CONGRESS HAS NO BUSINESS FORCING AMERICAN TAXPAYERS TO SUBSIDIZE FIDEL CASTRO'S REGIME

At the end of July, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on two amendments, each approved by 95 vote margins, to end restrictions on travel and lift restrictions on financing exports to Cuba. The Senate will consider the legislation soon.

While the White House has threatened to veto any legislation that would “bolster the Cuban dictatorship,” the anti-Embargo lobby argues that US tourism will benefit Cubans without strengthening Castro, and that trade with Havana will mean substantial American profits. These arguments are misguided at best and disingenuous at worst.

Fidel Castro is broke, and at issue is not trade, but extending American export credit and export insurance to his regime, both of which are funded by American taxpayers. Since last year, American companies are allowed to ‘trade’ with Castro’s government on a cash and carry basis. But when Castro defaults on his purchases, under the proposed policy American taxpayers will have the burden of picking up his tab.

Nine American presidents, from both political parties have supported restrictions on travel to Cuba. And while the anti-Embargo lobby and many editorial pages across the nation try to explain away this long-lasting U.S. policy in terms of domestic political considerations (i.e., the Cuban American vote), the facts prove otherwise.

In a July 11th letter to the House Committee on Appropriations, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill said that: “Trade by other nations with Cuba has brought no change to Cuba’s despotic practices, and it has frequently proved to be an unprofitable enterprise.”

Unprofitable, indeed. France, Spain, Italy and Venezuela have suspended official credits to Castro’s Cuba -- not because of the Cuban communities in those nations -- but because Cuba has failed to make payments on its debt, including debt incurred on agricultural purchases. Powell and O’Neill wrote that, “two governments have approached the U.S. to complain that Cuba’s payments of cash for U.S. agricultural products have meant that they are not getting paid at all.”

Reuters reported on July 8, 2002 that, “Direct foreign investment in Cuba plummeted to $38.9 million in 2001 from $488 million the year before.” And earlier in the year, despite Castro’s tantrum, Russia closed its spy facility near Havana, thus denying his government $200 million per year in rent payments.

Castro’s current creditors are far from happy with these circumstances, as many have not received payment on interest or principal credit since 1986. Without even counting Castro’s debt to Russia, which he will not pay because he declares his debt as to a country that “no longer exists,” Havana owes billions of dollars to western banks and former socialist countries.

The situation in Cuba is thus much more a problem of policy than politics. President Bush announced his “U.S. Initiative for a New Cuba” on May 20, 2002, and declared that, “Cuban purchases of U.S. agricultural goods ... would be a foreign aid program in disguise.” And who pays for aid to foreign governments, but the American taxpayers who will eventually foot the tab for the defaults on his debts.

If this is not enough evidence, those lobbying for American credits and imminent subsidies should ask the Canadians for their advice. On August 7, 2002, the Montreal Gazette reported that, “Lilac Islands, a 15,000 ton Cuban-owned ship, has been held in the port of Conakry, the Guinean capital, for the past month while an Ontario company, armed with legal judgements, pursues Cuba for more than $3 million U.S. Last week, Guinea’s Court of Appeals upheld the continuance of the steel-laden ship’s detention-pending the payment of more than $275,000 in debt to Adecon Ship Management of Mississauga. Adacon claims the total debt on several judgements exceeds $3 million.” Imagine U.S. companies chasing down Cuban cargo ships in international waters to collect payment, while American taxpayers sit on the sidelines knowing that they’ll pick up the bill when the debtor doesn’t pay.

Trade with Cuba does not represent trade with Cuban business owners, entrepreneurs or consumers; Trade with Cuba is trade with the Castro government itself, which monopolizes virtually all enterprises and exploits Cuban workers as their sole employer. Said Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s national security advisor, “In Cuba, Fidel Castro is still the one man through whom everything has to go. Any trade that goes through Cuba is going to strengthen Cuba’s regime.”

While the anti-Embargo lobby insists on the right of American tourists to travel to Cuba, they ignore other rights and national security considerations. Each right must be weighted against its impact on other rights. As John Stuart Mill once said, “one man’s right to swing his arm ends where my nose begins.” And in the case of Cuba, the desire to travel must be weighed against the risks inherent in subsidizing a regime that poses a national security threat to the United States.

Consider: In their July 11th letter to the Appropriations Committee, Secretary Powell and Secretary O’Neill said that, “A relationship of continuing hostility exists between Cuba and the United States;” that “Cuba has long been listed by the State Department as a state-sponsor of terrorism;” and that, “[Cuba] continues to harbor fugitives from the American justice system, and it supports international terrorist organizations.” Castro has provided a safe haven for more than 70 fugitives from U.S. justice, including several accused of killing American police officers.

Due to the end of Soviet subsidies and his disastrous economic policies, Castro is bankrupt. His lack of cash restricts his ability to engage or support anti-American actions around the world.

But his anti-American commitment remains. On May 10, 2001, Agence France Presse quoted Castro’s speech at the University of Tehran, where he stated: “Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees.”

What, specifically, does Castro have in mind? In a May 6th speech, John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, warned Americans that “Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort ... [and] has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states.” Few are demanding that the administration produce a “smoking gun” to prove its assessment of the threat posed by Iraq, Iran, or North Korea, but the evidence is surely in on Castro, who needs American tourism to make up for Soviet money lost, so he can once again pursue a more active anti-American role in the world.

Some say that the opening of U.S. tourism to Cuba will bring the two cultures together, but the reality is far different. Currently, Castro sets aside hotels, beaches, stores, restaurants, and even hospitals for foreigners, and prohibits his own people from staying in those hotels and patronizing those facilities. U.S. tourism under current conditions would freeze in place Castro’s tourist apartheid, and likely exacerbate it. People-to-people contact under Castro’s regime is far from likely.

But contact between cultures of a different, and often nefarious, kind is much more likely. A March 2002 report released by Johns Hopkins University says that Cuba is “increasingly reported to be a major destination for sex tourists from North America and Europe. The increase is attributed to a concurrent drop in political restrictions on travel to Cuba and a crackdown on sex tourism in Southeast Asia, causing sex tourists to seek out alternative destinations. According to general news reports, Cuba is one of many countries that have replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles and sex tourists ... Canadian sex tourism is also cited as largely responsible for the revival of Havana brothels and child prostitution.”

In their same May letter to the House Appropriations Committee, shortly before the body passed two amendments ending restrictions on travel and financing exports to Cuba, Secretaries Powell and O’Neill stated that, “Current economic circumstances in Cuba do not support changing our position on trade with Cuba. Moreover, the lack of a sound economic rationale makes it more likely that Castro would use any liberalizing of our trade position for his political benefit.”

Providing trade benefits to America’s enemies, especially those on the State Department’s list of terrorist nations, makes as much sense as selling U.S. scrap metal to Japan in the 1930s -- some of which was used to build up the Japanese military and, later, attack Pearl Harbor.

But apart from security policy, one of the greatest advantages of the U.S. embargo on Cuba is that it has saved U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars in unappropriated export insurance and subsidies. American banks aren’t among the consortium of creditors, like those in France, Spain and Canada, who have been waiting for years to be paid what they are owed.

Fidel Castro is broke. He can’t pay his debts, and several of his most important trading partners have suspended credits and export insurance. Yet, like the second to last scene in a bad Hollywood western, some are out trying to muster a cavalry to save his regime. This time, it is a cavalry of American tourists and special interests whose objectives will only strengthen the Western Hemisphere’s most enduring dictatorship.

