By Richard Chacón, Globe Staff.
Boston Globe, 12/29/2000
MIAMI - Two weeks after Cuba cut off phone service with the United States in
a dispute over higher taxes, only a fraction of calls are getting through, then
only after being re-routed through third countries by US telephone companies.
The problem probably will get worse, officials and analysts say, following a
US Treasury Department ruling last week that phone companies cannot pay the
additional tax to Havana.
The situation may become one of the first tricky foreign policy problems for
president-elect George W. Bush and could squeeze him between two loyal but
conflicting constituencies: multi-national corporations that want stronger
economic ties with the Caribbean nation, and conservative, anticommunist
Republicans who oppose almost any kind of relation with President Fidel Castro
of Cuba.
Cuban officials cut the circuits on Dec. 15 because phone companies had not
paid a tax that Havana imposed on US carriers in October. The new tax - about 25
cents a minute more than the 60 cents a minute the carriers now pay - was seen
as a response by Castro's government to a decision by Washington to use $58
million in frozen Cuban assets to compensate families of Cuban-American pilots
shot down by Cuban jets in 1996.
Initially US carriers said most calls were successfully re-routed through
unnammed third countries. This week, however, they admitted that only about 10
percent are getting through.
''We are making connections as best we can during a difficult situation,''
said Gustavo Alfonso, a spokesman in Miami for AT&T, the largest
long-distance-service provider to Cuba. ''People just have to keep trying.''
Under the 40-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba, the phone companies
must get approval from the US Treasury Department for paying any additional
taxes. In a decision released last Friday, the department said the long-distance
carriers could continue routing calls through third countries but could not pay
Havana the additional tax. Phone officials said they were frustrated but not
surprised by the decision.
The ruling also means that the issue will drag on into the Bush
administration, whose views on Cuba are unclear but already the focus of intense
study and speculation. Specialists who favor easing the embargo and a more open
relationship between Washington and Havana generally do not expect much change
under Bush, mostly because of the clash of interests between corporate lobbyists
and anti-Castro exile groups.
''We have an internationally discredited policy toward Cuba and will
continue to do so,'' said Larry Birns, director of the Center for Hemispheric
Affairs, a Washington-based think tank. ''Much of the corporate establishments
would like normal relations with Cuba, but it's not the number one issue on
their agenda like it is for many Cuban-Americans, so things will probably stay
much the same.''
Sandra Levinson, executive director of the Center for Cuban Studies, a New
York-based organization that also favors ending the embargo, said Bush seems
more closely tied to Florida's Cuban-American community than his father was
during the late 1980s, mostly because his brother, Jeb, is Florida's governor.
Cuban-American groups played a key role in the Bush campaign's protracted
electoral battles in the state.
''If it had been another Republican president, we might expect a more
relaxed approach to Cuba,'' Levinson said. ''But George W. seems locked into
Jeb's Florida.''
Cuban-American groups are hoping for a tougher approach to Cuba from Bush.
''The embargo is only half the policy, but we need something that's more
proactive in encouraging democracy in Cuba,'' said Dennis Hays, a former State
Department official who is now executive vice president of the Cuban American
National Foundation, one of the strongest lobbying groups. ''We're encouraged by
what we've seen so far'' of Bush's approach.
During the Clinton administration, US policy was based on gradually
encouraging more contact with Cuba. Restrictions were eased on sales of medicine
and some agricultural products.
President Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 imposing new measures
against Cuba, including a provision keeping most US companies from doing
business in Cuba through offshore corporations. However, the administration has
quietly avoided implementing some parts of the law. For example, the
administration issued a waiver suspending for three years a provision allowing
Cuban exiles to sue for compensation in US courts for property confiscated in
Cuba.
As a candidate, Bush said he generally favored stronger ties to Latin
America, especially increased trade. In visits to Florida, he called for more
freedom of speech and the release of political prisoners in Cuba. One of his
first cabinet choices was Mel Martinez, a Cuban-American who helped direct
Bush's campaign in Florida.
Ana M. Lopez, director of the Cuban Studies Institute at Tulane University,
said it was impossible to predict any president's policies toward Cuba, because
they often turn on unexpected events such as this year's Elian Gonzalez drama,
and are shaped by countless behind-the-scenes players.
''It's not a policy that comes from a president but from different groups of
influential people,'' Lopez said. ''I've given up trying to predict an outcome
because there's no traditional logic to it.''
The Cuban government, for its part, has criticized the role anti-Castro
exiles played in claiming the Florida vote for Bush.
This story ran on page A14 of the Boston Globe on 12/29/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. | 