Common ground on Cuba elusive
Posted on Wed, Apr. 09, 2008
By ANA MENENDEZ
amenendez@MiamiHerald.com
It's too early to know what lasting effect Raúl Castro's rise to power
will have on Cubans. But in Miami, Fidel's farewell has already
reinvigorated a vital component of the local economy: the
Cuba-conference industry.
Monday, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez spoke to a roundtable on Cuba at the
Biltmore Hotel.
Tuesday, the ''Cuba Business Roundtable'' at the University of Miami's
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American studies began a series of
telephone conference calls to explore business opportunities in a
''post-Castro, post-embargo Cuba.'' And this weekend, ENCASA, the group
of scholars and artists seeking to end the embargo and travel
restrictions to Cuba, holds a retreat in Miami.
DIFFERENCES
If the forums are earnest and serious, they also recall the old story of
the blind men describing an elephant. One group sees hope in persuading
other countries to condemn Cuba. Another looks to build a market
economy. Another highlights the futility of U.S. policy.
A free and open discussion might help everyone see the beast in its
entirety -- but old habits linger and, anyway, Cuban Americans are no
different from most people, who tend to favor those who think exactly
like themselves.
''Even if I were invited, I wouldn't go,'' one person left out of
Monday's discussion told me.
A pluralistic society seems to be everyone's ideal, but it's hard to
imagine how to get there when the pro-embargo and anti-embargo camps
here can't even stand to be in the same room. For almost as long as
there's been a Fidel, there's been dreaming about life after Fidel.
''Next year in Havana'' is an anthem, full of honest longing. It's also
a cottage industry.
Millions in federal dollars poured into Miami, funding everything from
legitimate support for dissidents, to ''post-Castro'' studies, to
cashmere sweaters. Meanwhile, folks indulged their capitalist fantasies
at seminars that trafficked in the notion that transition, for all its
uncertainties, would ultimately deliver riches.
BUSINESS FOCUS
In October 2005, before Fidel fell ill, SouthFloridaCEO Magazine
sponsored a panel discussion called ``A Free-Market Cuba, Post-Castro:
South Florida Business Leaders Gauge the Impact.''
This, too, was held at the Biltmore (which shares a founder with
Havana's Seville-Biltmore, the hotel where Graham Greene put his
bumbling spy to work.) I attended and remember the event for its
emphasis on business over ideology. Or rather, business as ideology.
Pollster Sergio Bendixen presented results of a survey that found 64
percent of business leaders said their company would want to do business
in Cuba ``once Fidel Castro is out of power.''
Well, Fidel Castro is out of power, having made his exit in a way no
luxury study predicted. But unless they're corn farmers, most Americans
still can't do business in Cuba. The reason is the complicated
benchmarks set in Helms-Burton, which stipulates, among other things,
that the embargo continue so long as any one of the Castro brothers
remains in power.
In Tuesday's conference call, UM professor Jose Azel warned that change
in Cuba would be an ``evolutionary process.''
''We need to analyze these various scenarios from a business
perspective,'' he added.
On the surface, the constituencies of this week's various talks, might
appear to have convergent goals. But this is Miami, where Cuba is a
debate, not a country.
Someday, everyone may meet on common ground in Havana. Until then,
there's a brisk business to be made in just getting experts to talk
about it.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/ana_menendez/story/488212.html
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