Capital markets lie only when con artists run the show. And forcing American taxpayers to subsidize Cuba, which has seen a 92% decrease in foreign investment (from $488 million in 2000 to $39 million in 2001) is a leap from a precipice trumping Enron and Worldcom combined. A policy of moving exports from a cash-and-carry basis to credit extensions is like sentencing taxpayers to investing in Enron or WorldCom right before those stocks plummeted. American taxpayers did not have to bail out those companies. And they should not be forced to bail out the head of an openly hostile government, especially when his default is more a question of “when” than “if.”

If you are interested in contacting your senator or representative on this important issue, please write to:

Your Senator United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Your Representative United States House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515

You can also call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 225-3121, and ask for your senator or representative by name.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frank Calzon is executive director of Center for a Free Cuba.

DO NOT FORGET CASTRO'S TERROR NETWORK

Center for the Study of a National Option
Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001

Rafael Artigas and Ana Carbonell provided research support for this article.

It was not hard to guess what common foe brought the Supreme Leader and the Comandante together for their summit meeting in Tehran in May. The statements made by Fidel Castro during his visit to Iran are chilling when read in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

According to news reports, during the visit Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei "assured Castro that Iran and Cuba can defeat the U.S. hand in hand,” to which Castro agreed, adding that America was "extremely weak today,” and that "we are today eyewitness to their weakness, as their close neighbors.”

At Tehran University he stated to the thunderous applause of students and faculty, "The imperialist king will finally fall,” (AFP, May 10, 2001). Immediately afterward the Iranian Press Service proudly proclaimed that "Iran and Cuba reached the conclusion that together they can tear down the United States.” (IPS, May 10, 2001)

Some have argued that Cuba’s well-documented sponsorship and instigation of international terrorism is a thing of the past, to be understood in light of the Cold War context.

However, irrefutable evidence indicates that to this day:
The Castro dictatorship continues to actively harbor international terrorists,
The Castro dictatorship continues to pursue a strategic alliance with terrorist states so as to create an ‘anti-Western’ international front, and
The Castro dictatorship has engaged directly in terrorist attacks and espionage against Americans. As recently as July 1999 Domingo Amuchastegui, a former Cuban government official said to have exceptional information about the Cuban government, wrote: "For U.S. interests, the closeness of the [Cuban] relationship with Iraq and some of the more militant terrorist groups in the Middle East is troublesome. Can Cuba be used to carry out terrorist acts against U.S. targets? Is there any cooperation between Sadam Hussein and Castro in the development of chemical and bacteriological weapons? What remains from the close cooperation between Castro and the more militant terrorist groups in the region?” (University of Miami Middle East Studies Institute, July 1999).

Evidence indicates that Cuba today continues to serve as a base for coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations. In August, Colombian authorities arrested three suspected IRA terrorists who were providing specialized training to the FARC terrorist organization. One of the men, Nial Connolly, had lived in Cuba since 1996 as the IRA’s representative. (The Times, Aug. 16, 2001; BBC News, Aug. 17, 2001)

It is believed that it was in Cuba where the IRA established contact with the FARC and ELN terrorist organizations. These two organizations, according to the State Department’s 2000 report on global terrorism, have "… maintained a permanent presence in the island.” It is further believed that the IRA men were training the Colombian rebels in the development of powerful anti-personnel explosives destined for the proposed FARC "urban offensive."

There is additional information that indicates that the Colombian territory under FARC control has become a haven for Terror International. Argentine journalist Julio Cirino, an expert on international terrorism, has written about the existence of a logistical support base "in a small city near the Colombian border with Venezuela,” where "Middle Eastern types” receive fake Colombian passports and move on to other unspecified destinations. In October 1998, Interpol arrested Egyptian extremist Mohamed Enid Abdel Aal, in Bogota, Colombia. Abdel Aal, a leader of one of the most dangerous of the Islamist terrorist organizations, told authorities under questioning that "he planned to stay in Colombia for a few days and then head to Venezuela over land.” (El Nuevo Herald, Sept. 16, 2001)

The Castro regime has not only continued to provide support for the vicious Basque terrorist organization ETA, known for its ghastly car bomb attacks on civilian targets, but it has also publicly attempted to scuttle diplomatic efforts to condemn it. In a 1995 raid by French police on ETA hideouts, computer files were found which clearly indicated that Cuban intelligence aided members of the group wanted for terror attacks in Spain. According to the files, Cuba’s Communist Party "considers its relations with ETA to be ‘fraternal, sustained, strategic and increasingly deep.’" (The Miami Herald, Dec. 27, 1997)

Cuban covert support for terrorism in Spain has been accompanied by attempts at diplomatic protection. Castro not only refused to join the other Ibero-American heads of state in condemning ETA terrorism at the 2000 Ibero-American summit, he also "slammed Mexico for its support of a statement against terrorism at the Ibero American Summit in Panama.” (The Miami Herald, Nov. 11, 2000).

The Cuban dictatorship’s continued relationship with bloody terror groups and the use of Cuban territory and diplomacy to protect them has long been a mainstay of Cuban foreign policy. As State Department reports indicate, Americans sought for crimes linked to 1960s radical groups have long received sanctuary in the island. What proves even more worrisome however, has been the recent effort by the Cuban regime to forge an "anti-Western" front with terrorist states in the Middle East.

'I Will Not Reconcile'
On Sept. 18, 2000 in an exclusive interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television, Castro stated that "We are not ready for reconciliation with the United States, and I will not reconcile with the imperialist system.” He further added that his government had defended Cuba against "a Western cultural invasion,” echoing one of the key themes of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the region.

In May 2001 Castro undertook a round of visits to Syria, Libya and Iran. Speaking at Tehran University, he insisted that "people must be informed and awakened; they must not allow themselves to be pillaged by the West.” On July 26, 2001, Castro marked another anniversary of the beginning of his revolution by marching in Havana alongside the Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, now a high-ranking Iranian official.

Biological War
The Iran-Cuba link has long worried intelligence and security analysts in the U.S. Soviet Colonel Ken Alibek, formerly second-in-command of the U.S.S.R.’s bacteriological arms development program, has long insisted that the Castro regime has such weapons at its disposal. In his book "Biohazard," Alibek quotes his former boss, Gen. Yuri T. Kalinin, as having told him that Cuba had an active bacteriological arms program.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen stated in May 1998: "Cuba’s current scientific facilities could support an offensive biological warfare program in at least the research and development stage.”

In October 2000, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian vice minister of health inaugurated a biotechnological research and development plant outside Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of the installation, because Iran already produces 97 percent of the medicines its population consumes.

It is feasible to establish the links of the bin Laden network with the Iranian government and to identify its common interests with the Castro regime. Castro and bin Laden work hard to build a common front to bring down the United States and to develop biological weapons of mass destruction.

In its indictment of bin Laden, the Justice Department stated that the Al Qaeda terrorist organization under his command sought to "put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies.”

The indictment further alleges that Al Qaeda "also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hezballah.”

In February 1998 Osama bin Laden announced the creation of an "international front” against the United States. According to a document obtained by the PBS program "Frontline," bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with Iran and China as something to be considered.”

But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link. In a March 4, 2000 story the Associated Press reported: "A young Afghan who trained this winter at a camp in mountainous Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. The North Korean, he said, had brought chemical weapons, which were stored in caves and in the dozens of sunbaked mud-and-stone houses.”

In an official statement Sunday, the government of Grand Cayman reported that in August 2000 it had arrested three Afghan nationals who had illegally entered the country from Cuba using fake Pakistani passports.

