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LIFTING THE CUBAN TRADE EMBARGO?
The following excerpts were taken from a
study entitled "Seven
bad reasons in support of the lifting of the
Cuban trade embargo and how to refute them,"
by Franz Eugen Wagner, Ph.D.
I take it that the debate question for
discussion: "What would benefit Cuba now"
revolves principally around the issue of
Cuban trade embargo. Since I have but a
limited amount of time to discuss a complex
topic that requires detailed attention and
disquisition, I shall try to be as concise
as possible and deal with the arguments for
and against in its most essential aspects. I
shall deal with the objections against the
embargo that I have heard most often,
followed by a rebuttal.
1. The Cuban trade embargo is unfair. It is
not sanctioned by international law. It
should be given up unconditionally.
"Unconditionally." This much has Fidel
Castro said in an interview with a
Venezuelan journalist in the early 90’s,
although lately he has agreed, after 40
years of unwillingness to even broach the
subject, to discuss the issue of monetary
compensation to the American companies he
confiscated in the 60’s, If, as a quid pro
quo, the United States is willing to factor
in the "damages" that the embargo has caused
to Cuba. Getting the cues from Castro, one
so-called NGO in Cuba, the "Asociacion
Nacional de Economistas Cubanos (ANEC)" in
declaration to be submitted in a conference
devoted to financing the development of poor
nations, held in Mexico in March 2002,
claimed that due to the various actions of
the embargo, the well being of the Cuban
people had been affected to the tune of no
less than $70 billion dollars since 1960!
However, Castro’s cohorts cannot even agree
on the extent of the "damages" brought about
by the embargo. According to the
declarations of Fernando Ramirez, ranking
Cuban diplomat in the United States, before
the International Trade Commission in
September 2000, the embargo has now caused
different economic damages, $300 billion,
not $70 billion! which includes the
outlandish and unquantifiable "compensation
for human misery." Given the wide
discrepancy in the figures provided by
Castro’s own minions, one cannot but
conclude that neither of these figures is
reliable, both having been pulled out of
Castro’s bag of magic tricks, much in the
same manner a magician pulls rabbits out of
his hat. So much for the trust we must place
in Castro’s statistics.
The embargo was not unfair and whatever
damage it may have initially brought about,
was self inflicted. It was Fidel Castro’s
action that was both unfair and harmful to
the Cuban nation as well as the American and
Cuban investors, for it involved downright
theft and helped fuel the animosity of the
U.S. government against his regime. It must
be remembered that what prompted the U.S. to
slap such a measure is the fact that Castro
expropriated American properties, beginning
with land, and never made arrangements to
pay for such properties, as international
law requires.
On October 25, 1960, Fidel Castro, with a
stroke of a pen, confiscated 166 enterprises
belonging to American companies or
individuals, including Sears Roebuck,
Woolworth, General Electric, International
Harvester, Remington, Otis Elevators and
even a Coca Cola distributor. The
confiscation of all American assets amounted
to more than a billion dollars at 1960’s
dollar value. It was preceded by
confiscation of land, about 76,000 acres,
which belonged to American businesses (we
will not consider the confiscation of land
in the hands of Cubans), carried out by the
so-called Agrarian Reform Institute which
promised but never delivered 20-year
promissory bonuses and had no intention of
redeeming them, alas!, not even of printing
them.
- 2 -
To this day, both Cuban and American owners
of land at the time Castro took over in 1959
are still waiting
for their 4-½% interest yielding bonds! In
addition, the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement
Commission has certified 5,911 claims of
U.S. Nationals against the government of
Cuba
totaling approximately $6 billion, with
interest, dating back to the early 1960’s.
Cubas’s frozen assets, until Bill Clinton
unfroze them before leaving office, were a
meager $125 million, before $97 million were
paid to the families of the pilots of
Brothers to the Rescue shot down by Castro’s
air force in 1996.
The United States has not placed in the
front burner the issue of monetary
compensation for the stolen land and other
real property, but in exchange it has simply
said that if Cuban American relations are to
improve, there should at least respect such
human rights as freedom of speech, freedom
of the press, free monitored elections,
etc., in other words rights enshrined in the
United Nations’ Universal Declaration of
human rights. To this proposition he has
given a resounding NO.
The question we must then ask ourselves is:
if he is so popular that there is no need to
submit to the mechanisms of "formal"
democracy, as his followers maintain, why
doesn’t he allow the exercise of human
rights in his country? Why has his
government even rejected the idea of United
Nations supervised plebiscite evaluative of
his performance? I think the words of the
Foreign Affairs Secretary of Mexico, Jorge
Castaneda said on April 23, 2002, help to
answer these questions. It is because Cuba
is, and I quote the Secretary, an
"antidemocratic and human rights violating
regime."
