By Laurie Goering. Laurie Goering is a Tribune staff writer. Chicago Tribune, March 12, 2000
PEORIA -- Lora Jost ducked out of theater practice at Bradley University. Jim and Pat Reier drove all the way from Bettendorf, Iowa. And even if this was mostly for the extra credit, dozens of high school students showed up to hear the latest.
About Cuba, that is, a nation that for decades was barely at the fringes of interest in Illinois, but one that suddenly is playing even in Peoria.
Ever since Gov. George Ryan led a delegation to the island last October, Cuba has enjoyed its highest profile in Illinois in years, in part by stubbornly refusing to disappear from the news.
Elian Gonzalez, plucked from his inner tube, launched a continuing soap opera. Alleged spies have been arrested or repatriated in recent weeks. The Buena Vista Social Club remains a hit. And with cultural and educational exchanges between Illinois and Cuba exploding, suddenly the island doesn't
seem so far away.
"You can't turn on the television without hearing about it," said Jost, one of more than 200 students, business people and just interested Illinoisans who sat through hours of lectures at last weekend's Central Illinois World Affairs Conference on Cuba at Bradley.
"Cuba wasn't high on the radar screen for most Illinoisans until it was placed there by Gov. Ryan's trip," said David Chicoine, a University of Illinois dean who accompanied the governor and was among the speakers at the conference, which each year focuses on a nation in the news.
Now "there's a high level of interest and curiosity about Cuba and the Cuban people ... because of the national events of the last few months and the governor's trip," he said.
The question, though, is what that means. Are Illinoisans just worried about Gonzalez or are they bent on lifting U.S. sanctions against Cuba? Are they curious about Cuban cigars and the sun-kissed beaches of Varadero?
Or are Midwestern farmers--who stand to gain new markets in Cuba should U.S. policy change--bent on quickly wresting political control from Fidel Castro's enemies in Miami? That's probably unlikely, experts at the conference acknowledged. But Illinois' growing interest in the island may
represent the seed of a new national constituency that could eventually change U.S. policy toward Cuba.
Peoria's Caterpillar Inc., one of the world's leading manufacturers of heavy machinery, now leads USA Engage, a business effort aimed at lifting trade sanctions with Cuba. Next month, members of Congress--including many from Midwest farm states--are expected to make a renewed push to allow
easier sales of food and medicine to Cuba.
"I think there's much greater interest in Cuba, in every aspect of Cuba, than there was just a few years ago, and to some extent that is affecting policy," said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert with the pro-free market Lexington Institute, based in Arlington, Va.
Illegal tourism and an explosion in legal exchange visits by students, church leaders and educators are allowing more and more Illinoisans to see the island for themselves.
"Most people who go to Cuba either don't agree with U.S. policy or come away not agreeing with it," Peters said. "A lot of people go without any views, but once they're there, they see that [sanctions] are not a policy that is connecting with the Cuban people."
Those visitors include Illinoisans such as Bruce Naylor, the president of the Illinois Conference of Churches and a pastor at Eureka Christian Church.
He recently met Gonzalez's father during a church-sponsored visit to Cuba and has returned to preach about the island's situation to his congregation.
Like a growing number of people in Illinois, he's convinced the U.S. government's 40-year-old policy of economic sanctions against Cuba is ineffective and should be dropped.
"Absolutely I think the policy should change. Confrontation doesn't do it," he said after listening to a lineup of primarily pro-change speakers at the Peoria conference.
He called the U.S. failure to quickly return 6-year-old Elian to his father a "missed opportunity for goodwill" with Cuba's people.
Reier, a pension company head from Bettendorf, agreed.
U.S. policy on Cuba was created when the island's Soviet links prompted fear of a military threat. Now, Cuba "is no threat to the U.S. at all, in my opinion. Our policy is rooted in the past," he said.
But "I don't think much policy change is likely and that's too bad," he said. "It's leaving American business behind. It's making us look like fools."
Cuban officials believe that, despite the recent arrest of an alleged Cuban spy within the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the deportation of a top Cuban official in Washington, Cuba's recent high profile is helping, rather than hurting, their effort to win U.S. hearts outside
Miami. Gonzalez's situation has been a key.
"Political opinion is more than 50 percent in favor of sending the boy back to Cuba, and this is more or less the same amount of Americans who want to change U.S. policy and have normal relations with Cuba," said Luis Fernandez, a spokesman at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington.
"Americans," he said, "are tired of the attitude of a small group in Miami who are jeopardizing the possibility to realize a new kind of relation between both countries.
"We are neighbors. We can't move out. We need to look for a solution to this. There is a new generation of Americans and Cubans who deserve a better future."
Alexander Spiridonov, a 14-year-old Russian exchange student at Normal Community High School, won the Peoria World Affairs Council's annual essay contest this year with essentially the same message.
His entry, "Isolation Won't Change Cuba," calls for a new policy of political, economic and social engagement between the countries.
"Cuba is so close and yet so far away," he noted at the conference. "It seems to me we ought to be thinking seriously about tearing down this wall that has been built between the United States and Cuba, a wall of hostility, a wall that prevents us from talking to each other, from
traveling in each other's country, from trading with each other."
Cuba's human rights violations remain a major worry, he noted. But he and others said they believe movement toward lifting sanctions and establishing trade could be linked with demands for greater openness and improved treatment of political prisoners.
Frank Calzon, director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba, called such hopes unlikely. Business, he said, has rarely been known for putting human rights concerns ahead of profits.
"Castro's a great public relations man, and he has convinced people there's money to be made in trading with Cuba," Calzon said at the conference.
But "average Americans know Castro is not a good guy," he insisted. "The more Americans learn about Cuba, the less likely they will be to support lifting sanctions under Castro's rules."
That didn't seem to be the case in Peoria, where the crowd overwhelmingly favored warmer ties with Havana.
"I think unless we engage countries they'll never change. They need to be exposed to another way of life," said Judy Triggs, public relations chairwoman for the Peoria World Affairs Council.
"I expect spies," she said. "I know there are atrocities there and I don't like it. But I think the way to change it is to engage." |