May 13, 2002 | Birmingham Post-Herald
by Frank Calzon

Birmingham Post-Herald is right when it says that “events have conspired to marginalize Fidel Castro.” But the April 30 editorial, “Fading Fidel,” which focuses on Castro’s tantrums, former President Jimmy Carter’s visit to the island and U.S. sanctions, says little about Cuba and Cubans. Recently, Cuba’s Christian Liberation Movement announced it had collected more than 10,000 signatures to be presented to the national legislature calling for reforms, including elections, and the release of political prisoners.

Since John Paul II’s visit, more and more Cuban independent journalists, independent economists, librarians, human rights activists and others have challenged the regime. World leaders visiting Cuba have met with Cuba’s dissidents, despite Castro’s disapproval.

Castro’s recent “needless fight” with Mexico follows after similar incidents with Uruguay, Spain, El Salvador, Poland, the Czech Republic, and others. “Argentina,” Castro said was “a boot licker of the Yankees”; and Costa Rica, Latin America’s most respected democracy, according to him “is more pro-American than the gringos themselves.”

Be that as it may, the visit of Carter will remind the Cubans of the struggle for human rights. Castro, no doubt, will attempt to use Carter’s trip to jump-start his campaign to lift the U.S. embargo. Carter is revered for his human rights commitment, and he is a Southerner. As such, it is ironic that he will stay in a hotel where Cubans, even if they have dollars, are not allowed. He will eat at restaurants, where Cubans will be served only if accompanied by a foreigner. He will be shown hospitals that, according to the regime, lack medicine because of the embargo, but he will not see the hospital rooms set aside for “health tourism” for foreign patients where (not as in the rooms set aside for Cubans), the air conditioning works and there are plenty of antibiotics.

In quoting the Montreal Gazette about a Canadian executive of a U.S. company convicted for violating the law on trading with the enemy you comment that Canadians “are properly steamed.” Is the Post-Herald recommending a new standard? That laws not be enforced to accommodate those who violate them? Then let’s include other crimes. There are thousands of Americans in jail for violating laws they believe “unfair.” They are also “properly steamed.”

Your editorial is also right when it says that “Castro doesn’t matter anymore,” and that “Canada does and always will.” Will Canadian critics of U.S. policy also agree by saying “Castro doesn’t matter anymore. The United States does and always will”?
Your view of Canadian engagement with Cuba is dated. At least since 1999 Canada’s most influential news media have decried Ottawa’s “constructive engagement” with Castro. According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Castro’s increasing repression “is definite proof that Canada’s Cuba policy has failed.” The Toronto Star criticized Canada’s foreign minister: “Lloyd Axworthy boasted that he accomplished more during five hours with Castro than the U.S. had accomplished in the past 30 years of isolating Cuba. Oh really? What has our policy of ‘constructive engagement’ accomplished, beyond cheap holidays for tourists, profits for industries, and propping up a brutal dictator?”

But not all have profited. As Peter Foster also reported in 1999, some Canadians formed joint ventures with Castro but later had their rights “trampled by its Communist partner.” He added that “the Cuban people have little hope of a better life until their whole rotten political system is swept away. Until then, anybody who invests with corrupt Castro regime, is. asking for trouble.”
The issue is not whether to lift the sanctions, but for what purpose. If the embargo is lifted following the Canadian model, Castro will benefit. Castro is broke. He is in dire need of credits, export insurance, and access to international financial institutions. Since 1986 he defaulted in his debt to creditors at the Paris Club a consortium that includes France, Spain, Japan, Canada, and Russia. Fidel says that he will not pay his multibillion-dollar debt to Moscow, because it is “a debt to a country that no longer exists.”

In recent years, France, Thailand, South Africa and others have canceled export insurance and loans. Others, including Chile and several Central European nations also faced Havana’s nonpayment. Cuba asked its short-term creditors last month to create a consortium of creditors in order to”restructure” payments.
Carter means well. But why is Castro willing to discuss Cuba’s problems with foreigners and not with Cuba’s opposition, or with Cuba’s bishops? Providing dollars to Havana, without substantial improvement in the human rights situation, will help Castro not the Cuban people. Trading with Castro does not ensure payment. The American taxpayer should not take up the role of the lost Soviet subsidies.

Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes human rights and democracy for Cuba.

April 10, 2002 | The Miami Herald
by Frank Calzon

When Jeane Kirkpatrick took her seat as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1981, she told U.S. diplomats in New York to take the ”kick me” signs off their backs.
Twenty years later, after President George W. Bush’s election, the U.S. representative in Havana, Vicki Huddleston, told her staff — and the rest of the international diplomatic community in Cuba — also to take the ‘kick me’ signs off their backs.
Both ambassadors reflect their presidents’ policies. President Reagan, who appointed Kirkpatrick, created quite a stir by candidly describing the Soviet Union as an “evil empire. Bush has done likewise, calling North Korea, Libya and Iraq an “axis of evil”.’

