By Lonnae O'Neal Parker. Washington Post Staff Writer. Wednesday, April 12, 2000; Page C01
Cuba's Interests Section Emerges From the Shadows
Lately, they've been a little behind on processing visas at the Cuban Interests Section. Same for returning phone calls, faxes, e-mails. Nothing like the high drama of an international crisis to put the Revolution behind on its paperwork.
Drivers heading either way on 16th Street NW have likely passed the Cuban Interests Section, tucked between the Polish and Lithuanian embassies, and not even known it was there. Not even known what an Interests Section was. Now they are tipped off by the dozen or so media types sitting in
folding canvas chairs with their high-resolution video cameras at the ready, hungry for a long shot of Fernando Remirez, head of the Interests Section, or a pensive Juan Miguel Gonzalez, or one of the Miami relatives, or--in the event he comes to the building during his planned visit to
Washington--Elian himself.
These are crazy days.
In the world of international diplomacy, we don't officially recognize them, they don't officially recog-nize us. Except now our respective governments are tied up in a game of Twister only to look up and find themselves on the same side. In that peculiar way that adversaries shelve their musty
grievances to form ad-hoc alliances, the Cuban Interests Section, the little mission with the tongue-twisting name, is trying to navigate decidedly non-normal relations.
"Today is not a normal day," says the deputy chief of the Interests Section, Felix Wilson, seated in the receiving room of the large, spare building. The echo in the cavernous space adds a half-beat to his heavily accented English.
"These are not normal days," he says and waves his hands expressively.
Wilson is engaging and cautious. He talks of growing up poor in Guantanamo. Of moving to Havana around the time of the revolution, beginning school at 8 and excelling in athletics. His studies in political science led to a career in foreign service that has included postings in Zimbabwe, Nigeria
and twice to Angola before moving here with his wife in 1996. His three adult daughters live in Cuba.
The diplomats, who live mostly in Bethesda, must give 72 hours' notice if they venture outside a 25-mile radius--the nature of non-normalcy.
The Cubans' no-frills style is reflected in Wilson, a congenial man dressed plainly in button-down blue whose words arch carefully along the party line.
Usually, "I will get here about 8:30. I go to my office, meet with the ambassador to see if anything is urgent, check my mailbox, read the newspapers to see what they've said about Cuba," Wilson says, recounting a regular day. Then there are phone calls, meetings, speeches, the
business of trying to gain support for ending the United States' 40-year embargo against his country.
Now, since Juan Miguel Gonzalez arrived in Washington last Thursday, it's been all about him. About his son Elian. About the Miami relatives. About Castro and Reno and men who fish little boys from the sea.
About printing fliers like the one on the wall just behind the reception desk that says Liberen a Elian--free Elian, the meaning of which depends on which side your sympathies lie.
This week, the Interests Section phone rings constantly. Rings busy. Sometimes rings and no one answers.
"They call us," Wilson says, and "we have to direct them to Juan Miguel. The media, the politicians call--they want to come. The State Department calls, then security calls," Wilson says. "These meetings and all these things. We have a role to play.
"Not a fundamental role," he quickly assures. But a role supportive of Juan Gonzalez.
The Interests Section "functions like an embassy," Wilson says. Its most important role "is to try to find ways to strengthen relations and contact between the business, cultural, religious and scientific community. Universities call us for exchange programs. We try to find areas
of common interests.
"There is a network of solidarity with Cuba in the U.S. aiming, of course, at lifting the embargo. The role of the Interests Section, one of the most important things, is to bridge the gap." Wilson says 100,000 Cuban Americans traveled to the island nation last year, in addition to
60,000 other Americans.
The Cuban Interests Section here and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana were opened in 1977, ending nearly 17 years of diplomatic separation. Interests sections are a way to maintain a diplomatic presence in countries that do not have normalized relations but still recognize each other's
government, a way to serve their interests and their populations. The United States is home to about 914,000 Cuban Americans, including about 10,000 in the Washington area.
There are semantic and protocol and procedural differences, other byproducts of non-normal relations.
Although Remirez served as Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations before coming to Washington, he is not called "ambassador" here. (As one of his country's two deputy foreign ministers, he is the highest-ranking diplomat Cuba has sent.) The flag of his country is also not flown from
the building.
Yet the Interests Section's staff of 15 includes a cultural attache, press officer and vice consul, and their cars have diplomatic plates.
Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy who helped negotiate the interests section openings and was the first U.S. head of mission in Havana, theorizes that the Elian case may have the unintentional consequence of bringing the two countries closer. "This is the
first time in years the two countries have had to work together," he says. "The first time they have found themselves on the same side."
And perhaps the first time many Americans have ever heard of the Cuban Interests Section.
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