POLITICS-CUBA: Illinois Governor Condemns U.S. Embargo

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 27 1999 (IPS) - George Ryan, governor of the U.S. state of Illinois, was able to open the door a crack towards lifting the U.S.-backed trade embargo against Cuba, but his visit to the island did not yield any official ties with Fidel Castro’s government.

“I want to see the embargo lifted,” Governor Ryan stated several times during his five-day visit to the socialist country. He is the first governor of a U.S. state to set foot on the island since the 1959 Castro-led revolution.

Though formally described as a “humanitarian” visit, and portrayed as “friendly” by Cuban officials and the State-run press, it had an important economic undercurrent, according to several diplomats and political analysts.

Ryan, a member of the U.S. Republican Party, criticised his country’s economic sanctions, made a plug for a cultural exchange between Illinois and Cuba, and delivered humanitarian aid worth one million dollars – but emphasised that “the major concern is Castro.”

Castro is what is wrong with Cuba, Ryan told a press conference. He underscored his deep respect for the Cuban people, but said, “40 years of communist government have made their mark.”

Ryan believes that a radical change in U.S. policy towards Cuba would have negative consequences for Castro, who, according to the Illinois governor, tends to use the embargo to explain the island’s problems.

“If the sanctions are lifted, he will have to find other excuses,” Ryan declared after meeting with eight leaders of Cuba’s illegal political opposition, including Elizardo Sánchez, Gustavo Arcos and Osvaldo Payá.

Despite the governor’s remarks, Castro received Ryan Tuesday evening for a visit that lasted several hours, an indication of the Cuban president’s interest in gathering support against the blockade.

Castro agreed to allow Raudel Alfonso García to travel to the United States for medical treatment. The seven-year-old boy, who suffers portal hypertension, and his mother joined the Illinois delegation on their return flight. Observers portrayed the boy’s trip as an important gesture by the Cuban government.

Governor Ryan arrived in Cuba Saturday with an entourage of 48 people – officials, politicians, religious leaders, and business community representatives, including executives from the agro- corporation Archer Daniels Midland and the pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough.

Also making the U.S.-Cuba trip were 47 journalists from 31 different media outlets, who had to obtain travel permits from the U.S. Treasury Department, in compliance with the regulations of the embargo.

Locally, Ryan’s visit was seen as part of the policy outlined by the 1992 Torricelli Law – taken up by U.S. president Bill Clinton – which encourages several levels of contact between the two countries in order to promote democracy on the island.

At the same time, the trip demonstrates the power of agricultural groups in the United States. In recent months they have gained ground in Congress against anti-Castro pressures in the controversy surrounding the embargo and providing the Cuban population with food and medicine.

Academics in both countries have spent years studying the potential impact of the embargo’s removal. The southern U.S. state of Florida, whose coast is just 170 km from Cuba, would likely benefit from food exports to the island.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that restrictions on agricultural sales to sanctioned countries represent annual net losses of 1.2 billion dollars.

U.S. farmers, who are victims of falling agricultural prices and bad weather, hope to recover the Cuban market, a natural outlet for their products before the trade embargo went into effect in 1962.

With a population just slightly larger than Cuba’s 11 million, Illinois is one of the U.S.’s most important agricultural states.

Cuba spends approximately 900 million dollars each year on food imports, of which more than 120 million pays for grain imports. The total could be significantly reduced if the island were able to import food from the United States.

“We can help the Cubans, and the Cubans can help us,” said Ryan Tuesday after visiting a co-operative farm and a government-owned agri-business located just outside Havana.

Ryan expressed interest in finding a way to export Cuban-made vaccines for diseases such as leptospirosis and meningitis to the United States.

In a conversation with cultural minister Abel Prieto, the governor laid the groundwork for an exchange that would include a Cuban film festival in Illinois and a Chicago Symphonic Orchestra concert in Havana.

But experts in U.S.-Cuba relations do not expect the blockade will be lifted in the short or medium term. They predict that sanctions will be gradually withdrawn, depending on the power and interests of specific U.S. lobbying groups.

Cuban officials interpreted Ryan’s visit as proof of growing interest among important economic sectors to normalise bilateral relations and end the embargo, which prohibits business ties between the two countries.

Ryan’s meeting with dissident leaders and his statements about Castro were not covered by the State-controlled press in Cuba, which instead tended to underscore the “solidarity” of the governor’s “humanitarian visit.”

Elizardo Sánchez, president of the opposition Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told IPS that the Illinois governor’s visit “shows us the best road for both nations.”

For the dissident, this “road” is one that would “normalise relations at all levels and build neighbourly ties.” Sánchez added, “In the long term, relations are going to normalise anyway.”

But he expressed his scepticism about the Cuban government’s reaction.

“It wouldn’t be the first time that we are involved in initiatives for Cuba’s reinsertion into the international arena, and the government doesn’t respond as the sponsors had hoped,” Sánchez said.

In his opinion, such cases demonstrate “the legendary immobility of the Cuban government when faced with the need to modernise.”

“Once again, we run the risk of the ball staying in Cuba’s court and not being returned,” warned Sánchez.