That millions of Soviets agreed with the American president was not important to the critics who berated Reagan and Kirkpatrick. Nor does it seem to matter to Bush’s critics that millions of Cubans support Huddleston’s denouncement of increased repression in Cuba and her call last month to ”colleagues in the diplomatic community in Cuba and in capitals around the world” to speak out.

Cuba’s dissidents, Huddleston said, represent ”the desires of the Cuban people to travel freely in their country, to be able to leave their country without having permission, to be able to go to tourist areas, to invest in their own businesses, to speak freely, to have freedom of assembly, to read the books that they want to read.” They, she trumpeted, “could be the Solzhenitsyns of Cuba.” She not only expressed Bush’s views but also echoed those of Vaclav Havel, Nobel laureate and president of the Czech Republic. Cuba’s future, Havel said, rests with its democratic activists, not with the current regime.

In dealing with terrorist states, including Cuba, Bush is clear. Yet much of the U.S. bureaucracy remains committed to the don’t-make-waves school of foreign policy; believing that one has to ”go along to get along” — to nicer overseas assignments or Washington promotions that include offices with ever-larger windows.
Many years ago, I worked as an interpreter. Once I translated for a foreign visitor who was given an extensive, persuasive briefing at the State Department. The briefer accompanied us to the lobby and upon bidding farewell to the guest added: ”I am sure you understand, I gave you the official briefing. That does not mean I agree with everything I said.” Most foreign-service officers are honorable and stick to the administration’s message; some don’t.

Among the media, many of those criticizing Bush for his ”axis of evil” statement were also up in arms about the Pentagon’s plan to establish an office to distribute disinformation abroad. The goal was to mislead U.S. enemies in the war against terrorism, a tactic that goes back to the Trojan Horse. Given the uproar, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wisely killed the effort.
But what about the disinformation campaigns conducted by governments hostile to the United States? Ana Belén Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who recently pleaded guilty to spying for Fidel Castro, did more than pass American secrets to Havana; she incorporated Havana’s disinformation in her reports.

Montes reported to the highest levels of the U.S. government that Castro wasn’t supporting terrorism, wasn’t involved in narco-trafficking and wasn’t a threat to U.S. interests. That disinformation molded the misconceptions at the heart of today’s debate about Cuba.
Has any reporter who used Montes’s misinformation and identified her as an ”unidentified [U.S.] government official” now recognized publicly that she in fact was a Cuban spy peddling Havana’s propaganda?

Candor by the president and ambassadors complicate matters for some bureaucrats. Until Bush took office, many believed that White House statements about Cuba were not to be taken seriously. But Bush means what he says, and he couldn’t have a better representative in Cuba articulating U.S. policy than Huddleston.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russians and others were free to say that Reagan’s ”evil empire” characterization was right on target. Why should Cuba be different? When Cubans are free to speak out, millions are likely to say, “Thank God for President Bush and the United States.”

Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes human rights and democracy for Cuba.

March 14, 2002 | The Miami Herald
by Frank Calzon

Fidel Castro’s most persistent trait since assuming power in 1959 has been anti-Americanism. Now he says he wants to help American farmers and to trade with the United States. By Castro’s reckoning, selling grain and other commodities to Cuba will greatly benefit American farmers. The American economy today is grappling with the Enron fiasco, which can be attributed to the company’s manipulation of its fiscal data and the unwillingness of executive-branch regulators and Congressional policymakers to ask tough questions.

Congress must today ask whether profits from trade with Cuba aren’t another mirage and whether American taxpayers won’t take another hit if Castro’s campaign to win credits and export guarantees succeeds. Say what you will about the U.S. embargo, but one of its best-kept secrets is that it has saved U.S. taxpayers millions. Because of the embargo, American banks aren’t among the consortium of creditors (among them Spanish, French, Canadian banks) known as ”The Paris Club.” A consortium that has been waiting for years to be paid what’s owed.

Had American banks been permitted to make loans to Castro, you and I both know that they would be pressing Congress to find a way for U.S. taxpayers to cover their losses in Cuba.
American agribusiness believes that there are huge profits to be made by trading with Havana. It argues that foreign-policy considerations should not prevent trade — even if strengthening regimes such as those of Libya, Iraq and Cuba might someday put the lives of U.S. servicemen at risk.

Providing trade benefits to America’s enemies, especially those on the State Department’s list of terrorist nations, makes as much sense as the sale of U.S. scrap metal to Japan in the 1930′s. Some of it was used to build up the Japanese military, leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As the American Chamber of Commerce of Cuba in the United States reports in its February 2002 newsletter:

“Cuba’s economic woes continue to mount as a result of being especially hard hit by the worldwide economic slow down and the fall-off in international travel after Sept. 11.”
“Tourism, Cuba’s most important economic sector has declined sharply.”

