AMCHAM CUBA NEWSLETTER  for  January 2001

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS                                                        JANUARY 2001

 

1. CFR Cuba policy recommendations protested, touched some nerves

2. Cuban international initiatives

3. US-Cuba legislation and regulations

4. Variable advice to Bu sh Administration on Cuba

5. Cuba sources, courses and meetings

 

OPINION CORNER.  Recommendations of the Inter-American Dialogue with regard to US policies towards Cuba are on page 4.   

 

 

1. Vehement reactions to recent bipartisan recommendations to smooth post-Castro transition.   Former Undersecretary William D. Rogers told an AmCham Cuba audience Jan.  24 that reactions to the recently issued bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations’ task force report (see www.cfr.org) included some that were extreme.  For example, from several Cuban-American Cuba-watchers came such comments as "totally wrong" and "humanitarian capitulation!.  Cuba itself gave it 6 hours of intense commentary - none favorable.  Senator Helms’ press secretary,  Marc Thiessen, issued a long dissent to all its recommendations except for the promotion of international labor standards in Cuba.  Jason Feer’s CUBANews for December cited Rutgers University Prof. Irving Horowitz’ charge that the CFR report would “sustain indefinitely one of the world’s last remaining totalitarian regimes,” and, anyway,  Castro would not be interested in proposals to reduce the hostility between Washington and Havana “which has served him so well”.        

 

2. Cuba’s latest international forays.   Castro’s arrest mid-January of two prominent Czechs for engaging in “subversive activities” by talking with Cuban dissidents provoked a number of international protests, including Czech President Havel, EU President Prodi, and the United States.  By Jan. 24, six Czech Members of Parliament had received Cuban visas for a trip to negotiate release of the imprisoned Ivan Pilip and Jan Bubenik. 

 

Castro has reportedly forbidden doctors to write prescriptions for medicines from Caritas, the Catholic charity.  Municipal health Director Gilberto Ramos told a recent assembly of health workers near Cienfuegos that the Ministry of Public Health had warned that doctors doing so would be “severely punished.”  

 

US-Cuban talks on immigration, apparently more conciliatory” than last September, made small gains related to medical examinations for Cuban emigrees, documentation of fraud, and permission to use a Cuban deep-water port to return illegal migrants.   

 

Italy, third largest foreign investor in Cuba, offers technical and commercial information to would-be Italian investors, and has signed agreements with Cuba state agencies.  Italy has participated in Cuba trade fairs, trained Cuban workers in marketing, agriculture, textiles, and monument restoration, and expects to send more business delegations to Cuba.

 

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Rocca visited Tehran Jan. 21 to discuss expanding bilateral economic cooperation between the two US-sanctioned countries.  Cuban/Iranian trade is valued about US$ 100 million, largely sugar, other agricultural products, fish, and biotechnology, and could expand to new items like medicines and industrial goods, drawing on short-term export credits approved by Iran last year.. 

 

3. US-Cuba legal relations.  The first Cuban-American claim for compensation for seized property has been forwarded by Sen. Helms to the State Department.  This follows a breakdown of negotiations between the Spanish hotel chain Grupo Sol Melia and the exiled Sanchez family which seeks compensation for seizure of 100,000 acres of sugar lands it owned and charges Sol Melia with “wilfully trafficking” in confiscated property.  Reports of a $1 million offer from Sol Melia to the family to drop the claim have not been confirmed.   

 

Senators Pat Roberts (R-KA)  and Byron Dorgan  (D-ND) have introduced legislation to allow US export credits to be offered to Cuba, to let US banks make loans on sales, and to exempt Cuba from a one-year limit on food sale licenses.   Other legislation may be introduced to remove prohibitions on vessels traveling to Cuba, to be co-sponsored with Senators Charles Hagel (R-NE) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT). 

 

President Clinton, three days before leaving office, again suspended for six months the application of Title III of the Helms-Burton law.  This waives the right of US nationals to sue traffickers for confiscated uncompensated property in Cuba. 