The New York Times reported in September 1998 that advisers provided then-President Bill Clinton with evidence that "bin Laden is looking to obtain weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons to use against U.S. installations.” Is it that far-fetched to see that the ideological affinity between Cuba and Al Qaeda and the allure of bin Laden’s money for Castro’s cash-strapped regime could easily result in the worst of scenarios?

As America prepares to build a global coalition for a definitive assault on international terrorism, it must come to grips with the fact that the enemy is a step ahead. Policy makers, legislators and analysts must not dismiss Cuba’s insistent efforts aimed precisely at building an anti-Western alliance, its continued support and encouragement for international terrorist organizations, or its latent capacity for biological warfare and its propensity to share it with other terrorist states directly linked to U.S. enemies.

Above all, Castro’s continued virulent rhetoric against the U.S. and the Western world in general must not be overlooked. It was not too long ago that Americans were the direct targets of Castroite terrorist attacks. On Feb. 24, 1996 two unarmed U.S. civilian aircraft were shot out of the sky in plain daylight in international air space, murdering three US citizens and one resident. A group of Cuban spies in Florida were recently convicted of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, seeking to penetrate US military installations, spying on members of the U.S. Congress and providing information on Miami International Airport.

Turning a blind eye to Castro on the eve of the "first war of the 21st century" would be tantamount to ignoring the Nazi and fascist alliance with Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. The enemy is 90 miles south of Key West. And he does not hide his hatred for us.

WHO CARES ABOUT CUBA?: NINETY MILES AWAY, FAR FROM OUR MINDS
By Jay Nordlinger
Managing Editor
National Review
Mayo 27, 2001

It is a bald question, and one that pops up from time to time: Why are Americans so indifferent to the plight of Cubans? Why do Americans, particularly our elites, scorn the exile community in Florida? Why do our elites continually excuse, or defend, or outright champion the Communist regime in Cuba? Why do the media ignore the heroics of Cuban dissidents, which should be the stuff of page-one stories, and magazine covers, and Movies of the Week? Why?

This is a question that Cubans and Cuban-Americans ask all the time, in anguished and bewildered tones. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.N. ambassador, says that all this is "both a puzzling and a profoundly painful phenomenon of our times." What is "especially puzzling," she continues, "is the extreme selectivity of concern over terrible, terrible suffering, the deprivation of all rights." Americans followed the saga of South Africa with intense interest, and activism. The abuses of the Pinochet regime in Chile are the subject of film, song, and much else. The victims of right-wing dictatorship can usually count on the world's attention. But those who dare to resist and challenge the regime in Cuba work in near-total darkness.

Let us take a couple of cases out of the darkness. Here are two that have crossed my desk in recent days.

The first involves a man named Rene Montes de Oca Martija. He is a dissident, a human-rights campaigner, and a Christian. Thirty-seven years old, he has been jailed or detained repeatedly. Montes de Oca was born into a family of oppositionists; his uncle, for example, was a well-known political prisoner. For this reason, Montes de Oca himself was singled out at school, denied what privileges there were and marked as an enemy. His mother was a Jehovah's Witness, which meant additional persecution. Montes de Oca himself is a Pentecostalist, and an official with the Human Rights Party (illegal, of course), which is affiliated with the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, watched over by the late physicist's widow, Yelena Bonner.

Montes de Oca was arrested and imprisoned in July of last year. He was charged with "threatening the security of the state." His actual offense was to have called for the release of political prisoners, free elections, a fair penal code, and the possibility of Christian education in the schools.

On April 20, he escaped. There is a kind of Underground Railroad in Cuba, a network of people who help oppositionists. Montes de Oca could not very well avail himself of this system, however, as he was a fugitive, and the penalties for aiding a fugitive are severe. But he managed to contact Cuban-Americans in Florida who do what they can to help oppositionists, mainly by simply taking their statements and trying to disseminate them somehow. These helpers then turned to me. They knew that I had written about Cuba, they knew that National Review was anti-Communist ("pro-Cuban" would be another way to put that), and they thought we would be interested. Would I be willing to interview Montes de Oca, if it could be arranged? I spoke to him by phone on May 5.

The dissident related his story in an agitated but resolute voice. He expected to be arrested again soon; he was desperate for his story to be heard. He knew that, once he was recaptured, he would face not only heavy punishment for having escaped, but trumped-up charges of "common" crimes, such as thievery. The mother of his child had already lost her job because the authorities demanded that she testify that Montes de Oca had beaten her. She refused, and suffered the consequences.

Primarily, Montes de Oca was worried about his son, twelve years old. The boy had been badly beaten a number of times at school, by older boys who are sons of "patriotic" military personnel. This occurred with the apparent blessing of the authorities. Police were dogging the son to and from school.

Montes de Oca's highest hope was that the boy would be allowed to leave the country to receive medical care: He suffers from a hernia affecting his testicles, and also from a twisted spine. Both conditions require surgery. The boy is being denied treatment, however, because he is the son of an oppositionist.

Montes de Oca has endured persecution that can hardly be imagined. "Why do you persist?" I asked him. "Why do you take these risks? How can you be so brave?" He answered, "There are many brave people in Cuba, both men and women. We have always been faithful: a faithful community, a faithful people. We take our strength from the Bible. We believe in love, justice, and peace. We take God's truth to the darkest and loneliest places of human existence, like the prisons." And what did he want from Americans, I asked, beyond specific help for his son? "I would like them to remember their principles: their sense of unity, justice, and liberty, maintained over so many years." Last, he wished to say, "Human rights cannot exist without God."

Three days later, on May 8, he was indeed rearrested. In the afternoon, he spoke with supporters in the United States, wanting to provide as much information as possible, and then he went to the home of a fellow oppositionist. In the night, state security broke in and hauled both men off. No one has heard from Montes de Oca again; his family, at this writing, has been denied any information about him, and they fear the worst.

The second case I wish to discuss involves another dissident and political prisoner, Jose Orlando Gonzalez Bridon. He is an officer with the Cuban Democratic Workers' Confederation, a trade union (illegal). Gonzalez Bridon stands accused of distributing "enemy propaganda" and "false information" for the purpose of "provoking public disorder." His chief crime seems to have been to place on an American website-that of the Cuba Free Press Project-a statement questioning the regime's role in the death of a fellow trade unionist, Joanna Gonzalez Herrera. He also incensed the regime with a protest at his home on November 23, 2000. On that day, a large group of oppositionists gathered in the presence of a CNN camera and reporter.

The protesters were greatly encouraged by this opportunity to be heard. They are willing to challenge the regime under any circumstances; but, naturally, they would like some reward for the risks they take.

For reasons unknown, CNN declined to broadcast the protest, or to report on the matter at all. This dismayed and outraged the oppositionists. Several of them contend that CNN's reporter promised that the protest would be reported. A spokeswoman for the network says that it is CNN policy never to make such a promise.

Later, many of the Cubans who participated in the event were rounded up while attending a religious ceremony. They were beaten and jailed. Gonzalez Bridon's wife has told supporters in the U.S. that she does not hold CNN responsible for the arrests; but she does believe that the network behaved unethically and misleadingly. Other oppositionists feel grossly betrayed by the network. They complain that CNN is consistently pro-regime. They note that the network's founder, Ted Turner, is a friend and admirer of Fidel Castro. CNN's spokeswoman counters that the network has reported on "both pro-Castro and anti-Castro demonstrations." Such evenhandedness is apparently the most Cuban dissidents can hope for; but they do not believe they get even that.

CNN did run a story from Cuba on November 23: It was about the reentry of Elian Gonzalez, the "raft boy," into Cuban society, where (said the network) "he is a typical, happy-go-lucky schoolboy." CNN's Havana correspondent, Lucia Newman, said toward the end of the report, "What is unquestionable is that Elian's return to Cuba was a resounding political victory for Cuba's president, and a devastating blow to his arch-enemies, the anti-Castro exile community in the United States." Note the language there, because Cubans certainly do: the dictator as "president"; his opposition, "arch-enemies, the anti-Castro exile community in the United States." First, what of the anti-Castro community in Cuba? Second, the Florida Cubans are seldom described, in the mainstream press, as anti-Communist or pro-freedom or pro-democracy or pro-human rights. They are, at best, anti-Castro, and more often "right-wing" and worse. Robert Conquest, the great historian of Communist terror, notes that Orwell liked to observe that anti-Communists were always described as "rabid": rabid anti-Communists. Almost never was there a "rabid anti-Nazi," for example.

So, there are a couple of names named: Rene Montes de Oca Martija and Jose Orlando Gonzalez Bridon. There are thousands of others, belonging to thousands of other political prisoners. Hear (merely) three more: Vladimiro Roca, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, and Maritza Lugo Fernandez. These names mean nothing in our country, except to Cuban-Americans. Perhaps the most inspiring name of all is that of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, a virtual saint of the resistance. Biscet is a practitioner of civil disobedience in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, his avowed models. He has been imprisoned and tortured since 1998. We know, through his wife, that he has blessed and forgiven his torturers even as they have tortured him. Here is a man-Biscet-whose name should be on many lips. Cuban dissidents complain bitterly that if he were a prisoner of a right-wing regime he would be a worldwide cause. Yet he is anonymous; not even his dark skin seems able to help him. The stream of American celebrities who go to Havana to sup, smoke, and banter with "Fidel" are oblivious.

One man who has thought long and hard about all this is Armando Valladares. He is the most famed of the dissidents, the author of the memoir Against All Hope, one of the most powerful testaments of this age. Valladares persevered through years of imprisonment and torture, showing almost unfathomable courage, of every kind: physical, political, spiritual. Eventually he came to the United States, where he has devoted his life to truth-telling. Valladares has earned the designation "the Cuban Solzhenitsyn." One of the most bracing things President Reagan ever did, of many, was name Valladares U.S. delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Valladares divides those Americans who are neutral or friendly toward the Communist regime into two groups: those who lack information (a majority, he says, perhaps generously), and those-politicians, intellectuals, journalists-who should know better, to put it mildly. "I look at this from a psychological point of view," says Valladares. "Many Americans hate their own society, for whatever reason. Perhaps they have failed to attain their goals. So they sympathize with anyone who attacks American society. The cliche 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' applies here. And remember: The most envied, the most hated country in the world is the United States of America. I felt this clearly during my years as U.S. representative in Geneva."

Robert Conquest points out that Western defenders of the Soviet Union were "always more anti-American than they were pro-Soviet"; so it is in the case of Cuba. Jeane Kirkpatrick finds it astonishing that "some of our elites are actually proud of their indifference to Cuba's victims, or China's, or Burma's. It is in bad taste, intellectually, to give much thought to these victims." And "frankly, there is something perverse about the hostility to anti-Communists." We saw in the Elian affair, she says, that Cubans in the United States are close to a pariah community.

Paul Hollander is another great historian of Communism and its fellow-travelers. He finds it especially noteworthy that "American intellectuals haven't been much interested in the incredible repression of their fellow intellectuals in Cuba. The Cubans have had it much worse than intellectuals in the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin." The American academy proves all the time that it is nearly hopeless on the subject.

One of the most shocking things I ever saw occurred at Harvard in the mid 1980s. Valladares arrived to give a talk to students about his experience; and the school paired him with a pro-Castro professor. Evidently, Harvard felt that Valladares's witness should not be given without rebuttal. To most anti-Communists, this is rather like "balancing" an anti-Nazi with a pro-Nazi. The further sad truth is that the pro-Castro professors, in their classrooms, are paired with no one, least of all with a giant of conscience.

And what of journalists? They seem weirdly unconcerned with the fates of their counterparts in Cuba. Journalists are commonly thought to be obsessed with their profession and the freedom to practice it. If that is true, they might look into the case of Bernardo Arevalo Padron, once the director of an independent press agency, Linea Sur Press, and a political prisoner since 1997. His crime was to "insult" the dictator and his regime. Arevalo is being held at a forced-labor camp in Cienfuegos province, where he is undergoing what Castro's regime, like all such regimes, calls "political reeducation."

Vernon Walters-a second ex-ambassador to the U.N.-says that the indifference of the American press is "absolutely normal": "They would go to the death searching out Franco's or Pinochet's prisoners. But the attitude toward Castro's is, 'They probably deserve to be there anyway.' Anti-Communist prisoners are of no interest to anybody. A prisoner of a left-wing government is highly suspect, probably a fascist." Conquest points out that Western elites have always scorned resisters to, and refugees from, Communism: Accounts from Soviet Russia were "rumors in Riga"; refugees from Mao's China, when they staggered into Hong Kong, were bandits, warlords; "and the Cubans! They escaped, went to Florida, and started voting Republican, so they were clearly no good." The anti-anti-Communist mindset, says Conquest, remains fierce, above all with regard to Cuba.

Valladares, for his part, says that "the hardest part of our struggle is to fight against a double standard: one standard for right-wing regimes, another for left-wing ones. Torture and denial of rights are the same, no matter who perpetrates them."

The dissident community suffered a special blow on April 26, when the American secretary of state, Colin Powell, gave testimony in the House. Badgered by Rep. Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat and one of Castro's most ardent champions, Powell said, "He's done some good things for his people."

The "he" was Castro. And when Powell uttered those words, he gave away more than he must have known, for they are a standard propaganda phrase. Apologists have always said, "Well, Fidel might deny his people [creepy phrase, by the way: "his people"] political and civil rights, but he has done some good things." By "good things" they usually mean advances in education, health care, housing, and race relations. These claims are entirely bogus, demolished ad nauseam by objective analysts. But they are undying. After Powell's testimony, Castro praised and thanked the secretary for his concession, another blow to the dissidents.

Valladares has a ready answer to this business of "good things," given with patience and weariness: Say these things have been accomplished (which is laughable, but leave that aside). Could they not have been accomplished without torturing people? Without imprisoning them? Without denying them all rights? Is material well-being incompatible with human freedom? Besides which, few people go out of their way to stress the material achievements of other dictators: autobahns and so forth. The likes of Jose Serrano do not pause to acknowledge Chile's economic explosion. And then there is the matter of Castro's sheer longevity as dictator. Says Valladares, "I was talking to an American, a Democrat, the other day. I said to him, 'How would you like it if Richard Nixon got to be president for over forty years?' The man almost shrieked in horror."

American celebrities who trot to Cuba almost never see the country in which Cubans have to live; they see a Potemkin Cuba, set up for visitors and off-limits to Cubans. Outright leftists from America have always journeyed to Havana, to use and be used: Robert Redford and Ed Asner, Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee (two congresswomen from California). Other pilgrims, however, are less malicious than they are trendy and naive: Leonardo DiCaprio, Woody Harrelson, an assortment of pop musicians. A few years ago, the fashion models Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss had an audience with Castro. Campbell hailed the dictator as "a source of inspiration to the world." Castro complimented the ladies on their "spirituality." Jack Nicholson, too, had a high time in Cuba. He drank choice rum, smoked choice cigars, and buddied for three hours with Castro, afterward pronouncing Cuba "a paradise."

