Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

US offers to lift Cuba embargo if Havana embraces democracy

Thursday, August 24, 2006

by: P. Parameswaran

WASHINGTON, USA (AFP): The United States, keeping up the pressure on Cuba in the absence of ailing leader Fidel Castro, said Wednesday it would lift a 44-year trade embargo if the communist government embraced democracy.

Tom Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said the US administration, "in consultation with Congress," would "lift the embargo" if the Cuban interim government accepted democratic rule, respected human rights and paved the way for free elections.

He said that in 2002, President George W. Bush made a similar offer but it was rejected by Castro, who on July 31 provisionally handed over power to his brother Raul Castro after undergoing major surgery.

"The offer is still on the table," Shannon said, apparently aiming the proposal now at the interim government.

"If the Cuban regime were prepared to free political prisoners, respect human rights, especially those rights most important for the effective exercise of democracy, if you are prepared to permit the creation of independent organisations ... and if you are prepared to create a mechanism and a pathway towards elections, then we would, in consultation with the Congress, look to find ways to lift the embargo," Shannon told a news conference.

The trade embargo, imposed in 1962 after Fidel Castro defeated an unsucessful CIA-backed Cuban invasion, has been steadily tightened under President Bush's two terms despite overwhelming calls in the United Nations to end the sanctions.

Asked whether he thought the junior Castro was more open to talks with the United States, Shannon said the political situation was still fluid in Cuba.

"In regard to Raul Castro or whomever might be representing the regime in Cuba, I think we are in a moment in which the future leadership structure still has not been defined," he said.

What was occurring, he added, was "a transfer of power to institutions and not to individuals" and that Fidel Castro would be the "ultimate arbiter" in any power sharing arrangement.

The junior Castro, in his first public statement last week since taking over from the bearded strongman who has ruled Cuba for nearly 48 years, said that he had mobilized tens of thousands of reservists and militia members to face a possible US invasion threat while his elder brother recuperated from intestinal surgery.

Washington has dismissed suggestions it would take advantage of Castro's illness to foment a crisis in Cuba, but reiterated demands for free elections and democratic change in the Americas' only one-party communist regime.

But just last week the United States named a special "manager" for its intelligence operations against Cuba and its strong ally Venezuela.

In addition, a commission on Cuba that Bush created in 2003 to help defeat the Castro regime has recommended a series of steps to speed up the emergence of democracy, including funding for dissidents and support for an eventual transition government committed to holding free elections.

Shannon said that Washington's goal to bring about democracy would "suck the venom and the fear out of the Cuban system."

He likened the interim period following senior Castro's ceding of power to his brother as "fraught with anxiety inside of Cuba" and warned of the prospect of "greater repression."

"Because a regime that finds itself in a moment of power transfer, especially a transfer from a leader such as Fidel Castro to, effectively, institutions, to bureaucrats, is one which is going to be inherently unstable," he said.

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