2. The embargo has lasted more than 40 years
and it has not worked. Castro is still
there. Let’s abandon it.
Somehow the length of time a measure is
applied has something to do with its merits.
This is a peculiar and whimsical argument.
The Cold War lasted 50 years and only then
the Soviet Union collapsed. George Keenan
had predicted in the 40’s that the Soviet
Union would implode, but his belief was
rejected while his idea of containment of
the Soviet Union was accepted. The steadfast
opposition of the West to Soviet hegemonism
made the implosion of the Soviet Union
possible. It shows that some policies
require long periods of time to be
successful.
The drug trade has been fought seriously
since the 70’s and it has not waned, yet
those of us who are not Libertarians, would
not abandon the struggle. This is a bad
argument because it assumes that the
struggle against international evil should
be arbitrarily circumscribed by a time
limit. In the case of Cuba, the European
Union, while enforcing the economic
sanctions against Myanmar, has sabotaged the
efforts of the American embargo, by enabling
the Cuban satrapy to survive thanks to its
investments. Why it adopted different
stances in the case of Myanmar and Cuba
cannot be explained in ethical terms, but if
we follow the money-making trail, we might
find the answer. It shows that money
acquisition at any cost is the policy
approved by the governments of the European
Union. Myanmar was probably not as
profitable as Cuba for geographic and
economic reasons.
The inability of agricultural interests to
sell to Cuba is currently cushioned by farm
subsidies mechanisms (e.g. the Agricultural
Allocation Bill that authorizes funding of
up to $78 billion dollars for subsidies to
the agricultural sectors and for food stamps
recipients). Hence talk of American business
interests being harmed by the embargo is
unadulterated twaddle, especially if we bear
in mind that the amount of the commerce
embargoed by the United States constitutes,
as Bert Corzo points out in his highly
motivated article "Si al embargo" (Cuba Net
Debates, March 11, 2001) only 10% of the
commerce of Cuba with the world has been
embargoed. According to Kathleen Parker of
the Chicago Tribune (March 14, 2001) 150
countries enjoy formal trade relations and
business associations with Cuba, thus
circumventing the embargo.
-3-
As of 2002, there were 412 "mixed
enterprises" in Cuba, operated with foreign
capital and Cuban government involvement.
Spain accounts for the largest amount of
foreign investment in Cuba, followed by
Canada, Italy, France, Mexico and Great
Britain. China and Germany also have been
increasing economic involvement in
Cuba.
Furthermore, according to Ernesto Senti,
Vice Minister of Foreign Investment and
Economic Collaboration of Cuba, no less than
46 countries are doing business in Cuba with
a total investment of about $5,000 million
dollars. The same individual has disclosed
that European nations constitute 52% of the
business association that have invested in
Cuba (Cuba Nueva, March 7, 2002).
Indeed, the European Union (EU) is the
island’s main trading partner, accounting
for around 35% of Cuban exports, while over
one million EU tourists visit Cuba each year
(The News Mexico.Com, November 6, 2002).
Cuba can purchase in these European
countries, and in
Canada,
whatever she needs to insure its economic
well being. Hence all this talk that the
American trade embargo is "strangling"
Cuba’s standard of living is unmitigated
balderdash. The "strangler" must be searched
elsewhere and every unbiased Cuban knows
where he can be found.
As Corzo reminds us, it is not the embargo
that concerns so much the Cuban dictator,
but the inability to obtain subsidies and
credits from the United States which would
ultimately be footed by the American people,
due to no payments or endlessly delayed
payments. We should be wary of opening lines
of credit to a country whose external debt
is, as of 2002, 1.5 billion dollars with
Western countries and 1.2 billion dollars
with the former Socialist countries.
As Corzo points out,
Cuba
has not serviced its external debt since
1992! In addition, according to Reuters,
diplomats from the four economically
stronger countries of the European Union
have disclosed that Cuba owes more than 150
million dollars of commercial credits just
for the years 2001-2002, and that three of
the four countries which issued those
credits had not been paid on time. Cuba is
also indebted to Mexico, Spain and Venezuela
and is constantly seeking to renegotiate its
debt to many countries, e.g. Mexico. In
March 2002, it "restructured" its $380
million debt to this Latin American country.
