The Embargo against Cuba
Research Paper Supervisor : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2007 Academic Year
Imposed since 1962, the US embargo has been reinforced in October 1992 by the Cuban Democracy Act (or "Torricelli Law"), which aimed to restrain the development of the Cuban economy’s new driving forces the by hitting the inflow of funds and goods by: i) the strict limitations of the transfers of foreign currencies by the families in exile, ii) the six-months ban to enter U.S. harbours of all ships that had anchored in a Cuban port, iii) sanctions against firms doing commerce with the island even though under the jurisdiction of a third state. The embargo was systematized by the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act ("Helms Burton Law") of March 1996, aimed to harden the "international" sanctions against Cuba. Its Title I generalizes the ban to import Cuban goods, demanding, for example, that exporters give proof that no Cuban sugar has been integrated in their products, as was already the case with nickel. It conditions the authorization of currency transfers to the creation on the island of a private sector including employment of salaried staff. Still more enterprising, Title II fixes the modalities of a transition to a "post-Castro" power, as well as the nature of the relationship to have with the United States. Title III grants the U.S. tribunals the right to judge demands for damage and interest made by a civil and moral person of U.S. nationality that considers having been injured by the loss of property in Cuba due to nationalization, and claims compensation from the users or beneficiaries of this property. At the request of the old owners, any national (and family) of a third state, having made transactions with these users or beneficiaries, can be sued in the United States. The sanctions incurred are set out in Title IV, which provides, inter alias, the refusal of the State Department to give U.S. entrance visas to these individuals and their families.
Situation
After some 42 years of the embargo's measurable failure to topple Castro, the Bush administration appears to favor the concept of throwing good money after bad. "Just because the policy hasn't yet brought results, I don't think it's an argument for doing away with it," State Department Deputy Director of Cuban Affairs Kevin Whitaker told a Palm Beach public affairs forum in mid-March, according to the Palm Beach Post. "I think we've taken enough grief for the Cuba policy over the years that we ought to get something for it."
With the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a growing chorus of cries for the United States to lift the economic embargo on Cuba. This chorus has included even such responsible anti-communist voices as those of former President Richard Nixon and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Such calls are curious, coming as they are just when it appears that the 32-year-old embargo may be bearing fruit. Five years after losing the financial patronage of the former Soviet Union, Fidel Castro's communist regime is facing severe shortages and growing popular discontent. Cuba's economy has shrunk by more than half since 1989, the black market is more dynamic than the formal command economy controlled by the state, and Fidel Castro's efforts to build a huge tourism industry and attract billions of dollars in new foreign investments have proved dismal failures.
This economic collapse has imperiled the stability of the Castro regime. The Soviet Union's demise robbed Castro of his ideological base and about $4.5 billion a year in direct subsidies, exposing the complete failure of the communist revolution to improve the lives of the Cuban people. Moreover, as the economy's collapse has accelerated, popular discontent has increased to levels that threaten the survival of the regime. That was made clear in August, when thousands of Cubans rioted in Havana's Old Waterfront district, and by the subsequent flight to sea of more than 30,000 Cubans of all ages. Another indication that Castro's grip on power is slipping is the increased repression of organized dissident groups by Cuban security forces.
While the embargo may finally be working, Castro remains defiant. He refuses to allow true free-market reforms and rejects democratic political reforms. Instead, he is conducting an aggressive international campaign to get the embargo lifted without making any economic or political concessions in return. Castro is trying to force the United States to lift the embargo in order to resuscitate his dying communist regime with billions of dollars in trade, investment, and international aid.
Although the United States today stands virtually alone in its insistence on maintaining the embargo, it must stand firm. Thus far, the Clinton Administration has resisted pressure to lift the embargo. To hasten the transition to a post-Castro Cuba, the Administration should: Maintain the embargo until irreversible economic and political reforms leading to democratic capitalism take place.
Admit no more Cuban refugees into the U.S. beyond the 20,000 per year agreed to during negotiations in September. The 32,000 Cuban refugees now at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo and in Panama should gradually be processed for admission to the United States.
Demand that U.S. allies in the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico and Canada, stop coddling Castro and start calling for real change. Link future free trade agreements between the United States and Latin American/Caribbean nations to redoubled efforts by these countries to persuade Castro to liberalize Cuba's economy and political system. Prepare for the possibility that Castro's collapse could unleash a lengthy period of social and political unrest, and perhaps even civil war, in Cuba. Reinforce the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo in anticipation of attack by pro-Castro forces.
Provide financial and other support to more than 150 dissident groups within Cuba that are struggling to bring down Castro. Increase the broadcasting activities of Radio Mart¡.
The U.S. embargo against Cuba is condemned by an ever larger and by now overwhelming majority of member-states of the United Nations General Assembly. However, it continues to be imposed by the U.S. government’s isolated but stubborn will.
In spite of the United Nations repeated injunctions, notably its resolution 56/9 of the 27th of November 2001. The purpose of this expose is to denounce this embargo in the strongest terms for the violation of law it represents, and for its total lack of legitimacy. These measures of arbitrary constraint are tantamount to a U.S. undeclared act of war against Cuba; their devastating economic and social effects deny the people to exercise their basic human rights, and are unbearable for them. They directly subject the people to the maximum of suffering and infringe upon the physical and moral integrity of the whole population, and in the first place of the children, of the elderly and of women. In this respect, they can be seen as a crime against humanity.
The Effect
The harmful economic effects of the embargo
From an official Cuban source, the direct economic damages caused to Cuba by the U.S. embargo since its institution would exceed 70 billion dollars. The damages include: i) the loss of earnings due to the obstacles to the development of services and exportations (tourism, air transport, sugar, nickel; ii) the losses registered as a result of the geographic reorientation of the commercial flows, (additional costs of freight, stocking and commercialization at the purchasing of the goods...); iii) the impact of the limitation imposed on the growth of the national production of goods and services (limited access to technologies, lack of access to spare parts and hence early retirement of equipment, forced restructuring of firms, serious difficulties sustained by the sectors of sugar, electricity, transportation, agriculture...); iv) the monetary and financial restrictions (impossibility to renegotiate the external debt, interdiction of access to the dollar, unfavorable impact of the variation of the exchange rates on trade, risk-country, additional cost of financing due to U.S. opposition to the integration of Cuba into the international financial institutions...); v) the pernicious effects of the incentive to emigration, including illegal emigration (loss of human resources and talents generated by the Cuban educational system...); vi) social damages affecting the population (concerning food, health, education, culture, sport...).
If it affects negatively all the sectors , the embargo directly impedes -besides the exportations- the driving forces of the Cuban economic recovery, at the top of which are tourism, foreign direct investments (FDI) and currency transfers. Many European subsidiaries of U.S. firms had recently to break off negotiations for the management of hotels, because their lawyers anticipated that the contracts would be sanctioned under the provisions of the "Helms-Burton law". In addition, the buy-out by U.S. groups of European cruising societies, which moored their vessels in Cuba, cancelled the projects in 2002-03. The obstacles imposed by the United States, in violation of the Chicago Convention on civil aviation, to the sale or the rental of planes, to the supply of kerosene and to access to new technologies (e-reservation, radio-localization), will lead to a loss of 150 million dollars in 2003. [...]
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