Sunday Morning News

Bernard Aronson Discusses the Future of U.S.-Cuba Relations

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KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: If you are just tuning in to CNN, for the past hour and about 20 minutes we have been bringing to you a press conference from Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives, friends and lawyers, talking about yesterday and the seizure of Elian from the Miami relatives' home and the operation that Janet -- Attorney General Janet Reno had commenced.

We're going to go to the White House now, where Kelly Wallace is standing by with reaction to what's been said and some of the allegations that took place in the past hour and a half or so -- Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we placed some calls to White House and Justice Department officials to get reaction to this actual news conference and to some of the allegations raised by Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives.

But I did talk to one senior White House official who happened to be here, who said she did not see this news conference but said that the White House and the Justice Department basically stand by what was said yesterday by President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno. And that is, the position of the government is that the attorney general tried for months -- not days or weeks, but for months -- to try and bring about a voluntary transfer of custody from the boy's Miami relatives to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

The attorney general in her news conference yesterday said that every time she felt that she and the family had come close to an agreement, the family kept moving the goalposts. And one White House official said here that the Miami relatives just wouldn't budge and wouldn't agree to the condition that the boy eventually be turned over to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

So the position here is that the government did everything it could to try and avoid what happened yesterday morning, that enforcement action. White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said that the president, the attorney general, he thought everyone throughout the administration was hoping that could be avoided, but that in the end, when all other efforts failed, the only alternative, in the words of the president, was to enforce the law, the law upheld by the federal courts, the INS decision that the boy did belong in his father's custody, and that that needed to be done and that that's what happened yesterday. Another official I talked to here said that the legal process will continue, and that legal process is that the boy will remain in the United States until the Miami relatives' appeals process is exhausted, but that the legal process will now decide this. And this official said that she hopes that this whole family can eventually be reunited, but that it will be up to them.

Kelly Wallace, CNN reporting live from the White House.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Elian Gonzalez has case led to many tough questions about the future of relations between the U.S. and Cuba and relations between Cuban-Americans and Cuba.

Here to consider those questions is Bernard Aronson, who was assistant Secretary of State for inter-American affairs from 1989 to 1993.

Mr. Aronson, thanks for being with us.

BERNARD ARONSON, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Sure.

O'BRIEN: Without getting into all the specifics that were just laid out on the table in the news conference, let's take this into the larger picture of diplomacy and relations between two countries. What do you -- you get the sense that today at least that there is a bit of a thaw in the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba, Fidel Castro saying, I think the word was, there's a "truce" in the relationship. What do you make of that?

ARONSON: Well, what Fidel Castro said, we've been in a struggle for 41 years. This was a one-day truce. Tomorrow the struggle goes on. So clearly from his point of view there's nothing fundamental different in the relationship. In the short run, he will make whatever propaganda he can out of this. Two weeks ago in Geneva, the U.N. human rights commission condemned Cuba for human rights violations. That resolution was sponsored by Poland and Czechoslovakia, two former communist countries that have now become democracies, and that was a blow to Castro. So he will try to use this issue to try to refurbish his image internally and internationally.

O'BRIEN: And do you suppose he's met with some success? Let's start with the internal image that he is careful about.

ARONSON: Well, Fidel Castro thrives on confrontation with the United States. He turned this into a confrontation. He held these large demonstrations and rallies, and certainly he is going to now claim some sort of vindication out of it.

And in the short run, he will probably gain some internal victory out of it.

O'BRIEN: How about overseas? How does this effect perceptions of him overseas?

ARONSON: Well, it's hard to say. You know, I'm sure that picture is not a picture that is particularly helpful to the United States, but I think people probably see this in very different ways internationally, as they do in the United States.

In the long run, I don't think it fundamentally changes the image of Cuba, and I think the human rights record of this regime, which has continued to get worse, is -- has eroded the image of Castro's Cuba in those circles where it still had some lingering support.

O'BRIEN: You say that Fidel Castro thrives on a confrontation with the U.S. I doubt many people would quibble with that. It leads us to, I suppose, a hypothetical question. What if all these years the U.S. hadn't provided that opportunity for Castro to engage in this sort of bluster with the U.S.? Would his leadership have withered?

