By Serge F. Kovaleski
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 28, 1999; Page A21

HAVANA—A billboard on the side of a building in this dilapidated capital heralded the arrival earlier this month of Belize's prime minister, Said Musa, whose portrait was sketched on the poster next to warm words of welcome in Spanish and English.

In preceding weeks, the same billboard had extended similar greetings to the leaders of St. Lucia, Colombia and Suriname. Meanwhile, the island has been all but overrun by foreign ministers from countries such as Peru, Belgium and Canada.

In the year since Pope John Paul II's historic visit to Cuba, the government of President Fidel Castro has launched what it terms "the offensive," a diplomatic full-court press aimed at forging political and economic ties with nations around the world as a way to combat the long-standing U.S. trade embargo against this Communist country.

Closer ties could help ease a grinding economic crisis that is largely the result of U.S. sanctions and the disappearance of large subsidies that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

But the initiative also carries symbolic importance for Castro, who is trying to present Cuba as a more open state and one that has been able to circumvent U.S. efforts to isolate this island of 11 million people.

Capitalizing on the pontiff's call for improved relations between Cuba and the rest of the world, Castro has invited a multitude of foreign dignitaries to visit the Western Hemisphere's last bastion of communism. They have responded in kind, forging agreements on issues from trade to scientific research and cultural exchanges that could pave the way for more substantive cooperation.

According to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, 36 heads of state and 92 ministers came last year to Cuba, which now maintains diplomatic relations with 167 countries, the latest being New Zealand, which signed on this month.

Meanwhile, Castro has dispatched Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina on trips from Russia to Asia. Earlier this month, Carlos Lage, vice president of the Cuban Council of Ministers, flew to Spain, where it was announced that King Juan Carlos I would visit Cuba this spring.

Castro also has done his share of traveling. Last year, he visited 15 countries, including Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and the Dominican Republic, to build opposition to the embargo and promote unity in the Caribbean, where Cuba is emerging as a dominant economic force mainly because of its thriving tourism industry. The regional Caribbean Export Development Agency is set to open a Havana office within two months.

The country also has sent hundreds of physicians and other health professionals to areas of the Caribbean and Central America that were ravaged by Hurricane Mitch last year, and more recently to Armenia, Colombia, which was badly damaged by an earthquake in January. Colombian President Andres Pastrana has sought Castro's help in trying to negotiate a peace settlement with Colombia's leftist rebel groups.

"Cuba has had some great diplomatic victories over the last year," acknowledged a high-ranking U.S. State Department official.

Spurred by the Soviet collapse, Cuba had begun to expand its links to the outside world even before the pope's visit. But the pontiff's words -- "May Cuba, with all its magnificent potential, open itself up to the world, and may the world open itself up to Cuba," have clearly helped speed that process.

In building ties with Cuba, many countries have been openly showing their contempt for the embargo and efforts by Washington to pressure them into isolating the island. But commercial considerations also play an important role in their courtship of Castro's government.

A visit by a British trade official last November, for example, paved the way for British Airways service between London and Havana, which it expects to inaugurate this April. In December, South Africa's deputy health minister came to Cuba to explore the prospects for pharmaceutical sales. And several commercial accords were signed earlier this month after a visit here by Peruvian government and business leaders.

But the mystique of Cuba and that of its 73-year-old leader also have attracted emissaries who now are more willing to defy an embargo that the pope condemned during his visit here. "What this all shows is that we are not the isolated ones," said a top-ranking official in Cuba's Central Committee. "We are part of the world . . . and many people around the world are fascinated with the social project we have been working on for a long time."

John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said, "All of this international activity is of tremendous public relations value because it shows that an increasing number of countries are accepting what Cuba is and not what it should be or will be."

He added, however, that "once it gets past the diplomatic-relations stage, the real challenge of accountability comes. More nations may start becoming vocal about the way Cuba is governed."

Cuba received a dose of criticism this month when Isabel Allende, a Cuban deputy foreign minister, visited Norway the day after Cuban lawmakers approved tough laws to neutralize U.S.-linked opposition to the Castro government.

At a news conference with Allende following private discussions about political prisoners and dissidents in Cuba, Norway's deputy foreign minister, Janne Haaland Matlary, said, "Cuba's new penal laws are too strict in comparison to the crime." Allende later retorted, "We need strict punishment for those who collaborate with the United States. . . . This is a matter of our independence."

The laws, which included measures designed to stem an alarming rise in crime, were passed following President Clinton's decision last month to ease the embargo, a move that Castro views as a ploy to undermine his government.

While acknowledging their discomfort with Castro's approach to human rights, representatives of governments that are seeking better relations with Cuba insist that their approach is more likely to produce democratic change than the U.S. policy of isolating the country.

"We think constructive engagement with more countries will help move Cuba toward greater reforms on such issues as human rights, good governance and a more open economy," said Christian Girouard, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Canada, which is the biggest investor in Cuba.

Aware that it cannot go it alone anymore, Cuba has been focusing on integrating itself into the Caribbean market as a means of eventually obtaining favorable trade agreements with Latin America and ultimately Europe. Castro already has signed a number of trade and tourism pacts with Cuba's regional neighbors.

Cuba, which has been visited by almost every Caribbean head of state, has observer status in the Caribbean trading bloc known as CARICOM and is expected to be accepted into the 15-country group soon.

"It appears the resources Cuba can provide, such as human capital, medicine, education and natural disaster response, has led CARICOM to forge closer ties with it," said Randolph Hickson, marketing officer for the Caribbean Export Development Agency. "There is potential in Cuba."