Close but no cigar - US-Cuba wrangle on embassies 6 months on

Close but no cigar: US-Cuba wrangle on embassies 6 months on
BY MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press

HAVANA
Six months ago Wednesday, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro
stunned the world by announcing an end to their nations' half-century of
official hostility.

U.S. travelers, politicians and executives flew to Cuba as if a
Caribbean Berlin Wall had crumbled. Some business-backed interest groups
lobbied Congress to end a more than 50-year trade embargo. American
soccer and basketball stars played for excited crowds in Havana. The
website Airbnb expanded to the island, listing thousands of private
homes available for rent across the country.

U.S. and Cuban diplomats went hunting for additional office space,
readied flagpoles and ordered office supplies that say "embassy" instead
of "interests section." Yet, even as observers say a deal is imminent, a
half year later the two governments have not taken the important but
symbolic step of turning their "interests" offices into formal embassies
in Havana and Washington.

"It shows you the complexity of this process," said Jesus Arboleya, a
political scientist and former Cuban diplomat in Washington. "If the
first step has taken this much time, imagine the conflicts that can
develop after it gets started."

No embassy deal has been announced despite four rounds of wrangling over
U.S. diplomats' freedom to travel around Cuba and import supplies. The
issues on the table after the embassies open are far more complicated.
They include talks on human rights; demands for compensation for
confiscated American properties in Havana and damages to Cuba from the
embargo; and possible cooperation on law enforcement that includes the
touchy topic of U.S. fugitives sheltering in Havana.

Plenty of people and groups oppose any U.S.-Cuba warming, including some
dissidents on the island, anti-Castro Cuban-Americans and some members
of Congress who believe the new policy essentially rewards Communist
leaders for decades of human rights abuses. Presidential Republican
candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, and
former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida have both come out firmly
against rapprochement.

But polls say detente has strong public backing in both countries,
leading many to believe the process is irreversible.

"Even if it takes a while, for whatever reason, the embassy will open
and relations will be re-established," said David Fuentes, a parking lot
attendant in Havana. "It just seems inevitable to me."

Sen. Jeff Flake, a key Republican advocate of better ties, met with
Cuba's foreign minister and first vice president over the weekend and
told The Associated Press that an embassy opening date is "imminent."

But some advocates fear the broader process is moving too slowly to
guarantee that a future U.S. president won't be able to reverse Obama's
loosening of the trade embargo on Cuba, just as Ronald Reagan and George
W. Bush did after openings by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Robert Muse, a Washington attorney specializing in U.S. law on Cuba,
said Obama deserves credit for his bold and unexpected opening with Cuba
in December, but is also justly criticized for letting the relationship
get bogged down in the minutiae of negotiations over embassy operations.

"I would like to see the president maintain a pace of normalization that
will get him to his goal. The goal is the legacy of normalized relations
between the U.S. and Cuba," Muse said. "You can't negotiate your way to
normalization with Cuba in the time that Obama has to get this done."

Advocates of normalization face powerful brakes on progress in both
countries.

In Washington, anti-Castro lawmakers have attached riders to
appropriations bills that would roll back Obama's loosening of trade and
travel.

In Cuba, aging leaders fear swift, uncontrolled change that would cost
them power and spawn disorder in a country that dreads the violence and
inequality scarring some regional neighbors. That fear is heightened by
the United States' long history of trying to topple Castro and his
brother Fidel.

"I think we're just realizing the degree to which they spent 40-plus
years with this being as deep into their DNA as imaginable," said James
Williams, head of Engage Cuba, a corporate-backed bipartisan group that
launched pro-engagement lobbying efforts Tuesday. "We're not just going
to turn the lights on and it's going to be fixed overnight."

A few real links between the U.S. and Cuba have nonetheless been forged
since the announcement by Obama and Castro. U.S. travelers can book
lodging in Cubans' homes through Airbnb; the cost of calls to Cuba
dropped after a new international telecommunications deal; and a New
York research center will run a clinical trial of a Cuban lung-cancer
treatment. The U.S. has approved new ferry services from Florida to Cuba
and opened the door to direct air service between the two countries.

Amid those changes, there is a new sense of possibility and optimism
among many in Cuba. But it hasn't kept thousands more Cuban migrants
than usual from heading to the United States to take advantage of
preferential immigration rights they fear may soon disappear.

While U.S. businesses say Cuba is showing itself to be receptive to new
projects, it has yet to take any real measures to make them possible.

Sarah Stephens, head of the pro-engagement Center for Democracy in the
Americas and leader of dozens of U.S. congressional trips to the island,
said Cuban officials want to be equal partners in the future of a
country that they believe should be more than just a market where
American business can do what it wants.

"It's certainly the message that the Cuban officials are giving: 'That
if you want to engage with us, it's going to take a while,'" she said.

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Associated Press writer Anne-Marie Garcia contributed to this report.

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