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By JOHN RICE
.c The Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) -
Cuban officials are almost eager to insist that Pope John Paul II's journey to
Cuba this week is not likely to improve 38 years of hostile relations with the
United States.
And they ridicule suggestions that the pontiff's five-day visit will produce
changes on this socialist island.
"Many people have tried to politicize the visit and use it against the
revolution,'' President Fidel Castro complained in a weekend television
appearance.
Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, head of the U.S. section of the Cuban Foreign
Ministry, told The Associated Press that the pope's visit "has nothing to
do with the bilateral conflict that Cuba has with the United States.''
Some Cuban exiles in the United States - and even White House officials -
have suggested the pope, scheduled to arrive Wednesday, might somehow inspire
changes in Cuba.
"There could in fact be positive results in having the Holy Father in
Cuba able to talk about the importance the world attaches to human rights and to
the need for relief of the suffering,'' White House spokesman Mike McCurry said
last week.
"And that discussion itself might empower those who believe there can
be change and might even touch the heart of Fidel Castro,'' he said.
During his television appearance, Castro himself said many people think "the
pope is coming to Cuba to meet with that demon Castro in the last bastion of
communism, and the hope is that this will be the end of the Cuban revolution.''
But he said that since the end of the Cold War, the pope himself has become
a consistent critic of capitalist societies, casting John Paul as a man whose
concerns about poverty and inequality often mirror those of socialists.
Cuban officials also note that the pope agrees with their criticism of the
U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
Insisting he has nothing to fear from any papal statements, Castro said that
even Clinton was free to visit Cuba "to speak of capitalism,
neo-liberalism, globalization.''
"We would not raise the least objection. ... Let him try to convince
us!''
Still, some are holding out hope that the papal visit will spawn growing
contacts between Cuba and U.S. business and church groups.
"There could very well be a new era dawning,'' said John S. Kavulich
II, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York, which includes
a number of major U.S. companies.
In Spain, a cardinal who is to accompany the pope to Cuba said the trip
could prove to be the beginning of Castro's demise.
"What happened with the Berlin Wall and what happened in Poland could
happen'' in Cuba, the Spanish daily ABC quoted Archbishop Ricard Maria Carles of
Barcelona as saying.
While John Paul's stopover could demonstrate to Americans that their
government's Cuba policy has isolated the United States, Fernandez de Cossio was
skeptical the trip would affect U.S. public opinion, let alone policy.
"I'm not sure that just by this visit and this event that important
impact is going to take place,'' he said.
Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation'' on Sunday, White House national
security adviser Sandy Berger did not give a direct answer when asked if the
pope's visit would change U.S.-Cuba relations. Instead, Berger replied that he
hopes the pope will discuss human rights in Cuba.
"This is the only nondemocracy in the hemisphere. It's stuck in the
mud. It's holding on desperately to a tired old system,'' Berger said.
Later in the interview, Berger said if Castro took steps toward political
liberalization, America would take reciprocal steps.
The pope's trip is part of a boom in religious observance on the island,
which abandoned official atheism less than six years ago.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Catholics have volunteered to make banners
and flags for the visit. The faithful have gone door to door to spread word of
the papal Masses among neighbors.
That would seem to fit U.S. government policy of strengthening churches and
other institutions to create social centers separate from the Communist Party
and government.
But Fernandez de Cossio insisted Cuban officials are not worried. "We
don't think it is in the agenda of the church ... to contribute to the policy of
hostility of the United States toward Cuba,'' he said.
Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon, a former foreign minister, was
even more blunt in a news conference last week: "We are not concerned at
all. We are among those who invited him. We are not stupid. We are not crazy.''
Posters promoting the papal visit became far more numerous in the capital on
Sunday, appearing even on street lamps and on a few government buildings, which
had previously been off limits for papal publicity.
But the new official encouragement apparently caught off-guard some party
activists - who have long been trained to mistrust the church.
On Saturday, a group of party activists in the capital's Vibora neighborhood
trailed Catholic faithful putting up posters on telephone poles and other public
property and ripped many down, said the Rev. Santiago Ruiz, of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus church.
"We had understood from (Castro's) speech that we could put the posters
anywhere,'' Ruiz said. "But they told us that we could not put them on
public property.''
Local party authorities could not be reached for comment. Government
officials characterized the incident as minor, emphasizing the huge effort the
government is making to ensure that the papal visit is successful.
AP-NY-01-18-98 2120EST |