“Cuba’s second-largest source of foreign exchange, expatriate remittances, are down due to the downturn in the U.S economy.”
“Removal of Russian surveillance facilities cost Havana $200 million in Russian rent yearly.’Vice President Carlos Lage has cited `the hard blow’ by a fall in world prices for sugar and nickel.” Since June 2000, sales of agricultural products and medicine to Cuba have been legal, but for more than a year no sales were made. After a hurricane in November 2001, the United States offered Cuba humanitarian assistance. Instead of accepting it and thanking the administration, Castro turned the offer into a public-relations stunt, insisting Cuba would buy $30 million in U.S. commodities.

His goal: to win U.S. credits and export insurance for future “sales.” But Cuba is broke. It suspended debt payments in 1986. According to a Reuters story last month, “Cuba’s Foreign Trade Ministry recently asked some of its biggest creditors to form a consortium to collectively restructure hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.”

The proposal signals Cuba cannot meet payment schedules, which it has been missing anyway since October, Reuters says.
During the last two years, France, Chile, South Africa, Thailand and others have canceled shipments or refused to provide export insurance to Castro. Yet Castro’s U.S. sales pitches are accepted at face value without checking available economic data. Castro desperately needs credits and subsidies, and agribusiness wants Washington to extend them.

Asking American taxpayers to extend credit to Castro is to ask them to finance an international deadbeat. The Bush administration said No when asked to bailout Enron. It should say No, as well, to bailing out Castro.

This article can also be viewed on the Miami Herald website at:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/2853496.htm

Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes human rights and democracy for Cuba.

February 22, 2002 | The Miami Herald
by Frank Calzon

The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the U.S. government to lift its ban on travel to Cuba. It would be ironic if in the name of advancing civil liberties, one of the world’s great human-rights violators were bolstered by an infusion of American-tourist dollars. The ACLU states: “Freedom to travel should be the right of all Americans, even to countries like China and Cuba where we disagree with much of their domestic policy. The issue relates more to rights of American citizens than to rights or foreign-policy positions of foreign governments.

” The ACLU’s work in defending unpopular people and causes and protecting American civil rights and liberties is admirable. Consider, however, that changing U.S. travel policy would only help Fidel Castro legitimize the Cuban government’s “tourist apartheid.” The Castro government sets aside hotels, beaches, stores and restaurants, even hospitals and clinics, for foreigners, and it prohibits Cubans even from visiting the areas and facilities. Has the ACLU no moral responsibility to raise that issue while advocating changes in U.S. travel policy? Should the rights of vacationing American tourists supersede the rights of people living in Cuba to move freely about their own country? To eat at the same restaurants? Visit the same beaches? Seek care in the same clinics? Why not call on Castro to lift his tourist apartheid?

Castro goes to great lengths to restrict the rights of Cubans. Consider the case of Lázara Brito and her children, Yanelis, Yamila and Isaac. They were granted U.S. visas in 1996 but remain virtual hostages in Havana. The Castro government will not allow them to join José Cohen, her husband and their father, in the United States. Cohen, a former Cuban intelligence officer, received political asylum in the United States in 1994. Despite his appeals to international organizations and to Americans who meet with Castro, his family remains in Cuba. They are not charged with any crime.

Will the ACLU ignore the flouting of the right to travel freely to and from one’s own country? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba signed, guarantees that right.
What about the right of U.S. citizens to use international airspace? Six years ago Castro’s warplanes shot down two small planes in international airspace over the Florida Straits. Three U.S. citizen died. So did a Cuban legally residing in our country. The United States presented indisputable evidence to international organizations that the Castro government deliberately killed these men.

CONSIDER CASTRO’S ABUSES
Would it be fair to say that the right to live is just as important as the right to travel? Will the ACLU join families seeking an indictment of those who pulled the trigger? So far it considers this “the failure of the Justice Department to take action, that is something far beyond our sphere of influence.”
The Cuban regime needs the foreign tourism to maintain its repression. The government is bankrupt. Yet the dictator continues to mobilize foreign apologists to press for access to both U.S. trade credits and loan guarantees (which U.S. taxpayers would fund) and to American tourist dollars.

Let us not pretend that Americans have an absolute right to vacation in Cuba, without regard to impact. Rights are always balanced with responsibilities. Americans have a right to travel, but they also have the responsibility to take into account Castro’s denial of all civil liberties in Cuba, his 43 years of allying with rogue regimes and sponsoring anti-American violence around the world, and his continuous self-serving efforts to manipulate American institutions and public opinion.

