By Jim Loney
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro's three-island Caribbean tour, rife with symbolic moments reaffirming ties to his allies, yielded little that was concrete to prop up his ailing country, analysts said Tuesday.
During his six-day trip, Castro met in Jamaica with his old rival, former Prime Minister Edward Seaga, paid homage at the tomb of his old friend, former Prime Minister Michael Manley, and stood by as the current prime minister, P.J. Patterson, denounced the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba.
In Barbados, the Cuban leader joined a march celebrating the demise of slavery and laid a wreath honoring victims of the 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion jet, blamed on anti-Castro Cuban exiles, although Prime Minister Owen Arthur pointedly did not make a public call for an end to the embargo.
In Grenada, Castro received a hero's welcome on sites where U.S. and Cuban troops battled face to face 15 years ago, and was hailed by some residents as a giant of Third World politics and a champion of the poor.
"Most of the countries (in the region) appear to be willing to take Cuba without changes," Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said.
Mitchell, like Patterson, had made a strong call for the lifting of the U.S. embargo at a public rally Monday, calling it "immoral."
"It's a great show. It's great newspaper headlines. I'm sure the foreign ministry in Cuba is just ecstatic over the visit," said Richard Nuccio, a former top aide to President Clinton on Cuba.
But, he said: "This isn't going to pay Cuba's bills."
Cuba, its economy already floundering since the demise of its Cold War ties to the Soviet Union, has announced that its 1997/98 sugar harvest is one of the lowest in years. The country also has been hit by its worst drought in decades, the cause of an estimated $60 million in losses to food crops.
The visit may also have further strained U.S. ties to the English-speaking Caribbean. During the trip, U.S. officials ridiculed suggestions the tour was a diplomatic coup.
"There may still be places Castro can visit and receive a public welcome, but not one nation has expressed an interest in adopting Castro's (Communist) system, no matter how much proselytizing he does," U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin told a news briefing on Monday.
"And we note that wherever he goes, private citizens protest the visit. So I would hardly call it a victory tour."
The United States cut its aid to the Caribbean by 90 percent from 1985 to 1995, and Cuba has stepped in with some support for its neighbors. During his trip, Castro announced dozens of new scholarships in Cuba and pledged support for rebuilding Grenada's airport.
"It (the trip) was a diplomatic and a political success for Castro," said Max Castro, an analyst at the University of Miami's North-South Center. "I think it shows that the Caribbean is setting off on a very independent course in its relations with Cuba."
Caribbean leaders also have expressed anger with the United States for its objections to European trade advantages given to its key banana crop, and the U.S. failure to give the Caribbean parity in the North American Free Trade Agreement.
But Castro's courtship of his tiny Caribbean neighbors - Jamaica, the largest, has about 3 million residents - paled beside his former ties to the then-superpower Soviet Union. Barbados has about 260,000 people and Grenada just 100,000.
"They are not big players," said Uva de Aragon, acting director of the Cuban Research Institute at Miami's Florida International University.
"It's a way for Cuba to show that it is not alone, or isolated, as is often said," she said. "But it doesn't seem that it would be the kind of significant, especially economic, impact that Cuba would need to make some positive steps toward recovery, getting out of the economic crisis."
"I guess what Castro's hoping is that by showing that he's not isolated, but that the U.S. is isolated in the long run, these kinds of things will turn the tide against the embargo and the United States and then, that will, he hopes, produce the kind of economic results that this trip is not going to produce," the University of Miami's Max Castro said.
"In the short run, you can't eat these victories."
23:00 08-04-98
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