Word: cuba
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...there is the ultimate in stopgap solutions. "It's a day-by-day situation, and that's how we're looking at it," acknowledges a top White House aide. Another Administration official declines to discuss how stashing the fugitives at Guantanamo might fit into any long-term policy toward Cuba. Says he: "We're focused now on the immediate problem -- handling the refugees." Nor will anyone speculate just how long the Cubans might have to stay in Guantanamo. The standard answer is "Indefinitely," but does that mean months? Years? Until the 68-year-old Castro falls from power or dies...
...Cuban negotiators will meet in New York City Thursday with clashing agendas. In one corner: Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba's National Assembly president, who represented his country in 1990 at the United Nations and in 1991 during the Gulf War, known for a sharp tongue and debating skills. In the other: Michael Skol, the second-ranking official in the State Department's Latin American bureau. The U.S. will offer to relax immigration standards for Cubans if Fidel Castro will stop the refugee flow. Alarcon, who succeeded in getting a majority of the U.N. General Assembly to condemn the decades...
...than 3,000 last year -- if Fidel Castro will stop the exodus. That's just one item on the list when U.S and Cuban officials meet in New York City on Thursday. They'll also discuss "credible reports" cited today by U.S. officials at the Guantanamo Naval base that Cuba has released minimum security prisoners, allowing them to join the boat people on rafts headed for Florida. Meanwhile, the influx of Cubans headed for Florida began climbing after a virtual halt during weekend storms. Hundreds of people in home-made rafts set off from beaches near Havana Monday night...
...that logic ignores what the U.S. has learned about helping communist countries feel their way toward freedom -- and the booming American trade with other Marxist regimes. Washington is moving toward full trade and diplomatic ties with Vietnam, whose human-rights record is no better than Cuba's. It is holding extensive talks with North Korea, the worst troglodyte of all Stalinist regimes. And when Bill Clinton extended most-favored-nation tariff treatment to Beijing last May, he argued that "the best path for advancing freedom in China is for the United States to intensify and broaden its engagement with that...
...biggest difference is the strength of the conservative and wealthy Cuba lobby, which Clinton has courted since the campaign. Its leaders got Clinton to ratchet sanctions tighter as the price of accepting his new policy on boat people...