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.