Cuban-American group hopes to beat back trade momentum
By Rafael Lorente. Washington Bureau.
Chicago Tribune. February 7, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Hoping to get past the wounds of the Elian Gonzalez
controversy, the Cuban American National Foundation opened a shadow embassy just
blocks from the White House on Tuesday.
The Embassy for a Free Cuba, located in a townhouse where Spanish-American
War hero Teddy Roosevelt once lived, is part of the foundation's effort to
reclaim some of the political power it has lost in the last few years.
The building is being called an embassy because the organization says it
will advocate for the best interests of the Cuban people, something foundation
leaders say the government of Fidel Castro does not do.
In part, the foundation is counting on the new Bush administration to
continue tough policies against Castro's Cuba and to withstand pressure from
farmers and business groups who want to end the U.S. embargo against the island.
The foundation plans to push for more U.S. assistance to dissidents in Cuba.
The group also is fighting a domestic public-relations war against increased
tolerance for Cuba's dictatorship and a growing belief that American farmers and
business people would find the island a good market for their goods.
"If you repeat a lie often enough, people just accept it as the truth,"
said Dennis Hays, the former U.S. ambassador to Suriname who was hired last year
to beef up the foundation's Washington office.
The group's task won't be easy. The foundation and the embargo it supports
face an array of well-financed opponents, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
and industrial farm giants such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. Last year, a
coalition of anti-embargo members from both political parties managed to pass
legislation allowing food and medicine sales to the island, though with major
restrictions attached.
This year, legislation that would eliminate those financing and travel
restrictions has been introduced in Congress.
The foundation also has not fully recovered from the battle over Elian
Gonzalez, which ended with the boy's return to Cuba and the foundation paying a
heavy political price for advocating that he stay in the U.S. against his
father's wishes.
The foundation's leaders say they are buoyed by the role Cuban Americans
played in the presidential election. Like fellow Republican Bob Dole in 1996,
George W. Bush lost Miami-Dade County. But the margin went from 108,000 in 1996
to 39,000 votes last year, in large part because of a heavy Cuban-American
turnout.
"Eight months ago we were the mad mob who had kidnapped this child,"
said Joe Garcia, the organization's executive director. "And then, a few
months ago, we were this brilliant political group who decided a national
election."
When Hays came to Washington, the foundation was down to one full-time and
one part-time staffer in Washington. Now, Hays has five people working for him
and plans to add as many as three more.
Cuba does not have an embassy in Washington because the two countries do not
have formal diplomatic relations. Instead, Cuba has an interests section under
the flag of Switzerland. The interests section is farther north from the White
House, in the building that housed the Cuban Embassy before Castro took control.
Garcia and Hays said Jorge Mas Santos, the foundation's chairman, will
outline a new direction Wednesday night in a speech before the Inter-American
Dialogue, a Washington think tank that has called for more dialogue with Cuba.
Opponents of the foundation's strategy of isolating Cuba say the group is
past its prime and won't regain its clout by opening a shadow embassy.
William Goodfellow, executive director of the Center for International
Policy, a Washington think tank that argues for lifting the embargo, said Bush
may be in a bind. He will want to please the voters in Miami who helped him get
elected while also pleasing his allies in the business community.
"The Bush administration has to decide, are they going to listen to
Miami or are they going to listen to Wall Street? Wall Street is their natural
ally," Goodfellow said. | 