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10/2809 - Los Angeles Times - Obama's Cuba policy faces a world of
expectation

The world is eager for President Obama to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba,
which nearly every nation opposes. But though he has relaxed some curbs, for
now he still backs the embargo.

By Tracy Wilkinson

Reporting from Mexico City

It is an annual ritual: The United Nations today will vote to condemn the
U.S. embargo on Cuba, much as the world organization has done for nearly two
decades.

This will be the first time, however, that the call to end the policy will
come with Barack Obama as president, giving rise to spirited debate on how
his administration, having promised a "new beginning" in Latin America, is
handling one of Washington's most problematic foreign policies.

In recent months the Obama administration has taken steps to ease some of
the sanctions that successive U.S. governments employed against Cuba. It
removed restrictions on the sending of money and on travel to Cuba by Cuban
Americans and opened the way for possible business deals between U.S.
telecommunications companies and the island. Officials also opened dialogue
with the Cuban government on immigration issues.

Cuban President Raul Castro and his ailing brother, Fidel, have generally
been conciliatory during public speeches. And Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodriguez, who arrived in New York on Tuesday, said at a recent news
conference in Havana that the U.N. vote on the embargo should not be viewed
as business as usual.

"We deal with the theme every year, but this time we do it under what I
would see as new circumstances," Rodriguez said.

But Obama has said he will maintain the 47-year-old embargo as a means of
leverage to press for political change in Cuba, and in September he signed
the order that kept the sanction in place for another year. Even some of his
supporters say he is acting slowly in unfreezing the tortured relationship
between Washington and Havana.

"The Obama administration is moving very slowly and incrementally . . . but
when you add it all up there has been a lot of activity, most of it under
the radar but all toward greater engagement with the island," said Daniel P.
Erikson of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.

Several factors other than Cuba may have influenced Obama's pace, said
Jennifer McCoy, head of the Americas program at the Atlanta-based Carter
Center, where former President Carter has long advocated improving ties with
Cuba. The crisis in Honduras, following a June 28 military-backed coup, has
distracted the administration at a time when its top officials designated
for Latin America have yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

The embargo has been condemned in the U.N. General Assembly by staggering
majorities in recent years that reflect an increasingly isolated U.S.
policy, and today's vote is expected to be no different. The nonbinding
resolution calls for an end to "the economic, commercial and financial
embargo" imposed by the U.S. on Cuba's communist government.

Last year, the 17th year the resolution was brought to the floor, the vote
was 185 to 3 condemning the embargo, with two abstentions. The three: the
United States, Israel and Palau.

When the same poll was first taken in 1992, abstentions actually won the
day, followed by votes to condemn.

But much of the world has moved on. This year, the U.S. is alone in the
hemisphere as the only country that does not have normal diplomatic
relations with Cuba; El Salvador, the last holdout, restored full ties in
June. The Organization of American States, which booted Cuba in 1962 as
then-President Fidel Castro embraced the Soviet Union, voted in June to let
the country back into the regional body (although Cuba has rebuffed the
gesture).

There is growing consensus in the U.S. that the embargo has not achieved its
goal of undermining the Castro government. The embargo cannot be lifted,
however, without an act of Congress.

Among many Cuban American citizens, resistance to better ties with Cuba has
softened. A recent poll among Cuban Americans in South Florida showed a
strong majority in favor of lifting all restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Among Cuban government officials, Obama gets credit for rolling back some of
the more harsh restrictions imposed by the George W. Bush administration,
especially after a 2003 crackdown by Cuban authorities on dissidents and
journalists. But they contend that Obama's steps are timid and insufficient,
taking policy essentially back to the Clinton years but not advancing beyond
that.

"U.S. citizens elected Obama as president because he promised change. Where
is the change on the blockade of Cuba?" said Rodriguez, the Cuban foreign
minister.

In the Havana news conference, Rodriguez deflected questions about whether
his government would take steps toward greater political freedoms, adding
that the embargo was a unilateral measure and should be lifted unilaterally.

"It should be lifted because it is illegal, it is ethically unacceptable, it
is obsolete, and it does not fit in today's world," he said. "It also should
be lifted because that is the unanimous clamor of the international
community."

Cuban officials have repeatedly said they are willing to "dialogue" about
anything but will not negotiate matters of "internal affairs," namely
political prisoners or domestic freedoms.

Raul Castro has announced a series of gradual economic reforms, as Cuba,
like the rest of the hemisphere, suffers from sluggish growth and
diminishing trade. But there has been no significant move toward political
democracy.

wilkinson@latimes.com