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EXPERTS DEBATE MERITS OF A CARTER TRIP
TO CUBA
BY:
Rafael Lorente, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A
possible trip to Cuba by former President Jimmy Carter has
proponents of improved relations between the United States and
the communist island nation hoping the end is near for the
four-decade policy of isolating Havana politically and
economically.
Others aren't so sure, saying the Bush
administration is likely to ignore Carter and his calls for
lifting the embargo. Opponents of the visit say that if Carter
goes, he should focus on helping dissidents and improving
human rights, not improving commercial ties with farmers and
big business in the United States. Carter -- known for
building houses for the poor and mediating conflicts around
the world -- recently said he has accepted an invitation from
Cuban President Fidel Castro to visit his country. The visit
has not been scheduled, although a spokeswoman acknowledged
the former president has applied for a Treasury Department
license to go.
Castro acknowledged last week that he
invited Carter because the former president tried while he was
in office to improve relations between the United States and
Cuba. Castro, in a televised speech, said Carter would be free
to criticize Cuba while visiting.
Carter would be the
first American president to visit the island since Castro's
1959 revolution. But the pseudo-diplomatic visit would not be
a new experience for Carter.
For 20 years, the Carter
Center at Emory University in Atlanta has mediated conflicts,
observed elections and worked to eradicate diseases throughout
the world. Carter has made trips to nations such as Haiti,
North Korea and Bosnia.
"President Carter . . .
believes that in order to resolve a conflict, you need to be
in dialogue with all parties involved and that you need to be
neutral," said Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman at The Carter
Center.
Congileo said Carter and Castro first spoke
about a visit at the funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau in October 2000, during which both served as
pallbearers. Castro sent Carter a formal invitation in
January.
"We'll see what he can achieve," said Elizardo
Sanchez, a former University of Havana Marxist philosophy
professor and Cuba's best-known dissident. "The relations
between Washington and Havana couldn't be worse. Every day
there are attacks . . . against the United States . . . in the
press."
Sanchez said Thursday that he met Carter in
Atlanta in 1993 and told him then he might be able to have a
relevant role in improving the human-rights situation in
Cuba.
But Sanchez is not sure this is the right time
for a visit. He said the Cuban government has not shown enough
good will recently, especially in the area of human rights.
Sanchez, who favors better relations with the United States
and an end to the embargo, was hopeful
nonetheless.
"Maybe it can be a visit like the one
Carter did to North Korea, which can initiate a first step in
the long path toward bilateral relations," Sanchez
said.
Others, such as Alfredo Duran, a Miami moderate
and a veteran of the Bay of Pigs, think Carter's visit could
have a profound effect.
"It would be the greatest thing
since the pope's trip," said Duran, who says the United States
should improve relations with the island.
Duran said
the pope's visit led to more tolerance in Cuba of the Roman
Catholic Church and other religions. A visit by Carter, he
said, might lead to some tolerance for
dissidents.
"Maybe for the first time in 40 years,
we're unfreezing a little bit," said Sally Grooms Cowal,
president of the Cuba Policy Foundation, a Washington group
that favors closer ties to Cuba.
Cowal said a Carter
visit would add to growing momentum toward lifting the embargo
against Cuba and ending travel restrictions on Americans who
want to visit the island. That momentum has put public opinion
and Congress at odds with the Bush administration, which is
seeking to tighten the embargo and put more pressure on
Castro.
Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban
American National Foundation, which opposes the visit, said
Carter should emphasize to Castro that the days of
dictatorships are over and the time for democracy has arrived.
Instead of going to the island to improve relations, Garcia
suggested the former president talk about human rights and
visit with dissidents in and out of jail.
Meeting with
Castro, Garcia said, is no big deal, referring to the sessions
the dictator regularly has with visiting members of Congress
and others.
"It's like going to Disney World," he said.
"If you don't see Mickey Mouse, you didn't go there. And in
Cuba, if you don't see Fidel Castro, you didn't go to
Cuba."
Asked whether President Bush would allow Carter
to go, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said it is an
administrative matter for the Treasury Department. But he
added that Bush would want Carter to take a stern message
directly to Castro "to stop the repression and to stop the
imprisonments, to bring freedom to the people of
Cuba."
The administration is likely to ignore Carter's
calls for ending the embargo or otherwise improving relations
with Cuba, said Alfred Rubin, a professor of international law
at Tufts University outside Boston.
Rubin said Carter's
trip would bring closer ties between the United States and
Cuba only if that is what the administration wants. In that
case, Bush might use Carter's trip as a way to deflect
criticism from Miami's anti-Castro constituency, which opposes
closer ties and has been supportive of the
president.
"If the Bush administration wants to move
toward improving relations with Cuba, they can blame Carter
and pacify their right-wing supporters," Rubin said. "But I .
. . think they'll just ignore it."
Copyright 2002 Sentinel
Communications Co.
Related:
• Bush administration studying former President
Carter's plan to visit Cuba
• Ex-President Carter wants to visit Castro in
Havana
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