ARONSON: Well, I think in the Cold War that was not a decision of the United States. Castro was aligned with the Soviet Union. He fomented a revolution in Latin America that would have installed Cuban-style dictatorships, and he was part of a Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. So I don't think it's correct to suggest that the United States manufactured this issue.

But I do think we now have to look at, in a post-Cold War era, how do we promote a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba? And I think that you need to involve the Cuban-American community in that policy. And right now, relations between the federal government and the Cuban-American community are obviously at a huge divide, and there's enormous bitterness. And that is not good for the long-term management of U.S. policy toward Cuba.

O'BRIEN: I wasn't necessarily suggesting that the U.S. manufactured these opportunities for Fidel Castro, but the fact of the matter is there has been a consistent hard line throughout administrations as it relates to Castro. And I'm curious if a rapprochement wouldn't have helped matters somewhere along the way.

ARONSON: Well, I think you've seen in the last year a change in policy, which in fact had support on all sides of the Cuban debate, which is a positive change. And that is a change in the licensing procedures, which has allowed 100,000 Americans to travel to Cuba last year and academic, scientific, humanitarian, athletic groups and many thousands of Cubans come here.

I do think we have to start thinking about the post-Castro era and how do we create a transition that is hopefully peaceful? And there, much greater people-to-people contact I think makes a lot of sense, and I think we need to see more initiatives in that direction.

O'BRIEN: In some sense, what we've witnessed here in the case of Elian Gonzalez, when you take away the simple issue of a custody matter, is a bit of an anachronism. It's some of the old Cold War players. And you almost have the sense that this is giving them an opportunity to have another day in the sun that they perhaps missed.

ARONSON: Well, you know, it also demonstrates how powerful the feelings are in the exile community toward Cuba. And I think if you think about scenarios in the future -- let's say Fidel Castro dies or becomes incapacitated, which is going happen one of these days -- nobody believes that his brother Raoul is going to have the same ability over time to maintain political power and control. In that kind of scenario, thousands of Cubans on the islands will try to flee in boats and rafts, as they did in Mariel. There could even be fighting break out on the island. And Cuban-Americans are going to feel the same family bonds you see so passionately in this case. And they are going to set out on their boats and cabin cruisers as they did in 1980 during the Mariel boat lift to try to rescue their family. Some could get caught in the conflict in Cuba. There could be enormous pressure on the United States to intervene.

So this gulf between the Cuban-American community and the federal government that is visible in the case of this one young boy, this poor boy, is -- it has much larger implications about the ability of the United States to manage future crises in Cuba.

And I think particularly the next administration needs to really begin to try to develop much greater consensus, including the Cuban- American community, in how we deal with Cuba. And in the short-run, I think that the Clinton administration should take some steps that would ease some of the divisions between families on the island and in Cuba.

They could allow Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba as often as they wish, instead of having them prohibited from traveling except once a year and only if there's a family emergency.

They should allow Cuban-Americans to send far more money in the way of remittances to their family. That would give them greater independence from the state and help these small businesses.

And they should create more flexible criteria to let Cubans on the island gain temporary visas to visit their family in Miami.

And I think there's going to be a lot of repair that's going to need to be done, particularly in the next administration which takes office January 2001.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's bring it to the bottom line and bring it back to Elian Gonzalez. When the dust settles on all of this -- and presumably when the dust settles Elian and his father will return to Cuba -- where does that leave U.S.-Cuba relations?

ARONSON: Well, I don't think it leaves them fundamentally different. I think Fidel Castro for once was speaking the truth when he said this was a one-day truce, and in his mind the 41-year-old struggle goes on. But where it leaves us is without a creative policy that has broad national support about how to manage the transition from Fidel Castro to a post-Castro era and a Democratic Cuba. We don't have any sort of consensus about how do that. We've learned a lot of lessons helping and seeing and supporting transitions from communism in Eastern Europe, in Poland and the Soviet Union. We need to apply those lessons to Cuba. And that's going to require the participation and the trust and confidence of the Cuban-American community.

O'BRIEN: All right, not a lot of that right at the moment.

ARONSON: No, not at all.

O'BRIEN: Bernard Aronson, former assistant secretary of state, thanks so much for being with us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

ARONSON: Thank you.

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