On May 24, 2002, Venezuela’s state-owned oil
monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA),
according to certain sources within PDVSA,
notified the Cuban government of its
intention to stop delivering around 53,000
barrels a day of crude oil due to lack of
payment, the Caracas newspaper El Nacional
has reported. A PDVSA commission headed by
Vice President Jorge Kamkof recommended that
company president Ali Rodriguez end a
bilateral agreement under which PDVSA
supplies Cuba crude oil under favorable
financial terms, El Nacional reported,
citing a company document. In addition
Alejandro Tehran, representing the
Asociacion of Trial Lawyers of Venezuela in
his suit against President Hugo Chavez
before the Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela has
reported that after examining certain
documents to which he was able to gain
access, Cuba, "Petroleos de Venezuela
Sociedad Anonima" was owed by Cuba $15
million. (El Nacional, June 26 2002).
However, according to more recent figures
originating in PDVSA, Cuba’s debt to
Venezuela is much higher: $142 million
dollars (Dow Jones, July 25, 2002).
In spite that the majority of PDVSA’s board
of directors opposed further deliveries of
oil without firm guarantees of payment by
Cuba, Chavez’ appointed company’s president,
Ali Rodriguez, said that the issue of
payments had been "resolved." Since no
mention was made by the Chavez government of
how it intended to collect payment on the
debt, one must assume that such a step is
not contemplated as of now. Under the
agreement with Cuba, 80% of Venezuela’s oil
deliveries are to be paid within 90 days of
receipt. The remaining 20% is sold in soft
terms: payable 15 years with an additional
two year grace period and an interest rate
of only 2%.
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Frank Calzon (Miami Herald, March 14 2002)
has pointed out that one of the best kept
secrets is that the trade embargo has saved
U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars. Because
of the trade embargo, he goes on to say,
American banks aren’t among the consortium
of European and Canadian creditors (known as
the Paris Club) which lent $11,200 millions
to Castro and have been waiting for years to
be paid.
According to the Miami Herald (April 8,
2002) Cuba suspended payment of its debt to
the Paris Club in1986. In 2000, it could not
pay $175 million owed to the French credit
company COFACE. Castro has indebted Cuba to
the tune of $3,000 millions by securing
loans from private lenders just to finance
its annual deficit. Castro’s inability to
pay his debts was so pronounced that in
years 2000 and 2001, France, Chile, South
Africa, Spain, Thailand and other countries,
canceled shipments to Cuba or refused to
provide export insurance to the Cuban
regime.
Cuba
owes more than $10 billion.
In a study released in the summer of 2002,
the European Union said that foreign
investment in
Cuba
was plummeting. The EU study noted that
direct foreign investment in the island
during the past five years peaked at $488
million in 2000 and fell to $38.9 million in
2001. The study blamed Cuba’s state-run
economy, the red tape involved with
practicing capitalism in a communist
economy, excessive utility costs because of
state monopolies and the arbitrary
application of laws toward foreign business.
It also cited the embargo as a reason-- but
not as the sole or most important reason, I
may add. Moreover, according to a 2002
recent article in the Economist magazine:
"Cuba is $11 billion in debt. They cannot
pay their bills. The sugar industry is
failing. Tourism is down 20 percent, the
roads, water and electricity are a mess.
Cuba is not a good place for investors. As a
result, foreign businessmen, frustrated by
the bureaucracy, are leaving Cuba in
droves."
More than $1 billion is owed to Argentina,
England, Canada, Venezuela and Russia. On
September 4, 2001, France froze $175
millions in short term commercial credits
because the Cuban regime did not pay those
credits in a timely manner. A detailed
account of why Cuba can be regarded as one
of the most indebted countries in the world,
a true economic basket case, was documented
in the Economist article. In all
seriousness, can the trade embargo be also
held mostly responsible for Castro’s
inability to put all the loans he has
received to good use or to his inability to
pay them on time as contractually agreed?
It is to this economic basket case that many
supporters of the end of the embargo would
like to extend American bank credits to sell
American goods and hold American taxpayers
as their ultimate guarantors. Finally, Dr.
Miguel Farias Jr. reminds us that not only
Castro’s regime has defaulted in all foreign
loans, but, according to Forbes magazine,
Fidel Castro has stashed more than $l.4
billion in offshore accounts (Letter to the
Editor, Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2002,
p. A11).
The U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council of
New York recently compiled a series of
reports on how international credit
reporting agencies evaluate Cuba. According
to the Miami Herald (April 8,2002): "The
results weren’t promising. Moody’s Investors
Service, for example, gives
Cuba
a Caa rating. Issuers rated Caa are
considered ‘very poor financial security.’
