February 1, 1999
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
At the most inopportune time, the Republican-controlled House International Relations Committee last week called on the State Department to put Cuba on its narcotics blacklist as a transit point. That move conflicts with the Clinton administration's latest cautious effort to ease the embargo against Fidel Castro's regime.
The new evidence of Cuban drug-running was unearthed Dec. 3 at the Colombian port of Cartagena when the Colombian National Police seized 7 tons of cocaine bound for Cuba. That discovery did not prevent President Clinton from unveiling plans on Jan. 5 for a major easing of trade restrictions with the Western Hemisphere's only communist dictatorship.
From the moment Clinton took office, policy has wavered between national security adviser Sandy Berger's obvious desire to end estrangement with Cuba and the president's dogged quest for the Cuban-American vote. Castro has not made rapprochement easy, barring political activity in his police state but permitting drug traffickers to flourish.
Castro's drug connection is nothing new. Prominent Cuban officials--including Vice Adm. Aldo Santamaria Cuadrado, a vice minister of defense, and Gonzalo Bassols Suarez, deputy chief of mission in Cuba's Venezuelan embassy--are fugitives from U.S. justice on drug-smuggling charges. On Jan. 6, a lawsuit filed in Paris accused Castro of international drug trafficking.
The huge drug bust in Cartagena fit an old pattern. Four days later, the State Department's prepared answer for its daily press briefing noted that ``we would like Cuba to take more effective measures to stem'' the flow of drugs. But no reporter asked, so the State Department did not tell.
That lack of official reaction upset House International Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gilman, who said that ``previous Cuban government involvement in narcotics trafficking is well-documented.'' Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, also deplored the silence.
In a Jan. 6 letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Burton surmised that ``State did not want the air of coddling a ruthless dictator to be muddled by allegations of drug trafficking.'' He quoted ``sources close to the American Embassy'' as telling him that U.S. officials in Colombia ``solicited silence'' from the Colombian National Police on its Cartagena success--a cover-up denied by the State Department.
But Colombian police, who have lost more than 4,000 officers in fighting drug traffickers, would not be muzzled. The CNP announced that drug-runners ``are employing a new trend of loading cocaine into containers transported initially to Cuba for distribution in smaller shipments to the United States and other international consumer markets.''
Gen. Jose Serrano, the CNP commander justly acclaimed for heroism, showed his political courage in pursuing the Cartagena drug bust and not keeping it quiet at a time when his country's new leader has been far more aggressive than Clinton in his overtures to Castro. President Andres Pastrana went to Havana on Jan. 15 to seek the Cuban dictator's help in ending the leftist insurgency in Colombia.
Typically, Burton's Jan. 6 letter to Albright was still unanswered at this writing. A State Department spokesman told me last week that a response from Albright awaited her signature when she returned to her office. Whether she addresses Castro's participation in the narcotics trade is unknown.
Castro's dismissal of Clinton's recent trade overtures as ``crumbs'' is accurate. Nevertheless, the president continues to cautiously seek an opening with the aging tyrant in Havana, even to the point of turning the U.S. government's back on Castro's complicity in drug-dealing.