Stephen Handelman. COLUMNIST.Thestar.com . Jan. 30, 2001. 12:27 AM
NEW YORK - President George W. Bush was busy this month figuring out ways to
overturn dozens of presidential ``executive orders'' protecting the environment
and the workplace signed by his predecessor. But he will have to think twice
about one basket of policies left by his predecessor.
The thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations begun by President Bill Clinton is going to
be tough to refreeze.
Not for lack of trying, of course. The Cuban-American lobby has wasted no
time lobbying Bush to uphold the provisions of the controversial 1996
Helms-Burton Act, which slapped penalties on foreign individuals and
corporations (including Canadian) who ``trafficked'' in Cuban property
expropriated by Fidel Castro's government.
Clinton regularly suspended enforcement of those provisions. Bush can
overturn the last suspension by arguing to Congress that doing so will
``expedite a transition to democracy'' in Cuba.
Two of the principal U.S. legislators who want him to do just that - Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart - met with then Vice-President-elect Dick
Cheney several weeks before the inauguration. Along with congressional
heavyweights like Senators Jesse Helms and Robert Torricelli, they have been
pushing in particular for sanctions against a Spanish hotel company named Sol
Melia.
Some are going even further, asking for early Bush administration decisions
to overturn a Clinton policy that required Cuban refugees caught in
international waters to be returned home - and even for a ``murder indictment''
against Fidel for the 1996 shooting down of a small plane carrying four
anti-Castro Cubans.
In an open letter to ``our friend President Bush'' published in The New York
Times yesterday, the eight largest Cuban exile groups in the U.S. demanded an
end to Clinton's ``policy of appeasement.''
The Cuba lobby, clearly, thinks it's about to come in from the political
wilderness. The Cuban exile community, particularly in Florida, can justifiably
claim Bush owes the Oval Office to them. Their votes in key Florida counties
gave Bush enough of an edge for him to claim that he won the vote count in that
state and convince the Supreme Court to hand him the election.
But the truth is, they no longer have the playing field to themselves.
Bush's other political debt to industries, corporations and farmers' lobby
groups who poured cash into Republican coffers this year will weigh just as
heavily. Most of those groups want the 50-year-old Cuban embargo lifted, and
welcomed the Clinton administration's tentative moves toward freeing food
shipments to the island.
Most Americans, polls show, have also had enough of the embargo. In an era
when China and even North Korea are discussing business deals with U.S.
industries, the anti-Cuba lobby increasingly seems like a Cold War anachronism.
Cuban policy in this administration will be a little dizzying. As in his
decision to ban overseas aid to groups who counsel abortion, Bush will probably
feint right while sticking to the centre.
Officially, the White House will pin its policy to the actuarial tables.
``As soon as (Castro) is gone from the scene, there is no reason in the world
why we can't have a really first-class normalized set of relationships with
Cuba,'' Cheney said.
Unofficially, the probing will continue. It has to.
No smart policy-maker will wait for the chaos bound to accompany Castro's
departure before establishing economic and political links.
That no doubt worries Castro, too. He lost no time in trying to get
Washington's goat by labelling Bush ``stupid.'' Ricardo Alarcon, the third most
powerful Cuban official, continued the needling by denouncing the administration
as ``illegitimate'' in a speech yesterday.
The Cuban nomenklatura will be sure to try to provoke the administration in
any way it can, well aware that a real thaw would undermine them. If Bush takes
the bait, both sides will be overjoyed.
But, thanks to his predecessor's cautious moves and his own strengthened
political base, he won't have to. He may even reopen the entire embargo debate.
Sound impossible? Remember, it took a Richard Nixon to go to China.
Stephen Handelman's column appears every second Tuesday in The Star.
Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
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