Cuba-U.S. ties frozen in post-Cold War glacier
By Jim Anderson
WASHINGTON (DPA): The sound and fury around the case of six- year-old Elian Gonzalez serves to obscure a larger truth: Relations between Miami and Havana are locked in a post-Cold War glacier for the foreseeable future.
Before the Cuban boy was discovered floating on an inner-tube off the coast of Florida last year, there were hopes that the intractable 40-year-old American dispute with Fidel Castro might soften a bit around the edges, perhaps with the United States easing some of its economic sanctions for humanitarian reasons.
But the sound of the approaching American presidential elections, and the disastrous public relations fallout from the Elian Gonzalez case for the United States has destroyed any chance for improved relations.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, sensing a political victory for himself and a bruising setback for the Clinton administration, has now adopted the practice of stirring up the pot whenever the Elian case appears to settle down.
The case has even caused an open breach between Vice President Al Gore, the putative presidential candidate for the Democrats, and President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Gore called for Congress to pass emergency legislation, moving responsibility for the Elian case from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to the Florida courts, where the Cuban-American relatives of Elian have prevailed in the past.
The INS has ruled that Elian belongs with his closest surviving relative, his father who wants him back in Cuba.
Gore is worried that Elian's return to Cuba would destroy his chances of doing well in the presidential election in Florida, a state where 12 percent of the voters are Cuban refugees, mostly violently anti-Castro.
In addition to their numbers, the Cuban-American Foundation has been a bountiful source of campaign support, including money, for both Clinton and Gore in the past.
His Republican opponent, George W. Bush, has not hesitated to use the Elian case against Gore and the Democrats, saying that their concerns about the boy's future are suspiciously tardy. Bush had always favored keeping the boy in the United States, in defiance of the INS ruling.
Lost in the emotions and political turmoil is the fact that Cuba remains essentially a communist-run totalitarian state where dissidents are routinely jailed, subject to economic action such as losing their homes and forbidden to travel abroad.
An Amnesty International report issued last week says that dissidents in Cuba remain under serious threat from government security agencies, despite a drop in the number of prisoners of conscience being held in jail.
In the early months of the Clinton-Gore administration, the United States had made some tentative gestures toward Havana, hoping that a dialogue would somehow create moderation on the part of the Cuban government, which has been in dire economic straits since the breakup of its main patron, the Soviet Union.
But three years ago, two planes flown by Cuban-Americans were shot down over international water while flying dangerously close to Cuban air space.
That induced the Clinton administration to switch to a harder line, including approving the Helms-Burton Act that authorizes the United States to take action against any third-country company which has purchased business property that had been confiscated by the Cuban government from departed refugees.
The action served to infuriate European and Canadian officials. It was yet another cost to the United States of a Clinton administration rigid policy designed to please one ethnic sector of the American electorate, while ignoring other international implications.
Meanwhile, Fidel Castro's government has been cranking up its propaganda machine, with Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon comparing Miami to "a little town of the far West where bandits imposed their law and took all the decisions, and nobody could challenge them."