HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Pope John Paul II's trip to Cuba this Wednesday has opened debate about one of the longest-held taboos in American foreign policy: the U.S. trade embargo on Havana. The Vatican has condemned Washington's ever-tightening ban on aid, trade, and travel to Cuba. So have the United Nations General Assembly and governments from every corner of the globe and of every political stripe.

Human rights organizations often find themselves calling on the American government to slap economic sanctions on dictatorial governments. In many cases, sanctions are one of the few tools available for punishing tyrants. But in the case of Cuba, the embargo has proven to be a tool that just doesn't work. It aims for the overthrow of the government, rather than concrete steps towards democratization and respect for human rights. The embargo has hurt ordinary Cubans more than their leader, and it should be abandoned.

It's not just that the embargo has failed, ever since it was imposed in 1961, to bring about the end of the Castro government, or even a moderation of its policies. Worse still, the embargo has made enemies of all of Washington's potential allies. It has given governments all over the world an excuse to remain silent even as Castro locks up non-violent dissidents in horrendous conditions for activities that no other government in this hemisphere has laws against -- such as the crime of "illegal printing." The great majority of Latin American democratic presidents we have approached to press for human rights improvements in Cuba have resisted our efforts, because they don't want to be seen as joining Washington's bullying tactics. As long as the embargo remains in place, Latin sympathies will rest with Havana.

Where has this stalemate left dissidents in Cuba? In prison, where food and medicine are scarce, and beatings and isolation plentiful. The gulf between Washington's policies and those of other countries has left Cuba's political prisoners with too few defenders abroad. Take the case of Héctor Palacios Ruiz, who has tried to head an independent political party called Democratic Solidarity. Cuban authorities arrested Palacios Ruiz last January and seized his copies of the Declaration of Viña del Mar. That declaration, which President Castro signed in late 1996, committed the signatories to respecting democracy and civil and political rights. Palacios Ruiz, now sentenced to eighteen months in prison, had publicly questioned Castro's willingness to comply with the declaration.

You would think the other signers of Viña del Mar -- every Latin American country, plus Spain and Portugal -- might have something to say about Palacios Ruiz's case. But their rift with Washington has guaranteed their almost unanimous silence on this -- and on hundreds of other cases of prisoners of conscience. Meanwhile, Castro remains the only leader in the hemisphere who denies requests from the International Committee of the Red Cross to carry out its humanitarian work inside Cuban prisons.

Calibrated sanctions -- in which specific penalties are tied to specific abusive practices, such as the criminalization of free expression and association -- can be a useful tool for pressuring obdurate governments to respect human rights. But the trade embargo is an indiscriminate policy intended to produce revolutionary change. As spelled out in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidariy Act of 1996, the embargo will be lifted only when "a transition government in Cuba is in power," one that "does not include Fidel Castro or Raul Castro." It should therefore come as no surprise that Castro has little interest in taking steps to please Washington. This all-or-nothing approach has caused great suffering for the Cuban population, while Castro's repressive machinery has remained untouched.

Moreover, Washington sends a signal of disrespect for human rights itself with its ban on spending U.S dollars in Cuba, which effectively bars almost all U.S. travel to Cuba -- in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that the U.S. has signed.

So how should the Clinton administration promote human rights in Cuba? There is no easy answer to that question. The European Union's new carrot and stick approach, adopted in December 1996, ties economic cooperation to specific human rights improvements. It is a promising effort, but is overshadowed by Washington's sledgehammer approach.

At the end of this year, Castro is likely to celebrate his fortieth year in power: a tiny island of socialism defying the world's capitalist superpower, just ninety miles from its shores. It's time to recognize what a disastrous failure the embargo has been. Because it has guaranteed the world's solidarity with this hemisphere's last dictatorship, the embargo has not only failed as a solution, it has become, in many respects, the problem. The United States has proven incapable of bringing about democratic reform in Cuba by acting alone. Progress will not be possible as long as the embargo -- the greatest single obstacle to international coalition building around Cuba -- remains in place.

José Miguel Vivanco is exective director, and Anne Manuel, deputy director, of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch.