POLITICS-CUBA: Helms-Burton Threat Clouds Summit Preparations

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Nov 2 1999 (IPS) - U.S. pressure against the Spanish hotel chain Sol Meliá for investing in Cuba is hanging heavy over the island, just two weeks before it hosts the ninth summit of leaders of Latin America, Spain and Portugal, who are expected to reiterate their condemnation of the U.S. trade embargo.

The issue has been picking up steam since the U.S. State Department urged the hotel chain last week to reach a “friendly agreement” with the Sánchez family of Cuban exiles, the supposed owners of the land where the Spanish chain’s 14 hotels are built.

But Sol Meliá spokespersons said it was not clear to the firm that the Río de Mares hotel, in the eastern province of Holguín, had been built on land expropriated from the Sánchez family after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

The spokespersons stressed that the hotel chain’s investigations prior to investing in Cuba were meticulous, precisely in order to avoid running up against the Helms-Burton law, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996 to tighten the nearly four-decades old economic blockade against Cuba.

The company, which denies violating the controversial U.S. law, said that far from pulling out of Cuba, it planned to expand its contracts for hotel management and administration in the Caribbean island nation.

Sol Meliá currently runs 14 hotels in Cuba, which account for seven to eight percent of its gross receipts.

The payment of any sort of compensation to the Sánchez family would be unacceptable to the European Union (EU), which has opposed the Helms-Burton law from the start. Last year the bloc reached an agreement with the United States to keep the law from being enforced against European companies.

The accord stipulates that the U.S. government will refrain from slapping sanctions on European companies, if EU businesses avoid purchasing former U.S. property confiscated by the Cuban government.

The possible application of article four of the Helms-Burton law against Sol Meliá, whose board of directors and their families would be denied entry visas to the United States, would violate the pact between Washington and Brussels.

The Spanish chain, which does business in 35 countries, has no economic interests in the United States – a fact that somewhat diminishes the impact of the threat.

Influential newspapers in Spain have reported that the Cuban exile community, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, second only to the Jewish community, is behind the pressure applied by the U.S. government on Sol Meliá.

The U.S. State Department denies having sent a letter to the company, as several newspapers reported. It did acknowledge, however, that it had put forth “suggestions” for a “friendly agreement.”

The fresh spate of newspaper reports on the question appeared when the summit of heads of state and government of Ibero-America is fast approaching.

The scheduling of the summit in Havana has upset hard-line anti- Castro sectors of the Cuban exile community in the United States.

But what has really caused indignation is the fact that the Nov 15-16 summit will serve as the context for the first visit in 500 years by Spanish royalty to Cuba – Spain’s last and most prized possession in the Americas until the island became independent in 1898.

In a clear gesture of support for Sol Meliá, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and his delegation will reportedly stay during the summit at the chain’s hotel in Havana, which is also likely to lodge Spain’s ambassador to Cuba, Eduardo Junco.

According to the Madrid daily ‘El País’, Junco will vacate his residence to allow King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía to stay there.

The Cuban government had reserved its most luxurious estate, a small palace built in 1929 used to house visiting dignataries and statesmen, for the king and queen.

Spain, however, prefers the ambassador’s residence, to avoid any possible claims from descendants of the mansion’s former owner, U.S. tobacco tycoon Mark Pollack.

Sol Meliá also runs the exclusive Havana Club, where the 16 heads of state and government expected at the summit are to lunch on Nov 16.

Called the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club until it was expropriated in the early 1960s, the Havana Club is the preeminent venue for visiting foreign diplomats and business people.

The focus of the summit will be “Ibero-America and the international financial situation in a globalised economy”.

The draft resolution to be signed at the summit states the leaders’ “rejection of all unilateral measures with extraterritorial effect which run counter to international law and to the generally accepted rules of free trade.

“We agree that such practices constitute a serious threat against multilateralism,” adds the text, which enjoys broad support from the governments, according to summit organisers.

In the same clause, the draft declaration urges the U.S. government to repeal the Helms-Burton law, in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly.

Threats are also hanging over the German company LTI and Canada’s Air Transat, the owner of Delta Hotels, whose establishments in Cuba are also allegedly built on land owned by the Sánchez family until 1959.