Such behavior may seem merely ridiculous, but it is not without its effect on dissidents. Valladares confirms the obvious: that it demoralizes them terribly. "It demoralizes not only the resistance inside Cuba, but all of us who have struggled for many years while we wait for the solidarity of those who believe in democracy." He may wait for that solidarity a long time. The likes of Naomi Campbell and Jack Nicholson, sadly, have far more influence on Americans than Armando Valladares ever could.

Cubans and Cuban-Americans feel a persistent hurt over the general American attitude toward them. One exile in Boca Raton reports that he can no longer talk with his Anglo neighbors about his homeland. "If I explain to them the reality of Cuban life, all I get is, 'Oh, you're a right-winger,' or, 'You're biased against President Castro.'" Can you imagine being biased against the tyrant who deprives you of rights, throws you in jail, and makes life so intolerable as to force you into the open sea on a homemade raft? Many Cubans especially resent this honorific "President" before Castro, as if the dictator were the equivalent of a democratic leader. Worse is the affectionate, pop-star-ish "Fidel." We would never hear, for Pinochet, "Augusto." Gus!

The oppositionists and their supporters are extraordinarily, even disturbingly, grateful for any sincere attention they receive. They are accustomed to being snubbed or defamed. Another exile writes, "Prisoners cling to newspaper articles about human rights in Cuba as their only hope against being abandoned and forgotten. The sense of helplessness, that no one is listening, that no one cares, is what kills their souls. I've known many such people, including within my own family."

Back in the Reagan years, Jeane Kirkpatrick became a heroine in the Soviet Union for the simple act of naming names on the floor of the U.N.: naming the names of prisoners, citing their cases, inquiring after their fates. Later, in Moscow, she met Andrei Sakharov, who exclaimed, "Kirkpatski, Kirkpatski! I have so wanted to meet you and thank you in person. Your name is known in all the Gulag." And why was that? Because she had named those names, giving men and women in the cells a measure of hope. Kirkpatrick says now, "This much I have learned: It is very, very important to say the names, to speak them. It's important to go on taking account as one becomes aware of the prisoners and the torture they undergo. It's terribly important to talk about it, write about it, go on TV about it." A tyrannical regime depends on silence, darkness. "One of their goals is to make their opponents vanish. They want not only to imprison them, they want no one to have heard of them, no one to know who or where they are. So to just that extent, it's tremendously important that we pay attention."

Indignation and concern are not inexhaustible, of course; no one, including Americans, can watch the fall of every sparrow (although, somehow, it seemed possible in South Africa). But American attention is a powerful thing; so is an American consensus. "Fidel will eventually die," some people say, with a shrug. But certain other people have waited long enough.

GREED VS. EMBARGO

By Agustin Blazquez
with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton
NewsMax
Colaboración:
Armando F. Mastrapa III
New York
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 14, 2002

The recent corporate collapses and scandals in the U.S. business community have exposed the evils of greed when it becomes the basis for decision-making. Greed is certainly a bad adviser, as it tramples the moral and ethical principles on which America was founded.

Greed and illusory dreams of profits were the foundations of the July 23, 2002, vote - 262 to 167 - in the Republican-led House of Representatives in favor of easing the economic embargo against the Castro regime and letting American tourists visit Cuba.

For some time now, Castro has been able to buy goods from the U.S. on a cash-only basis - no credit. But the legislation passed by the House will allow Castro to buy on credit.

In 1986 he began suspending all payments of his international debt, debt to both governments and businesses. Since he is the only businessman in Cuba, he can do that. As a result, many countries have withdrawn their permission for him to buy on credit.

Absolutely nothing has happened to suggest that he has changed his tune and will now begin to take his debts seriously. So, for the U.S. to now begin to sell to his regime on credit is an abysmal mistake.

Cuba's Foreign Debt

"Cuba's Foreign Debt," released on Aug. 19, 2002, by the Cuba Transition Project (distributed by La Voz de Cuba Libre), offers an accounting as of the end of 2001: owed to the European Union, $10.893 billion; to the former Eastern Europe, $2.2 billion; to the former Soviet Union, $25 billion; to England, $196 million; to Japan, $1.7 billion; to China, $400 million; to Argentina, $1.58 billion; to Mexico, $380 million; to Venezuela, $142 million; to Canada, $73 million; to Chile, $20 million and to South Africa, $85 million.

From the same report: "Cuba's foreign debt owed to numerous countries remains unpaid. The Castro regime lacks the resources to even pay interest on these obligations. Several European governments are now refusing to provide further export credit to Cuba. According to a Reuters report on July 6, 2002, 'the island is notorious for paying its debts late ... and public and private creditors report that the situation has grown much worse in recent months.' As The Economist noted in May 2001, 'France, Italy and South Africa have recently cut off further credit to Cuba, in a bid to claw back some of what they are owed.' "

I am willing to say it out loud: If the U.S. government allows farmers to extend credit to Cuba, and, true to form, Cuba doesn't pay, the U.S. government will be obligated to save the U.S. farmers who (seemingly) put their trust in the U.S. government by extending the credit. I say "seemingly" because, now that I've said it out loud, the U.S. farmers know the dangers of selling to Cuba on credit.

Once the U.S. government pays Castro's debts for him, then our tax money will be used to support a tyranny. Isn't there a little moral issue here?

But greed is very powerful. And apparently our businessmen and farmers don't care about who will eventually be paying, as long as they make their profits. Our politicians, supposedly, must protect the interests of their constituency, who are taxpayers and who ultimately will be faced with the bill for the irresponsibility of this small but powerful special-interest group.

Soon in Congress, with the help of the well-financed pro-Castro lobby on Capitol Hill, politicians will try to pass - and probably will, with flying colors - another similar action in favor of easing the U.S. embargo, giving another victory to the old and now "untouchable" tyrant-for-life of Cuba. That victory will be one more defeat for the Cuban people, since it will prolong their suffering.

But there are no moral principles driving our businessmen's greed. Just look at China, which, thanks to American businessmen, has become more powerful and threatening to the U.S. than ever and the three decades of "engagement" have not brought the oppressed Chinese people any closer to democracy.

Castro's 'Engagement' With the World

Usually unmentioned during times of "I know, let's lift the embargo!" the U.S. embargo says nothing about Cuba's trade with the rest of the world. Has his "engagement" with the rest of the world made him change his political posture, improve human rights or the living conditions for the Cuban people? Obviously not. Any benefit Cuba gains from the engagement are for Castro, not the people.

Has international business engagement brought a change in Castro's intentions about the future of Cuba? Obviously not, as he continues with his tired, old "Socialism or death!" which Cubans on the island changed to "Socialism is death!"

So, where is the logic in the argument that lifting the U.S. embargo, giving his regime credit and flooding his bankrupt economy with U.S. tourist dollars will encourage him to mend his ways?

The fallacious engagement theory that Castro's apologists, supporters and lobbyists on Capitol Hill, accompanied by the greedy U.S. business community, have been using to justify their despicable actions is that it will bring change and improve the living conditions in Cuba. Also the naïve concept that exposing Cubans to American tourists will bring new ideas and will foster a tilt toward democracy is simply unrealistic.

Cuba's Apartheid

Cuba is an apartheid society where ordinary Cubans are not allowed in the tourist areas - except as servants and security agents to keep tourists under control and separated from the rest of the population. Ordinary Cubans are penalized for mingling with tourists.

