Seven bad reasons in support of the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo and how to refute them

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 declarations to be submitted to 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 of 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 providedby 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 he 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 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. To this day, both Cuban and American owners of land at the time Castro took over in 1959 are still waiting for their 4-1/2% 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. Cuba'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 U.S. 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, he 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 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To this proposition he has given a resounding NO. What is good even for the Sandinistas, and the Chilean Socialists who have agreed to play by the rules of democracy (at least as a tactic) ) is not good for him. 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 reject the idea of a 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. and considerable amount of patience, something Americans are always short of. even if their national interest or human and economic costs are not at stake, as is the case with Cuba.

In addition, by this logic, we would have to reformulate our policy towards rather unsavory characters. The Mafia has been fought in earnest since the 60’s and is still around; the Narco-Marxist guerillas in Colombian have been trying for more than 40 years to overturn the constitutional government of that country, let the latter give up the struggle! 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 this struggle. Moreover, diabetics, to push this argument into a droll reductio ad absurdum, have to take insulin all their lives, but no one says to them: the medication has not cured you, give it up! This is a bad argument because it assumes that the struggle against international evil should be arbitrarily circumscribed by a time limit. The case of Myanmar merits consideration in this context. After tough economic sanctions by practically all the countries of the industrialized world, international isolation, and pressure from the Asian Regional Grouping, the military junta of Maynamar released from prison the popular leader Mrs. Aung San Suii Kyi although it does not seem to be willing to enter into a dialog with her and her followers. 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 cost of retaining the embargo is minuscule for the U.S.. It is Cuba, not the U.S. the country that is bearing the costs. While it is true that part of the agricultural surplus of wheat and rice could be sold to Cuba and, indeed, Congress has already passed a law authorizing such sales. It has not authorized the sale of Cuban commodities to the U.S. for which, incidentally, the domestic market has no need. I shall return to this important point in due course. 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 informative 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 Katheleen Parker of the Chicago Tribune (March 14, 2001) 150 countries enjoy formal trade relations and business associations with Cuba, thus circumventing the embargo. 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 Investments and Economic Collaboration of Cuba, no less than 46 countries are doing business in Cuba witha total investment of about 5,000 million dollars. The same individual has disclosed that European nations constitute 52% of the business associations that have invested in Cuba (Cuba Nueva, March 7th, 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.

American investments in pre-1959 Cuba were never that substantial, even after inflation is taken into account as the current foreign investments.  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 certainsources 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 Teran, representing the Asociation 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 in 15 years with an additional two-year grace period and an interest rate of only 2%.

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 in 1986. In 2000, it could not pay $175 million owed to the French credit company COFACE. On Sepmber Additionally, since about 1997, 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, he 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 heldmostly responsible for Castro's inability to put all the loans he has received to good use or for his inability to pay themon 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 $1.4 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 Dun & 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 lower.

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 had 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 it's 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.

According to the Wealth of Nations Triangle Index Composite 1996-2000, published by a number of reputable investment and security firms,incorporating data from the United Nations Human Development Program , out of 41 countries ranked, Cuba occupied the 39th place,only above Nigeria and Vietnam. Costa Rica, on the other hand occupied the 10th.  Can anyone seriously claim that this extremely poor ranking is attributable to the 10% of the external commerce that Cuba has lost as a result of the embargo?

When it comes to freedom of speech, conditions could not be worse for Cubans wishing to exercise it. The yearly publication of Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2001-2002, which rated political rights and civil liberties in 142 countries reveals that Cuba ranked among the ten worst countries when evaluated in terms of the two previously mentioned variables.

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 70 percent of the adult population could read and write, 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).

Costa Rica, without dictatorship and political indoctrination, compares more than favorably to Cuba in the field of literacy, education and health. Costa Rica's population literacy rate of 94.8% is almost identical to Cuba's of 94.5%, according to recent statistics. In Costa Rica.Only 2% of the those between 15 and 24 years of age are illiterate. (Znet, " A letter from Cuba, August 7, 2001; the World Development Indicators.World Bank, for 1998, gives an an average of 95% for both countries). Furthermore , Costa Rica throughout its recent history has invested more than 20%% of its national budget on primary and secondary education. (.In the case of Cuba the education budget has been sharply reduced. In 1989, it was 1,664 million pesos. Nine years later, it was down to 964 million pesos , according to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA). Taking population increases into account, this means the amount spent on educating each person in Cuba fell by nearly half — from 152 pesos to 87. Compare this figures with the amount of the education budget of Costa Rica for 1996: 99,631.00 million colones, or 22.8% of the total budget (Europa Yearbook, Year 2000).

