CUBA-US: Tolerance Marking Carter Visit Won’t Last, say Analysts

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, May 16 2002 (IPS) - The newfound political tolerance seen in Cuba since former United States President Jimmy Carter’s arrival recalls the climate surrounding the 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II. And just like on that occasion, it is likely to be merely a passing phenomenon this time around as well, say analysts.

Academics, supporters of President Fidel Castro and even his critics agree that nothing will change in Cuba just because Carter was given the chance to call for greater civil liberties in this socialist island nation, in a speech broadcast live Tuesday evening by the state-controlled media.

Castro also told Carter at the start of his visit Sunday that he was free to go anywhere he wished and talk to anyone he chose.

Nothing appears to have changed in the United States either, where President George W. Bush said Tuesday that Carter’s visit did nothing to complicate his government’s hard-line stance towards Cuba, which has not changed despite growing pressure from U.S. lawmakers and business groups for an easing of the 40-year-old embargo.

While the question of loosening the U.S. blockade against Cuba is being discussed in Havana as well as the United States, Bush plans to announce measures next week to stiffen economic pressure on Cuba and travel sanctions on U.S. citizens visiting this country.

Carter, who served as president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, presented his “vision of the future” in the Great Hall of the University of Havana Tuesday evening.

“I have come to understand that there are no simple answers,” said Carter, like the lifting of the economic sanctions imposed on Cuba since the early 1960s or Castro’s resignation.

But in order to bring about a shift in the tense relations between the United States and Cuba, Washington must take the first step by easing the blockade, said Carter.

The former president flew to Cuba on Sunday in response to an invitation by Castro. He will remain here until Friday, although his official visit ended with a farewell dinner with Castro Wednesday.

On Thursday Carter plans to meet with church leaders and representatives of dissident groups to gain a deeper understanding of the internal opposition to Castro, after meeting Monday with two of the island’s leading dissidents.

Carter’s “vision for the future” included Cuba’s complete integration in a democratic hemisphere of the Americas, its participation in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), freedom of movement between Cuba and the United States, and broad university exchange programmes.

He also said he would like to see a settlement of the lawsuits over formerly U.S.-owned property that was nationalised by the Castro government, and proposed the creation of a bilateral commission of outstanding citizens to discuss and analyse the concerns of all parties, including the Cuban exile community.

The former president made a special request to the Cuban government to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit this country’s prisons, and to receive representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

He also asked Castro to allow the state-run press to publish details of Project Varela, an initiative by 119 dissident groups that collected 11,000 signatures to request, as permitted by the constitution, a referendum on freedom of expression and association, new election laws, political and economic reforms and an amnesty for political prisoners.

“When Cubans exercise the right to peacefully change their laws through a direct vote, the world will see how it is Cubans, not foreigners, who decide the future of this country,” said Carter.

One of the organisers of the petition drive, Oswaldo Payá, praised Carter for publicly defending Project Varela, but expressed little hope that the Cuban government would allow a referendum to be held.

“The government is terribly afraid of Project Varela, which is why it will not publish information on it,” said Payá in an improvised press conference Wednesday evening.

But another activist, Manuel Cuesta Morúa of the Reflection Panel of the Internal Dissidence, was more confident that Carter’s visit would encourage trade between the two countries and the release of prisoners of conscience.

“Carter could help the Cuban government to see things differently, to stop seeing human and economic rights as mutually exclusive and to finally understand that they can go together,” said Cuesta Morúa.

The Cuban government points to its internationally recognised social achievements to argue that this country guarantees, better than any other, the rights to life, health, education and employment.

According to local authorities, restrictions on certain civil rights, like freedom of association and expression, are a justified response to the hostility of the United States, which they say is behind all of the country’s dissident groups, providing moral as well as financial support.

“We must not try to imagine what cannot happen. That is perhaps the first rule for avoiding disappointment,” Aurelio Alonso at Cuba’s Centre for Psychological and Sociological Research, a public institution, told IPS.

“Carter cannot lift the embargo nor is he going to bring about changes to the power structure in Cuba,” said Alonso. As occurred when Pope John Paul II visited the island, Carter’s arrival has “raised expectations that undoubtedly exceed the possible impact” of his visit, he argued.

On his visit to Havana in January 1998, the pope issued strong criticism of the Cuban government’s policies, called for reconciliation among Cubans from all walks of life and political tendencies, and urged a peaceful transition towards a new society where social justice and individual liberty coexist.

At that time, many observers outside Cuba predicted radical changes on the island, including the end of the Castro regime. But four years later, the Cuban government has not changed and remains firm in its positions.

Analysts in Cuba, meanwhile, note that a normalisation of relations between Havana and Washington will not occur overnight, but will be a slow process, advancing on a number of parallel fronts and demanding concessions and gestures from both sides.