The results of the Dunn & Bradstreet
International Risk & Payment Review weren’t
much better. That report noted that
exporters shipping to the Republic of Cuba
should prepare for payment delays of 210 to
300 days. No rating… is available from
Standard & Poors…The Council wrote to the
Central Bank of the Republic of Cuba more
than a year ago offering to undertake a
credit rating analysis of the country. The
rating agency has yet to receive a
response."
The Ministry of Foreign Trade of Cuba asked
in February 2002 several of its creditors,
mostly banks and trading firms to
renegotiate $1 billion in commercial debt.
According to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and
Economic Council, Cuba’s foreign debt stands
at $19.9 billion, not including the $24
billion owed to the defunct Soviet Union, a
debt that Castro has said he will not
service because the
Soviet Union
no longer exists. Moreover, according to the
2002 Index of Economic Freedom,
Cuba
ranked 153rd. Only Libya, Iraq and North
Korea ranked below.
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This dismal picture of Cuba’s economic well
being is sharpened when we are reminded that
in 1959, the year Castro took power, Cuba
ranked third among Latin American countries
in gross domestic product (now ranks
twelfth) and that eleven million Cubans
produced in 2001 what four million Cubans
produced in 1940. These and other
interesting statistics are brought to light
in Carlos Alberto Montaner’s article "La
desmoralizacion de los comunistas" (Cuba
Nueva, January 7,2002). Finally, since the
embargo has not seriously damaged the
economic well being of the country, why is
Castro making such a fuss about it? The
other reason besides his need to obtain a
fresh supply of credits to bolster his
decrepit system of government is that the
end of the embargo would represent a
political victory for him. It would show
that the most powerful country in the world
has been unable to make Cuba comply with the
United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Anyone who knows the flatulent pride of the
dictator cannot underestimate how this
pride, as well as the fact that his
political capital in Latin America, would be
enhanced by the ending of the embargo. The
question then becomes, why should the United
States assist him, either through its
companies or directly, in preserving his
tyranny without at least compelling him to
take steps to fully abide by basic human
rights? What makes supporters of the lifting
of the embargo believe American business
more successful in having its credits
honored than the Paris Club has been? The
track record is there for all to see… In
this light, the endeavors of senators such
as Byron Dorgan and Christopher Dodd
collapse for lack of persuasiveness.
After more than 40 years of penury and
dictatorship, Cuba has nothing to show for
it, except in the area of education and even
there, education has been put at the service
of indoctrination and political correctness.
Students who are not "integrated" into the
Revolution, I.e. willing to support it
zealously, are barred from universities and
advanced technical schools.
However, in spite of having thousands of
university graduates, the productive
capacity of goods and services in Cuba is
the second lowest in Latin America. In this
connection, Prof. Jorge Luis Romeu points
out that "According to the 1953 census, the
last before Castro, Cubans had the highest
socioeconomic level and income per capita in
all of Latin America. There was one
physician per 1,000 inhabitants, more than
50 percent of the population was urban, and
radio, newspapers, roads, and railroads
covered the entire country." (The
Syracuse
Post Standard, May 21, 2002).
3. The American embargo has caused hardships
to the Cuban people, but not to Castro and
his stalwarts. Why punish the former?
The argument is wrongly framed. Again, what
has caused substantive hardships to the
Cuban people was the end of the Soviet aid
after the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the Eastern block. Soviet patronage and
subsidies in excess of $4.5 billion a year
enabled Castro to better face the trade
embargo and intervene militarily in African
countries with Soviet weaponry without
totally crippling the dole addicted Cuban
economy.
But let us examine the wrongs inflicted on
the Cuban people by the Castro dictatorship
that cannot be even tenuously linked to the
current economic relations of the country
with the rest of the world. Any measure such
as the lifting of the embargo that would
reward the forces of evil Castro represents,
without the instauration of human rights in
that unhappy island would be nothing short
but a betrayal of the West’s most cherished
democratic traditions. Let us then0 descend
in this pit of iniquity that is the Cuban
regime, to fully understand why there can’t
be a relief to this regime, a relief that is
not even dictated by the perceived national
interest of the United States.
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In a book unpublished as of this writing,
entitled "The Human Cost of Social
Revolution," Armando M. Lago (Ph.D in
Economics, Harvard University) and Juan
Carlos Espinosa mention some hardships
inflicted on the Cuban people that advocates
of the end of the embargo ignore. Dr. Lago
and Espinosa list by name persons who have
died in Castro’s prisons since 1959: 30,000
of them executed; 5,000 due to beatings and
lack of medical care while imprisoned; 2,000
as a result of extra judicial
assassinations. In addition, they write,
60,000 have died while trying to escape
Cuba
by sea since he came to power. Consider that
only in the exodus of 1994 by sea, it is
estimated that 4,000 persons died by
drowning, twice as many of the deaths that
occurred between 1953-1958 on both sides
during the struggle against Fulgencio
Batista’s dictatorship.* The magnitude of
the crimes committed by the Cuban regime can
be best appreciated when one realizes that
Augusto Pinochet has been accused of killing
about 3,000 human beings during the early
stages of his coup in Chile yet has been
more intensely pilloried than Castro for his
horrendous assassinations and abuses of
human rights.