In 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on travel to Cuba ”are justified by weighty concerns of foreign policy.” That is no less true today. Defense of civil liberties neither requires nor warrants U.S. dollars subsidizing repression in Cuba.

Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes human rights and democracy for Cuba.

Does the Cuban travel ban violate the U.S. Constitution? Would the Cuban people benefit from American tourism?

Will subsidized trade with Cuba help the American Farmer or hurt the US taxpayer?

Written Testimony by Frank Calzon,

Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba

On February 11, 2002 the United States Senate Subcommittee on Treasury and General Government, Committee on Appropriations presided by Senator Byron L. Dorgan held a hearing on the US travel ban to Cuba. At the end of the hearing Sen Dorgan asked Mr. Calzon to submit written testimony. Frank Calzon is the Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba.

This testimony is presented on behalf of the Center For A Free Cuba, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization promoting human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The Center participates in the national debate on Cuba, but does not take a position either for or against legislation pending before Congress.

I am grateful to Chairman Byron L. Dorgan for this opportunity to present our views about the US ban on travel to Cuba and other aspects of United States policy toward the island. A number of organizations and individuals are urging Congress to lift the ban on travel to Cuba, claiming that the travel restrictions unnecessarily curtail civil liberties and that they can no longer be defended on the grounds of national security. At the same time, some of these advocates assert that lifting US travel restrictions would help the people of Cuba and hasten the end of the 42-year-old Castro dictatorship.

While we beg to differ, we urge the Congress to look beyond the opinions bandied about and to review the facts carefully. It would be ironic if in the name of advancing tourist travel, a leader of anti-American violence around the world, a government on the US Department of Stateís list of sponsors of terrorism, and one of the worldís leading violators of human rights were to be bolstered by an infusion of American-tourist dollars. A reappraisal of US Cuba policy by the Administration and Congress must take into account many issues; the travel ban is just one. Among issues requiring urgent review are:

The lack of reciprocity in the operations of the US Interests Sections in Havana and Cubaís Interests Section in Washington;
A US District Courtís sentencing in December of Cuban spies charged with trying to penetrate US military bases (two to life in prison, one to 15 years, and others to lesser sentences);
The September 2001 arrest of Ana Belen Montes, a veteran Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, charged with spying for Havana. According to press reports Ms. Montes duties included providing the Pentagon information on the military capabilities of the Castro government;
The revelation in a book by the former deputy director of the Soviet Unioní s program of biochemical weapons that Soviet officers were convinced ìCuba had an active biological weapons program.î (Ken Alibeck, ìBiohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World, Random House, 2000; pages 273-277);
The torturing of American servicemen (some of whom died) by Fidel Castroís intelligence officers. See Sen. John McCainís Faith of our Fathers (Random House, 1999), and Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973, published by the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1999; and
The statement by Fidel Castro at Teheran University last summer that America was weak, and Iran and Cuba could bring the United States ìto its knees.î

Those examples of the Cuban governmentís enmity are not, of course, the subject of this hearing. The focus of this hearing is US restrictions on travel to Cuba and, to some extent, the sale of US agricultural products to the island. Allow me to discuss these two issues in the context of advocating a prudent, pro-active policy designed to encourage a transition to a democratic and prosperous Cuba. I believe there are at least three questions that need to be answered:

Does the Cuba-travel ban violate the US Constitution?
Will subsidized trade with Cuba help the American farmer or hurt the US taxpayer?
Would the Cuban people benefit from American tourism

I. Does the Cuba travel ban violate the US Constitution?

First, it is simply wrong to suggest that Cuban-travel restrictions are inconsistent with the exercise of rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. The United States Supreme Court squarely addressed the issue in Regan v. Wald. The Court noted then that a citizenís right to travel is infringed when, for example, the government prevents him/her from traveling because of his/her political beliefs. The Court in Regan made clear, however, that the executive branch may prohibit its citizens, irrespective of political conviction, to travel to Cuba or any other nation because of foreign-policy considerations. 468 US at 241-42. In so doing, the Court specifically rejected suggestions that changes in the ìgeopolitical landscapeî would permit the judiciary to second-guess the executive branchís determinations about what foreign policy justifies a travel ban.

Some apparently feel that only another Cuban missile crisis would make restrictions on travel to Cuba constitutional. They argue that there is no ìemergencyî at the present time and that the relations between Cuba and the United States are subject to ìonly the ënormalí tensions inherent in contemporary international affairs.î The holding [in prior Supreme Court decisions], however, was not tied to an independent foreign-policy analysis by the Court. Matters relating ìto the conduct of foreign relations … are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference.î

This clear statement belies any suggestion that changes in the ìgeopolitical landscapeî make unconstitutional today what was constitutional in 1984. Despite ìchanging conditions,î since Regan, every court has rejected the invitation to find the executive branchís policy on the Cuba travel restrictions unconstitutional. e.g., US v. Plummer, 221 F.3d 1298, 1309-10 (11th Cir. 2000); Freedom to Travel v. Newcomb, 82 F. 3d 1431, 1439 (9th Cir. 1996). There simply is no responsible legal basis for the suggestion that the Cuba travel ban violates the Constitution.