In 1980-1981, when it was generously subsidized by the Soviet Union, Cuba's infant mortality rate, according to the World Bank, Unesco and WHO was 19/1000 live births; that of Costa Rica was even better, 18/1000 live births. More recent statistics show that Costa Rica now has 11.8/1000 live births, whereas Cuba a much higher infant mortality rate, 20/1000 live births (Statesman Yearbook, 2000). Chile, now a democracy, has 9.36 /1000 live births. Moreover, in a number of social indicators, Costa Rica, let me repeat it, without dictatorship and totalitarianism , excels Cuba. For example, with only a population of 4,188,000 inhabitants, Costa Rica surpasses Cuba (with a population of 11,800,000 inhabitants) in average annual income ($4,450 versus $1,700), and in GDP, if we consider that Costa Rica has a population of only 4 million: ($15.85 billion versus $18 billion, ( See Robert T. Buckman's Latin America 2000; Statesman Yearbook 2002; World Book Encyclopedia 2001; and World Almanac Book of Facts, 2002).One caveat is in order: the average salary of a working Cuban is 250 pesos per month (the current rate of exchange is 20 pesos to a dollar). This nominal income would have to be augmented somewhat given that food rations are sold at subsidized prices, and health care, however poor, and education, however doctrinaire, are added monetary values to the salary. In spite of these adjustments, the average Cuban does not earn $1,700, per annum, but considerably less. Another caveat is that Cuban statistics are derived from many sources which are not subjected to critical scrutiny before or after they are released. Further, the extant Cuban poverty is aggravated by the presence of nutritional deficits in the diet of many Cubans, deficits that cannot be attributed to the embargo. According to the Report on Food Insecurity in the World, 2001, published by the United Nations Organization for Agriculture and Food (FAO), there were, during the period 1997-1999, 1.9 million malnourished persons in Cuba, or 17.0% of the country's population. This in a country that has a fertile soil and a climate allows for year round harvests, and has received millions of dollars from the United Nations to surmount the failures of Cuban agriculture.

 The United Nations Human Development Index for 1999 gave Costa Rica one of the highest ratings of human resources among developing nations. Reporters Without Borders in its first worldwide press freedom index made public in 2002, reports that Costa is among the countries in the Western Hemisphere with most freedom of the press. It ranked 15, ranking higher than the United States of America. Only Canada surpassed it with a rank of 5.

With these facts I have enumerated in mind would anyone of sound mind, if given the choice of living in a democratic country like Costa Rica or a totalitarian, oppressive country like Cuba be mad enough to choose the latter? Can anyone with a straight face claim that the differences in overall social welfare in Costa Rica and Cuba are due to the American trade embargo?

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 w ithout 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 that 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 then 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.

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, 60,000have 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 4000 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 U.N. 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 U.N .

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 graves prior to being shot.  

* In 1959, the Cuban press reported that about 23,000 had died in the course of the revolution, but never documented those figures with names or statistics. There is reason to believe that this claim was nothing but a canard used to show how beneficial the deliverance from the Batista dictatorship would be to the country.

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 on Human Rights has condemned Cuba for serious violations of human rights nine times out of ten, between 1990 and the year 2000. In April 2002, the same Commission, in its annual meeting called on Cuba to grant civil and political rights to its citizens and to allow the entry in Cuba of a U.N. human rights representative to help its officials comply with the resolution. a proposal, not surprisingly, Castro's government rejected this U.N. 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 Commission 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).In it's first worldwide press freedom index released in 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, this these human rights violation and suppression 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 are the one that did not mind economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa or against Haiti under the military rule of Cedras and his fellow generals.

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. Instead of, at least, improving the economy with market reforms, as the Chinese have done, Cuba preserved, with only minor deviations, its Stalinist command economy which is simply inept as the fall of the Soviet Union has shown. . 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, They do not explain, to give one example only, what the embargo has to do with the fact that a hospital in Cuba is using toothpaste to clean its sheets for lack of soap. Soap is not an imported item. To appeal to the embargo to account for this ineptness is simply silly. 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 it's 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 the 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 it’s 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 U.S. Treasury Department has licensed the transfer of $230 million of humanitarian aid to Cuba--more than the U.S. 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.

(* The previous statement must be qualified, at least for certain periods of time of Cuban-Soviet economic relations. As Robert E. Quirk points out in his biographical book Fidel Castro, in the 60's the Soviet Union "consented to buy increasing amounts of Cuban sugar at the fixed rate of six cents a pound through 1970--2.1 million long tons in 1965, 3 million in 1966 and 5 million in each of the succeeding years. The agreed to price was lower than the prevailing rate, but higher than the average paid on the world market in the previous years.")

