Efforts to engage Cuba stall

Posted on Sunday, 02.28.10
Efforts to engage Cuba stall
A U.S. contractor's jailing and the death of a Cuban political prisoner
may undermine U.S. and Spanish government overtures to Cuba.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
ElNuevoHerald.com

The death of a Cuban political prisoner and the prolonged jailing of a
U.S. citizen in Havana appear to have cast a dark cloud over U.S. and
Spanish government efforts to engage Raúl Castro's government.

``We still believe engagement is the right way, but the death of Orlando
Zapata was a punch to the gut,'' said an aide to a U.S. Democratic
congressman who favors easing sanctions on Cuba.

``There's no doubt this incident will put a very important, if not
formidable, obstacle'' in the way of Spain's efforts, said Joaquin Roy,
a University of Miami expert on European Union issues.

The U.S. and Spanish efforts were not faring well even before the Dec. 3
arrest of U.S. government contractor Alan P. Gross and the Feb. 23 death
of Zapata, who starved himself to death to protest prison conditions.

Castro had made no significant counter-gestures after President Barack
Obama lifted or eased several sanctions on Cuba last year. A bill before
Congress allowing unrestricted travel to Cuba appeared to have stalled,
and was recently reworked as part of an agriculture bill.

At the EU, former communist-ruled nations were opposing the campaign by
Spain's socialist government to persuade the regional body to abandon
its Common Position on Cuba, which essentially conditions EU relations
on Cuba's human rights record.

But the Zapata and Gross cases undermined the argument that since the
Cuban government has made no concessions, the United States and EU
should take unilateral steps to engage with the Cuban people, said
sanctions supporters. They also raised the question of whether Cuba was
intentionally trying to torpedo the U.S. and EU efforts at rapprochement.

``There's proof that each time we try to promote an increased free flow
of people and information, the Castro regime digs in,'' the EFE news
agency quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as telling Congress
last week.

``The Cuban government has been using the issue of the Common Position
to justify, or invent, that there's an aggressive attitude toward Cuba
by the EU and Spain,'' said the Spanish-born Roy. ``It's the same logic
as the U.S. embargo. I have never believed that Cuba truly wants the
embargo to end.''

In the U.S. Congress, Cuba's detention of Gross since Dec. 3 -- without
charges -- for delivering satellite communications equipment to Jewish
groups has dealt a blow to the efforts to ease sanctions on Cuba,
several knowledgeable aides said.

`TIPPING POINT'

``The tipping point on Cuba is the Gross issue. It's a hot potato,''
said a senior staffer to a senator who favors lifting travel restrictions.

``As bad as the Zapata case is, the Gross issue is the one that has a
greater reach here.''

Even Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who opposes the U.S. ban on tourist
travel to Cuba, blasted Cuba's handling of the Zapata case, saying it
``should have intervened earlier to prevent this tragedy. His death is
on their conscience.''

``First Gross and now this. The timing could not be worse,'' said a top
aide to a House Democrat who favors lifting all sanctions on Cuba.

The congressional staffers and aides all requested anonymity because
they were not authorized to make public comments on the issue.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the pro-embargo U.S. Cuba Democracy
political action committee, said the Zapata case will ``make it very
difficult for those who want to engage unconditionally with the Cuban
regime.''

FACE OF OPPOSITION

While many Americans supported Obama's campaign pledge to reach out to
Iran, he added, they were outraged when the Tehran government cracked
down violently on massive street protests following allegedly fraudulent
elections last year.

``Americans will always support the underdog,'' Claver-Carone said.
``And what Zapata did, in a very tragic way, was to put it in their
faces that there's an underdog in Cuba. . . . More and more the message
today is that there is an opposition in Cuba that is viable . . . and
that is a huge impact.''

Supporters of easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba say they nevertheless will
continue to push for a closer engagement.

After attacking Cuba's handling of the Zapata case, McGovern added: ``I
have always felt -- and continue to believe -- that if we are truly
going to do a better job of standing with the Cuban people, then we need
to be closer to them and in greater numbers.''

Zapata's death ``was a horrible and terrible turn of events, and further
proof that we need to try another approach to Cuba,'' said Sarah
Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, a Washington group
that favors travel to Cuba.

``Rather than standing just symbolically with Cubans at a distance, as
those who embrace the Cuba embargo and all of its facets continue to ask
us to do, the better, more courageous, and ultimately more effective
course is to stand with them literally, in person, in their country, and
to put food produced here in America on their kitchen tables across
Cuba,'' she wrote on the Center's website.

In the European Union, said Roy, ``there's going to be strong
pressures'' on Spain's socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero, to abandon his campaign to persuade the EU to ease its Common
Position.

A meeting in Madrid Friday of foreign policy officials from all EU
member-nations ended with a declaration condemning Cuba for the death of
Zapata. And an editorial last week in Spain's left-of-center El
Períodico newspaper recommended Zapatero ``should give up this effort to
change the Common Position.''

Roy noted that Zapatero, like Obama, also faces domestic problems that
may lead him to put the Common Position issue on his back burner.

``It would not surprise me if everything fell apart and [the Common
Policy] remains as it is,'' he said, ``unless the Cuban government
releases 50 dissidents, which I don't expect.''

Efforts to engage Cuba stall - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com (1 March 2010)
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/28/v-fullstory/1505838/efforts-to-engage-cuba-stall.html