Dr. Lago and Espinosa have not been, of
course, the only ones to have documented
human rights abuses in
Cuba.
Agustin Blazquez and Jaums Sutton refer to
the United Nations involvement in such
documentation in "Against All Hope: The
Struggle Goes On, "NewsMax.com, March 21,
2002. They write: it wasn’t until 1988 that
a group of United Nations ambassadors was
able to visit
Cuba
for 11 days and documented "137 cases of
torture, 7 disappearances, political
assassinations and thousands of violations"
of human rights. This trip was summarized in
a 400-page report, which was the longest
report ever to appear on the agenda of the
United Nations.
This 1988 report included "locking political
prisoners in refrigerated rooms; blindfolded
immersions in pools; intimidation by dogs;
firing squad simulations; beatings, forced
labor; confinement for years in dungeons
called gavetas; the use of loudspeakers with
deafening sounds during hunger strikes;
degradation of prisoners by forced nudity in
punishment cells; withholding water during
hunger strikes, forcing prisoners to present
themselves in the nude before their families
(to force them to accept plans for political
rehabilitation); Denial of medical
assistance for the sick; and forcing those
condemned to die to carry their own coffins
and dig their own grave prior to being shot.
Advocates of the end of the embargo do not
like to talk about Castro inflicted
hardships on his thousands of victims and
the Cuban people in general… It is obvious
that they fail to mention these hardships
because these dreadful calamities cannot be
attributed to the embargo. The United
Nations Commission of Human-Rights has
condemned
Cuba
for serious violations of human rights nine
times out of ten. between 1990 and the year
2000. In April of 2002, the same Commission,
in its annual meeting called on Cuba to
grant civil and political rights
representative to help its officials comply
with the resolution, a proposal, not
surprisingly, Castro’s government rejected
this United Nations request.
Cuba is also described as the most critical
situation for freedom of expression in the
Hemisphere in the Report on Intellectual
Freedom in the Americas (Year 2000) of the
Inter-American Comission on Human Rights,
and every major human rights organization,
such as Latin America Watch, Human Rights
Watch, Pax Christi, Reporters Without
Frontiers (RSF), a Paris-based organization
which has described the Cuban regime as "a
predator of press freedom" (The News, May 4,
2002, RSF reports that Cuba is among the six
countries with least press freedom.
Out of 139 countries evaluated, Cuba ranked
134. Amnesty International has repeatedly
drawn attention to violations of human
rights in Cuba. However, these human rights
violations and suppression of freedom of the
press are not seen as an additional
justification of the embargo by proponents
of its lifting. These are the same "double
standards" individuals that did not mind
economic sanctions against apartheid in
South Africa or, against Haiti under the
military rule of Cedras and his fellow
generals.
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At the beginning of 2002, the highest court
in Belgium accepted for eventual
adjudication the lawsuit signed by thousands
of Cubans victims of the regime, accusing
the two Castro brothers and some of his
highest military cronies of crimes against
humanity. However, the fact that the Belgian
court found enough merit in the complaint to
accept it, leaves Congressmen Charles
Rangel, Jose Serrano, Christopher Dodd,
Ralph Nader and some other U.S. legislators
of rice and wheat producing states, unmoved
or cynically indifferent.
It should be borne in mind, to return to the
role the Soviet Union paid in recent Cuban
history, that this country paid higher than
world market prices for Cuban sugar* and
took thousands of Cubans to be educated in
its universities and technical schools. It
also sold oil to Cuba at depreciated values.
It armed Cuba with "grants" that were not
considered debts. In short, Cuba became the
"welfare case of the Eastern block. Many
thinking heads from Henry Kissinger to
Senator Christopher Dodd, tell us it is time
to end the embargo, but they never provide a
sound argument for doing so.
The embargo does not explain why Cubans in
the island have to beg their relatives in
the U.S. to send them aspirin, penicillin,
insulin, cold and asthma medications, as
well as many other basic medications,
because none can be found in Cuban
pharmacies (Can the Cuban government not buy
them in Canada with the hard currency its
tourists leave in the Island every year?)
