U.S. says no Cuba policy change as Fidel goes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Fidel Castro's departure will not change Bush administration policy toward Cuba, with an embargo and other restrictions intact so long as Castro's brother -- dubbed a "dictator lite" -- is in charge.

U.S. officials and Cuba experts said with Raul Castro carrying on his brother's 49-year reign, there would be little chance of a shift in the isolation policy and hostile rhetoric that has marked U.S.-Cuba ties for nearly half a century.

"This is a transfer of authority and power from one dictator to dictator 'lite' -- from Fidel to Raul. That is something we don't want to see happen," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey of Fidel Castro's announced retirement on Tuesday.

The United States has been preparing in recent years for the departure of Castro, 81, dusting off a transition plan it hoped would lead to new era in ties as the communist island moved toward democratic rule with free and fair elections.

But Cuba experts said the Bush administration, whose own term ends in January, 2009, was in wait-and-see mode and any changes would come from the next U.S. president rather than the current White House.

"I don't think there will be any political opening in the short term under Raul," said Peter DeShazo, director of the Americas program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank.

Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have suggested they might lift a decades-old trade embargo if the island country set up democratic reforms, while Republican front-runner John McCain said the United States must keep the pressure on Cuba's communist government.

Washington broke off diplomatic relations with Havana in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro seized power in a revolution and turned Cuba into a Soviet ally.

EMBARGO REMAINS

Communications were restored with the opening of low-level diplomatic missions called interest sections in 1978. However, a strict sanctions regime is in place.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was emphatic that the current economic blockage would remain. "I can't imagine that happening any time soon," he said when asked whether the Bush administration would lift the blockade.

Angel Rabasa, a senior policy analyst at the RAND organization, said Raul Castro was highly unlikely to undertake any significant changes in the near or medium term.

"Therefore, we are not likely to see any meaningful policy changes in Cuba. In fact it could be the opposite, given the uncertainty of Cuba's future, the regime is more likely to favor a very cautious and conservative approach," said Rabasa.

Even if the administration wanted to ease restrictions, experts said there was a tangled mass of laws that needed to be unraveled and the anti-Castro lobby in Congress would resist any concessions.

The United States has laid down a list of goals that have to be met for there to be any change in U.S. policy. These include the freeing of political prisoners, the guarantee of human rights, allowing trade unions to be formed and a "pathway" created to elections.

"Eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections, and I mean free and I mean fair," President George W. Bush said in reaction to Castro's retirement. "Not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as being true democracy."

Rabasa said while the United States might not immediately change its policy, it needed to be prepared for any violent uprising and a predictable exodus of Cubans to U.S. shores if that happened.

"We can't predict how Cuba will evolve but what is certain to happen is that the current system cannot be sustained," said Rabasa.

(Editing by David Wiessler)