around Castro to both engage the Cuban people and sow the seeds of democracy.
In a Rose Garden ceremony this morning, Bush will outline several new policies, including an easing of the travel ban for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as religious and charitable groups, resuming direct-mail service, and establishing a scholarship program for Cubans to study in America.
The announcement of the new measures will be wrapped in a demand for free elections next year and the release of all political prisoners in exchange for normalized relations. While nobody in the White House is naïve enough to believe that Castro will actually allow an honest vote, the groundwork is being laid for freedom to take root after the dictator is history.
A senior administration official, however, eagerly adds, "We hope that tyranny in Cuba dies before Castro does."
This new tack does not bode well for the future of Communism in Cuba. With Bush pushing for American humanitarian aid that directly reaches the Cuban people, Castro will be faced with a lose-lose proposition.
If the Cuban Stalin keeps out charities and religious groups — who will be thoroughly screened by the White House to weed out Castro abettors, he will be forced into the unenviable position of explaining to his people why he rejected assistance. But if the humanitarian workers are let in, they will infect the Cuban people with a longing for liberty and desire for democracy.
Bush's vision would have NGOs conduct more than traditional humanitarian work. The White House plans to prod private groups to help build the infrastructure for freedom by equipping Cuban citizens with the necessary skills to create free enterprise and a free press. Some groups, for example, will teach entrepreneurial and business expertise, while others will inculcate the tricks of the journalism trade.
The White House further hopes to foment freedom through a scholarship program that will enable Cubans to study in America, where they will taste open society and spread the word to friends and family back home. Castro could thwart the plan, but again, such a move would at least make for bad PR.
The final component of the initiative isn't new at all. The U.S. government put an open offer on the table in 1999 to resume regular mail service, but Cuba has thus far declined. Although there is limited written communication with the people on the island through private couriers based in the Caribbean, direct-mail service would greatly increase contact with the Cuban people.
The binding theme of the various elements is a conscious decision to enhance the embargo and travel ban by bypassing Castro and directly engaging the Cuban people — a decision in which Bush was intimately involved.
An intensely personal issue for the president — no doubt partly for purely political reasons relating to Florida, Bush went thru two dozen drafts and brought in perhaps his most-trusted confidant, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, despite the fact that her primary expertise is not Latin America.
Although the State Department consulted and contributed, the new direction was mostly shaped by the National Security Council, Karl Rove's political shop, and prominent Cuban-American activists. The innovative approach was crafted on the heels of White House-wide brainstorming sessions over the past few months.
While the timing of the speech one business day after Carter left Cuba is hardly coincidental, the administration had been exploring possible strategies for quite some time, mainly to beat back the growing effort on Capitol Hill to embrace Castro. Carter's visit did, however, reinvigorate the administration and strengthened its resolve to fight Castro's despotic rule.
Part of the impetus for the policy of strategic engagement with the Cuban people was the realization that, as a senior State Department official puts it, "Castro responds to pressure, not unilateral gestures of good will or engagement."
Engaging Cuba, in fact, has the unavoidable consequence of propping up the Communist dictatorship. European money that flooded in starting in the early 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union was vital to the survival of the regime, and it gave Castro a financial shot in the arm.
European cash almost solely lines Castro's pockets because of the way the dictator has fashioned the terms of engagement. Foreign companies must establish joint ventures with the Cuban government, with a cut of the profits going to Castro. But the despot nets more cash from the labor arrangement: Workers are not employed by foreign companies; they are rented.
Companies pay Castro's machine approximately $1,000 per month per worker, in hard cash. The regime, in turn, shells out less than $20 — per month — to each worker, in pesos. In other words, 98 percent of all wages paid by foreign companies in Cuba are funneled straight to Castro.
Because Castro has been denied American cash from such joint ventures and for several other reasons, the embargo has worked, even if it hasn't dethroned him. The embargo has put Castro in a box, and has robbed him of resources to fund his extracurricular activities. As a senior administration official noted, "If Castro has to spend $40 million on food, that's $40 million he's not spending to develop biological weapons."
Despite the morally despicable conditions for joint ventures, a large number of Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing for engagement with Castro. In fairness, many simply don't understand that the communist dictatorship relies on foreign cash for its very existence, but ignorance should not be an excuse for ignorant policy.
Bush's speech may pave the way for expunging Congress's blissful ignorance, and likely will be cheered on Capitol Hill in the long run.
The new initiative transcends the current debate by clearly distinguishing Castro from the 11 million people suffering under his brutal oppression. It's a genius stroke to simultaneously browbeat Castro and reach out with open arms to the Cuban people.
The premise for the new approach is that "Castro is a relic," explains a senior administration official. If the initiative is successfully executed, those words may yet prove prophetic.
— Joel Mowbray is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.
The fact that it's a slap in the face of the Peanut President is an added bonus.
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