Posted on Fri, Sep. 15, 2006
CUBA
U.S.: Allow Cubans to vote on Raúl
The United States wants Cuba to agree to an OAS-supervised referendum
about whether the island's residents want to be led by Raúl Castro.
By PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is proposing that the Organization
of American States help arrange a referendum for Cubans to decide if
they want to be ruled by Raúl Castro, U.S. officials say.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez will outline the idea in a speech
today at The Miami Herald's Americas Conference being held at the
Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.
''Let the Cuban people determine their own destiny in a free and fair
referendum, in which the OAS could be involved,'' an aide to Gutierrez
said, requesting anonymity in keeping with his department's rules.
Gutierrez, a Cuban American, is expected to cite the example of Chile,
which in 1988 held a yes-no referendum on whether Gen. Augusto Pinochet
should stay in power. The dictator lost that vote.
Cuba's communist government is considered highly unlikely to accept any
such referendum. It has never replied to a request for a referendum on
democratic changes pushed by Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá and backed by
thousands of signatures from other Cubans.
The Bush administration has said it would launch a diplomatic offensive
to put pressure on the Cuban government after the July 31 announcement
that Fidel Castro was temporarily handing his leadership
responsibilities to his brother Raúl.
U.S. officials believe the 80-year-old Fidel Castro, who is recovering
from intestinal surgery, is either too ill to return to power or will do
so only in a diminished form. Havana has never explained exactly what
ails the man who ruled Cuba for 47 years.
The aide said Gutierrez will reiterate the U.S. position that the United
States ``will not do business with another dictator, Raúl.''
Washington's referendum proposal comes just after Costa Rican President
Oscar Arias, winner of the 1987 Nobel Peace prize for his mediation in
the Central American civil wars, made an impassioned plea at the
Americas Conference for Latin America to prod Cuba into adopting
democratic reforms.
Arias was addressing a dinner gathering Wednesday night to launch the
annual gathering. Long stretches of his remarks were dedicated to Cuba.
He said Latin America had to acknowledge that Cuba really is, ''plain
and simple, a dictatorship.'' Cubans ``deserve the opportunity to choose
a destiny for themselves.''
Arias has been critical of Castro before. In an Aug. 29 opinion column
in a Costa Rican newspaper, Arias said Castro was ''cut from the same
cloth'' as Saddam Hussein and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic.
But others in Latin America have been quiet on Cuba since Castro's
ailment was announced. The region's nations often adhere to the
principle of nonintervention in the affairs of other states.
Brazil's ambassador to the OAS, Osmar Chohfi, told The Miami Herald last
month that ``nothing has happened so far to warrant an OAS intervention.''
''If there is a transition,'' he added, ``it is an internal process to
Cuba.''
But other, non-U.S. diplomats have been privately discussing whether the
OAS, the hemisphere's premier institution dealing with political
matters, should become involved in the Cuba issue. Cuba was suspended
from the OAS in 1962.
One option would be to have José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of
the OAS, quietly begin contacting Cuban officials.
Another speaker at the Americas Conference, John Kavulich, senior policy
advisor for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said that even
after Castro dies, Cuba would not change drastically thanks to the
massive economic support it is receiving from leftist Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez.
''Venezuela is absolutely the key,'' Kavulich said. ``Financially as
long as [Chávez] backs Cuba, Cuba doesn't have to change.''
Miami Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/15522708.htm
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