Uncertain about the condition of US nemesis, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the Bush administration said Tuesday it would not alter its policy towards the Caribbean nation with which it has had no regular diplomatic communications for the past six years.

“There are no plans to reach out,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow, who stressed that Castro’s transfer of power to his brother, Raúl, should be seen as the latest affront to the democratic aspirations of Cuba’s population.

“Raúl Castro’s attempt to impose himself on the Cubans is much the same as what his brother did,” according to Snow. “ His remarks were the most definitive US reaction since Monday night’s announcement that Fidel Castro, who turns 80 this month, had temporarily ceded power to his brother, 75, pending a medical operation.

“This must be very serious, because he’s never handed off power before,” said William LeoGrande, a Cuba specialist at American University in Washington DC. “This may be an opportunity for him to have a kind of dry run to see how well Raúl can step into the role of symbolic leader of the revolution,” he added.

The transfer of power came just three weeks after the administration’s release of 93-page report for transforming Cuba into a democratic state with a free-market economy. Among other things, the paper, the product of a commission headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, calls for the creation of a $80 million “Cuba Fund for a Democratic Future”. Under the plan, Washington would provide $31 million to “pro-democracy groups” in Cuba and another $24 million on “efforts to break the Castro regime’s information blockade.”

The report made clear that the administration would only be willing to provide assistance if asked by a “transitional” government which made a commitment to transform the country into a free-market democracy within 18 months.

“The US has spent a lot of time planning for what really is the least likely scenario, which is a rapid transition to a pro-US, democratic government,” said Dan Erickson, a Cuba analyst. “What we’re seeing is a kind of gradual succession process where Raúl is taking control.” “The best thing would be for the US to re-engage Cuba, because there are a lot of people there we should be talking to,” according to Geoff Thale, a Cuba specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Thale described a worst-case scenario where anti-Castro Cuban-Americans, believing that population is ready to be “liberated”, try to take boats to Cuba and are arrested in Cuban waters. “It’s possible,” said LeoGrande, “but you’ve got to figure that the Cubans are on a heightened state of alert on the expectation that crazy people in Miami might try to do something like that. In fact, I hope that the US is on the alert, too, and both sides are very much aware of the potential for Cuban-American adventurism to provoke a serious conflict between the two countries.” — IPS