It is not the trade embargo, but the world sugar market that has also created, in large measure, the dire straits in which Cuba finds itself. Sugar exports constitute 75% of the total exports of the island. Cuba used to export between 4 and 5 million metric tons to the Soviet block at inflated prices. This is gone, although Russia continues to buy 2 million tons at world prices. In addition the European Union (EU), has become the first producer of sugar, according to the most recent statistics--about 15 million tons. (1997-98). The European Union has subsidized its sugar producers, enabling it to dump sugar at depressed world prices in the international market. The EU has agreed in a recent Gatt Uruguay Round Agreement to make some adjustments to its dumping policy. But the European Union is not prepared to make significant sacrifices when it comes to its sugar exports. Figures from 1993. indicate that Cuba did not have to compete with this European behemoth before the Revolution. In the 90’s, because of the subsidized market offered by the Soviet block to Cuba, the island was insulated from competition in the world market. It must also be borne in that the Soviet Union absorbed almost 2/3 of its sugar production at artificially set prices. Thus, the dire straits in which the economy of Cuba finds itself is the accumulation of three factors : (1) the end of Soviet "welfare" for Castro; (2) the ineptness of the command, centralized economy; and (3) the low sugar prices worldwide due to dumping and a glut of sugar , especially since the early 90's. None of these factors are attributable to the U.S. embargo. The fact of the matter is that the European Union has depressed sugar prices in the developing world by 12% in the short run and 17% in the long run are doing more harm to Cuba than the Cuban trade embargo This is not to say that the Cuban trade embargo is a mere bugbear; but it only has had the impact of collaterally but minimally compounding Castro’s self-inflicted wounds, not of creating them.

It may be said that the burgeoning Cuban biotechnology industry could replace the lost Soviet aid and become a significant source of hard currency. It is unquestionable that Cuba has invested a significant amount in its biotechnology industry. Its most important center of research, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology employed about 1000 persons as of 2002. Cuban biotechnological products, reached markets in over 40 countries, according to recent statistics. However, thse sales have netted Cuba only about $100 million. Some reasons have been advanced for this state of affairs: (1) Transnational companies, while not immune to intellectual property rights thefts, are increasingly able to protect these rights under WTO regulations (2) Cuba's lower priced drugs (most of which are sold to developing countries at prices that do not allow large margins of profit) are the result of Cuba's piracy, i.e. of copying, without paying for them, patented processes and thus ignoring intellectual property rights, a case in point being the genetically engineered protein erythropoetic (EPO), which was invented in the United States. Potentially, the U.S. would be its most lucrative market but Cuba faces obstacles like the U.S. Cuban Democracy Act (1992) which prohibits the export of any item that might help the development of the biotechnology sector. Because of this fact, it is Cuba, not the United States, that should be expected to make concessions, such as the restoration of human rights in the Island. In any event, the biotechnology sector is far from taking the place of the sugar industry or tourism as the main source of hard currency for Cuba.

Tourism, however, has given the dictatorship a new lease on life .It has become the main source of hard currency for the Cuban government .It is claimed that Cuba's gross revenue from tourism was about $1,900 million dollars in 1999, surpassing sugar and nickel. In 2001, 1,8 million tourists visited the Island, mostly Canadians and Europeans. However, these figures do not shed light on the monetary benefits tourism brings to Cuba. They mask the fact that after foreign investors, tour operators, transportation firms and hotel management companies take their cut, the Cuban government net earnings is probably $500 million annually . It is far from clear which amount represents 43% the balance of payments, as the Central Bank of Cuba reports. However, it must not be overlooked that Cuban exiles, whose family ties are cleverly exploited by Castro, have consecutively pumped into the Island in the last few years at the very leasthundreds of  millions of dollars per annum  by having their family reunions in Cuba and sending cash remittances to their relatives. According to R. Richard Newcomb, of the Office of Foreign Assets Control for the Department of the Treasury (OFAC), in the year 2001, up to 200,000 Americans visited Cuba, more than half, Cuban Americans traveling under special licenses.

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 exileswho 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.

The Cuban population ( roughly ll 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 Cuban Labor Ministry , aware of the potentially explosive of this situation has declared that as of 2001 ,out of 4.3 million workers, 1.1 million will receive a "portion" of their salaries in dollars. However, it is not been specified how substantial such a "portion" will be even for this fourth of the population. Furthermore, many Cubans complain that in spite of the declaration of the Cuban Labor Ministry, they are still being entirely paid in devalued pesos, which do not allow them access to the special government stores, selling only to tourists and buyers with dollars all sorts of much needed goods not found elsewhere in the country .These goods range from condensed milk to TV sets and good quality garments. In a country where a bottle of shampoo costs $6.00, one wonders how quickly the "portion" of the salary of a minority of Cuban workers are to receive in dollars would disappear if they were to shop in these "dollarized" stores This economic apartheid is deeply resented by many Cubans who view themselves as second class 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. However, it is not well know that, as Joel Mowbray writes: "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. Foreign companies don't employ Cuban workers; they rent them. Companies must pay Castro for each worker, in cash, and the regime in turn pockets 95 percent, doling out the remaining 5 percent in pesos." (National ReviewOn 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 rebuild its shattered infrastructure at a cost of billions upon billions of dollars, the U.S. would have to buy Cuban sugar produced by workers paid now 10 dollars per month in order to enable Cubans to have money to pay for all these goodies, without any guarantees that the large portion of the profits made would not go first to the apparatus of repression (armed forces, secret police and Communist Party cadres) and to the modernization of its weapons systems and only lastly, to the Cuban people. Moreover, one must ask: what happens to the sugar industry of Florida now producing 25% of the sugar consumed in the U.S.?. Furthermore , according to the American Sugar Alliance, 80-85% of the sugar produced in the U.S. is consumed here. The remainder 15% is imported from 40 foreign countries--about 1,5 million tons. Under WTO and NAFTA rules the U.S. is required to bring in AT LEAST that amount, even if the U.S. does not need it now! Any sale of Cuban sugar to a sugar producing country like the U.S. would mean that there would be less of the market for the American sugar industry to go around..

