Return of the godfather, part II

PERUVIAN President Fujimori's courageous decision to break the hostage siege at the Japanese Embassy in Lima in April may have frustrated some of Godfather Fidel's latest maneuvers to keep himself in power. As Peruvian commandos stormed into the compound, liberating 71 hostages from Cuban-backed ter- rorists, Castro's foreign minister was in Tokyo trying to extract a ransom payment from the Japanese government.

Evidence of Castro's complicity in the hostage siege was clear from the start, when it was widely reported that the leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), Nestor Cerpa, had been trained in Cuba. Castro's machinations to extract economic concessions from Japan, however, were largely ignored. Visits to Havana by Peru's embattled president and a host of Japanese offi- cials were invariably treated as homage to Castro's statesmanlike efforts to achieve a "peaceful solution" to the crisis. Little light has been shed on the extortionist policies of Cuba's dictator, who has been Latin America's main beneficiary of terrorist ransom since collecting a record $50 million for the return of two Argentine industrialists in 1975.

Even State Department officials who tend to soft-pedal the Cuban regime's vast criminal enterprises admit that "there are clear signs that Castro was exploiting the MRTA's hostage siege to pressure the Japanese." Until relations broke down in 1986, Japan was one of Cuba's main trading partners outside the Soviet Bloc. Learning the same hard lessons as so many others who have tried to have normal dealings with Castro, Japan ended up paying for a lot of sugar it never received; eventually all trade credits and aid to Cuba were suspended.

According to highly informed sources, Castro was arm-twisting the Japanese for a resumption of credit lines and investment, and for forfeiture of Cuba's debt. In return, he would order the MRTA team to lift its siege, giving them asylum in Cuba.

Details of the offer were contained in a letter from Castro to Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto delivered by Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina when he held high-level discussions in Tokyo on April 17. According to official Japanese government statements, "the focus of the discussions between Mr. Robaina and Prime Minister Hashimoto was the hostage crisis in Lima." In the same statement, the Japanese government went on to announce that it would immediately consider extending an unprecedented financial-aid package to Cuba.

The successful raid by highly trained Peruvian special forces five days later may have pre-empted a major deal. As it was, U.S. congressional sources maintain that "Castro's manipulation of the drawn-out hostage episode allowed him to collect a substantial down-payment from the Japanese and re-open important diplomatic channels."

Castro keeps terrorists active in several Latin American countries where Japan has embassies. By the leverage he obtained in the Peru venture, Cuba's Al Capone may now be positioned to open up yet another front against U.S. efforts to isolate him economically.

The Helms-Burton bill tightening the U.S. embargo was mainly aimed at dis- couraging investment from Canada, Europe, and Latin America. The Japanese, having already had enough of Cuba's maximum leader, had not been major bidders in Castro's wild auction of expropriated U.S. properties. But seeing the fric- tion which the strengthened embargo was causing between the U.S. and some of its main trading partners, Castro may have decided to further complicate the American position by bringing in a government that is conditioned to buying its way out of trouble.

It's hardly surprising that the tyrant who was the first ever to experiment with nuclear terrorism back in 1962 should try mugging the Japanese in his desperate efforts to bail out Cuba's sinking economy. Among the measures Castro has instituted recently in order to to suffocate growing domestic dis- content, he has resorted to Pol Pot style "ruralization" of vast segments of urban dwellers, expelling them into the countryside to defuse potential unrest.

What is most remarkable is that the Clinton Administration has treated such a clear and present danger as a mere trade issue. It's becoming painfully obvious that, having won re-election, President Clinton plans to do nothing further to hasten Castro's ouster. A State Department official handling Cuban affairs candidly admits, "We don't supply any material support to the opposi- tion against Castro inside Cuba. We are trying to get European governments with which Cuba has relations to help out the dissidents, but they aren't doing very much."

Media complicity can be relied on to drown out the struggling democratic opposition. Even the most vociferous congressional backers of the tightened embargo approved a special exception to allow CNN to open a bureau in Havana with the hope that expanded news coverage would give dissidents a much-needed outlet. But no news story on the proliferating opposition to Castro and the brutal repression of it has yet emerged. When an American congressman alerted CNN to the plight of an anti-government journalist who was being refused permission to leave Cuba, the network producers expressed no interest. Even after he had taken to sea in a raft, crashed into a rock, and watched his two daughters drown, CNN wasn't there.