Before becoming the principal officer at the U.S. Interests Section in
                      Havana in September 1999, Vicki Huddleston -- a career foreign service
                      officer and former ambassador -- had worked in Africa, Haiti and Latin
                      America.

                      She had also worked on Cuba issues before, as deputy coordinator and
                      then coordinator of the State Department's Office of Cuban Affairs from
                      1989 to 1993.

                      Her interest in the world beyond her Arizona home began as a Peace
                      Corps volunteer in Peru, where she organized the financing for two
                      housing cooperatives in Arequipa. Then she worked in Peru and Brazil for
                      the American Institute for Free Labor Development.

                      After her stint on the State Department's Cuba desk, she was named
                      deputy chief of the U.S. Mission in Port-au-Prince from 1993 to 1995
                      during the deployment of the multinational force meant to restore
                      democracy in Haiti. As the top U.S. diplomat in the troubled nation, she
                      held meetings at her home with top Haitian commanders and was attacked by members of a mob
                      protesting U.S. interference in their country. They pounded on her car at the port as she arrived to
                      greet some 200 American soldiers and 25 Canadian military trainers as part of a 1,300-member U.N.
                      military and police contingent arriving in Haiti to prepare for the return of President Jean-Bertrand
                      Aristide.

                      In 1994-1995, she and other members of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti were honored with the
                      Distinguished Service Award and the Award for Valor for their efforts in an extremely hostile
                      environment. She was then named United States ambassador to the Republic of Madagascar from 1995
                      to 1997 and spent the two years after that as Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.

                      Her tour of duty ends in September. She has been more vocal in recent months in defense of island
                      dissidents and in her criticism of the Cuban government.

                      Huddleston was in South Florida recently for the presentation of a $1 million grant from the United
                      States Agency for International Development to the University of Miami's Institute of Cuban and Cuban
                      American Studies. The money is for the institute's Cuba Transition Project, which seeks to study issues
                      that may face Cubans in a transition to democracy.

                      Huddleston, who also met with journalists and commanders at the U.S. Southern Command, spent
                      several hours with Herald staff writer Elaine de Valle:

                      Q: What headway or impact has the opposition in Cuba made in the past few years?

                      A: I think people in Cuba see them as speaking for them. It's hard for me or anybody to say what
                      Cuban people think, but the fact that 10 years ago we had a relatively small group and principally in
                      Havana, and now it has spread through the country -- and not just human rights activists but
                      independent journalists, independent libraries, independent clinics, farmer cooperatives -- is very
                      significant. They're expressing the will of the Cuban people to have free expression, to have a choice in
                      their future. Obviously, in [Cuba], these people are receiving no publicity. In Granma, nothing is printed
                      on these people. So who they are known to -- at least people like Elizardo Sánchez, Osvaldo Payá,
                      Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca -- they are known to the international community, the international
                      press, people who listen to Radio Martí, obviously the people who live around them and the other
                      people in the movement. Look at the Varela Project [which calls for a plebiscite guaranteed by the 1976
                      Constitution] as an example. That is Payá's project, but other groups are supporting the idea that there
                      should be a referendum on the type of government in Cuba. That's spread solely by word of mouth.

                      I think most of the medical doctors know who Marta Beatriz Roque is because she has tried to help
                      doctors who want to leave, who want to be reunited with their families.

                      But I don't know if dissidents is the correct term for them. First of all, they are peaceful, and they follow
                      democratic means. Should we call them oppositionists, dissidents or activists? Activists may be the best
                      word for them. They are people active in the struggle to create a change in Cuba. Marta Beatriz and
                      Elizardo are getting information out of Cuba on what's happening to the activists: who has been jailed.
                      Who is under house arrest. Payá is asking the government to permit a vote on the type of government.
                      What we have to look for is more Martas, more Elizardos, more Osvaldos.

                      Q: How can the U.S. help? And should it?

                      A: Certainly we should play a role. Any kind of role we play is going to be opposed by the Cuban
                      government. They are going to say we are interfering with a domestic issue. But of course we should
                      play a role. All over the world, the United States defends and supports human rights and developing
                      democracies. . . That is why using the [Agency for International Development] money is very useful.
                      Because it's going to help the Cuban people prepare for the future.

                      There can't be a think tank in Cuba to explore these questions: How are we going to move in this
                      direction? How are we going to have elections? But if people outside of Cuba can do it, particularly if it
                      includes contributions from people inside Cuba to legitimize it, it can be a very good thing. We can be a
                      signpost: The way to a democracy is through human rights and freedom.

                      The American government can't do much more. But the American people can do two things. Number
                      one, they can participate in outreach, by sending books, subscribing to The Miami Herald and El Nuevo
                      Herald and sending newspapers. If they are confiscated, good. Then the Customs person can read it.
                      They can send money to buy computers and illegal satellite dishes. They can send medicine to start
                      independent clinics. So that you can empower the Cuban people enough so that they have a certain
                      protection from their own government. So they don't have to rely on the government for everything. By
                      sending medicines to independent doctors, for example, their community starts to protect them
                      because they can get medicine from them and they can't get them anywhere else. If you have them
                      and share them, you gain a certain leadership position.

                      Number two I think is in some ways harder for Cuban Americans -- and as a non-Cuban American, I
                      should tread lightly because I haven't had their experiences and history. But Cubans on the island are
                      afraid of the future, of what that future holds. And Cuban Americans can explain to their friends and
                      family that it's a brighter future. A future in which they can earn a fair wage for their work, where they
                      can travel freely, where their children will have an opportunity for a better job or house so they don't
                      have to move back in with Mom and Dad. It's important that Cuban Americans in the United States be
                      seen by Cuban people as their friends and supporters. . . The exile community has become the enemy
                      or has been made into the enemy, and the Cuban American people have to overcome that image . . .
                      There is a special effort by the Cuban government to make them the enemy.

