The Miami Herald
June 25, 2000

Farmers fuel drive to repeal sanctions

Big business eyes sales to Havana

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 First of three parts

 STUTTGART, Ark. -- Rice grower David Hillman may not know much about Cuba, but his
 business acumen and bedrock belief in American democracy have made him join a
 blossoming campaign to ease the U.S. embargo on Havana.

 The 50,000 metric tons of rice that Cuba might buy from U.S. growers could mean a $20
 million sale, Hillman said, plus higher overall rice prices at a time when prices are depressed
 and part of last year's record crop is sitting in silos.

 ''And when Cubans see what Americans have, they will want the same. We'll be bringing
 sunlight there, added Hillman, a fourth-generation farmer from Stuttgart -- population 10,420,
 ''The Rice and Duck Capital of the World.

 Right or wrong, it is people like Hillman who are helping to give the anti-embargo lobby
 unprecedented strength in the battle to widen existing holes in the sanctions and punch new
 ones.

 For the first time, an American icon, the farmer, has joined big business in attacking the
 sanctions. For the first time, the anti-sanctions lobby appears to be outspending the
 anti-Castro lobby. For the first time since the era of President Jimmy Carter, from 1977
 to 1981, the White House is strongly encouraging U.S.-Cuba contacts.

 On Capitol Hill, the decades-old debate on lifting or keeping the embargo has
 shifted fundamentally to a search for common ground on policies that help the
 Cuban people while isolating President Fidel Castro's government.

 Republican conservatives like Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., and Rep. George
 Nethercutt, R-Wash., are now pushing to lift most restrictions on food and
 medical sales to Cuba. Even anti-communist crusader Sen. Jesse Helms,
 R-N.C., voted recently for Ashcroft's proposal.

 Meanwhile, President Clinton's decision this month to allow food and medical
 sales to North Korea, the congressional debate on giving China Permanent
 Normal Trade Relations status and the debate over the Elián González case have
 combined to remind Americans that U.S. policy toward Cuba remains an
 anachronism of the Cold War, an unresolved dilemma.

 Few believe the embargo can be completely lifted until the 73-year-old Castro
 leaves power. But even supporters of the sanctions admit the new dynamics of
 the battle are making their work much more difficult.

 ''The farm lobby and 'big business' coming together have definitely altered the
 political landscape. . . . For the first time, there is a stalwart, bona fide movement
 against sanctions, said Jose Cardenas, Washington representative for the Cuban
 American National Foundation.

 FLUCTUATING POLICY

 Since President John F. Kennedy imposed trade and travel sanctions on Cuba on
 Feb. 3, 1962, the embargo has been periodically eased or tightened by U.S.
 presidents in what amounted to much movement but little change.

 Initially designed to punish Castro for seizing U.S. properties in Cuba, embracing
 the Soviet Union and trying to subvert many of his Latin American neighbors, the
 embargo over time appeared to become more of a tradition than a policy.

 Even the end of the Cold War in 1989 failed to change its status as a secondary
 issue for U.S. foreign policy, usually fought over only by the Cuban exile lobby
 and liberal politicians and church groups.

 ''The biggest success of the embargo may be that it kept people from thinking
 about Cuba, said Bill Lane, chairman of USA*Engage, a Washington group
 pushing to end all unilateral U.S. sanctions on foreign nations.

 All that has changed, however.

 SANCTIONS AT ISSUE

 Driving the burgeoning anti-embargo lobby today is the campaign by farmers,
 agricultural industries and big business to lift all unilateral U.S. economic
 sanctions, but especially those on Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and
 Sudan.

 The Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan Washington think tank,
 has estimated that sanctions on 26 nations in 1995 alone cost U.S. producers at
 least $15 billion in lost sales and 200,000 jobs.

 Cuba is a small part of that loss, with a population of only 11 million, total 1999
 imports of $3.8 billion, and government coffers all but empty since the end of
 massive Soviet subsidies in 1991.

 Hillman, the Arkansas grower, said the possible 40,000-ton rice sale that Cuban
 officials mentioned when he and 15 other Arkansans visited Havana last month
 ''may mean my paying off a tractor in six years instead of seven.

 But compared to pariah nations such as Iraq and Iran, Cuba is seen by the
 anti-sanctions lobby as ''the weakest link in the chain, said Dan Fisk, a former
 Helms aide now with the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

 BUSINESS ALLIANCES

 Farm and industrial equipment makers Caterpillar and Ingersoll-Rand back
 USA*Engage, while General Electric, Citibank, Boeing, pharmaceuticals
 manufacturer SmithKline Beecham, the Carlson travel agency and the Radisson
 hotel empire also have joined the anti-embargo lobby.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce helped found Americans for Humanitarian Trade
with Cuba with backing from David Rockefeller, chairman of his family trust, and
Dwayne Andreas, head of food giant Archer Daniels Midland.

Andreas is also a top member of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a
New York group that monitors business and investment opportunities on the island.

More importantly, big business has put big bucks behind the anti-embargo campaign.

''Big business has been dumping tons of money into this, said Katie Donahue, a
 Washington consultant who works with anti-embargo groups. Cardenas, of the
 Cuban American National Foundation, added, ''They are vastly outspending us.

 A USA*Engage official said the group has spent $1 million a year on a lobbying,
 public relations and educational campaign against the embargo since it was
 founded in 1997 -- close to the $3.2 million that CANF members and political
 action committees were reported to have donated to political candidates from
 1981 to 1997.

 Agri-business contributions to candidates for the 1999-2000 electoral cycle have
 been estimated at $25.3 million -- only a tiny part of it for anti-embargo lobbying,
 but a big punch nevertheless.

 AN OPENING TO CUBA

 Meanwhile, the Clinton administration's encouragement of increased U.S.-Cuba
 contacts has sparked a significant increase in the number of Americans visiting
 the island and fueled the anti-embargo lobby.

 One reason for the rising opposition to the embargo, said John Kavulich, president
 of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, has been the U.S. government's
 change in attitude ''from discouraging U.S. business contacts with Cuba, from
 saying, 'Why would you want to?' to asking, 'How can we help you?' ''

 While the visits' impact inside Cuba remains uncertain, most visitors have
 returned home persuaded that the embargo is hurting the Cuban people, not the
 Castro government, by denying them access to U.S. goods.

 ''After seeing Cuba, I am firmly convinced that you can have the embargo for 1,000
 years and it will hurt no one but the American farmer and the Cuban people, said
 Hillman, the rice grower, now also president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau
 Federation.

 Critics of Clinton say that's what he secretly wants -- to boost anti-embargo
 forces so they will force Congress to ease the sanctions. ''This president has
 moved away from a policy of confronting Castro to one of mollifying him, said Fisk
 of the Heritage Foundation.

 IT'S 'THE LAW'

 Not so, said Lula Rodriguez, deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs.
 Today, she said, ''the embargo is the law because the Helms-Burton Act of 1996
 turned into law all embargo provisions until then set by executive orders.

 ''The goal continues to be to put pressure on Castro to undertake much-needed steps
 toward a democratic transition that include release of all political prisoners, free
 elections, independent political parties and labor unions and a free-market economy,
 Rodriguez said.

 Adding fuel to the anti-embargo campaign, the congressional debate on granting
 Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to a communist Chinese government that
 violates human rights as much as Cuba has boosted the argument for trade with Havana.

 ''The China debate inevitably raised the question: If there, why not in Cuba?
 Kavulich said.

 And then there is the dispute over 6-year-old shipwreck survivor Elián González,
 which landed the Cuba issue on front pages and television news broadcasts for
 months.

 ''Elián was a reminder, thrust into the American living rooms, that the Cuba
 situation remains unsolved. People want solutions. They want problems taken
 care of, said Cardenas, of the Cuban American National Foundation.

 EMBARGO'S BACKERS

 The onslaught has left embargo supporters, already all but leaderless since the
 1997 death of CANF Chairman Jorge Mas Canosa, feeling frustrated and on the
 defensive.

 ''When Mas was alive, all of the players knew their role in the pro-embargo effort.
 But with him gone, there's confusion and competition instead of cooperation,'' said
 an aide to a Senate Republican who favors keeping the sanctions on Cuba.

 Added an aide to a Cuban-American member of Congress: ''It's like living in a
 castle under siege. We're safe now, but over the years the continued pounding is
 weakening the foundations. I don't know how long we can last.

 The result of all those pressures is that Republican conservatives from agricultural
 states, such as Ashcroft and Nethercutt, are spearheading anti-embargo
 campaigns once led by liberals such as Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and
 Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

 The Senate already has passed Ashcroft's measure, and Nethercutt says he has
 220 House members backing his version. A decisive vote is not expected until
 next month.

 ''The Republicans have sold the exiles down the river, one Cuban-American
 activist in the Democratic Party said with obvious glee.