Other ìlegalî arguments advanced for repeal are no more persuasive. It is absurd to suggest that travel restrictions should be lifted because those who violate them donít know about them. A defendant showing he/she was unaware of a law might reasonably expect a court to consider that before deciding what punishment to impose. It is not grounds for a court to repeal a law that has been violated. A second argument, that people ìintentî on visiting Cuba will necessarily violate the law, seems equally illogical. Congress would not repeal anti-drug legislation because drug addicts are ìintentî on smoking dope. Even if one assumes bureaucratic failings in the Treasury Departmentís Office of Assets Control and Customs, it would not be a basis for repeal. If such reasoning were accepted, the Internal Revenue Code also would be imperiled.

The truth is that there are no ìlegalî arguments for repeal of the Cuban travel restrictions. Such arguments are ìsmokeî intended to obscure a policy debate. It is telling that those urging a change of policy feel it necessary to try so hard to obscure their intent.

II. Will subsidized trade with Cuba help the American farmer or hurt the US taxpayer?

Fidel Castroís most persistent trait since assuming power in 1959 has been anti-Americanism. Now he says he wants to help American farmers and trade with the United States. By Castroís reckoning, selling grain and other commodities to Cuba will greatly benefit American farmers.

The American economy today is grappling with the Enron fiasco, which can be attributed to the company’s manipulation of its fiscal data, and the unwillingness of Executive branch regulators and Congressional policy makers to ask tough questions. It is up to Congress today to ask whether profits from trade with Cuba aren?t another mirage. And whether American taxpayers won?t take another hit if Fidel Castro’s campaign to win credits, export insurance and export guarantees succeeds? Will gullible Americans also be swindled by Castro?

Harvard scholar and former US Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that ìwe are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts.î What are the facts? Say what you will about the ineffectiveness of the US embargo, one of the best-kept secrets of the embargo is that it has saved US taxpayers millions. Because of the embargo American banks arenít part of the consortium of creditors known as ìthe Paris Clubî waiting to be paid what theyíre owed by Havana. If they were, you and I both know they would be pressing Congress to find a way for US taxpayers to cover their losses in Cuba.

Since 1986 Castroís Western creditors (including Canada, France, and Spain) have sought to recover some part of their $10 billion in loans to Cuba. Havana refuses even to repay Moscowís larger loans, insisting that its debt was to the Soviet Union, ìa country that no longer exists.î

American agribusiness believes there are huge profits to be made by trading with Havana. It believes foreign policy considerations should not prevent trade even if strengthening regimes like Libya, Iraq and Cuba might someday put the lives of US servicemen at risk. Providing trade benefits to Americaís enemies, especially those in the State Departmentís list of terrorist nations makes, as much sense as the sale of US scrap metal and bauxite to Japan in the 1930ís. Some of those materials were used to build up the Japanese military, leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In June 2000, Congress lifted sanctions on sales of agricultural products and medicine to Cuba. For more than a year, there were no sales. In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane in November of 2001, the Bush Administration offered humanitarian assistance to Cuba. Instead of promptly accepting the assistance and thanking the United States, Castro turned the offer into a public-relations stunt, insisting Cuba would buy $30 million in commodities from the United States and initiating a political and public relations campaign to win US credits and export insurance for future ìsales.î

The Castro government, however, is broke. It suspended payments on foreign debt in 1986. And although Castro has managed to reschedule some debts, he continues to have difficulty paying his creditors. It is tragic that Castroí s sales pitch are accepted at face value without checking available economic data, and would be worse if US taxpayers wind up encumbered with the risk of making good on subsidized credits (to Castro) and export insurance (to American corporate interests). As AmCham Cuba, (The American Chamber of Commerce of Cuba in the United States) reports in its February 2002 newsletter:

Cuba’s economic woes continue to mount as a result of being especially hard hit by the world wide economic slow down and the fall-off in international travel after the September 11 attacks.
Tourism, Cubaís most important economic sector has declined sharply. Hotel occupancy is down at least 25 percent in Havana, 40 percent in VaraderoÖ
Cuba’s second largest source of foreign exchange, expatriate remittances are down due to the downturn in the US?.
Removal of Russian surveillance facilities cost the Cuban economy $200 million in Russian rent.
“Vice President Carlos Lage has cited ëthe hard blowí by a fall in world prices for Cubaís commodity exports such as sugar and nickel.î
In the 1960s, when Castro expropriated US and Cuban businesses, Washington banned all trade with Cuba. Castro now lures businessmen by telling them that they are ìlosing business.î But according to a recent US International Trade Commission report, ìUS sanctions with respect to Cuba [have] had minimal overall historical impact on the US economyî and ìeven with massive economic assistance from the Soviet Union, Cuba remained a small global market relative to other Latin American countries.î

