CUBA-U.S.: New Forms of Hostility and Marginal Changes Expected

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 7 1996 (IPS) - With U.S. President Bill Clinton’s reelection, Cuba expects only marginal changes and new forms of hostility — but no improvement in relations.

“There is nothing to point to a transformation in the perception of Cuba held by the powerful elites in the United States,” according to an editorial comment on state-run T.V.

While the government of Fidel Castro has failed to react to Clinton’s reelection, the media here has stuck to the official conviction that whether the U.S. government is Democrat or Republican “is practically the same for Cuba,” in the words of a ‘Radio Rebelde’ commentator, who added that both parties “have called for the revolution’s head,” and “more blockade and swindles for Cuba.”

“One would have to be very optimistic to think everything will continue the same. A scenario with new forms of hostility added to the old manifestations is much more probable,” a representative of the Centre on U.S. Studies told IPS.

Clinton is the first Democratic president to be reelected in 52 years. But his hands are tied by a Republican Congress, especially on key issues like the Helms-Burton law.

Signed into effect on Mar. 12 as a reprisal against the Cuban air force’s shooting down of two small civilian aircraft flown by members of a U.S.-based Cuban exile group, the Helms-Burton law deprives Clinton of his decision-making power on whether to continue or lift the 35-year-old boycott of Cuba.

Helms-Burton, designed to sanction third countries for investing in property confiscated from U.S. citizens in Cuba, faced opposition even prior to its passage into law from the European Union as well as Canada and Mexico, partners with the United States in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Local analysts of U.S. policy on Cuba predict new attacks in four basic areas: the drug trade, terrorism, espionage and immigration. They forecast fresh attempts to link the Castro administration to international drug trafficking, as a complement to denunciations of human rights violations aimed to draw an international outcry against Cuba.

With respect to terrorism, analysts say the foundations were laid on Aug. 22, when the U.S. Congress enacted an Anti-Terrorism law that includes Cuba on its list of “renegade countries.”

A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report also named Cuba as one of five nations that were allegedly seeking to gather economic secrets and patented information through “commercial espionage.”

The offensive in those three areas and several clauses of the Helms-Burton law indicate that “everything possible is being done (in the United States) to turn Cuba into a national security problem,” according to a local analyst.

Experts here say that for the first time since the 1962 missile crisis, Cuba could move off the domestic U.S. agenda and become a foreign policy issue.

The Helms-Burton law states that a new wave of immigration toward U.S. coasts or renewed construction on a nuclear plant in Cuba — currently at a standstill — would immediately be considered threats to U.S. security.

“The only good thing that seems to be coming is the renewal of direct flights to Havana by Cubans residing in the United States,” said one expert. But she dubbed that possible change “marginal.”

Although thousands of families divided by the Florida Strait would be the direct beneficiaries of a renewal of direct flights, the gesture is not directed at Cuba but at Cuban-American voters who for the first time in decades threw their weight behind a Democratic presidential candidate this Tuesday.

Thanks to his signing of the Helms-Burton law, Clinton was able to swipe the traditionally Republican stronghold of Little Havana from his chief rival Bob Dole.

Clinton’s track record on Cuba includes not only Helms-Burton but also the most important immigration accords to date, designed to nip in the bud the problem of unauthorised Cuban immigration — such as the August 1994 exodus of thousands of Cubans in rickety boats and rafts. During his first term, a period of detente led analysts to mention even the possibility of an end to the embargo.