'Positive Gesture' Could Aid Relations, He Says

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

NEW YORK, Nov. 28 -- The prospect of the first direct sale of U.S. foodstuffs to Cuba in 40 years -- a $30 million cash purchase of American wheat, rice and
poultry to supplement Cuban crops devastated by Hurricane Michelle this month -- is "an example of what the future could hold" for relations between the two
countries, Cuba's foreign minister said here today.

"We see it as a positive gesture," Felipe Perez Roque said of the Bush administration's acquiescence to the sale by U.S. companies. Although the administration
offered humanitarian assistance after the Nov. 4 hurricane, Cuba said it would prefer to buy food under eased embargo terms passed by Congress last year.

In an interview at Cuba's mission to the United Nations, Perez Roque said Cuba has already signed contracts for the food with several companies, including Archer
Daniels Midland, Cargill and Riceland Foods. Florida-based Crowley Maritime Corp. announced today that it has signed a shipping contract with Alimport, the
Cuban government import agency, and expects to begin deliveries early next month.

Perez Roque is in New York this week for what has been an annual U.N. event since 1992: the overwhelming General Assembly approval of a resolution calling for
an end to the embargo imposed less than three years after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Just as last year, the assembly on Tuesday voted 167 to
3 in favor of the measure, with only the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands opposed.

Although President Bush came to office pledging a tougher line against Cuba, there has been little change in Washington's relations with Havana over the past year,
much to the irritation of many Cuban Americans in Florida who say their support was crucial to Bush's election.

A pledge by Bush last spring to tighten the embargo and momentum in Congress and the agriculture industry to loosen it were interrupted when Washington shifted its
attention elsewhere after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Within days after the hurricane, the administration offered to send a three-person team to Cuba to help assess damage, and said it would send humanitarian aid as
long as it did not pass through the Cuban government. Cuba quickly turned the tables, however, by announcing it wanted to make a one-time cash purchase of food.

Such purchases are allowed under last year's legislation, which exempted food and medicine sales from the embargo, although House Republicans opposed to the
measure succeeded in limiting the transactions to cash-only exchanges. Cuba had vowed not to purchase goods from the United States until the embargo was lifted
and Cuban items could be sold in this country.

In a speech introducing Tuesday's U.N. resolution, Perez Roque said Havana appreciated the U.S. offer to help the estimated 6 million of Cuba's 11 million people in
need of emergency assistance. He reiterated his government's desire for "mutually respectful relations with the United States" and called for "the end of the economic
war" against Cuba.

The Cuban food purchase gambit, hailed by anti-embargo activists and those who have won contracts, appears to have caught the administration by surprise. It has
said little about the sales, except to acknowledge their legality under last year's legislation -- provided Cuba can come up with the cash -- and to say it would try to
expedite required authorizations "given the humanitarian nature of [Cuba's] request."

Perez Roque acknowledged today that the Sept. 11 attacks seemed to have wiped Cuba off the U.S. foreign policy map, but said, "I think it's only temporary." He
predicted that the U.S. political debate over Cuba will "be back next year more powerfully than ever."

But it is clear that a vast distance still separates Washington and Havana. While Perez Roque lamented that the Bush administration had not responded to Cuban
condolences following the Sept. 11 attacks, administration officials have harshly criticized a speech he gave at the United Nations this month calling the U.S. bombing
campaign in Afghanistan "an absurd, inefficient way to eradicate terrorism."

Although U.S. officials have said Cuba did not respond to a private invitation to share intelligence it might have about terrorism, Perez Roque said today that Cuba
had provided extensive assistance. Saying he was "not authorized" to disclose details, Perez Roque said "categorically, yes," Cuba had provided "more information
than you can imagine," including intelligence about possible future attacks.

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