The commission estimated ìthat US exports to Cuba in the absence of sanctions, based on average 1996-98 trade data, would have been less than 0.5 percent of total US exports.î And that ìestimated US imports from Cuba . . . excluding sugar (US sugar imports are government regulated) would have been approximately $69 million to $146 million annually, or less than 0.5 percent of total US imports.î

The report asserts, ìUS wheat exports to Cuba could total between $32 million and $52 million annually, about 1 percent of recent US wheat exports.î Economic data about Cuba is difficult to obtain. But consider this: During the year 2000 France withheld a shipment of grain due to Castro ís inability to pay for earlier transactions and canceled $160 million in new credits to Havana. In early 2001, Chile was attempting to establish ìa payment planî for a $20-million debt for mackerel shipped the previous year. South Africa, according to The Johannesburg Sunday Times was ìfrustratedî by Havanaís failure to settle a $13-million debt, and Pretoriaís Trade and Industry Ministry refused to approve credit guarantees to Cuba. Last year (2001), Thailand also refused to provide export insurance, resulting in the cancellation of rice sales to the island worth millions of dollars.

According to the commission report, rice exports to Cuba would be worth between $40 million and $59 million, increasing the value of US rice exports by 4 to 6 percent: ìUS exporters would be highly competitive with current suppliers.î But the report cautions that Castroís trade decisions are based on politics, not on economics. Castro is unlikely to give the Americans the market share that he provides his ideological allies: China and Vietnam.

Unfortunately, Castroís trade partners often become apologists for the regime, fearing to say anything that endangers their investments in Cuba. They have found out the hard way what happens when Castro feels insulted by demands to pay. Louisiana rice and Illinois wheat producers should stop assuming that ìsellingî to Havana is synonymous with getting paid. US taxpayers should be wary.

Castro desperately needs credits and subsidies. Washington is under pressure from agri-business to provide credits and subsidies. If all of us accept estimates that US trade with Cuba might rise to $100 million per year, then five years from now American taxpayers will have guaranteed $500 million in credits and insurance. Thatís real money, everywhere.

Before extending credit to Castro, Americans should visit New York City and watch how three-card monte is played on some street corners. The dealer shows three cards, shuffles them, places them face down and invites spectators to bet they can identify one. In this game, the gambler voluntarily takes his chances. Where trade with Castro is concerned, itís the US taxpayer will be left holding the losing card.

III. Would the Cuban people benefit from American tourism?

Let us now look at the policy considerations. The stated goal of US policy is to contain the Castroís communist regime by limiting its access to hard currency and promoting democracy and a rule of law.

How would a change in current travel restrictions in regard to Cuba impact US goals and interests? Would opening Cuba to dollar-spending American tourists subsidize repression and assist Fidel Castro in legitimizing the ìtourist apartheidî he has imposed on Cubans?

The Castro government sets aside hotels, beaches, stores, restaurants, even hospitals and clinics for foreigners and prohibits Cubans from staying in those hotels or patronizing those facilities. Do Americans who advocate changes in US travel policy have any moral responsibility to raise the issue of this apartheid? Should the rights of vacationing American tourists supersede the right of people living in Cuba to move freely about their own country? To eat at the same restaurants? Visit the same beaches? Obtain care in the same clinics?

At the beginning of the 21st Century, it no longer suffices to say that what happens 90 miles away is not Americaís business. The long history of misguided US policies toward Latin America should raise a cautionary flag when dealing with Cuba. The Cuban people are asking today, and will ask tomorrow: Where are their American friends in time of need? How many business leaders and Congressional visitors have asked President Castro to lift his tourist apartheid? Allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Cubaís political prisoners? Grant Cubans the same economic rights and privileges enjoyed by foreigners?

And what about the right of US citizens to use international airspace? Six years ago Castroís warplanes shot down two small civilian aircraft in international airspace over the Florida Straits. Three US citizens died. So did a Cuban citizen who was legally residing in the United States. The Clinton Administration presented indisputable evidence to international organizations that the Castro government deliberately murdered these men. Would it be fair to say that the right to live is just as important as the right to travel? Will Americaís civil-rights organizations so concerned about international travel join the families of those who died in seeking an indictment of those who pulled the trigger?

The Cuban regime needs the hard currency of foreign tourists to maintain its repression. As I said earlier Castroís communist government is bankrupt. Yet the dictator continues to muster and mobilize foreign apologists to press for access to American-funded trade credits and loan guarantees and to American tourist dollars.