                      Q: What does the average Cuban on the island think of the Cuban exile community?

                      A: That's hard for me to answer. It depends on the education level. If they are not very educated, if
                      they live in a rural area, they probably believe what they hear in the state-run media and in the rallies,
                      which is not good. But if they are more sophisticated and listen to Radio Martí, or if you're at the
                      university or work at a hospital, then you're likely not going to believe the negative propaganda. You're
                      probably aware the Cuban American community does not represent a threat to you. But if you're a
                      farmer in a rural area, or a teacher or a guard placed outside my house, you might believe what the
                      Cuban government tells you. There is a billboard in Cuba that says ``There are a million children who
                      will sleep in the street tonight. Not one is Cuban.''

                      Cuban Americans need to take every opportunity to overcome that image. So that when they're on
                      radio talking about the future of Cuba when the government is gone, they need to talk about how
                      there are going to be lines of communication that they're going to build, that there will be investment
                      and an exchange of ideas, that there will be educational opportunity and cooperation. That's what we
                      need to be talking about to get this message through.

                      Q: Does Fidel Castro enjoy much support still?

                      A: I remember going to this baseball game and the whole crowd is going, 'Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!' There are
                      clearly groups that find it very much in their interest to support the government. The military, the
                      security forces, and people in important places of power, for example. Then you have everybody else
                      who needs to keep their job or get their child into a particular school or get an opportunity to go out of
                      the country or get a gift of a fan or a bicycle. So it's difficult for me to say how widespread is the
                      support for Fidel and the government. If the Cuban government, as it says, enjoys wide support, why
                      don't they test it? Why not a plebiscite on the government? Why not an election? A true election with
                      international observation, as internal dissidents call for.

                      Q: Many people point to an increase in visits by U.S. lawmakers and business people, as well as Cuba's
                      historic purchase of $35 million of grain and recent comments by Raúl Castro about increased
                      cooperation in the area of drug trafficking enforcement, migration and anti-terrorism tasks, as a
                      warming of relations between Washington and Havana. Is it true?

                      A: No, there's not a warming of relations. But there's certainly a charm offensive on the part of the
                      Cuban government. Nothing has changed in the relationship and nothing will change as long as Cuba
                      doesn't make fundamental changes that President Bush has laid out, and the administration has said
                      that the particular concern in the case of Cuba is human rights, civil liberties and free elections in Cuba.

                      Q: Should Cuba be removed from the list of terrorist states?

                      A: Cuba knows what it has to do to get off the list of terrorist states, and that is simply not to give safe
                      haven to terrorist groups as it has in the past. We suspect, and in some cases we know, that they
                      have provided safe harbor to members of the ETA [Basque separatists], other leftist movements of
                      Latin America, the macheteros [pro-independence radicals in Puerto Rico] and the 70-some fugitives
                      from the United States [the FBI believes that 77 federal fugitives are in Cuba, including former CIA
                      agent Frank Terpil, a convicted arms trafficker, and Robert Vesco, indicted in a multimilliion dollar fraud].
                      Those are not terrorists, but they are still fugitives from justice. Cuba is not the player it once was on
                      the world stage. Ten or 15 years ago, Cuba was a major player and Fidel had a large platform. It's
                      much smaller now. . . . I don't see Cuba even as a leader on the Caribbean stage. I see more
                      democratic Caribbean countries taking leadership roles.

                      Cuba is still sending doctors all over the world. They are still a leader in the arts and in sports. That's
                      where Cuba is a leader. It is also a leader in the third-world bloc in the international forum because
                      they help articulate the needs and opinions of other third-world countries. I would think Cuba could
                      become a positive leader in the Caribbean and developing world as a democracy. [Cubans], as they've
                      proved in the United States and also on the island, have an enormous wealth of talent and ability.

                      Q: Should travel restrictions to Cuba be lifted?

                      A: The problem with the lifting of travel restrictions is that the Cubans control it because they issue the
                      visas. They can put quotas. They can decide to allow only the tourists going to Varadero and Cayo Coco
                      and ensure they have very little contact with the Cuban people. And all that will do, initially, is fill the
                      government coffers and build up the regime. It's ironic because what you need is for the government to
                      respond to the current economic crisis by opening up, by letting Cubans own and operate their own
                      businesses, by letting them invest, letting them stay at hotels. [In Cuba,] the economy is shrinking. It is
                      too dependent on tourism and remittances. Their way of fixing the problem is to fill up the hotels. A far
                      preferable way . . . would be to grow the economy by letting the people invest in their community by
                      starting small businesses -- not just restaurants and taxis and services, but also . . . creating products.
                      You have natural capitalists in Cuba, and the proof of that is in the cars they have and how they take
                      care of them. If allowed to work independently, they would create wealth through their own labor . . .

                      Q: Are conditions in Cuba ripe for another mass exodus?

                      A: No, the weather is bad. [chuckle]. It is essential that our migratory laws be observed for the security
                      of our nation's borders. We are also very concerned about the tragic loss of life that results from illegal
                      migration. I can understand the frustrations of young people who want a better life, but they must also
                      think about their families and their futures. They have many years in front of them -- Cuba will change --
                      and they will want to be alive to enjoy this new future in Cuba. Also, there are numerous Cubans that
                      could qualify to legally immigrate to the U.S.. I hope family members will petition for their loved ones in
                      Cuba. A wait of a few years is much more desirable than a risky and life-threatening illegal sea voyage.