Report to advise Bush on post-Castro Cuba

Report to advise Bush on post-Castro Cuba
By Saul HudsonTue May 23, 4:18 PM ET

A U.S. commission is preparing to advise President George W. Bush on how
to inject democracy into a post-Castro Cuba, but critics say
Washington's 40 years of isolating the island may limit its chances of
heading off a communist succession.

The report by the Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba, expected in
the next few days, will suggest ways Washington can influence Cubans to
turn away from communism and move to democracy and a free-market economy
when veteran President Fidel Castro exits, U.S. officials said.

Critics of the U.S. policy, whose cornerstone is a four-decades-old
embargo which failed in its aim of forcing the collapse of Castro's
government, say Bush's focus ironically has left Washington, not Havana,
isolated.

This was reflected in a 182-to-4 United Nations vote last November
condemning the embargo, which has failed to unseat Castro, 79, despite
tougher enforcement under the Bush presidency.

Bush followed recommendations in the commission's first report in 2004
and severely restricted travel to the island and remittances from Cuban
Americans, ignoring calls from some that opening contacts would hasten
communism's downfall.

The second report was expected to recommend some tightening of the
embargo and emphasize stricter enforcement but officials said it was not
likely to include drastic moves. Its focus would be on preparations for
the day Castro leaves office.

Bush critics, including some U.S. Congress members, foreign governments
and political analysts, say Washington should engage Cuba to encourage
better human rights and political change, as with other communist-run
countries like China.

The head of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza,
said it was valid to wonder why Bush had created the office of the Cuba
transition assistance coordinator, who writes the report.

"There's no transition and it's not your country," he said.

Bush's hardline policy on Cuba was partly aimed at shoring up support in
the Cuban exile community in Florida, a key political state.

IDEOLOGICAL FOES

Reps. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, and William Delahunt, a
Massachusetts Democrat, who head a 50-strong bipartisan group in
Congress opposing the U.S. policy, offered preemptive criticism of the
report.

"Any hope that an ever-tightening American embargo could force political
change has been wiped away," they said in a statement.

"No one can predict how Cuba's political future will evolve. But we can
predict that regardless of America's size and economic weight, our
deliberate lack of contact and communication will reduce American
influences," they said.

With the American food industry allowed to export to Cuba, Flake has
proposed legislation that would further loosen the embargo by permitting
energy companies to partner with Cuba to drill in the waters of an
island roughly 90 miles from the United States.

The Bush administration wants to hold firm against its ideological foe.

"The purpose of the embargo is to prevent Fidel Castro's dictatorial
regime from using commerce and trade to fund and strengthen his regime
so that he keeps his hold on the Cuban population," Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said this week.

But Philip Peters, of the Virginia-based thinktank the Lexington
Institute, said U.S. ambitions for an overhaul of the political and
economic systems are counterproductive because they heighten fears in
Cuba of turmoil after Castro.

"Cubans want change but they don't want revolution," Peters said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060523/pl_nm/cuba_usa_dc_1