Neither can the embargo explain why even
sugar has been rationed in the past, or why
no adult Cuban can drink a glass of milk
after 40 years of Revolution, or why Cubans
still need to use ration cards to purchase
limited amounts of staples not embargo
related. The journalist Jeff Jacoby reported
in the Boston Globe (March 14, 2002, p A15)
that in one state-owned store he visited
that caters to Cubans with pesos, he found
that not only milk was unavailable, but that
also laundry soap, toothpaste, salt,
matches, fruits, green vegetables, cheese
and meat were also unavailable. Again, since
many of these staples are not imported, why
should de Cuban trade embargo be blamed for
their scarcity, especially when they can be
bought at state-owned store that deal only
in dollars?
We must bear in mind that
Cuba
has the money to build its medical
biotechnological sector for export or to
treat patients from abroad willing to pay in
dollars. There is in Cuba aspirin and
penicillin for those foreign patients,
indeed. It should also be pointed out that
since 1992, the United States Treasury
Department has licensed the transfer of $230
million of humanitarian aid to Cuba--more
than the United States humanitarian provided
to any other country. An account of how this
aid was distributed is the least congressmen
that favor the end of the trade embargo
could ask of Castro’s regime.
Roberto Rodriguez in his article "El
embargo, que embargo?" in Junta Patriotica
(October 1st, 1999) writes that the per
annum dollar disbursement of the Cuban
exiles who visit and send money to their
relatives in Cuba, is at least $600 million
per annum. The president of the U.S. Cuba
Trade and economic Council, John Kavulich
estimates that the remittances of exiles can
be thought to be anywhere between $375
million and $1 billion.
The previous figures differ, but not
extremely, from the figures provided by
James B. Cunningham, the U.S. Deputy
Representative to the United Nations on the
Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo
Against Cuba at the General Assembly
Plenary, who declared in 2001 that $800
million in direct cash remittances and $350
million in humanitarian donations have been
received in Cuba from the United States.
Reliable statistics on how much money Cubans
in the United States and American citizens
visitors have spent in
Cuba
are hard to locate, even as guess estimates.
We know that, for instance, of the 150,000
authorized visitors to Cuba who flew in from
the United States alone, in 1998, 82,000 of
them of Cuban origin and 68,000 native
Americans.
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The Cuban population (roughly 11 million)
obtains its hard currency, mainly, by either
working in the tourist and tobacco
industries or by receiving it from Cubans
abroad. It thus seems that the Cuban exile
community, whose leaders are described by
Castro as a "mafia" is, if the previous
figures are correct, ironically, among the
strongest but unwitting and emotionally
exploited mainstay of the dictatorship.
Tourism, as we have seen has benefited the
Cuban government and the Canadian and
European hotel consortia, but not the
average Cuban, since it has helped create a
two-tier economy, one tier made of Cubans
with access to dollars, especially those
working in the tourist industry who receive
tips in dollars, and the other tier without
such an access. The economic apartheid is
deeply resented by many Cubans who view
themselves as second lass citizens in their
own country, unable to buy anything in
dollar-only stores, but also unable to use
the beaches and hotels frequented by foreign
tourists, which means the best facilities
Cuba has to offer.
Finally, some advocates of lifting the
embargo claim that the infusion of tourist
dollars and of investments that the end of
the embargo would allow, would benefit the
Cuban people. "Doing business with Cuba
unavoidably props up the regime because of
the way Castro has designed the rules of the
game. Castro double-dips from joint
ventures: first by splitting the profits,
and secondly by stealing from the Cuban
workers. Companies must pay Castro for each
worker, in cash, and the regime in turn
pockets 95%, doling out the remaining 5% in
pesos." writes Joel Mow bray (National
Review On-line, May 24, 2002). The end of
the embargo would allow Castro to expand its
exploitation of the Cuban people by doing
what he does now to a larger number of
exploited victims.
4. The next reason in favor of doing away
with the embargo runs as follows: Look here,
there is money to be made in Cuba.
Remember Coolidge’s, the "business of
America is business?" If everything else
fails, appeal to greed. There are some
salivating mouths claiming that 6 billion
dollars worth of goods and commodities could
be sold to Cuba. But unless the U.S takes
the place of the Soviet Union and initially
subsidizes the Cuban economy with credits
and loans (coming out of American tax paying
pockets), and build its shattered
infrastructure at a cost of billions upon
billions of dollars.
