BY JANICE LYNN AND MARY MARTIN
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The third in a series of international conferences on the misnamed "Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996," also known as the Helms- Burton law, took place here February 10-11. The gathering was titled "Helms-Burton: A Loose Canon?" It was held at the Brookings Institution and the House of Representatives' Rayburn Building.

The main organizer of the two-day conference was the Washington, D.C.-based Center for International Policy, a liberal research group. The Canadian Foundation for the Americas and the Institute of European-Latin American Relations cosponsored it. More than 250 people took part. They included academics, researchers, government officials, businessmen, several right-wing Cuban-Americans, and some representatives of groups that organize activities in opposition to U.S. policy toward Cuba. Speakers included top administration officials who are pointmen of Clinton's policy toward Cuba.

Panelists expressed unanimity on their common goal of overturning the current government in Havana headed by Cuban president Fidel Castro. They discussed what kind of foreign policy would best aid Washington in fomenting a "transition to democracy and market reforms." Panelists differed on whether the measures contained in the Helms-Burton law were effective in accomplishing these ends, and on their consequences for intensifying trade disputes between the U.S. government and its allies in Canada and countries that belong to the European Union (EU).

Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. interests section in Havana between 1979 and 1982, said that the law "works against our interests and what we say are our objectives - to bring about a peaceful transition to the government we want to see." Smith said he was not that concerned about the effects of the legislation on Cuba. "I am more concerned about the implication of Helms-Burton for the international system," he stated.

U.S. undersecretary of commerce Stuart Eizenstat, who is also Clinton's special envoy on Cuba, argued that the so- called Cuban Liberty Act is having the desired effect for Washington. He praised the European Union for adopting "an historic legally binding resolution which conditions economic relations with Cuba to specific progress on human rights and social and economic reforms."

Eizenstat was referring to a resolution adopted by the European Union on December 2, which assailed the revolutionary government in Havana for alleged human rights violations and lack of democratic freedoms. Shortly after the passage of that resolution, Clinton suspended implementation of a section of the Helms-Burton law that has caused the most uproar among EU members. That part of the law, called Title III, allows Cuban Americans and other U.S. businessmen whose property was expropriated after the Cuban revolution to sue in U.S. courts anyone, including foreign companies, investing in those properties. Eizenstat described Title III, and the ability of the White House to continue to use its postponement to create uncertainty among U.S. competitors, as "an effective lever to make progress to pressure European allies to step up efforts to bring about reforms in Cuba."

"We have complete agreement on the objectives. We don't like at all the Cuban regime. We want to change it," stated Hugo Paeman, EU Ambassador to the United States, in his remarks. "We will do whatever we can to change it as soon as possible. But we diverge on how to achieve this end.

"The United States would never accept this kind of law from any other country in the world," Paeman continued. "And we can't accept it from the U.S. or any other country in the world. It's clear that the best situation from the EU perspective would be repeal of the act." Paeman indicated that the EU will pursue its complaint against the Helms- Burton law at the World Trade Organization (WTO) (see article above).

Dan Fisk, a Republican who is an Associate Counsel of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate, presented his own list of seven non-U.S. companies that have supposedly pulled out of Cuba over the last year: the Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya; the Dutch banking and insurance group ING Groep NV; Cemex, a Mexican cement company; the Spanish hotel firms Occidental Hotels and Paradores Nacionales; the Canadian sugar producer Redpath Sugars; and the Colombian airline Aero Republica. He also claimed that another seven companies, including the Mexican state-owned oil monopoly PEMEX and the UK-based cigarette company British American Tobacco, "have been reassessing their operations in Cuba or distancing themselves from any direct commercial relationship with Cuba."

Doug Lewis, chairman of the Cuba-Canada Business Committee outlined Ottawa's approach in undermining the Cuban revolution. "Passage of Helms-Burton did cast a chill on investment in Cuba," he said. "We know changes are necessary. But we have to act in engagement - to show the Cubans the way we do business - see our supermarkets, read our newspapers, see our TV's. They have to taste it and see how it works. We need to lead by example, not by rhetoric or the big stick."

The day after the conference, the Clinton administration announced it would allow 10 U.S. news organizations to open bureaus in Cuba for the first time in nearly thirty years. The Cable News Network (CNN) plans to open a full-time Havana bureau in March.

Germany's director for Latin American Affairs in Bonn's Foreign Ministry, Wilfred Richter, said that the Helms- Burton law "impedes efforts to foster the free movement of goods and capital. We share the same goals as the U.S. - political change and economic reform are overdue. But the EU policy will help to meet the fundamental reform process in Cuba and in the end will prove to be a more effective one."

Gareth Jenkins, editor of the London-based newsletter Cuba Business, noted the recovery in the Cuban economy from earlier in the decade. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.8 percent in 1996, up from 2.5 percent a year earlier. But the forecast for GDP growth in 1997 is expected to be only 4-5 percent, he said.

William Lane, Washington director of government affairs for Caterpillar, Inc., also spoke. "The Cuban market is not going to be a good investment until there is a free Cuba," he stated. "We will support anything that will get us there."

There were a few opportunities at the meeting for participants to ask questions or make brief comments. Only a few in the audience presented an entirely different view from the panelists, supportive of the Cuban revolution.

Johana Tablada, third secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., who had been observing part of the proceedings, took the floor briefly and said, "For Cuba, this law matters. It matters probably more than for anyone here in this room. It matters for the 11 million people still living there. What the Cuban people gained in 1959 was the right to control our own destiny in a poor country in a poor region. We already have great achievements other countries don't have and we would like to preserve them."

"Washington's goal with the Helms-Burton law, and the entire 38-year-long U.S cold war against Cuba, is to destroy the example workers and peasants in that country have provided to working people in the United States and throughout the Americas and the world," said Joshua Carroll, a member of the Young Socialists National Committee who was recognized and spoke briefly the second day of the gathering. All the panelists who object to the U.S. legislation, or aspects of it, Carroll said, want to restore capitalism in Cuba. "The basis of workers' opposition to Helms-Burton should be identification with the struggle of our Cuban brothers and sisters to defend their national sovereignty and the socialism they freely chose."

Janice Lynn and Mary Martin are members of the International Association of Machinists in Washington, D.C. Joshua Carroll also contributed to this article.  
 
 
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