CUBA-U.S.: Senate clears weakened sanctions bill

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 19 1995 (IPS) - The U.S. Senate Thursday finally approved a substantially weakened Cuba sanctions bill, one day after right-wing Republicans were forced to delete its toughest provisions.

By a vote of 74-24, senators approved a watered-down version of the “Helms-Burton” bill, sending it to a Congressional “conference committee” which now must reconcile it with a much tougher bill passed last month by the House of Representatives.

Right-wing Republicans vowed to use the conference committee to revive Title III, which includes provisions designed to keep foreign investors from putting their money in Cuba. If they succeed, they face a likely veto from President Bill.Clinton whose administration has said it will not accept a bill with Title III in it.

Title III would permit Cuban exiles and U.S. companies whose property was expropriated by the government of President Fidel Castro to sue foreign firms and individuals who “trafficked” in those properties. This provision was at the heart of the Helms- Burton bill, named for the ultra-right Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, and Rep. Dan Burton.

“The strength of this bill was Title III,” conceded Majority Leader Robert Dole during a debate Wednesday when the title was dropped. Dole, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination next year, has strongly supported tougher action against Castro.

A companion measure to Title III would deny U.S. visas to those who “trafficked” in expropriated property and their immediate families. It, too, was dropped Wednesday from the Senate version after Republicans concluded they lacked the votes to stop a Democratic filibuster, a tactic used to block a vote on a bill.

Final passage of the bill Thursday was thus something of an anti-climax, both because of the absence of Title III and because of Wednesday night’s announcement that the State Department had granted a visa to Castro to attend the U.N. General Assembly’s 50th anniversary celebrations which begin this weekend.

Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, who is also seeking his party’s presidential nomination, said Wednesday that the administration should permit Castro’s entry into the United States only to “put him in prison or to hang him.” State Department officials said that, as the host-country for the United Nations, they really had no choice in the matter.

Despite the decision to drop Title III from the bill, however, Republican right-wingers are hoping to revive it during the conference committee. If they succeed, the revised bill would have to be voted on once again by both houses before going to Clinton’s desk for signature or veto.

“They want a veto,” said Dave Rabin, a Cuba specialist at the Latin American Working Group (LAWG), which opposes the Helms- Burton bill. He said Republicans are hoping that Clinton’s chances for winning Florida and New Jersey — states with many electoral votes and many Cuban-Americans — in the 1996 election will be damaged by a veto.

Until now, the administration, which repeated Thursday that it would have “serious concerns” if Title Three provisions re- emerges from the conference committee, has tried to avoid a veto by getting most Democrats and a handful of Republicans to carry out a filibuster against the bill on the Senate floor.

To end a filibuster, and thus force a vote on a bill, 60 senators must call for “cloture.” With Title III in the bill, Dole and Helms tried twice in the past week to end debate in this way. The first time — last Thursday — the vote for cloture was 56-37, four votes short of the magic number. On Tuesday, they tried and failed again, this time by only one vote, 59-36.

When it became clear they could not persuade another senator to join them, the two Republicans reluctantly decided to delete Title Three from the bill as the only way they could get enough votes to stop debate. “We’re very pleased that the Senate deleted Title Three,” said State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns Thursday.

Thus, the bill passed by the Senate Thursday, contains only Titles One and Two of the original legislation. They require the administration to seek U.N. endorsement of the 33-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Havana and to oppose Cuba’s admission to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organisation of American States.

The bill also codifies limits on the right of Cubans here to send funds to relatives back home and to visit family members. And it restricts U.S. banks from making loans to any foreign entity which could be used to invest in Cuba.

The bill also provides that U.S. aid to any third country will be cut by the equivalent amount of aid that country gives Cuba. Aid will also be cut for any country which helps Cuba build a controversial nuclear plant. Both provisions appear aimed primarily against Russia which has recently concluded new agreements with Havana on sugar exports and nuclear cooperation.

Title II of the bill also sets out four pages of detailed conditions under which the U.S. government can provide aid to any post-Castro “transitional” or “democratic” Cuban government. The administration has objected to this on the grounds that it seeks to “micro-manage” policy in an area that requires flexibility.

If Title III survives the conference committee, it will face another filibuster on the Senate floor, according to Congressional aides, and its sponsors will be forced to hunt down their 60th vote. Even if they succeed, the bill’s passage far from certain.

“The vote on overall passage would be too close to call,” one Capitol Hill vote-counter told IPS Thursday. And, even if it passed, its supporters have nowhere near the 67 votes they would need to override a Clinton veto, if he decides to cast one.

The controversial title would enable any U.S. citizen whose property was confiscated after the 1959 Cuban Revolution to sue in U.S. federal court for damages any foreign individual, company or government involved in business dealings in Cuba related to the property claimed by the plaintiff.

The prospect of being tied up for years in U.S. courts would be likely to deter possible investors in Cuba, thus starving Havana of needed funds, according to its supporters. “It is the chilling effect on foreign investment that worries Fidel Castro the most,” Dole said Wednesday.

While insisting that they yield to no one in their determination to end Castro’s rule, the administration and most Senate Democrats warned that the provision was too blunt an instrument. Not only would it tie up U.S. federal courts in a flood of new litigation, but it would also spur serious friction with some of Washington’s closest allies whose citizens and companies could be sued in U.S. courts for activity undertaken in Cuba.

Finally, some analysts, among them former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias, have argued that passage of the bill will actually bolster Castro by persuading most Cubans that Cuban exiles here are bent on trying to reverse the Revolution’s most popular achievements.

CUBA-U.S.: Senate clears weakened sanctions bill

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 19 1995 (IPS) - The U.S. Senate Thursday finally approved a substantially weakened Cuba sanctions bill, one day after right-wing Republicans were forced to delete its toughest provisions.
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