Measures represent a significant reversal of U.S. efforts in recent years
to
topple Castro by isolating Cuba from the world community.
By TYLER MARSHALL, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON—President Clinton, acting in the wake of
Pope John Paul II's recent visit to Cuba, is expected to
announce a new package of measures today aimed at improving
conditions for individual Cubans while eroding support for Fidel
Castro, the country's longtime Communist leader.
According to a senior Clinton administration official, the
measures will streamline procedures for sending medical supplies to
Cuba, authorize direct humanitarian flights from the United States to
the island and legalize limited remittances from Cuban Americans to
relatives in Cuba.
"The idea is to help the people but hurt Castro," summed up the
official. "We have to prepare for the post-Castro era."
By working through nongovernmental relief
organizations—including those operated by the Roman Catholic
Church—in implementing some of the measures, the administration
hopes to strengthen institutions that are outside Castro's immediate
grasp. In the process, it hopes to foster an environment for
opposition political movements, added the official, who asked not
to be identified.
The steps represent a significant reversal of U.S. efforts in
recent years to topple Castro by isolating Cuba from the world
community, and they could face some resistance on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Cuban American, labeled
the measures "outrageous."
"It will reward the Castro regime, despite its continued
repression of civil and human rights in Cuba, by providing Castro
with desperately needed hard currency," Menendez said.
Marc Thiessen, spokesman for Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.),
criticized the president's timing—claiming the measures could
jeopardize efforts to build bipartisan support in Congress for bills
containing similar action.
"What they are planning is a major mistake," he said. "They are
moving ahead unilaterally, and that seriously, seriously complicates
efforts to build support for what we are doing. If the aim is to ease
humanitarian suffering for the Cuban people, this is not the way to
do it."
Helms coauthored the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which tightened
the decades-old embargo of Cuba. Thiessen and others questioned
the legality of the president acting by executive order to overturn
provisions that they insist are covered by the act.
Others, however, applauded the package.
"The president is right to take a step forward to help the Cuban
people," said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), one of the most
respected voices on the House's International Relations Committee.
"Instead of a policy of isolation, the United States should engage the
Cuban people and foster an active civil society to help pave the way
for a future peaceful transition to democracy."
While administration officials said details of the measures are
still being worked out, Clinton is expected to announce four specific
steps that will:
* End the intentionally cumbersome procedures for authorizing
shipments of medical supplies to Cuba by simplifying paperwork.
Sales of medicine to Cuba were first authorized by Congress in
1992.
* Legalize the remittance of as much as $1,200 a year for each
family from Cuban Americans in the United States to relatives in
Cuba. While legal remittances were suspended in 1994, many
Cuban Americans have continued to send money illegally.
Administration officials claim that as much as two-thirds of this
money is siphoned off in bribes by corrupt Cuban officials before it
reaches the intended family. They also argue that alternative sources
of money, if regularized, would help create income that is
independent of the Cuban state and thus indirectly support
alternative forms of leadership.
* Resume humanitarian charter flights of cargo and people to
Cuba directly from the United States. For the most part, these
flights were suspended in 1996 with the passage of the
Helms-Burton Act, which requires such aid from the U.S. to depart
for Cuba from a third country. Licenses for such humanitarian flights
also will be distributed more easily.
* Urge Congress to join in a bipartisan search for ways to ease
restrictions on food shipments to Cuba imposed in 1992.
According to senior administration officials, the initiative grew
out of a meeting among Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger
before the papal visit to Cuba in January. At that meeting, Clinton
asked his two senior foreign affairs specialists "to keep their eyes
open for what happens" during the trip and later asked them to
formulate possible policy recommendations.
Albright last month traveled to Florida to consult with the
politically potent Cuban American community there, both to test the
waters for such an initiative and to better assess the feasibility of
using relief groups linked to the Catholic Church to help implement
it.
Administration officials see the Catholic Church as an ideal
vehicle for building an alternative source of power in the country.
"It has 4 million members, access to the population and
noncensored sermons," said one official. "It can give people the
chance to build their own space [outside of government control]."
Copyright Los Angeles Times