In addition, what would happen abroad to Brazil’s sugar market, one of the largest producers of sugar, (even if a significant amount of that country's sugar is used to produce ethanol)? and to the Dominican Republic’s or Mexico's market? to mention only three sugar producing countries in our hemisphere. We should ponder, in this context, the following statement issued on August 10, 2000 by Joseph Terrell, Director of Public Affairs of the American Sugar Alliance: "We are well aware of the challenges lifting the Cuban embargo could have on the US sugar industry. Also, quota holders in other countries are monitoring the situation closely as well because they could stand to lose…we are monitoring this closely." A similar view has been advanced by the general manager of the Louisiana Sugar Cane Cooperative and secretary/treasurer of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Foundation, Jackie Theriot, who said: Lifting the embargo -- without holding Cuba to production limits -- would flood the U.S. market with sugar, dropping the prices and bankrupting the domestic industry. (quoted by Kevin Blanchard in his article "Now no Time to Help Cuba," The Advocate ONLINE (April 11, 2002) However, it is unlikely that Castro's Cuba would accept being hamstrung by production limits and it would go against the free trade ideology espoused by Washington these days.

Is the U.S. going to harden the grip of Castro by granting him even a significantly diminished market opening at the expense of its own sugar industry? Imperil the Brazilian sale of sugar to the U.S. just to please Castro? Is the U.S. going to finance the the conversion of Cuban sugar into ethanol, as means to reduce the worldwide glut of sugar even though the prospects of creating a large U.S. ethanol market is still an economic entelechy? Moreover, consider that during one year, in the decade of the 50’s (1959, for example) Cuba’s sugar quota in the U.S. totaled 1.256 million metric tons, roughly the same amount that the U.S. now imports from 40 countries! It is well known that when Cuba lost its generous American sugar quota in the 60’s this amount was allocated to other countries. which used the allocation to maintain their sugar industry and increase their production. What would be the ripple effect of the Cuban re-intervention in the American sugar market, given that it will be considerably less than what it sold in the 50’s and will offer sugar at a low price to gain a foothold in the market? This macroeconomic assessment has not been addressed in the public arena by Castro’s acolytes and foot soldiers in this country. In addition, in the case Dominican Republic, the European Union subsidized exports have already caused a 20% income loss of income in that country. If Cuba’s sales of sugar take a slice of the American market, both the domestic and international suppliers, such as the Dominican Republic, Brazil, and Mexico (who incidentally, has been encouraged to develop an ethanol industry) are going to feel even more severely impacted. Even if Cuba did not make efforts to create a capital intensive industry, as the cane sugar producers in the U.S and producers of sugar in the world have done it, Cuban sugar would be produced more cheaply, as already indicated, doubtlessly, with Communist government subsidies in order to retain a share of of the American market.

To reiterate, no one raises the issue of how much damage the sugar import-export status quo in this country and abroad . would undergo. especially if we are aware that an influx of Cuban sugar would do damage to it--especially considering that the U.S. is already the 4thth largest sugar producer in the world, trailing Brazil, India and China. Typical defenders of lifting sanctions need to address the economic repercussions that such a policy would create, especially in publications accessible to the general reader so the American public understands what the stakes are. Finally, what appears to be at best an American zero-sum game would be in the end to what purpose? 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 comity 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 U.S. 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 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 staring. The prestige of Castro, who once described the United States as " a vulture feeding on the bodies of humanity," will be tremendously enhanced and a free shot of adrenalin will be given to Anti-Americanism and Marxism-Leninism in 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-a-vis Castro, and the refusal of Congress to fund the anti guerilla 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 economic 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 U.N. embargo. .Perhaps it is 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 book The Coming Anarchy?: "Saddam is the most dangerous man since Hitler." If this is the case, why not try to persuade Congress 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 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 an