U.S. OFFICIALS TO VISIT CUBA, DISCUSS COOPERATIVE EFFORTS IN DRUG WAR

Saying it wants to improve U.S.-Cuban cooperation on drug interdiction, the
U.S. government is sending four Coast Guard and State Department officials
to Havana to meet their Cuban counterparts next week.

U.S. officials took pains to play down the visit, portraying it as a
low-level session on issues such as the radio frequencies used by Cuban and
U.S. patrols in an area with an increasingly worrisome ``interdiction gap.

But Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., called it another Clinton
administration attempt at ``appeasement and collaboration'' with a Cuban
regime that he said is deeply involved in drug trafficking.

Michael Ranneberger, head of the State Department's Cuba Desk, denied that
the meeting signaled any change in policy toward Cuba and characterized it
as an attempt to improve the existing system of U.S.-Cuban cooperation in
the war on drugs.

``We are pursuing working-level, operational cooperation in an effort to
plug interdiction gaps on a case-by-case basis, he said. ``This does not
reflect any change in our Cuba policy. We have been engaged in this for a
number of years and the current [visit] fits within those parameters.

Cuba and the Coast Guard station in Miami long ago established a telex line,
later upgraded to a fax line, to alert each other to potential
drug-trafficking plane and ship movements.

President Clinton's drug czar, former Gen. Barry McCaffrey, said last month
that Cuba had shown a willingness to step up cooperation with U.S. officials
on interdiction but had been largely ineffective.

Cuba's ability to patrol its own waters and airspace has been drastically
reduced since the collapse of Soviet subsidies hit its military and border
patrol.

U.S. officials have recently reported an increase in the use of Cuban
airspace and waters by narcotics traffickers. Large airplanes or boats drop
off drug loads in areas where Havana forces cannot reach them, for pickup by
fast boats that deliver the loads to Florida.

Even so, the government makes drug seizures from time to time. On Friday
Cuba announced that it had seized half a ton of cocaine and arrested three
Bahamians in a boat off the northern coast of Camaguey province, the sixth
drug seizure in the region since the beginning of the year.

A senior U.S. official who participated in the decision to send the U.S.
team to Havana said the four Americans will meet Monday with similarly
low-level Cuban counterparts from the Foreign Ministry and border patrol.

Among the items on the U.S. agenda are requests to upgrade the fax line
between Miami and Havana to a voice line, and to coordinate the radio
frequencies used by U.S. and Cuban ships and planes in drug cases, the
official said.

Not on the agenda is any possibility of sharing intelligence reports on drug
trafficking, carrying out joint operations or providing U.S. assistance to
Cuba's drug enforcers, the official said.

Maria Travierso of El Nuevo Herald contributed to this report.