Cubans are painfully aware of who has been helped by "engagement." The ventures with foreign companies are all administered by the armed forces and the secret police. The payoff is only for Castro - keeping him in power and repressing the people. Ordinary Cuban citizens are not allowed to enter into partnerships with foreigners.

The Cubans who work in these international businesses are aware that these foreign companies pay salaries in U.S. dollars to Castro and he in turn pays them a very small fraction in worthless Cuban pesos. They are aware that as workers for these foreign companies, they have no bargaining rights. They are aware of the differences between the opportunities of foreigners and those of the ordinary natives - thus their hatred for the resulting apartheid.

This whole process sets up a hatred for the foreign exploiters, because ordinary Cubans are taken advantage of not only by Castro but also by the international business community.

Canadians, Mexicans, Spaniards and other Europeans vacation in Castroland and have the audacity to buy vacation places there while Cubans are risking their lives - 85,876 deaths so far - trying to escape from that "foreigners-only paradise."

And apparently the greed extends to U.S. businessmen, swamping the moral issues of the welfare of the expendable little Cubans.

The 'Politically Correct' Mantra

Many U.S. businessmen keep trying to join the herd of profiteers by pressuring the Bush administration to change U.S. policy toward Cuba. The efforts of the pro-Castro lobby in the U.S. have been to convince politicians, and the American people - with the full collaboration of the U.S. media and academia - that lifting the embargo against Castro will foster change in Cuba toward democracy.

That has become the "politically correct" mantra, while "politically correctly" maligning, censoring and discrediting those Cuban-Americans who oppose lifting the U.S. embargo.

This heavily orchestrated campaign has succeeded in thoroughly disinforming the American people to a point where they've become insensitive to the Cuban tragedy. And Americans traveling illegally to Cuba through third countries has become "chic." To encourage this illegality, Castro's immigration officials do not stamp their U.S. passports.

I often think how ironic it is for Americans to want to visit a country that 90 percent of the enslaved population wants to get the hell out of. The happy-go-lucky vacationers seem to have no problem with being served by the slaves.

American politicians have also fallen victim to the fad, as they have become a staple in Castro's anti-embargo propaganda ploy. The politician currently garnering favorable publicity by participating in this parade of fools is Minnesota Wrestler-Governor Jesse Ventura, who plans to be in Havana from Sept. 26-30 - and meet with Castro, of course.

In his elected position, Gov. Ventura, as well as other visiting U.S. politicians, must know that Cuba is a virulent anti-American terrorist country that for 43 years has been waging a covert war against the U.S. Cuba remains a threat to our national security. Castro's Cuba is a training ground for terrorists and is allied to international terrorism directed against the U.S. Castro's Cuba is not a friendly nation.

It should be considered un-American and unpatriotic to visit there, much less to lend an economic hand. There are a lot of reasons not to visit Cuba.

After 43 years of the most brutal tyranny in Cuba's history as well as in the Americas, it seems that the drive should be for the continuation of a policy based on moral principles and scruples against a criminal and illegitimate regime that has raped the Cuban people of their right to live with freedom and dignity.

Sadly, the Europeans and others have shown themselves totally insensitive to the Cuban tragedy and behave without principles and scruples in their dealings with the Castro regime. But I believe that America is different and we should not descend to those levels. We must not act like them.

'Disinvestment'

"Disinvestment" was the right moral principle for the international business community in the case of South Africa. Why do the opposite for Cuba?

Demanding a unilateral change of policy from the U.S. without demanding that Castro and communism must go from Cuba is hypocritical and a crime against the suffering Cuban people. Lifting the U.S. embargo is not the answer; disinvestment is the moral thing to do.

By exploiting the situation in Cuba because of greed, the U.S. business community becomes a collaborator and partner in Castro's crimes.

Cubans are crying for an end to their misery and are not going to forget and forgive those who collaborated with their oppressor.

The people who love freedom and democracy in the U.S. should want the same for Cuba. They should urge all those politicians responding to the pressures of the pro-Castro lobby on Capitol Hill and greedy U.S. businessmen yearning for the imaginary profits promised by the propaganda machinery of a bankrupt regime, to stop their immoral drive and instead help by disinvesting in Cuba to get rid of the last tyranny in the Americas.

© 2002 ABIP

*****

CONSERVATISM AND OUR POLICY ON CASTRO

Por Hugo J. Byrne*
Columnista
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 18, 2002

Time and again the case has been properly and eloquently made that American conservatism springs from an attitude of ethical respect and protection of individual freedoms, as established by our Constitution. This cerebral and pragmatic stand, centers on a healthy regard towards the past, rather than a utopian hope about the future.

A true conservative always envisions the government in Washington as an entity whose basic function is to maintain American society on a civilized level. Thus, to a conservative, the federal government should concentrate its efforts on defense, foreign affairs, and very little else.

To a conservative, federal government meddling in labor disputes, beyond those negatively affecting vital services rendered by federal employees, should be the unfortunate exception, rather than the rule. Government aid of private businesses to the detriment of free competition should be anathema to a true conservative. The same criteria should be applied to the so-called “foreign aid.”

Conservative thinking asserts that very few federal programs of foreign aid have ever been successful. The Marshall Plan helped devastated Europe at the end of World War II, but more than 80% of our tax dollars earmarked for foreign aid during the past 50 years, have come to miserable waste at best. Some even helped our enemies.

We have listed a few very basic elements in the agenda of the American conservative philosophy. Those principles stand in sharp contrast with the “liberal” approach used by some contemporary politicians and their cohorts. The liberal media labels as “conservatives” many whose obvious political interests lay at the very opposite end of conservatism.

Such is the case of archliberal Curt Schaeffer in a piece he wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August. His subject is the American “trade embargo” on Castro, how it is loosing ground, and why that is a good thing for us.

In the process, Schaeffer calls attention to the collusion of some 73 Republican congressmen with 189 Democrats, who last July lifted travel restrictions on U.S. citizens wanting to visit Castro’s Cuba. Schaeffer, who had the dubious honor of socializing with Castro earlier the same month, found the dictator “hospitable, curious and in the end, verbose.” Really? Could Castro be verbose?

“Why is there so much bipartisan support for normalizing relations with Cuba”, questions Schaeffer, “led by a conservative Republican from Arizona, Jeff Flake?” In another paragraph, Schaeffer states that there are “both liberal and conservative advocates for normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations.” That, of course, is presently an oxymoron. Let’s discuss why.

For starters, any American conservative foreign policy initiative vis-à-vis Castro or anybody else should take into consideration only the enlightened vital interest of the U.S. The trade embargo, initiated by the Eisenhower administration in the early sixties was meant as a meaningless political scheme to appear as a punishment for Castro’s alignment with the Soviets. The embargo was a domestic gambit to appease political conservatives.

The outcome of the 1962 missile crisis, far from the overwhelming victory the liberal media cheered, was a strategic stalemate. In the end, it was the U.S., not the U.S.S.R. that blinked. The sad historical truth is that the Soviets never agreed to the removal of their offensive mid-range missiles until President Kennedy promised to dismantle our own bases in Italy and Turkey, giving Moscow assurances of Castro’s impunity. The Soviet blackmail was a brilliant success. After our government abjectly promised protection of the communist dictatorship in Cuba from “any invasion from the U.S. or anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere” and proceeded to enforce that agreement, the “trade embargo”, started since 1960 became the one and only way of pretending to oppose Castro’s totalitarian rule in Cuba. At the time of its inception and for the next three decades the embargo was largely upset by the Soviet subsidy to Castro of over $4 billion a year.