The discussion on lifting the sanctions is somewhat schizophrenic: Some argue that lifting the travel ban will save the ìachievementsî of the Cuban Revolution. Others say that American tourists will ensure collapse of the Castro dictatorship. Both groups cannot be right, but both can be wrong. Many Central European leaders believe that radio broadcasts and solidarity with dissidents were extremely important in helping them win their struggle for freedom, but that Western loans and tourism propped up communist regimes that would have collapsed much earlier.

Professor Jaime Suchlicki, a noted historian at the University of Miami, has written [ìAmerican tourists would boost Castro,î The Providence Journal, Jan.10, 2001] that the belief that unilaterally and unconditionally lifting the travel ban ìwould benefit the Cubans economically and hasten the downfall of communism Öis based in several incorrect assumptions.î The first is ìthat Castro and the rest of the Cuban leadership are naïve and inexperienced and, therefore, would let tourists from the US subvert the revolution and influence internal developmentsÖ. The second is that Castro is so interested in close relations with the United States that he is willing to risk what has been uppermost in his mind for 41 years ñ total control of power and a legacy of opposition to ëYankee imperialismí ñ in exchange for economic improvements for his people.î

Dr. Suchlicki also writes that lifting the travel ban without securing meaningful changes in Cuba would:

* Guarantee the continuation of the current totalitarian structures.
* Strengthen state enterprises because the money would flow into businesses owned by the Cuban government. (Most businesses are owned in Cuba by the state and, in all foreign investments the Cuban government retains a partnership interest.);
* Lead to greater repression and control since Castro and the rest of the leadership would fear that US influence would subvert the revolution and weaken the Communist Partyís hold on the Cuban people.
* Delay instead of accelerate a transition to democracy in the island.

Send the wrong message to the enemies of the United States: that a foreign leader can seize US properties without compensation; allow the use of his territory for the introduction of nuclear missiles aimed at the United States; espouse terrorism and anti-U.S. causes throughout the world; and eventually, the United States will ìforget and forgive,î and reward him with tourism, investment, and economic aid.

Some argue that tourism and foreign investors would help bring respect for human rights in Cuba. But in the absence of other factors, the statement is simply not supported by the facts. As reported by the AmCham Cuba Newsletter (February 2002), ìA Congressional delegation came under fire in Cuba for focusing only on criticism of US sanctions at the expense of discussion on Cubaís internal human rights. A leading Cuban dissident, Oswaldo Paya of the Christian Liberation Movement, said the only issue the delegation wanted to discuss was the embargo. Paya charged that the visitor should ëQuestion whether there exists conditions whereby Cubans can freely participate with dignity in commerce, foreign investments, and cultural exchanges.íî

Despite millions of foreign tourists every year Cuba remains a totalitarian state. Canada has acknowledged that its ìpolicy of engagementî has failed to produce any significant change in the human rights situation on the island. Why should American tourists have an impact different from that of the thousands of Canadians who have been visiting Cuba for years?

Castro wants the benefits of capitalism, without Cuban capitalists. Cuban workers are badly treated. Strikes and nongovernmental labor unions are forbidden. Foreign investors cannot hire workers directly. Sheritt, the Canadian nickel company, pays Castro $9,500 dollars per year per worker; the regime pays the workers the equivalent of $20 dollars a month. Castro has allowed some minimal reforms due to the economic crisis. In a perverse way, those who favor lifting the sanctions on Castroís terms will discourage any future economic or political reforms. The real embargo responsible for Cubaís misery is the Marxist, command economy that failed in the Soviet Union and every where else it has been tried.

Castro goes to great lengths to restrict any number of rights of the Cuban people. Cubans are required to obtain ìan exit permitî before leaving Cuba. Cuban citizens abroad must obtain a visa from a Cuban consulate before returning home. Cubans emigrating from the island are not allowed to buy plane tickets with pesos; they must have dollars. They are allowed to take with them only ìpersonal property,î some clothes, etc. The government confiscates everything else: cars, furniture, electric appliances, kitchen utensils, etc.

Before Cubans are allowed to leave the island they must pay several hundred dollars to the government in ìprocessing fees.î Because most Cubans do not earn dollars, they depend on someone outside the island to pay the fees and to buy their plane tickets. A Cuban family would have to save all of its earnings for 10 years or more to accumulate the amount required to buy three plane tickets and pay government exit fees.

