By Pascal Fletcher, 12:31 a.m. Feb 19, 1999 Eastern
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba said Thursday it was ready to consider U.S. moves to modify its existing economic embargo against the communist-ruled Caribbean island, but only if these were not ``subversive'' in their intent.
Cuban authorities, who this week announced a tough new anti-subversion law, were adopting a wait-and-see attitude to modifications of the U.S. embargo announced by President Clinton last month, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said.
``The modifications are not there yet, the application is not there. We will see. In each specific case, we will analyze what is meant,'' Gonzalez said at a weekly news briefing.
Havana was not opposed to increased bilateral visits and exchanges in the areas of sports, culture or science, nor to possible commercial initiatives. But it would not accept any measures whose intent was to ``subvert internal order,'' Gonzalez said.
He was replying to queries on whether the anti-subversion law, which targets those in Cuba judged to be ``collaborating'' with the U.S. embargo policy against the island, implied a total rejection by Havana of each and every one of the U.S. measures announced by Clinton on Jan. 5.
These had included a widening of approval for flights and cash remittances to Cuba, increased people-to-people contacts, a proposal to establish direct postal links and authorization for the possible sale of U.S. food and farm supplies to private individuals or non-government entities on the island.
U.S. officials said the intention of the measures was to enhance human communication and ease the effects of the U.S. sanctions on the Cuban people, while maintaining the embargo's economic and political squeeze on the Cuban government.
Gonzalez, repeating the public Cuban position already expressed by President Fidel Castro and other officials, said the U.S. measures were a ``big fraud'' aimed at duping the world community into thinking the embargo was being eased.
He said the new ``Law for the Protection of National Independence and Economy'' aimed to resist all U.S. efforts to foment subversion in Cuba through providing U.S. financial or other support for anti-government dissidents
The Cuban legislation establishes jails terms of up to 20 years for anyone judged to be collaborating with the 1996 Helms-Burton Law, which tightens the long-running U.S. embargo against Cuba, and all other forms of U.S. hostility against the island, such as ``economic war'' and ``subversion''.
``Counterrevolutionaries are not going to like this law. The U.S. government is not going to like this law (because) it is specifically designed to block its hostility,'' Gonzalez said.
The new Cuban legislation appeared to be directly aimed at curbing the activities of political dissidents and independent journalists on the island who oppose and criticize Castro's one-party communist government.
Asked about international reaction, Gonzalez said: ``The law can be interpreted as good, moderate or bad or whatever. But it is our law.'' He said those in Cuba willing to ``sell their soul'' to the United States should ``respect it (the law) or assume the consequences.''
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited