CUBA: Fighting Helms-Burton with Silence

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Aug 23 1996 (IPS) - Mexico is working on a bill to counter the Helms-Burton law, and Canada and the European Union have also announced counter-measures. Cuba, meanwhile, has chosen to fight the U.S. law by keeping a tight-lipped silence about companies doing business here.

Although announcements of new joint ventures have appeared from time to time, Cuban authorities have kept information on foreign companies doing business with former U.S. property in the Caribbean island nation in absolute reserve.

Only the decision by Sherrit International, a Canadian mining company with a large contract to exploit nickel in the east of Cuba, to continue and even expand its business here, was made public.

“We will not help President Bill Clinton draw up his black list,” said Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage, who refused to provide details on which companies have decided to remain or leave.

But 12 foreign companies are said to have closed up shop here or suspended talks on investment projects.

The Mexican company Cemex is expected to withdraw. Cemex had an 80 million dollar joint investment project with Cuba to produce cement on property that formerly belonged to the Lone Star Cement Corporation.

And the list of companies that have decided to cancel or change their plans in Cuba includes Vitro, from Mexico, Occidental Hotels and ‘Paradores Nacionales de Turismo’ from Spain, and the Dutch ING Bank.

But that is not discussed in Cuba. While government officials admit that the Helms-Burton law began to make dents in the Cuban economy before it was even passed, they claim that no foreign company has yet given official notice that it plans to pull out.

Named after its creators, U.S. lawmakers Jesse Helms and Dan Burton, the law signed by Clinton on Mar. 12 stiffens the economic, commercial and financial boycott of Cuba put into effect in 1962, details the guidelines that a democratically elected government in Cuba should follow, and stipulates sanctions against companies or countries investing in former U.S. property in Cuba.

According to a report by the Ministry of the Economy and Planning, Cuba was involved in 240 joint ventures with foreign capital in 34 sectors of the economy and with the participation of firms from 43 countries by the close of the first half of 1996.

Lage, Cuba’s top economic policy-maker, reported that 140 new projects are currently being negotiated, and that 25 economic associations, some of them of significant size, have been created since the Helms-Burton law was signed.

But local experts recognise that the law has been successful in curbing the flow of foreign investment into Cuba, which the most optimistic forecasts predicted would total 300 contracts by the end of 1995.

According to local authorities, there is no U.S. property in Cuba, and the nationalisations carried out in the 1960s were in accordance with both local and international law.

“Cuba never denied the possibility that former property- holders could receive compensation,” said Lage, who added that accords were reached with the governments of Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Mexico and Spain.

Local officials and experts say the matter of compensations remains an issue between the two countries only because the United States has refused to negotiate with Cuba.

Alejandro Aguilar, with the National Institute of Economic Research, said that “many of the companies that are supposedly demanding compensation have continued doing business with Cuba.”

John Kavulich, the president of the United States-Cuba Commercial Economic Council, told IPS that one of the disadvantages of the Helms-Burton law is that many of the U.S. companies oppose it, because they see any possibility of compensation becoming increasingly remote.

Kavulich, who spoke with 300 members of the U.S. business community before forming an opinion, predicted that in the long run the U.S. law will actually foment the opening of the Cuban economy.

Entrepreneurs consulted in Havana said that at least the large firms will struggle to remain in Cuba, which provides the attraction of a fresh market free of U.S. competition.