ECONOMY-CUBA: US Executives Against the Embargo

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Mar 11 1998 (IPS) - A group that could lobby in favour of lifting the 36-year-old US economic blockade against Cuba may be emerging for the first time among the US business community.

That possibility arose from the US-Cuba Business Summit, in which more than 50 executives from the United States and around 20 from Europe and Mexico participated in Cancun, Mexico and Havana, Cuba earlier this month.

With the pragmatism that tends to characterise the business sector, the controversy has arisen from what business experts consider the key question: whether the embargo has accomplished its aim of pushing this Caribbean island nation off its socialist course.

The president of the US Engage Coalition, William Lane, argued that economic sanctions very rarely achieved the desired effect, and actually tended to hurt US companies more than the governments they were designed to pressure.

Lane – a representative of the US agricultural equipment manufacturer Caterpillar – said the US Engage Coalition was comprised of 367 US entrepreneurs opposed to Washington’s embargo against Cuba.

The organisation is seeking “signals, both in Cuba and Washington,” that would lead the business community to embrace a policy of pressure against the blockade, he said, adding that “promoting serious changes requires leadership.

“This kind of dialogue broadens the spectrum of sectors in the United States in favour of a thaw between the two countries,” Lane said at the Mar. 6 Havana session of the Business Summit.

Bradford Gary, on the board of directors of the Medical Devices Manufacturers Association, which represents 160 US companies, said the group intended to “observe the Cuban market, in case it opens.”

Cuban and US experts who have projected post-blockade scenarios calculate that trade between the two countries could soar to one billion dollars within a year after the sanctions were lifted.

The Mar. 5-6 Business Summit was sponsored by Alamar Associates, a Washington-based body that has provided consultancy services on business opportunities in Cuba to more than 200 US companies and organisations.

The president of Alamar Associates, Kirby Jones, has made frequent visits to Cuba since 1973, and gave a series of conferences early this decade in Havana, organised by the British magazine Euromoney.

A similar movement is being sponsored by the 200-member US- Cuban Economic-Commercial Council, which provides information on the restrictions set up by the embargo and loopholes which allow trade.

The US-Cuba Business Summit, which concluded with a meeting between the participants and President Fidel Castro, was the first such meeting made public in Cuba since the passage of the Helms- Burton law two years ago.

The Helms-Burton law, designed to stiffen the unilateral economic sanctions that the United States imposed on Cuba in the early 1960s, went into effect on Mar. 12, 1996.

But in January, US President Bill Clinton waived – for the third time – the application of Title III, which stipulates sanctions against companies from third countries which do business with former US property confiscated by the Cuban government.

A group of US legislators and advisers visited Cuba prior to the Business Summit, which coincided with a debate in the United States on a bill to lift the blockade on food and medicine.

Academics with the Havana Centre of US Studies and Centre of Studies on the Americas say the current political situation is similar to the incipient thaw which was cut off by the February 1996 shooting down by the Cuban air force of two civil aircraft flown by anti-Castro exiles, which led to Clinton’s signing of the Helms-Burton law.

The speaker of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, said more and more voices were speaking out against the embargo in business, academic, and legislative circles in the United States.

But, he added, that has not occurred within the Clinton administration. “US policy towards Cuba has not changed at an official level…not even after the Pope’s visit to Cuba,” Alarcon said in his speech to the Business Summit.

Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in January, where he delivered four open air masses, asked for clemency for political prisoners, criticised the US blockade and urged respect for individual liberties.

Speaking with the Pope on Mar. 7, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Washington was looking for ways to help the Cuban people without strengthening the government of Fidel Castro. That search could take into account some of the legislative projects envisioning a partial lifting of the embargo in terms of trade or humanitarian aid.

The US-Cuba Economic-Commercial Council says one of its members was authorised by the US Department of Commerce to export medical equipment to Cuba.

Nevertheless, analysts here say a greater openness has not been seen in either the White House or Congress, which continue to insist on fundamental changes in the Cuban government – the release of all political prisoners, respect for individual freedoms, the creation of an independent legal system, free elections and the dismantling of the state security apparatus – in order to modify their policy towards Cuba.

“I believe it is time to change policy towards Cuba,” said Sam Gibbons, a former member of the House of Representatives. But he added that he was waiting for signs from Havana that would convince him that both countries can “set out together on that path.”

Executives of Mobil Oil, Texaco, Bristol Myers Squibb, Continental Grain, Wyeth-Eyers International, Caterpillar and Lincoln Property were among the participants at the Business Summit.

The executives expressed their interest in business opportunities in sectors such as petrochemicals, food, building materials, pharmaceuticals, transport, tobacco, consumer goods and health administration.

“Why don’t you lift the embargo for one year, and see what happens,” Alarcon challenged Washington. The speaker of parliament added that Cuba was willing to dialogue with the United States, “in a more discreet atmosphere,” and on the basis of mutual respect.