SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 11B

LENGTH: 553 words

HEADLINE: Cuban official visits Milwaukee;
Rodriguez pushes to end decades-old trade embargo

BYLINE: JOEL DRESANG jdresang@journalsentinel.com

BODY:
Cuba's unofficial ambassador to the United States visited Milwaukee on Tuesday, sowing discontent over the 40-year-old trade embargo against the island nation.

Dagoberto Rodriguez Barrera, chief of the Cuban Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Washington, D.C., met with city officials, taped radio and television interviews, and spoke at a benefit at the United Community Center.

Lacking diplomatic relations with the United States, communist Cuba's highest-ranking official in this country sought to reach out directly to the American public. "In my opinion, the foundation of the embargo is lack of communication between America and Cuba, lack of reciprocal knowledge," Rodriguez told a group of Milwaukee aldermen in Ald. Marvin Pratt's City Hall office.

The aldermen -- Pratt, Michael Murphy, Paul Henningsen and Don Richards -- talked with Rodriguez about baseball, hurricanes, religion, poverty, commerce, human rights, terrorism and Fidel Castro.

"I'm not very happy about the political rights of people in your country," said Murphy, who also agreed with Rodriguez that discourse was an important step toward normalizing relations and resolving differences between the United States and Cuba.

Pressure is mounting against the embargo, with Congress nearly passing legislation to end it and more U.S. businesses expressing interest in trade with Cuba. But the Bush administration has declared that the embargo will remain. Rodriguez contended that's because anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Florida have provided campaign support to Bush and his brother Jeb, who's running for re-election for governor of Florida.

Milwaukee is one of 14 U.S. cities with a sister city in Cuba, and such relationships, Rodriguez said, will help build bridges between the two neighbors, which have been divided since Castro took power in 1959.

"On the one side, you have the American government trying to politicize the whole relationship with Cuba, and then on the other side, you have the American and Cuban people trying to develop real people-to-people contacts, human contacts, and that is extremely important to us," Rodriguez said in an interview.

Rodriguez was 4 when Castro first took control. In his meeting with aldermen and an interview, he downplayed reports of repression in Cuba and dismissed dissidence there as a U.S.-fueled campaign that has enlisted numerically insignificant support.

Rodriguez takes offense at the U.S. State Department's listing of Cuba as a country that sponsors terrorism. He noted that after Sept. 11, Cuba was quick to offer its assistance in the war on terrorism. He also criticized the U.S. government for harboring anti-Castro terrorists who, he said, have instigated numerous bombings and assassination attempts.

He also spoke against the government's prosecution of the so-called Miami Five, Cubans who Rodriguez said were trying to infiltrate the anti-Castro terrorists and now are imprisoned for 15 years to life as convicted spies. One of the five, Fernando Gonzalez, is in the federal prison in Oxford, Wis.

Sponsors of Rodriguez's visit included the Milwaukee-Nuevitas Association, the Milwaukee Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Institute of World Affairs and the United Community Center.

LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2002