There are many Cubans who have visas issued by the United States or other governments and who have money from family or friends abroad but are arbitrarily denied exit visas by the Castro government. Here are a few of their stories:

Lazara Brito and her children Yanelis, Yamila, and Isaac were granted U.S. visas in 1996, but remain virtual hostages in Havana. Castro will not allow them to join her husband and their father Jose Cohen in the United States. Cohen, once a Cuban intelligence officer, was granted political asylum in the United States in 1994. Despite his appeals to Americans and international organizations who meet with Castro, his family remains in Cuba. They are not charged with any crime. Lazara Brito has written: ìneither I nor my three children can have legal representation. My husband, who is abroad, and I here call out for help from all who believe in human rights everywhere.î

Lázara Brito González

Calle 13 No 504 Entre D y E Apto 1. Vedado

Havana, Cuba

Telephone 320803

from outside Cuba: 011-53-320803
Blanca A. Reyes Castañónís son, Miguel Angel Sánchez Reyes, has lived in Miami since 1993. She has seen him only three times in eight years. Twice he came to Cuba, and once she visited him in the United States. Mrs. Reyes wrote: ìOn 16 November 2000, after waiting for 63 days and having attained a U.S. visa to travel to see him, Cubaís Inmigration Department refused to grant me the required exit permit. They said they were following Cubaís laws. I asked, what laws do not allow a mother to visit her son? I have yet to receive an answer.î

Why would the Castro government deny her an exit visa? She is the wife of Raul Rivero, a dissident poet who is also not allowed to travel. Reporters Sans Frontieres, Amnesty International and other organizations have denounced the persecution, harassment and imprisonment of Cuban independent journalists and their families.

ìOne would have thought,î she says ìthat the solution is for my son to visit us in Cuba, but I fear for his safety. My brother-in-law who resides in Canada obtained a Cuban visa, but when he arrived he was placed under virtual house arrest. He wasnít allowed to see his 82-year-old mother or his brother Raul. Is it unreasonable to think that something like that would happen to my son if he returns to Cuba?î

Blanca Reyes Castañón

Peñalver 466 ap.9 entre

Francos y Oquendo

Centro Habana.

C. Habana. Telf.79 5578
Iris Gonzalez-Rodiles Ruiz has not seen her son Greco in more than two years. She has yet to meet her first grandson, Rafael Diego, now a year old. Her daughter in law, Daniela, is a Swiss citizen. Cuban authorities denied her the required ìexit permitî to visit her family in Bern to help take care of her grandson, who suffers from allergies and asthma and requires special care.

ìThe authorities refused to tell me the reason I am not allowed to travel abroad,î she says. ìThey claim they do not have to tell me why.î She is an independent journalist.

Iria González-Rodiles Ruíz

Goicuría No.68 esquina a Luis Estévez

Santos Suárez. 10 de Octubre

Ciudad Habana.
Ohalys Victores Iribarren is also an independent journalist. The authorities will not allow him to travel abroad because he writes for ìmedia not under the control of the Cuban government.î He says he does not wish to leave Cuba, ìbut due to political reasons I am being forced to leave.î He has a U.S. visa. His family already lives in the United States.

Ohalys Víctores Iribarren

La Sola No.264

entre Milagros y Johnson

Santos Suárez.

10 de Octubre, Ciudad Habana

Teléfono 411898
For more than 10 years Oswaldo de Cespedes Feliu has challenged the Cuban government working four of those years as an independent journalist. Fidel Castro has referred to him on Cuban TV, mentioning his name. As a result Oswaldo says he and his family are ìvery fearful.î On March 15, 2001, at the International Airport Jose Marti in Havana the Cuban authorities blocked his departure for the United States. On April 25 his children and wife were allowed to leave, but the Castro regime continues to deny him the right to emigrate. He has been interrogated by State Security, and ìThe authorities have turned a deaf ear to my petition to allow me rejoin my family in the United States.î

Dr. Oswaldo de Céspedes

Feliú Espadero

No.119. Víbora.

10 de Octubre, Ciudad Habana.

Teléfono 406976
In conclusion, let us not pretend that Americans have an absolute right to vacation in Cuba. U.S. policy toward travel to Cuba is correct when it takes into account Castroís denial of civil liberties in Cuba, his 42 years of allying Cuba with the worldís rogue regimes and sponsoring anti-American violence, and continuing efforts to manipulate American institutions and public opinion. Again, in 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on travel to Cuba ìare justified by weighty concerns of foreign policy.î That is true today as well. Defense of civil liberties in this country neither requires nor warrants spending American dollars to subsidize repression in Cuba.

USA Today| February 1, 2002

By Frank Calzon

The press coverage and criticism of the imprisonment of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, despite the despicable nature of the suffering they helped inflict on Sept. 11, reflect the kind of open and civilized society those prisoners abhor.

The International Red Cross has visited the prisoners and its prompt concern is admirable. What is disturbing however is the silence by the International Red Cross, and by many pundits and critics, about President Fidel Castro’s refusal since 1989 to allow the Red Cross access to Cuban political prisoners.

Most of these prisoners are in jail not for acts of violence, but for defending human rights and urging a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.

Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba