Yahoo! July 18, 2000
Clinton Bars Cuba Confiscation Suit
WASHINGTON, 18 (AP) - President Clinton has suspended for an additional six months a law that would allow Americans whose property was confiscated by Cuba to sue foreigners who use those assets to do business, his spokesman said Tuesday.
The right to sue is contained in sanctions legislation approved by Congress in 1996. But Clinton has the authority under the law to waive or enforce the provision at six-month intervals.
Clinton has consistently exercised his waiver authority since the legislation was approved.
Presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart said the action was taken in the national interest and because it is the best way to secure the act's objective of a ``transition to democracy in Cuba.''
In the past, Clinton has cited as his reason for waiving the provision an increase in international efforts to promote democratic change in Cuba.
Lockhart offered the same rationale on Tuesday, asserting that the pro-democracy message from the international community ``has been more emphatic than ever'' over the last six months.
``Both publicly and privately, key leaders pressed senior Cuban officials on the need for improved respect for human rights and increased democratic opening,'' he said.
Experts Begin Cuba, US Trade Probe
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 17 (AP) - Two trade experts hired by the American government have quietly arrived here for fact-finding portion of the first U.S. investigation into the effects of the 38-year-old embargo against Cuba, a U.S. source confirmed Monday.
The two economists arrived here on Sunday for a weeklong mission for the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, said the source, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
The pair was to meet with Cuban officials and foreigners doing business here to put together a report for the U.S. Congress, the source said. The economists were not immediately available for comment.
The visit is part of a larger investigation that the ITC announced in April at the request of the House Ways and Means Committee.
The investigation will analyze the historical impact of U.S. sanctions on both the U.S. and Cuban economies, especially on affected sectors, and on U.S. exports, imports, employment, consumers, and investment, the ITC said at the time.
A public hearing on the study will be held in Washington in September, and the ITC will submit its report to the committee by Feb. 15, 2001.
The mission began as three U.S. senators who favor a lifting of the embargo wrapped up a weekend trip to the communist island.
Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, both Democrats, and Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas, are among a growing number of American lawmakers who support at least a partial lifting of the sanctions.
The House last month approved a $75.3 billion spending bill for farm programs and food regulation after dropping a provision that would remove restrictions on American food and medicine sales to Cuba. But House Republican leaders have agreed to try to put a more restricted version in the final
version of the legislation later this year.
American opponents of the embargo say it has failed their aim of forcing Castro to create a more open society. Supporters of the sanctions say they are necessary to punish Castro's government.
Number of Prisoners Drops in Cuba
HAVANA, 17 (AP) - The number of political prisoners in Cuba dropped slightly over the first six months of this year as the Cuban government opted to hold people for brief periods rather than give them long sentences, a leading human rights group said Monday.
Elizardo Sanchez, president of the independent Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said that the organization's latest survey showed 314 people were held for political reasons during the first half of 2000, down from 344 during the last six months of 1999.
The group is considered to be illegal in Cuba, but is tolerated by the government.
``After a slight increase in the second semester of 1999, this statistical drop could re-establish the positive tendency observed over the past 10 years that reduced the number of prisoners for political motives from more than 1,000 to several hundred,'' Sanchez said in a statement faxed to
foreign news organizations.
It appears that the government of Cuba is substituting an earlier policy of long prison sentences for one that involves several hours, days or weeks, as well as warnings, he said.
The Cuban government maintains it holds no political prisoners, only common criminals.
Despite the drop, Sanchez said that Cuba ``continues to be the only closed society in the Western Hemisphere'' and the government ``continues to violate virtually all the civil and political rights of the citizenry.''
Sanchez, who himself spent many years in Cuban prisons, is among the island's best known opposition activists.
The commission he heads issues a report on civil rights every six months, along with a list of people it considers to be imprisoned for political motives.
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