Poll: Support for Cuban embargo eroding (exiles-the special demo of US 1st class citizens/residents)

The Cuban embargo continues to divide the exile community, though support seems to be eroding, a recent poll reveals.

The single question was posed last month to 400 Cuban Americans, mainly in Florida:

Are you in favor or against continuing the U.S. embargo on Cuba?

• 41 percent said they are against keeping the embargo.

• 40 said they were for it.

• 19 percent said they didn't know or gave no answer.

Pollsters said the response shows the topic remains a highly emotional one in Florida and nationwide.

``Those numbers reveal that the community has been unable to reach a consensus, but it also shows thawing,'' said Fernand Amandi, executive vice president for Bendixen & Associates.

``Six or seven years ago, it would have been heresy for such high support for doing away with the embargo.''

The Bendixen firm conducted the poll on Aug. 24. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The question was commissioned by the polling firm, which has been measuring the opinion of the Cuban exile community for years.

Typical for such polls, closer identification of respondents spotlights that support for the embargo depends on age, decade of arrival from the island and place of birth -- the United States or Cuba.

The poll showed that:

• Of Cubans 65 and older, 54 percent continue to support the embargo, while 27 percent want to end it and 19 percent don't know.

• Of Cubans who arrived in 1960 or before, 62 percent want to continue the embargo, while 23 percent do not and 15 percent don't know.

• Of those born in Cuba, 47 percent said they want the embargo to continue. Only 23 percent of those born in the United States feel that way, the poll showed.

The poll also reveals how many Cubans have never wavered from their conviction that the embargo is the best punishment against the Castro brothers.

``There are some Cubans, mainly those from the historic exile, who will always believe in the effectiveness of the embargo -- and that will not change,'' Amandi said.

But this poll, like others in recent years, captures eroding support for maintaining the embargo.

``It shows an evolution of thought,'' said Amandi.

``After 50 years, some Cubans have come to the painful revelation that the embargo might not have been the most effective tool against the Castro regime,'' he said.