CUBA: Government Denies Existence of U.S. Property

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Mar 20 1996 (IPS) - “There is no U.S. property in Cuba,” said Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, protesting a recently approved U.S. law designed to tighten trade sanctions against his nation.

“Cuba is not an exclusive U.S. market or warehouse,” Robaina added in an official declaration to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). “In Cuba, all property belongs to the State or to partners we have chosen.”

The Law for Cuban Freedom and Democratic Solidarity, approved this month by President Bill Clinton, once again turns to the issue of claims by former owners of expropriated property as another means of keeping foreign investors out of Cuba.

According to the law, U.S. companies or Cubans who have become naturalised U.S. citizens will be able to take to court any firm that buys, leases or uses property confiscated by the Cuban government after 1959.

The current list of over 5,000 claims, which will now be expanded by those of Cuban-Americans, only includes properties valued at more than 50,000 dollars.

The Foreign Ministry statement, presented on Tuesday to the WTO, charges that the new law is a manifestation by the United States of “its most absolute scorn for international public opinion.”

The official declaration said that “scorn” is demonstrated by the United States’ insistence on continuing the U.S. embargo against Cuba, which has been criticised by a majority of the world’s nations.

Furthermore, it states that “the provisions of this legal instrument are contrary to important norms of international trade, and of the organisations that govern that indispensable activity between nations.”

The Foreign Ministry said the aim of “applying the weight of U.S. law to third countries” that maintain economic relations with Cuba is “an attempt at world government.”

“We are going to become a nightmare” for the United States, Robaina warned, saying Cuba is preparing a response to each and every U.S. measure, as part of a “survival strategy.”

Robaina stressed that this new crisis in U.S.-Cuban relations does not mean the end of the world, and that the government of Fidel Castro will not stop working towards a normalisation of relations.

Cuba defends the right of every government to “nationalise, expropriate or transfer foreign property,” as well as the obligation “to pay adequate compensation,” in accordance with the 1974 Charter on the Economic Rights and Duties of States.

Nevertheless, that did not occur with U.S. property in Cuba in spite of the fact that a law passed in 1960 recognised compensation costs and established a procedure for paying them based on the sale of sugar.

According to Olga Miranda, legal adviser to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, “by blocking all sugar trade with Cuba, the United States kept U.S. citizens and firms from receiving appropriate compensation.”

Local experts argue that what is important is not to return the property to its old owners, but to seek adequate ways for Cuba to compensate the former owners.

Sources with the U.S.-Cuba Economic Trade Council revealed that some 20 companies initiated, in 1995, exploratory talks with Cuba in search of forms of compensation.

Although the names of the companies have not been revealed, they are known to represent 70 percent of all U.S. claims against the island.