SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 31A

LENGTH: 716 words

HEADLINE: BUSH FINDS A TIGHTROPE LINKS AMERICA TO CUBA

BYLINE: Holger Jensen

BODY:
Faced with a dilemma on what to do about Cuba, President Bush did both.

First he pleased hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami - whose votes are needed to help re-elect his brother as Florida's governor next year - by ordering stricter enforcement of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and more support for dissidents opposed to Fidel Castro's regime.

Then he pleased the European Union by waiving Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which would have allowed those same exiles to sue foreign firms using property they had lost in the 1959 communist takeover. European investors in Cuba view the law as extra-territorial and unenforcable. The double-barreled approach seemed to work. Even Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who had been harshly critical of President Clinton for waiving Title III 10 times in a row, praised Bush for being "much tougher overall" than his "wishy-washy" predecessor.

However, the practical effects of that toughness are debatable. A growing bipartisan consensus in Congress views the embargo as counterproductive, having failed for 40 years to dislodge Castro from power while causing hardship to 11 million Cubans.

Sanctions force Cuba to pay higher interest rates on its $30 billion foreign debt and increase shipping costs by forcing the impoverished island to trade with more distant nations instead of its closest and richest neighbor, the United States. But they also hurt American farmers and businesses by denying them a market only 90 miles off Florida's shore. And that market is now pretty well locked up by Europeans and Latin Americans.

Last year, under pressure from agribusiness, Congress passed a law permitting "humanitarian" food sales to Cuba - but without financing by U.S. banks, a provision to appease the Cuban-American lobby. This year, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., introduced a "Bridges to the Cuban People" bill that would lift not only the credit ban but also travel restrictions that bar Americans from visiting Cuba unless they are on cultural exchanges or have relatives there.

In truth, Americans find it relatively easy to get around the travel ban. Cuba can be reached through Canada, Mexico, Jamaica or other Caribbean islands, is openly advertised by travel agents as a tourist destination and attracted 200,000 U.S. visitors last year. This makes the United States the third-largest source of tourism in Cuba, now the country's biggest foreign exchange earner at $2 billion a year. Remittances from Cuban-Americans to family members bring in another $1 billion or so.

Bush has ordered the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to hire additional personnel to monitor travel to Cuba and limit the amount of money the Cuban exiles send home. He has also promised more funding to Cuba's pro-democracy dissidents.

But these moves are opposed by the very people he is trying to help.

Cuban dissident leader Elizardo Sanchez argues strongly against the travel ban, saying the more Americans visit Cuba, the better its chances of liberalizing. The same goes for the embargo. "Isolation is not the way to get rid of Castro," Sanchez told me in Havana earlier this year. "Isolation is oxygen for totalitarianism."

As for foreign aid, it's the last thing dissidents want, since that would prove Castro's oft-repeated charge that they are subversives in the pay of the U.S. government. Receiving money from a foreign power to undermine the Castro regime is a crime in Cuba, turning his relatively harmless opponents into "foreign agents."

Thus, they were appalled when Helms and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn, unveiled the "Cuban Solidarity Act" in May. Modeled on U.S. aid to Poland's Solidarity movement in the 1980s, it would provide $100 million over four years to finance fax machines, telephones and outright cash payments to "voices of liberty" on the island.

Castro, of course, was delighted. "An excellent, brilliant idea," he said on a visit to Portugal. "The money will help us out with the embargo and show who these few malcontents are really working for. The more mistakes they make, the weaker the U.S. position will be."

A dismayed Sanchez responded: "We will never accept this type of aid. You cannot bring freedom to people with money." But Bush seems determined to give it anyway.

NOTES:
Foreign Affairs;
Holger Jensen is international editor. E-mail: hjens@aol.com. His column also appears on the Internet at www.RockyMountainNews.com / jensen /

LOAD-DATE: July 23, 2001