'Castro's government does not present an intelligent nor ethical investment
 environment.' -- REP. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Miami Republican

 BY ANA RADELAT
 Special to The Herald

 WASHINGTON -- A government hearing on the economic impact of ending the
 38-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba drew repeated clashes Tuesday, with
 opponents saying the policy damages both the Cuban and U.S. economies, and
 supporters declaring Cuba would make a poor investment partner.

 The two-day hearings before the International Trade Commission, an independent,
 nonpartisan federal agency, are part of a study the agency is preparing at the
 request of the House Ways and Means Committee on the sanctions.
 A DIPLOMAT

 Fernando Remírez, Cuba's highest ranking diplomat in the United States, claimed
 the embargo has ``a dramatic impact on the living standards of the Cuban people''
 that results in shortages of food and medicine.

 Remírez contended the embargo has caused $300 billion in economic damages
 and monetary compensation for human suffering.

 Cuba rarely testifies at U.S. government hearings, and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
 and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, Republican members of Congress from Miami,
 complained that Remírez had been invited to speak.

 ``Officials of this regime customarily manipulate the facts and, history has shown,
 systematically violate the rule of law by acting against internationally legal
 standards,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.
 CASTRO

 Díaz-Balart maintained that ``Castro's government does not present an intelligent
 nor ethical investment environment.''

 Dennis Hays, the executive vice president of the Cuban American National
 Foundation, said the high-profile hearing on the embargo served as a ``distraction''
 from Cuba's human rights record.

 The ITC hearings were requested by the head of the Ways and Means panel,
 Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, at the behest of Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York, the
 senior Democrat on the powerful panel and a longtime critic of U.S. sanctions
 against Cuba.

 ``The logic that convinced America, Congress and the administration that we need
 to trade with China and Vietnam applies also to Cuba,'' Rangel said. The Senate
 voted Tuesday to give China preferential trading status.

 THE CONTROVERSY

 Held as Congress debates easing restrictions on the sale of food and medicine to
 Cuba, the hearings are aimed at helping the ITC compile a report, to be submitted
 to Congress in February, on the embargo's economic impact on U.S. businesses
 and Cuba's foreign investors and people.

 But the controversy Cuba stirs forced ITC commissioners to repeatedly ask
 witnesses to limit themselves to economic, not political, discussions of the
 embargo.

 ``Most of your answers are directed at whether sanctions serve a political
 purpose, which is an interesting question. But that's not what we're charged with,''
 Commissioner Jennifer Hillman said.

 Trading with Cuba was portrayed as the best way to undermine Fidel Castro's
 government while helping U.S. businesses and lifting living standards of ordinary
 Cubans.

 But embargo supporters maintained that Cuba's unpredictable regulatory system
 and lack of cash would make it an poor trading partner. They also said that lifting
 sanctions would only shore up Castro's government and increase repression on
 the island.

 ``Unilateral lifting of the embargo now will condemn the Cuban people to a longer
 dictatorship and will prevent a rapid transformation of Cuba into a free and
 democratic system,'' said Jaime Suchlicki of the Institute for Cuban and
 Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.
 LARGEST MARKET

 Richard Bell of the USA Rice Federation said Cuba has imported $3.1 billion
 worth of rice since 1962 and could once again become the largest market for U.S.
 rice if the embargo were lifted.

 ``The only real winners as a result of our Cuban trade sanctions are the suppliers
 of lower quality rice elsewhere in the world,'' Bell said. ``The big losers are the
 U.S. rice industry and the Cuban consumer.''