By Serge F. Kovaleski
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 30, 1999; Page A08
HAVANA, March 29—Officials here and in Washington
uncharacteristically agreed on something today: Sunday's historic baseball
game between the Baltimore Orioles and a team of Cuban all-stars
amounted to something decidedly less than a foreign policy breakthrough.
The president of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, told
reporters that the game demonstrated that people from both countries can
enjoy harmonious relations and develop cultural ties when four decades
of
political hostilities are put aside.
Alarcon said the ballgame and a concert here Sunday night that featured
80 American and Cuban musicians "reflect the possibility that can exist
between two countries to have normal, fruitful, peaceful exchanges when
they are based on mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and
independence."
Sunday's game marked the first time that an American major league team
had played a Cuban squad since shortly after President Fidel Castro seized
power in 1959. The Cuban team is scheduled to travel to Baltimore in
May to meet the Orioles again.
Nevertheless, Alarcon -- who is Castro's chief negotiator with Washington
-- expressed skepticism about how much ties between this nation and its
powerful neighbor to the north could improve while the 37-year-old U.S.
trade embargo against Cuba remains in place.
"It is possible to have a normal relationship in one area while relations
are
abnormal in general," he said. "It can happen, but experience shows it
is
very difficult."
Alarcon said at a news conference here that Cuba is amenable to
broadening so-called people-to-people exchanges with the United States
-- provided Havana does not feel they are an attempt by Washington to
interfere in the domestic affairs of this Communist island in the Caribbean.
Despite the enthusiasm and goodwill that surrounded Sunday's game at the
packed 50,000-seat Estadio Latinoamericano, political relations between
Cuba and the United States are at their most antagonistic level in years.
President Clinton's decision in January to forgo a bipartisan commission
to
review U.S.-Cuba policy and instead announce several measures intended
to ease the embargo's impact infuriated the Cuban government, which has
insisted the move was a ruse designed to undermine Castro's hold on
power and stanch widespread criticism of the punitive policy.
Consequently, the Castro regime cracked down on Cubans considered to
be U.S.-inspired political opponents, imposing prison sentences of up to
five years on four leading dissidents and establishing tough new penalties
for activities that can be construed as promoting U.S. policy objectives
in
Cuba.
Havana's actions prompted condemnation not only from the United States,
but from many countries that have opposed isolating Cuba and are some of
its foremost economic partners, including Canada, Spain and Italy. The
15-member European Union recently criticized the sentencing of the four
dissidents as a violation of human rights and urged the Castro government
to release them promptly.
In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said today
that Sunday's game "highlighted the goodwill of the American people
toward the Cuban people" and that, by being exposed not only to major
leaguers but to a game involving visiting American Little Leaguers, "the
Cuban people saw a fine example of American institutions, its values,
diversity and openness."
But far from assessing the game's impact on U.S. policy, Rubin instead
drew a laugh by telling reporters: "We are delighted about the way the
game was played." The Orioles eked out a 3-2 win in 11 innings.
The United States has said consistently that scheduling the baseball game
in
Havana in no way reflected a change in policy toward the Castro
government, particularly in light of recent developments, but rather was
part of an effort by Washington to reach out to the Cuban people and
promote a more open society here.
"The ballgame was not at all meant to be a reward for [the government's]
behavior. There is no behavior to reward," a high-ranking U.S. State
Department official said before the game was played. "It is about taking
the
people out of their isolation. Their isolation is not just political, it
is cultural
and social. Baseball is a little window out of that isolation."
The official added: "Our relationship with the Cuban government is largely
dependent on its relationship with the Cuban people, and right now they
are treating their people terribly."
The State Department has said that the games with the Orioles are not the
equivalent of what came to be known as "Ping-Pong diplomacy," an
initiative of the early 1970s that helped open relations between the United
States and China.
Alarcon, too, said the Ping-Pong parallel was a false one. "They are
different games with different rules," he quipped.
But referring to the normalization of relations that followed that exchange
between the United States and China, Alarcon, departing from the harsh
anti-American rhetoric he has used during the past several months, said:
"I
am sure something similar is going to happen with Cuba. . . . I don't know
when.
He added: "We are not opposed to a normal relationship. . . . We are
ready to wait whatever time is necessary. . . . But we will never accept
relations that are not based on mutual respect."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company