The “embargo” alas, was kept in place just for political perception. The hidden reality was the consolidation of Castro’s regime in 1962. The liberal blessed Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement has been the cornerstone in the Cuban policy of every U.S. government ever since. That included the governments of Johnson, Nixon, Ford and, most specially, Carter. But even the Reagan administration, in spite of its courageous proactive defense of the Hemisphere in Grenada, El Salvador and Nicaragua, tried unsuccessfully at first to come to terms with Castro. The late Ret. General Vernon Walters discussed U.S.-Castro differences with the Cuban dictator as an envoy of the newly elected Reagan in 1981. According to the old general, their meeting lasted six hours: “Castro spoke during five hours and I spoke only one. Generally I do better than that.” That of course is the “verbosity” Schaeffer writes about.

That meeting illustrated the reality surrounding our long and hard differences with the communist regime in Cuba. It is always the U.S. advancing the olive branch, and Castro in the end refusing it, while embracing every anti-American agenda in the process. Castro’s undeniable open or covert participation in terrorist activities –past or present-- underlines that process.

From a conservative standpoint, the choice of whether or not to maintain the trade embargo on Castro cannot be decided upon without consideration of that historical record. We have learned recently that Castro had a greater role in the 1962 crisis than he was credited with at the time. According to former Soviet leaders the dictator went as far as demanding a Russian preemptive nuclear strike against us in 1962.

According to the proponents of the American reconciliation with Castro on the dictators terms, such as Curt Schaeffer’s, or the Arizona “conservative” republican Jeff Flake, a political change in Cuba could be more dangerous than keeping in power an old totalitarian anti-American zealot who forty years ago wanted the Soviets to nuke American soil into oblivion. Is this a blatant ignorance of recent history, or just plain bad faith?

Yet, as conservatives, we should consider mostly the present circumstances. The center of the well-oiled campaign to dismantle the embargo rests on the notion that the “cold war is over, Castro does not pose a danger to our national security any more, and our businesses are losing great opportunities in the thriving Cuban market.”

To be sure, a conservative would oppose in theory the very notion of a commercial embargo for political reasons, whether directed against former racist South Africa or present communist Cuba. Conservative thinking however, demands a reasonable and rational approach, as opposed to the utopist fanaticism of the “liberals”, or the corrupting political opportunism of those phony “conservatives” equating free trade with government subsidies.

We conservatives cannot regard the U.S. embargo on Castro as something happening in a vacuum or accept its abrogation by virtue of political expediency. Such drastic change in foreign policy, departing from past bipartisan consensus could be very deleterious to our interests in times of economic retreat.

Granted, in 1962 the embargo was nothing else than a smoke screen hiding our tacit acceptance –and protection- of a communist outpost ninety miles from our shores. However, at that time our government did not impose on the taxpayers the plunder of agro subsidies, some of which fall in the budgetary category of “entitlements.” Now Uncle Sam does, and relating to the embargo it makes all the difference in the world.

No conservative could be in favor of such system of unconstitutional wealth redistribution as we suffer now, whether supposedly “helping” poor families or corporate executives. Ironically, given the intricacies of the present legislation covering so-called agricultural subsidies, the Cuban embargo is probably the only barrier preventing U.S. taxpayers from forcibly underwriting the Cuban regime.

That is the reason why so many Republican “conservative” congressmen --of the “Flaky” type-- are finding common ground in that issue with their socialist peers in the Democratic Party. That coalition is in part a product of the recent record breaking agricultural subsidy program signed into law by President Bush.

Is Castro’s Cuba truly an attractive market today for U.S. trade? Not if you take a conservative stand on the predicament of the U.S. taxpayers. Let’s see why.

At the time of the demise of the former Soviet Union in the early nineties, Castro was already a dubious credit risk. His regime stopped most payments on its multi-billion dollar foreign debt by 1986. Ever since, the Cuban dictatorship has tried to attract foreign investment under rigid constraints with mostly marginal success. The opening of the Cuban market to the U.S. dollar -–and other currencies more recently-- marked the peak of that effort. However, bad habits die hard, and a society accustomed to surviving on foreign subsidies for more than thirty years did not adapt fast enough to the new reality.

The events of September 11 had also a devastating impact in the Cuban economy, both in terms of a drastic reduction of new foreign investment and in the amount of goods and cash sent to the island by Cubans living in the U.S. The inability and unwillingness of the regime to pay its foreign debt however remained the biggest obstacle for Spanish, Mexican and Canadian entrepreneurs.

Foreign investment in Castro’s fiefdom was reduced from $448 million in 2000 to less than $40 million in 2001. The ever-present scarcity of basic items is worse than ever, and the regime’s ability to deal in practical terms with such disaster diminishes by leaps and bounds. The energy crisis is getting much worse now when even Castro’s friends like Venezuela’s Chavez requests payments of crude oil in cash and in advance of deliveries.

As it was during the early nineties, long blackouts are again plaguing Cuba. The recent government decision to make “socialism untouchable” assured permanent scarcity thru totalitarian control in the foreseeable future of the island.

In the middle of all the fanfare generated by the sale of U.S. grain to Castro on a cash basis, very little publicity was given to the complaint of two foreign governments to our State Department, of their dues from Castro being suspended on account of that sale. Obviously the smaller sheet cannot cover head and toes at the same time any more. That would not deter merchants aspiring to plunder the U.S. taxpayers, or the politicians they control.

The lack of hard currency coupled with Castro’s poor credit history has set the stage for the latter’s bid to obtain credit from the U.S. However, most American lending institutions are ready to advance payments only under certain provisions. Those provisions of course include U.S. guarantees of payment, and the current legislation on farm subsidies assures those guarantees. That is why the “conservative Republicans” Curt Schaeffer writes about, are grabbing with gusto the anti-embargo banner. They are enthusiastically going to bed with the likes of “Charlie” Rangel, José Serrano and Maxine Watters, extreme radical left-wing Democrats and Castro’s old staunch supporters in the U.S. This strange bed-fellowship does not spring from those “conservative” politicians respect (as they claim) for the free market system, or their defense of our constitutional right to free travel. We know what their real purpose is.

What they are really after is the advancement of businesses among their constituents or political contributors, regardless of the negative consequences to every U.S. taxpayer. These consequences could be similar to the addition of nearly $80 billion of unpaid loans to our national debt, incurred at the inglorious demise of the Soviet Union. In the name of freedom of commerce we were swindled into underwriting the Soviet tyranny. Later, we were forced to pick up the tab. Does that seem like a policy true conservatives could sponsor?

*Hugo J. Byrne es colaborador de la “Revista Guaracabuya” y del magazine “Contacto”, tanto en la Red como en su versión impresa. Al propio tiempo tiene una columna en el semanario “20 de Mayo”, de Los Angeles, California.

ANOTHER VICTIM OF CASTRO. THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ARE NEXT.

PANAMA MERCHANTS PINCHED BY CUBA'S PAYMENT PROBLEMS

By Juan O. Tamayo
Panama City
The Miami Herald
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 21, 2002

Cuba has fallen chronically behind on repaying its estimated $100 million worth of debts in Panama, with a Cuban government bank even ''bouncing'' $6 million in payments due in one recent week, Panamanian businessmen say.

Some merchants have stopped extending new credit to the communist-run island, and others have traveled to Havana in hopes of persuading the government to make more timely payments, the businessmen added.