To prop a hardened totalitarian dictatorship
unwilling to make the slightest concession
in the arena of human rights, judged to be
the worst violator of these rights in this
hemisphere? Surely, in exchange for the
turmoil the removal of the embargo would
cause, the least the U.S. should expect is
the democratization of the island and a
reintroduction of Cuba into the community of
democratic nations. It is time to disabuse
those who advocate the lifting of the Cuban
trade embargo of the notion that the lifting
of this embargo will carry with it no
serious economic consequences for the U.S.,
especially if it is accompanied by the
lifting of price supports, subsidies and
protective barriers which have hitherto
sheltered American sugar producers. While
the latter is not likely in the short run,
it must be kept in mind that Cuban sugar is
bound to play an important role in
post-embargo Cuban American relations, and
in disrupting the present delicate status
quo.
5. If we end the embargo, Latin American
countries, none of which officially support
the embargo, will be more sympathetic to the
United States. It might usher in another
"Good Neighbor Policy."
That is one way of seeing it based entirely
on undisciplined speculation. But a more
plausible way of seeing the situation shows
that it will send a message to Hugo Chavez,
the leftist demagogue currently
- 9 -
President of
Venezuela
and admirer of Fidel Castro, who has spoken
of an "axis of power" with Cuba and
other likeminded countries, to the Colombian
NarcoMarxist guerrillas (FARC) who have been
fighting against their government since
1964, to the leftist Zapatista Liberation
Army guerrillas of Chiapas, Mexico, and even
to the Sandinistas of Nicaragua and the
members of the FMLN of El Salvador, not to
mention to the thousands of U.S. haters in
Latin America who will rejoice in the fact
that the Caribbean petty tinhorn dictator
was eye-ball to eye-ball with the
imperialistic gringo 500 lb., gorilla and
the gorilla blinked after 40 years of
intense starring. The prestige of Castro,
who once described the United States as "a
vulture feeding on the bodies of humanity,
will be tremendously enhanced and free shot
of adrenalin will be given to
Anti-Americanism and Marxism-Leninism en
Latin America.
Chavez of Venezuela is becoming increasingly
strident in his class war and truculent
language ---especially after witnessing the
indecisive and frightened attitude of
Clinton vis-à-vis Castro, and the refusal of
Congress to fund the anti guerrilla war in
the sums requested by the Colombian
President, wary of sliding into another
Vietnam. The ripple effect would be a
vindication of Castro and would produce
consequences in
Latin America
that cannot be foreseen, but are not likely
to be minor. Indeed, a crypto-Marxist like
Chavez has realized that opposition to the
Castroite tyranny has waned of late in the
U.S. thanks to the likes of Dodd, Rangel and
Waters, and the simplistic Council on
Foreign Relations, who have concluded that
Castro must now be openly aided.
6. Democrat sympathizers usually argue that
economic sanctions must invariably be
opposed. Is it ethical stance to make the
people pay for the "sins" of its leaders?
Hence the Cuban embargo must go.
This is a very weird sort of logic. Those
that advance this "ethical" proposition are
those who usually favored the ec0onomic
sanctions against South Africa during the
apartheid regime, and against Cedras’
Haiti,
(was Rep. Charles Rangel opposed to the
economic sanctions against Haiti or actively
promoted it?)
Against the Burmese junta, or against
Yugoslavia, but do not favor economic
sanctions against
Cuba’s
tyrannical regime. There are tyrannies and
then there are tyrannies, it seems, and they
select which they are going to oppose by
applying a simplistic litmus test: Is it a
Communist tyranny or is it a right wing
tyranny?
Sometimes they remain silent about certain
embargoes for other political reasons. For
instance, they remain silent about the
economic sanctions against Iraq, while
raising a hue and cry about the trade
sanctions of Cuba, yet it is alleged that
hundred of thousands of Iraqi children have
died as a result of the United Nations
embargo. Perhaps it just a question of
listening to their "Master’s voice." Perhaps
they remember what Clinton said about Iraq
in the late 90’s: according to Shyam Bhatia
and Daniel McGrory, authors of recently
published book: Brighter than the Baghdad
Sun: Saddam Hussein’s Threat to the United
States, These authors report that Clinton is
alleged to have said: "Sanctions (of Iraq)
will stay until the end of time, or as long
as Saddam lasts."
Remember, in this context what his Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright said about
Saddam Hussein, as reported in Robert
Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy?: Saddam is the
most dangerous man since Hitler. If this is
the case, why not try to persuade to remove
the threat by any means at the US’s
disposal? The U.S. government has not been
as damning of Castro, and yet we have not
seen the Congressional Black Caucus of the
Democratic Party, or Senator Dodd, carry
water for Iraq as they have done it for
Castro’s Cuba.
