Don't Subsidize Cuba with Trade

Frank Calzon
Birmingham Post Herald, May 13, 2002

Birmingham Post-Herald is right when it says that "events have conspired to marginalize Fidel Castro." But the April 30 editorial, "Fading Fidel," which focuses on Castro's tantrums, former President Jimmy Carter's visit to the island and U.S. sanctions, says little about Cuba and Cubans. Recently, Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement announced it had collected more than 10,000 signatures to be presented to the national legislature calling for reforms, including elections, and the release of political prisoners.

Since John Paul II's visit, more and more Cuban independent journalists, independent economists, librarians, human rights activists and others have challenged the regime. World leaders visiting Cuba have met with Cuba's dissidents, despite Castro's disapproval.

Castro's recent "needless fight" with Mexico follows after similar incidents with Uruguay, Spain, El Salvador, Poland, the Czech Republic, and others. "Argentina," Castro said was "a boot licker of the Yankees"; and Costa Rica, Latin America's most respected democracy, according to him "is more pro-American than the gringos themselves."

Be that as it may, the visit of Carter will remind the Cubans of the struggle for human rights. Castro, no doubt, will attempt to use Carter's trip to jump-start his campaign to lift the U.S. embargo.

Carter is revered for his human rights commitment, and he is a Southerner. As such, it is ironic that he will stay in a hotel where Cubans, even if they have dollars, are not allowed. He will eat at restaurants, where Cubans will be served only if accompanied by a foreigner. He will be shown hospitals that, according to the regime, lack medicine because of the embargo, but he will not see the hospital rooms set aside for "health tourism" for foreign patients where (not as in the rooms set aside for Cubans), the air conditioning works and there are plenty of antibiotics.

In quoting the Montreal Gazette about a Canadian executive of a U.S. company convicted for violating the law on trading with the enemy you comment that Canadians "are properly steamed." Is the Post-Herald recommending a new standard? That laws not be enforced to accommodate those who violate them? Then let's include other crimes. There are thousands of Americans in jail for violating laws they believe "unfair." They are also "properly steamed."

Your editorial is also right when it says that "Castro doesn't matter anymore," and that "Canada does and always will." Will Canadian critics of U.S. policy also agree by saying "Castro doesn't matter anymore. The United States does and always will"?

Your view of Canadian engagement with Cuba is dated. At least since 1999 Canada's most influential news media have decried Ottawa's "constructive engagement" with Castro. According to Toronto's Globe and Mail, Castro's increasing repression "is definite proof that Canada's Cuba policy has failed." The Toronto Star criticized Canada's foreign minister: "Lloyd Axworthy boasted that he accomplished more during five hours with Castro than the U.S. had accomplished in the past 30 years of isolating Cuba. Oh really? What has our policy of 'constructive engagement' accomplished, beyond cheap holidays for tourists, profits for industries, and propping up a brutal dictator?"

But not all have profited. As Peter Foster also reported in 1999, some Canadians formed joint ventures with Castro but later had their rights "trampled by its Communist partner." He added that "the Cuban people have little hope of a better life until their whole rotten political system is swept away. Until then, anybody who invests with corrupt Castro regime, is. asking for trouble."

The issue is not whether to lift the sanctions, but for what purpose. If the embargo is lifted following the Canadian model, Castro will benefit. Castro is broke. He is in dire need of credits, export insurance, and access to international financial institutions. Since 1986 he defaulted in his debt to creditors at the Paris Club a consortium that includes France, Spain, Japan, Canada, and Russia. Fidel says that he will not pay his multibillion-dollar debt to Moscow, because it is "a debt to a country that no longer exists."

In recent years, France, Thailand, South Africa and others have canceled export insurance and loans. Others, including Chile and several Central European nations also faced Havana's nonpayment. Cuba asked its short-term creditors last month to create a consortium of creditors in order to"restructure" payments.

Carter means well. But why is Castro willing to discuss Cuba's problems with foreigners and not with Cuba's opposition, or with Cuba's bishops? Providing dollars to Havana, without substantial improvement in the human rights situation, will help Castro not the Cuban people. Trading with Castro does not ensure payment. The American taxpayer should not take up the role of the lost Soviet subsidies.

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