The Panamanians' complaints reinforce reports that Cuba is having increasingly severe problems this year making payments on its debts because of a dramatic economic downturn that includes a 13 percent drop in tourism, its most profitable industry.

''Non-U.S. companies are reporting more repayment problems in 2002 than in 2001,'' said John Kavulic, head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. American firms selling to Havana, he added, are paid in cash because of a U.S. ban on financing of trade with Cuba.

Although Cuba's debts in Panama are a small part of its $10 billion foreign debt, they are significant because Panamanian merchants have long sold key products to the island, especially U.S. goods banned by Washington's trade embargo.

Cuba last year bought $260 million worth of goods from the Colon Free Zone, a duty-free import-re-export complex on the Atlantic coast, mostly construction materials for luxury tourist hotels, electronics and clothing.

Yet most Panamanian merchants have not gone public with their complaints, fearing that Cuba will retaliate by simply not paying at all, said Panamanian merchants and bankers who asked for anonymity.

Havana has paid only an average of 50 percent of its debt payments due since June, although it has paid as little as 20 percent of the amounts due to some smaller companies, said one Colon Free Zone merchant.

NEW CONDITIONS

It has also told some merchants that they will be paid in full only if they provide new financing for shipments of fertilizer for the sugar harvest that begins in December, said one businessman owed nearly $1 million by Havana.

Cuba has delayed payments to many Panamanian businesses, though not beyond the breaking point, Free Zone Director Jorge Fernández was reported as saying by the Panama American newspaper in February.

Even more worrisome to have been the failures of the Cuban government's International Financial Bank (IFB), which makes Havana payments due in Panama through a clearing account at the Panama City branch of BBVA, a Spanish-owned bank.

Each night the IFB must add up the money transfers sent and received from Panama -- and if the balance is in BBVA's favor it is then supposed to send BBVA the money to cover the difference.

But on three nights in one July week, as Cuba made several large payments on its sugar industry debts, the IFB failed to promptly cover a total of $6 million in shortages, said a Panamanian businessman with access to BBVA records.

''In layman's language the IFB bounced three checks,'' the businessman said, adding that BBVA covered the gaps as a courtesy to Havana but later warned the IFB that it had to improve its performance.

Cuba's debts in Panama are difficult to parse because they are owed to merchants and private banks that do not have to publicly disclose their financial transactions.

But a bitter feud within the Rodin family, the Panamanian business conglomerate with the oldest and largest trade relations with Cuba, has helped lift a corner of the secrecy surrounding Cuba's debts since December.

$42 MILLION OWED

Cuba's Sugar Ministry owes about $22 million to the Rodins and another $20 million to four other banks and merchants, used to buy agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and insecticides, said a Panamanian lawyer with access to family enterprise records.

Other Cuban agencies owe the Rodins another $26 million for trucks, cars and other imported goods. But family patriarch Lew Rodin asked Havana this year to stop paying that debt to make sure the money did not reach his son Martin, the lawyer added.

Most of those debts, plus the $30 million that Cuba owes to other Panamanian businessmen and banks, have already been rescheduled several times over the past four years because of Cuba's financial problems.

The Sugar Ministry, for example, rescheduled an $8 million debt in 1998 with the May's trading company over three years. But last year Cuba again renegotiated the debt, this time over five years, said a company employee. May's officials declined comment.

The Cuban Embassy in Panama did not answer a request for comment on the debt.

But one Panamanian businessman said the mission itself is so strapped for cash that it is paying some of its bills with cigars. The businessman said he's buying Romeo y Julieta stogies, usually worth $300 a box, for $90 from a repairman who gets them from the mission as partial settlement of his bill.

VOICE OF AMERICA SILENT AS TERRORIST THREAT LOOMS SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Wes Vernon
NewsMax.com
Washington
NewsMax
Colaboración:
Armando F. Mastrapa III
New York
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 23, 2002

A Castroite with extensive ties to international terrorism is leading in the polls in Brazil’s current presidential campaign, and thanks to Clinton holdovers in Washington, the U.S. is not able to reach the Brazilian people with the truth about the front runner and the dangers he represents to his country and the entire Western Hemisphere.

If Luis Inacio da Silva is elected next month, it will add Brazil to Fidel Castro’s Cuba and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela as nations right in our own backyard who pose a threat to the security of the post-9/11 United States.

What’s more ironic is that several months ago, the Voice of America’s governing board made a decision to cut its broadcasts to Brazil in Portuguese, the dominant language in that country. That means that just as terrorist-friendly regimes increase in this hemisphere, the U.S. voice is muted.

"It was a preposterous decision,” stormed Robert Schadler, a onetime chief of staff at the U.S. Information Agency, predecessor to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), now dominated by Clintonites, which presently oversees VOA. Schadler also formerly held a variety of responsible positions at VOA itself.

"Brazil, I think, is the seventh largest country in the world,” added Schadler, now a leader of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, "It’s clearly the dominant country in South America.”

In an interview with NewsMax.com, Schadler said, "A Voice of America that gives an American perspective on America and international issues [in Brazil] is absolutely vital and very inexpensive.”

Writing in the Washington Times August 7, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Constantine C. Menges said if da Silva is elected, "the results could include a radical regime in Brazil re-establishing its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs, developing close links to state sponsors of terrorism such as Cuba, Iraq, and Iran, and participating in the destabilization of neighboring democracies.”

Menges, a former member of the National Security Council, points out that this could lead 300 million people in six countries coming under the control of radical anti-U.S. regimes and the possibility that thousands of newly indoctrinated terrorists might try to attack the United States from Latin America.

"With Mr. Castro’s support,” Menges writes, "Mr. da Silva founded the Sao Paulo forum in 1990 as an annual meeting of communist and other radical terrorist and political organizations from Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. This has been used to coordinate terrorist and political activities around the world and against the United States.”

The Sao Paulo Forum is still very much in business and pursuing its goals. Its last meeting was held in Havana, Cuba in December 2001. That meeting sharply condemned the Bush administration’s leadership in the war against international terrorism after 9/11.

When Menges talks about the threat from a Brazil under da Silva’s leadership, he is not merely theorizing. The Brazilian presidential candidate has said Brazil should have nuclear weapons and move closer to China, which has actively courted the Brazilian military.

Free Congress Foundation President Paul Weyrich notes that the Clinton loyalists dominating the BBG have persistently thwarted the objectives of the Bush administration. "even deciding to practically shut down broadcasting in Latin America without consulting Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich, who argued it was important to maintain a U.S. presence on the airwaves there.”

Schadler told NewsMax that he has good reason to suspect that budget considerations drove this move.

"I believe…. that this issue was tied to the idea that they need to have a major initiative in the Middle East with music [programming],” he said.

That raises another issue that can backfire against the U.S. that NewsMax.com will deal with it in separate report.

Suffice it to say that the terrorist threat against the United States is increasing in Latin America, and the U.S. voice is missing in action, so to speak.

On Thursday, NewsMax.com e-mailed the International Broadcasting Bureau—the sister organization of VOA with an inquiry. The spokesman was referred to us by the State Department under whose umbrella both the VOA and IBB operate at the direction of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The question read as follows:

"It is my understanding Portuguese language broadcasts to Brazil were cancelled due to budget constraints. Now that a Castroite is up in the polls to lead that country in the upcoming election …. in hindsight, should those broadcasts to Brazil have been given a greater priority? Will they be reinstated?”

We gave the IBB a deadline to respond, with over 24 hours to come up with an answer. As we went to press late Friday, no reply had been received.

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