Posted on 10/23/2002 11:01:46 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA -- James Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, served up a surprise along with the mojito rum drinks to a group of American newspaper editors who visited his residence here last week. Three of the island nation's leading political dissidents materialized on the veranda to air grievances against Fidel Castro's government.
The meeting was part of the Bush administration's relatively unpublicized effort to promote regime change in Cuba. Administration officials aren't considering a military operation like the one being planned to oust Iraq's Saddam Hussein -- or, for that matter, like the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion to depose Castro.
But, much to the annoyance of Cuban leaders, U.S. officials have been working inside Cuba to promote democracy and end Castro's 43-year rule. Their efforts have irritated U.S.-Cuban relations just as Castro is engaged in what has been called a ''charm offensive'' aimed at getting the United States to drop its four-decade ban on tourism and trade. The U.S. diplomats' activities, which have increased during the Bush administration, include:
* Encouraging dissidents. Oswaldo Paya, among those who met with the editors, is an unassuming medical equipment technician who's pushing for a referendum on freedom of speech, creation of small businesses and amnesty for political prisoners. Paya's petition drive, known as the Varela Project, has attracted international attention and more than 11,000 signatures in Cuba. It has rattled Cuban leaders, who have called the proposed referendum unconstitutional.
''The constitution belongs to all the people, not to one man,'' Paya says. That man, Castro, was scheduled to meet with the editors but canceled at the last minute because, an aide said, he had too much other work.
* Distributing radios and books. Officials at the U.S. Interests Section, as the 51-person diplomatic mission here is called, have handed out more than 1,000 short-wave radios to Cubans. The radios, paid for by American taxpayers, allow listeners to pick up signals around the world, particularly Radio Marti, the anti-Castro station financed by the U.S. government.
The $10 kits contain a receiver made in China, batteries, a charger, earphones and a pamphlet of sayings by Jose Marti, the 19th-century Cuban national hero. The diplomats also give away books in Spanish about democracy.
* Supporting anti-government journalists. Cuban reporters who don't work for the state-controlled press are being allowed to use computers at the Interests Section to access the Internet and e-mail dispatches to publications outside Cuba. Claudia Marquez Linares, 25, says she and other independent journalists are permitted to use the computers once a week for an hour.
''People are hungry for the opportunity to read'' information that goes beyond the government line, she says.
The U.S. personnel here acknowledge that, especially since the end of the Cold War, it's unusual for U.S. diplomats to try to undermine the government in the country where they're posted. Cuba, Cason explains, is ''a different place.'' U.S. policy, he says, is to help the Cuban people make a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy.
Not surprisingly, Cuban government officials are agitated about what they regard as the U.S. officials' improper intervention in their internal affairs. ''Have they contributed to democracy in Cuba? No. It's not their task,'' snaps Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. It's not Cuba's job, Roque adds wryly, to ensure clean elections in Florida.
Nevertheless, because of their interest in getting the U.S. tourism ban lifted, the Cubans aren't retaliating for the time being against the diplomats or the dissidents, although some of the radios have been seized. If tourism is opened up, Cuban officials say, as many as a million Americans a year would visit, bringing with them the dollars needed to assist the cash-strapped Cuban economy.
''We believe that if Americans were allowed to get to know Cuba . . . a huge number of Americans will come,'' says Nilo Diaz Fundora, president of the regional assembly in Matanzas, the province containing some of the island's nicest beaches.
If those tourists were allowed to come to Havana, they'd likely be shocked by the deterioration of this capital city of 2 million. Except for some new hotels and recent improvements in the old Havana section, the city generally resembles a war zone. Thousands of buildings are crumbling or desperately in need of paint. The transportation system is an amalgam of Fords and Chevys from the 1950s, Soviet-era Ladas, motor scooters, bicycles and aging buses.
As befits the last communist regime outside East Asia, there is no 21st-century commercial district. Instead of consumer products, billboards feature slogans and heroes, particularly Che Guevara, from the 1959 revolution. Beggars and prostitutes solicit guests outside the tourist hotels.
Cuba's economic straits since Soviet subsidies ended more than a decade ago have forced Castro to look northward for the dollars and tourists that his revolution spurned. In recent months, he has hosted a visit by former president Jimmy Carter, a food fair for U.S. businesses that want to sell products to Cuban consumers and a symposium on this month's 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. He also was interviewed by Barbara Walters.
Castro's outreach has made some headway in Congress. The House of Representatives voted 262-167 in July to lift restrictions on travel to Cuba. (Under the current ban, only academics, journalists, missionaries and people visiting close relatives can visit legally.)
Even if the Senate goes along, President Bush and his hard-line advisers on Latin America are resisting Castro's charms. Ending the tourism ban, the White House says, would give ''a helping hand to a desperate and repressive regime.''
Because of the political clout of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in South Florida, no major breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations appears likely until after the 2004 elections -- or until Castro, 76, disappears from the scene. What the dissidents refer to as the ''biological'' approach to regime change could take years.
''The bad news,'' CIA Director George Tenet likes to say, ''is Castro has a great gene pool, and he's stopped smoking cigars.''
They love the guy!
Otto Juan Reich
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
Term of Appointment: 01/11/2002 to present
Otto Juan Reich was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs on January 11, 2002. He has spent over 30 years in hemispheric affairs, in government, private enterprise, and the U.S. military.
From 1989 to 2001, Ambassador Reich was in private practice, advising U.S. and multinational clients on government relations, market access and strategic planning, as a partner in the Brock Group and later as President of his own consulting firm.
From 1986 to 1989 Ambassador Reich served as Ambassador to Venezuela, for which he received the highest awards of both the State Department and the Republic of Venezuela. As Special Adviser to the Secretary of State from 1983-86, he established and managed the inter-agency Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Department of State, which received the Department's Meritorious Honor Award.
From 1981-83 he was Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in charge of U.S economic assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1991 and 1992, as a private citizen and at the request of President George H.W. Bush, Ambassador Reich served as Alternate U.S. Representative to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
His prior experience includes service as Washington Director of the Council of the Americas; Community Development Coordinator for the City of Miami, Florida; International Representative of the State of Florida Department of Commerce; and staff assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ambassador Reich's military service included duty as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army (1967-69) in the 3rd Civil Affairs Detachment (Airborne), Panama Canal Zone. He received a Bachelor's degree in International Studies from the University of North Carolina (1966) and a Master's degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University (1973). He has appeared regularly in U.S. and Latin America news media and was co-host of CNN International’s "Choque de Opiniones," a Spanish-language version of CNN's "Crossfire."
Ambassador Reich has been a Director of numerous private and non-profit corporations.
How 'bout that great Reno gubernatorial victory?
Send the tanks over with the consolation prize.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
Let me look that up in Mao's Little Red Book or perhaps Unrestricted Warfare.
Not with a Democrat Senate.
Not with overt means.
Not until the Cuban moles are removed from State, DIA, CIA, etcetera.
Not with George Tenet still exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen.
Not with Colin Powell as SecState.
Everything south of the Rio Grande is a Marxist junkyard--why risk U.S. troops?
In the fullness of time a consortium of theme parks and casinos will bulldoze the island and light up the night.
In the interim the charm offensive is getting ottomatically straightarmed.
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