CUBA: Helms-Burton Outrages Government but Leaves People Unmoved

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Mar 13 1996 (IPS) - The customary calm with which the Cuban people greeted the Helms-Burton bill passed by US President Bill Clinton, contrasted abruptly with the official view of its as “an insult to the world and to human intelligence.”

The Communist Party daily ‘Granma’ Wednesday, carried articles on the issue Wednesday, headlined “Demented interference in the internal affairs of third countries” and “The world faced by the anti-Cuban monstrosity: unanimous condemnation.”

The newspaper claimed the US bill drawn up by Republican senators Jesse Helms and Dan Burton, “was one of the US responses to the ‘aeroplane crisis’.”

In Cuban official circles the bill was being described as “the last turn of the blockade screw,” as one of its main objectives is to freeze foreign investment and international aid to the island.

However, neither the fast-track action from US Congress nor Clinton’s ratification Tuesday managed to break the calm of daily life in Cuba.

Local observers looked on in astonishment during the last few weeks as the Cuban authorities withheld from calling for a demonstration against the act, not even organising a march on the United States Interests Section in Havana.

Even the shooting down of two US-registered civil aircraft by the Cuban air force – the most recent source of friction between the nations – had not raised any reaction from Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The Union of Communist Youth (UJC) criticised the Helms-Burton bill with the inauguration of a humourous mural on the facade of the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Havana.

“This is a loud belly-laugh so that friends, tourists, visitors and all the world are aware of how we laughed today at those who wanted to sanction the sun for shining on Cuba,” said UJC Secretary Victoria Velasquez.

Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina said the tranquility of the population was due to “the Cubans getting used to living with the blockade” over the last 30 years, and the fact they had been “preparing for the worst” for some time.

“The United States has not the least respect for any state on this planet and it allows itself the luxury of signing a law which is in itself illegal,” said Ricardo Alarcon, parliamentary president.

Alarcon, who headed the Cuban delegation at the migration negotiations with the United States, said a law like this could never be totally imposed and deserves to be thrown out for looking at Cuba through the same eyes as the “supporters of primitive annexation last century.”

The government controlled media in Cuba base their rejection of the bill on the way it flagrantly flaunts international law and all the regulations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

A special sent envoy from Pope John Paul II to Cardinal Carlos Furno in February, ratified the position of the Catholic Church against all forms of economic blockade which “affects the population first.”

Unlike the radical groups , who are calling for measures to sink the island, the moderate opposition are none too keen on toughening up a policy which falls hard on the average citizen and has not proved effective against the Castro administration.

The parliamentary International Relations Commission asked the government to add the thefts from public funds during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, from 1952 to 1958, to the claims for compensation against the US blockade.

This may well be the official answer to clause three of the Helms-Burton bill, which offers Cubans resident in the United States the opportunity to sue for property lost in Castro’s ‘nationalisations’ during the 60s.

In Alarcon’s complaint to the International Civil Aviation Organisation he said Cuba may reciprocate to Clinton’s suspension of flights to the island by closing its airspace to all US registered aircraft.

“Cuba is not thinking of upsetting the migratory agreements with the United States,” stressed sources in the foreign office, though they agreed with Alarcon that Clinton’s move was sure to affect bilateral relations.

“For there to be normalisation, the first the United States must do is annul the bill, otherwise this possibility will never exist,” said Alarcon.