February 24, 2002        Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

BY: Vanessa Bauza and Rafael Lorente Staff Writers, Sun-Sentinel wire services contributed to this report.

When Carole King serenaded Fidel Castro with You've Got a Friend at the presidential palace earlier this month, she may as well have been speaking for a parade of U.S. legislators and business executives who have dined with the Cuban president in recent months.

Despite President Bush's opposition to weakening the embargo, momentum is building on Capital Hill to lift the travel ban this year and allow private financing of food sales to Cuba.

In setting aside his anti-American rhetoric, Castro is seen as uncharacteristically conciliatory in the past few weeks, from offering assistance with the Taliban prisoners and al-Qaida detainees at Guantanamo Bay to remaining silent on Bush's backdoor appointment of a Cuban hard-liner, Otto Reich, as Latin America policy chief.

Experts say Castro's positions are designed to make an end run around the White House and influence U.S. public opinion and legislators directly, experts say. "This is a public relations campaign for the outside with very little change on the island," said Damian Fernandez, head of Florida International University's Department of International Relations and author of Cuba and the Politics of Passion. "I think they [Castro's government] are serious now about lifting the embargo. The risks are minimal for Cuba. It will be a triumph for the regime and a respite for the population."

Adding to the anti-embargo legislators' muscle on Capitol Hill, Castro has reversed his initial declarations that Havana's recent $35 million food purchases were a one-time exception to replenish reserves after Hurricane Michelle. He subsequently told a delegation of California representatives who visited with King that he would buy more U.S. meat and grain from the United States if financing were available.

Cuba has purchased food from U.S. companies in several states, a move calculated to demonstrate the benefit of doing business with the ostracized island nation. "The Cubans are playing their cards very smartly," said Sally Grooms Cowal, the president of the anti-embargo Cuba Policy Foundation. "In the past ..... the Cubans managed to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. This time they won't do it."

Vicki Huddleston, the highest-ranking American U.S. diplomat in Havana, called Castro's friendly overtures a "charm offensive" and said his words would not produce a detente unless they were accompanied by concrete, internal reforms.

"Is there a better relationship? No." Huddleston said. "The relationship is not improving because we are still concerned about human rights, democracy and the free flow of information."

Huddleston said Castro is only playing nice because of a recent drop in tourism, dollar remittances and sugar and nickel prices, as well as Hurricane Michelle's destruction of thousands of acres of crops.

Huddleston disagreed with legislators who argue that lifting the travel ban would accelerate democratic change in Cuba.

"What happens if you give a lot of money to the Cuban government and it doesn't change?" she asked. "Then you find out you are just supporting Fidelismo."

Huddleston echoed the tone set by Bush, who has filled key posts on Latin America policy with anti-Castro hard-liners. Reich's right hand man is Lino Gutierrez, a former ambassador to Nicaragua and a Castro foe. Emilio Gonzalez, another Cuban American, will handle Caribbean affairs for the National Security Council.

Still, perhaps because expectations were so high, Bush has disappointed some exiles who would like him to do more to help dissidents in Cuba like President Reagan did in Poland. They would also like Bush to reverse Clinton policies on Cuba, which they considered too soft. This puts Bush in a pinch, especially since his brother, Florida's governor, will need the Cuban-American vote when he seeks re-election in November.

"We are in the ninth year of Clinton policy on Cuba and the time has come for movement," said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation. "Status quo has got to end and what we have now is the glorification of status quo." Appointing Cuban-Americans to important positions is not enough if U.S. American policy toward the Havana island does not change, Garcia said.

Among the frustrations for anti-Castro Cuban-Americans has been the waiver of a section of the Helms-Burton law that allows U.S. citizens to sue people and companies using their confiscated property in Cuba. Some Cuban-Americans criticized President Clinton for issuing waivers of the law every six months. Now they are watching the man they helped elect do the same.

Bush has also failed to enforce another section of the law that prohibits executives of foreign companies doing business with Castro's government from entering the United States.

Experts warn against too much optimism in this latest rapprochement.

"Over time, it's happened with almost every new administration," said Fernandez. "There is a honeymoon period and then Cuba decides it doesn't want to go through with the marriage."

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