Inconsistency, whim, opportunism, and in
many cases pro-Communist sympathies, as is
clearly the case with Congressman Serrano.
Is what governs the actions of a certain ilk
of Democrat politician, not a
- 10 -
reasoned assessment of the true national
interest. After all, Democrats like Charles
Rangel (who is on friendly terms and has
visited the Caribbean tyrant in his lair).
The notorious Maxine Waters, and Christopher
Dodd did not want to ruffle the feathers of
Clinton when it comes to Iraq, but know that
his feathers were not that easily ruffled
when it came to Cuba. It seems that they get
their cues and marching orders from the top
echelons of their party and inveighing they
go. Certain Republicans, like the infamous
Senator Nethercutt and Warner are no better.
The question, it must be repeated, that the
reader must ask himself/herself is why so
much concern with the economic sanctions
against Cuba, but not so much against
sanctions against Iraq, Burma, and Iran, to
mention a few states who are known for their
human rights abuses? What made Cubans
eligible for this preferential concern,
after all? It cannot be because Castro has
been one of the most relentless opponent of
American foreign policy, or because the
powers that be are afraid of another Mariel
boatlift, could it? The acolytes of Castro
in this country are not forthcoming with an
answer. Indeed, we may have to wait, to use
a phrase of Adlai Stevenson, until hell
freezes over for one.
7. We grant full diplomatic recognition to,
and engage in trade with China. Why not
trade with Cuba?
The reason is diaphanous. American foreign
policy, alas! Is governed by realism, not
missionary zeal to save the world for
democracy or to defend human rights. This
claim is easily redeemed when we remember
that under President Richard Nixon in the
70’s, the United States proposed to Cuba the
"normalization " of relations if it ceased
to aid the Marxist rebels in Central
America, withdraw from Angola and ceased to
serve as a proxy for the Soviet Union. This
quid pro quo did not involved compliance
with human rights as formulated by the
United Nations at all.
Human rights are fine, but as long as they
coincide with the perceived "national
interest." Human rights do not form an
essential part of the perceived "national
interest." If the two coincide, so much the
better, we can dust off our democratic
ideals once more. One may not like this
posture, but the brute facts are that
American foreign is best understood if
conceived in realistic, not idealistic
terms. Perceived "national interest," a
shibboleth that enables the governing elite
to take actions in the name of more sinister
and hidden promoters of self interest and
business calculation or political
gamesmanship, override human rights in the
long term. Viewed in these terms, China and
Cuba differ and gave been treated
differently for the following pragmatically
realistic reasons: ( for complete text
visit: www.cubainfolinks.net ).
To conclude, the case of the Cuban tyranny
allows the U.S. the privilege to live up to
the ideals of democracy and human rights
without adversely affecting its national
interest and perhaps even advancing it.
Because the national interest, whether
imagined, perceived or objectively
ascertained, is not only not at stake in the
case of Cuba, but may be harmed by the
uplifting of the trade embargo, the argument
under consideration falls flat on its face.
Professor Jaime Suchlicki, director of the
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies at the University of Miami has
summarized the case in support of the
embargo without meaningful changes in Cuba,
in clear terms. I agree with him that
lifting the embargo without meaningful
changes will bring about the following
deleterious effects:
* Guarantee the continuation of the current
totalitarian structures.
* Strenghten state enterprises, since money
will flow into businesses owned by the Cuban
government.
* Lead to greater repression and control
since Castro and the leadership will fear
that United States influence will subvert
the revolution.
* Delay instead of accelerate a transition
to democracy on the island.
-11-
* Allow Castro to borrow from international
organizations such as the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank. Since Cuba
owes billions of dollars and has refused in
the past to acknowledge or pay these debts,
new loans will be wasted by Castro’s
inefficient system and will be uncollectable.
* Perpetuate the control that the military
holds over the economy and foster the
further development of mafia-tyupe groups.
* Negate the basic tenets of U.S. policy in
Latin America, which emphasize democracy,
human rights and market economies.
* Send the wrong message to the enemies of
the U.S. that a foreign leader can seize
U.S. properties without compensation, allow
the use of his territory for the
intgroduction of nuclear missiles aimed a
the US, espouse terrorism and anti-US causes
throughout the world; and eventually the
U.S. will "forget and forgive," and reward
him with tourism, investments and economic
aid.
I rest my case.
Copyrighted by the author, Franz Eugen
Wagner, Ph.D. All rights of reproduction and
distribution reserved.
__________________________________________
For complete text go to
www.Cubainfolinks.net
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1125 E. Broadway #102
Glendale, CA 91205 USA
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