 

Meanwhile, some 115 US-based businesses operate in Cuba under special licenses, according to Joe Sharkey in the NY Times of Jan. 10, quoting John Kavulich of the US-Cuba Trade & Economic Council (see www.cubatrade.org).   US licenses are approved for US firms and individuals providing tourism support, education/research in various fields, journalism, and humanitarian aid, among other fields.

 

4.  Perspectives on Bush Administration stance on Cuba.  Reports issued in anticipation of the new President reflect a wide range of differing US views on Cuba.   

 

With regard to what one can expect Bush to do, Reuters’ Anthony Boadle wrote Jan. 24 that “few analysts believe [Bush]…will dramatically change US policy.”   They expect him both to maintain the status quo and to “resist hard-line demands to allow [the] legal steps against foreign investors that prompted an outcry from the European Union and Canada four years ago.”  Consistent with this view, Boadle reported that Pres. Bush had jumped over hard-liner Roger Noriega, aide to Sen. Helms, for the key Latin American advisory position in the National Security Council (NSC), in favor of John Maisto, recently US ambassador to Venezuela and career diplomat since 1968.  Boadle believes Bush can sit back and let the US-Cuba issues play out in Congress, while US restrictions on Cuba gradually fall by the wayside. 

 

Dr. Wayne Smith of Johns Hopkins Univ. has been quoted as not expecting “any real change”, although “it may become a little more difficult to get licenses to travel to Cuba.” 

 

CSIS (Center for Strategic & Intl. Studies) Latin America program Deputy Director’s Coughenour predicted Bush may be “much more beholden to the traditional lobby that supports continuation [and]…strengthening of the embargo.”

 

A rather proactive set of vignettes was authored by Cuban Americans on a recent trip to Cuba with CAAEF (Cuban American Alliance Education Fund) strongly urge family reunification efforts.  Cuban American Perspectives on the Need to Normalize US-Cuba Relations describes the visitors’ efforts to revive family contacts while in Cuba.  CAAEF claims recognition as a “rational” voice in the Cuban-American community seeking solutions to problems facing them (see www.cubamer.org.).

 

Daniel W. Fisk, now at the Heritage Foundation, challenges the Administration to either be driven by anti-embargo Congressional initiatives or become a leader on Cuba.   He blames recent initiatives by US business, including the food and agriculture lobby and people-to-people contacts, for fractures in the Helms-Burton coalition in Congress, Ralph Galliano reported in his Dec. 31 US-Cuba Policy Report.  Fisk’s views appeared in the Washington Quarterly of CSIS and MIT (Mass.Inst./Technology), Winter 2001 (see www.twq.com/winter01/fisk.html).

 

A new group, the Cuba Policy Foundation, formed by Steven Goldstein with support from the Fund for Constitutional Government, will “be partisan and reflect the current situation in Washington” where Goldstein says, majorities in both Houses favor change in US-Cuba policies, reports the Washington Post/Newsweek Jan. 24.   

 

A thoughtful pamphlet, A Time for Decisions: US Policy in the Western Hemisphere, was just issued by IAD (Inter-American Dialogue) (see www.thedialogue.org).   With aims similar to those of the more recent Independent Task Force of the Council on Foreign Relations, summarized last month, the IAD message to the new Administration reflects IAD's latest biennial plenary Sol LInowitz Forum co-chaired by Peter D. Bell and Osvaldo Hurtado.  Some 100 distinguished US, Canadian, and Latin American leaders and international affairs experts participated in broad discussions on the most difficult Hemispheric challenges facing the United States.  On Cuban issues, the report recognizes that there are no easy solutions, but calls it “crucial” that these be addressed “squarely, and more through multilateral initiative than unilateral US action.”  IAD urges the Administration to try to maximize prospects for Cuba’s peaceful transition toward democratic politics and market-driven economics.  Its Cuba recommendations are quoted in the Opinion Corner space below. 

