U.S. Says No Change in Cuba Policy Without Reform
Thursday February 21 3:33 PM ET

By Angus MacSwan

MIAMI (Reuters) - Despite a drumbeat of calls from some American businessmen, politicians and others for a new approach, the Bush administration will not change U.S. policy toward Cuba unless its communist government undertakes serious reform, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

They dismissed recent overtures from Havana suggesting improved relations between the longtime foes as ``cosmetic.''

	``It is all very well for Cuba to say it wants a warmer and better relationship. What there needs to be is fundamental change in Cuba,'' - - Vicki Huddleston

``It is all very well for Cuba to say it wants a warmer and better relationship. What there needs to be is fundamental change in Cuba,'' said Vicki Huddleston, who heads the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Such change includes free elections, freedom of speech and information, and the release of political prisoners, the officials said. However, this was unlikely to happen while President Fidel Castro, 75, was still in power, they said, and policy was geared toward a post-Castro transition period.

Such demands have stood through much of the course of U.S.-Cuba relations in the four decades since Castro's 1959 revolutionary victory. But U.S. visitors, including politicians and businessmen, are flocking to the island in growing numbers and questioning the wisdom of U.S. policy, in particular the 40-year-old economic embargo.

A slight easing of the embargo led to limited food sales last year and farmers and other groups are keen to open up a new market in Cuba. On the political front, critics say the embargo has failed to budge Castro and is counter-productive.

Also this year Castro's brother, armed forces chief Raul Castro, and National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon, Havana's point man in relations with Washington, have suggested the two foes could co-operate more in various areas, including drugs, counter-terrorism and migration.

They pointed to Cuba's acceptance of the U.S. military holding Afghanistan war prisoners at the disputed U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay as a sign that a new era of rapprochement was possible.

NO CHANGE COMING

But the U.S. officials poured cold water on speculation that major change was likely soon.

``What's going on is a charm offensive by Fidel Castro and the message is directed at Congress and the American people,'' said James Carragher, coordinator for Cuban affairs at the State Department.

``The problem is not the United States. The problem is that Fidel Castro is making no fundamental change to permit the free society that our policy envisages. Until that changes, our policy will not change. This is misdirected effort by the government of Cuba.''

Adolfo Franco, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, called Havana's moves a ``cosmetic overture.''

He said it was essential that the United States prepare for a transition in Cuba, a day he said was ``not far in the future.'' A true transitional government would also have to dismantle the Cuban internal security apparatus, he said.

``President Bush is committed to the embargo,'' he added.

The officials were speaking at a ceremony at which Franco handed over an AID check for $1,045,000 to the University of Miami to fund a project which will examine issues affecting Cuba's transition to democracy.

Jaime Suchliki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies, said the transition period could take a long time even after Castro's demise.

``I don't expect a total collapse once Fidel disappears,'' Suchliki said. ``It's going to be painful and it's going to be difficult.''

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