Supporters of closer Cuba ties see a chance with Obama's win
Obama probably won't be meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro any time soon. But some still hope for change.
Reporting from Miami — Bernardo Benes is plotting to reprise his role as broker of the one humanitarian breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations in the 50 years since Fidel Castro's revolution came to power.
Benes, who negotiated the 1978 release of 3,600 political prisoners and the right for Cuban exiles to visit family on the communist island, plans a freelance mission to his homeland to sound out President Raul Castro on what the Havana regime wants from President-elect Barack Obama.
"I want to be a loose cannon," said the 73-year-old retired banker. "I know Raul Castro will meet with me. We were teammates on the soccer team at the University of Havana. They trust me. My only hesitation is that they might think I have a message from Obama and they would be disappointed that I don't."
Benes, like other supporters of improved relations with Cuba, sees in Obama's victory an opportunity to ease one of the most intractable relationships of the last half-century.
Obama vowed during the campaign to work toward thawing the ice with perennial adversaries like Cuba, Iran and Syria. But his suggestion to meet with Raul Castro without preconditions outraged those exiles who want to continue to isolate Cuba until dissidents are freed and multiparty elections scheduled.
Obama won Florida's 27 electoral votes but not a majority of the Cuban American vote. And the state's three Republican Cuban American members of Congress won reelection on pledges to hold firm on the nearly 47-year-old economic embargo of the island.
Cuba policy analysts differ on how much the next administration can improve relations, since the harsh sanctions were written into law a dozen years ago and require acts of Congress to change.
The victory of Florida's congressional hardliners on Cuba policy -- all of whom supported Republican presidential candidate John McCain -- could be a blessing for Obama if he wants to break with the failed strategy of forcing reform by withholding trade and contact, said John McAuliff of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, which advocates improving ties with Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Cuba.
"President-elect Obama owes nothing to these folks who were key supporters of McCain," McAuliff said of Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, whose aunt Mirta was married to Fidel Castro in the 1950s.
- Latin America summit a proving ground for Obama Apr 16, 2009
- In retirement, Fidel Castro is little seen but often heard Apr 23, 2009
- Reach out to Cuba Jan 12, 2009