 OUT IN THE OPEN

 Public opinion on Cuba has shifted so much that U.S. firms that once kept their
 interest in Cuba quiet to avoid problems with embargo backers now proudly
 announce their visits to Cuba.

 ''A public interest in Cuba is no longer considered a liability for U.S. businesses,
 Kavulich said. ''And companies are not simply asking, 'What can we do?' but they
 are asking, 'How can we do it?' ''

 Even embargo supporters are modulating their stands, and an aide to a
 Republican senator who always voted against relaxing the sanctions had to do a
 rhetorical somersault recently to explain his boss's vote for the Ashcroft proposal.

 ''A dollar that Castro spends on importing food is a dollar that he can't spend
 repressing Cubans, the aide said, adding with a smile, ''One has to bow before
 the inevitable.

 RESULTS DISPUTED

 Woven throughout the burgeoning debate on the Cuba sanctions is the question
 of whether the embargo has had any effect on Castro's government.

 Castro has branded the embargo as ''genocidal and claimed the sanctions cost
 his government $60 billion to $80 billion over the past 38 years in lost exports and
 extra costs for non-U.S. imports.

 ''But the two countries that we've done the best job of isolating over the last 40
 years, Cuba and North Korea, are the two countries that have changed the least,
 said USA*Engage's Lane, who also works as Caterpillar's Washington
 representative.

 The embargo has done nothing to hurt Castro but has instead hurt the Cuban
 people and American business interests and isolated Washington from most of
 its foreign allies, Lane argues.

 ''There's absolutely no reason for people to be hungry or sick because of our
 policies, said Jerry Hoskyn, 57, another Stuttgarter who farms 950 acres of rice
 but did not join the recent Cuba trip. ''When it comes to someone not eating, I
 have a problem with that.

 ALTRUISTIC OR NOT?

 Critics challenge such claims of altruism. ''There's nothing humanitarian about
 this. This is about selling rice to Cuba, said Fisk of the Heritage Foundation.
 ''They don't care what kind of regime it is, as long as the checks don't bounce.

 Allowing food sales ''might give Cubans more food, but in a situation where you have an
 almost total monopoly of economic power in the hands of the state, then all the benefits of
 economic trade will go to the government, said Susan Kaufman Purcell of the Americas
 Society, a New York-based group of U.S. firms doing business in Latin America.

 Embargo supporters also argue that the sanctions are indeed hurting Castro,
 particularly since Moscow ended its massive subsidies. To ensure his regime's survival,
 Castro was forced to legalize the U.S. dollar, allow cash remittances from exiles abroad, and
 embrace other economic reforms.

 ''The hottest person on the block used to be the chief of the CDR [neighborhood
 watch groups]. Now it's the guy with an Uncle Pepe in Hialeah who sends him
 $40 per month, one Clinton administration official said.

 LOOKING AHEAD

 Anti-embargo lobbyists are confident that Congress will approve the
 Ashcroft-Nethercutt proposals by summer's end, and already are preparing their
 next step.

 ''I don't think tractor sales to Cuba are far behind, said Donahue, the Washington
 consultant. Others say the shipping sector will be next to open up, while still
 others predict it will be U.S. tourism to Cuba.

 And if Havana is allowed to buy U.S. products, can U.S. imports of Cuban rum,
 cigars and sugar be far behind?

 Sen. Max Baucus, R-Mont., has proposed a bill that would lift all U.S. sanctions
 on Cuba, arguing that ''40 years of sanctions have accomplished nothing.

 And the International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency that
 monitors the impact of foreign trade on U.S. interests, has meanwhile launched a
 study of the embargo's economic effects on the United States and Cuba,
 requested by the House Ways and Means Committee. The study is expected
 early next year.

 ''This will be the final nail in the coffin, one congressional aide predicted.

 OBSTACLES REMAIN

 But many shadows still hang over the anti-embargo lobby's future.

 The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee recently came out against
 the Ashcroft-Nethercutt initiative, saying it also would ease sanctions on Libya
 and Iran and help countries that pose a threat to Israel.

 House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Whip Tom
 DeLay, as well as House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, have all lined up
 against the Nethercutt proposal.

 And the presidential and congressional elections in November may radically
 change the political alignments in Washington. Both Al Gore and George W.
 Bush have said they support current sanctions on Cuba, and Ashcroft and
 Nethercutt face tough reelection battles.

 ''The anti-embargo lobby is in a full-court press now because there's a political
 window that they know is closing, Cardenas said.