 

On Jan. 29, CANF (Cuban American National Foundation) joined seven other Cuban-American exile organizations in a strident challenge to Bush on the “morality” of a “policy of appeasement”.  The signatories decry Castro’s “military” and other obstructions of the US, also US information-sharing with him on “legitimate democratic activities of the [US} exile community”.  They call his a dictatorship “worse than…Noriega” and strongly oppose conciliation towards this political executioner who imprisons citizens for political views and threatens nuclear contamination.  “Reconciliation, which would be the saving grace for this regime,” they say, “cannot and must not take place” because it would be “an eternal blemish on America’s long and glorious history of freedom and democracy.” Co-signers are the Veteran’s Assn. of the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Medical Assn. in Exile, Democratic Independent Cuba, World Federation of Cuban Former Political Prisoners, Mothers & Women against Repression, Cuban Municipalities in Exile, the Protagonist Party of the People, and Cuban Unity.  Meanwhile, CANF will call its new Washington headquarters an “Embassy for a Free Cuba”.

 

5. Resources, courses, and meetings on Cuba.  ICCAS (Inst. for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies of UMiami) has announced a Wednesday evening, Spanish language class on Cuba and Latin America’s revolutionary processes, offered by Dr. Luis Aguilar Leon 2/25-4/25 from 7-9 pm at 1531 Brescia Av. in Coral Gables.  Call 305-284-CUBA, or e-mail murizar@miami.edu

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Some 400 specialists from Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa will attend the Third International Economic Meeting on Globalization & Development Problems in Havana Jan. 29-Feb. 2.   They will focus on “dollarization”, international trade steps to benefit developing nations, and “solutions” rather than the diagnostic emphasis of prior meetings.  Speakers will also include Peter Hakim, IAD President, Michael Gavin of the Warburg Bank, and representatives of the major international organizations and financial institutions.

 

IAD (Inter-American Dialogue) will host Jorge Mas Santos, CANF (Cuban-American Fdn) chairman 6-7:30 pm at the Carnegie Endowment for Intl. Peace, 1779 Mass. Av. NW.  Mr. Mas will discuss CANF's changing strategies and plans.  To reserve, fax your name and organization to 202-822-9553, or e-mail agrabowski@thedialgue.org.

 

IFCO/Pastors for Peace announces expanded medical training in Cuba for US minorities and other under-served US youths aged 18-25.   After medical studies at no cost, they would return to offer health care to under-served areas of the US.  For information call 212-926-5757, e:ifco@igc.org, or see http://www.ifco.news.org.  .

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OPINION CORNER:  The following recommendations for US-Cuba policies is excerpted verbatim from A Time for Decisions, recently issued by the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington:  [ BOB – I need to get permission from IAD I guess.]

 

Events over the past two years have paved the way for overhauling US policy toward Cuba.  Important, if modest, changes have recently been implemented, and support for a far more extensive shift in policy has expanded sharply within the US business community, in the US Congress (where advocates of change now command a majority in both houses), among the general public, and even within the Cuba-American community.  Few now take seriously the argument that the embargo and other US sanctions will hasten the downfall of Fidel Castro, or bring even modest political or economic changes to Cuba.  Virtually no one considers Cuba a threat to US security or that of any other country.  Indeed, Cuba now participates in a group of countries supporting Colombia’s peace negotiations with the guerillas, and some see Cuba as a potential US ally in the war against drugs. 

 

The next US president should undertake to dismantle the web of restrictive laws and policies that block efforts to reintegrate Cuba into hemispheric affairs.  It is time for the United States to shift to a policy of engagement and dialogue to press the Cuban government to end its repressive practices, restore the rule of law, and stop committing human rights abuses – even if, realistically, dramatic improvements in Cuba’s performance in these areas is unlikely.

 

US policy should be redesigned mainly to increase the prospects that, once the Fidel Castro government is over, Cuba will have a peaceful and successful transition toward democratic politics and market-driven economics.  This change would end the United States’ own international isolation on the Cuba issue.  It would allow Washington to begin cooperating with the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as with those of Canada, Europe, and Japan – all of whom share the US goal of a peaceful transition to democracy, but resist Washington’s uncompromising approach.  [END OF OPINION CORNER]

 

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Keep us advised of meetings and views you would like us to share with other members!

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Phoebe T. Lansdale

Executive Director                                                                                                     January 30, 2001

Editorial Review:  Robert Weekley,
AmCham Cuba President