Published Tuesday, June 27, 2000, in the Miami Herald
U.S. businesses seek opportunity on island
Clinton expected to ease restrictions
By Ana Radelat . Special to The Herald Last of three parts
WASHINGTON -- Sensing that Congress and the president are willing to poke holes in the 40-year-old embargo against Cuba, hundreds of U.S. lawmakers, farm leaders and corporate executives have rushed to Havana in recent months to explore business opportunities.
Even if Congress fails to ease sanctions against Cuba, President Clinton will probably take additional steps before leaving office in January, according to administration officials and business consultants with interests in Cuba.
Although the fall of the Berlin Wall heightened interest in trade with the island, Pope John Paul II's journey to Cuba in 1998 gave travel there ``legitimacy and acceptability,'' said Geoff Thale, an associate with the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit group that advocates easing
the embargo. ``Before the pope's visit, it was a bigger political risk,'' Thale said.
Afterward, President Clinton eased restrictions on the sale of medicines, allowed U.S. food sales to nongovernmental entities on the island and relaxed restrictions on American travel.
And even though the 1996 Helms-Burton Act stripped the president of much of his authority over the Cuba embargo, Clinton can still license specific transactions.
LICENSING AUTHORITY
Using that licensing authority, Clinton may broaden permitted transactions to include the sale of food to the Cuban government under certain conditions, some business consultants say. These conditions might include prohibiting sales that benefit Cuba's tourism industry or allowing limited sales
for a trial period.
Moreover, Clinton will probably allow Cuban Americans unlimited travel to the island to visit their relatives, a State Department official said. They are now restricted to once-a-year visits unless they can obtain permission for additional travel for humanitarian purposes.
José Cárdenas, director of the Cuban American National Foundation's Washington office, called the pope's visit a ``catalyst'' that led to increased U.S. contacts with Cuba.
``In the beginning of the administration [Clinton] held to the traditional U.S. approach of isolating the Castro regime. Now they're virtual cheerleaders [for increased U.S. contacts with the island],'' Cárdenas said.
VISITS ENCOURAGED
A State Department official agreed that the Clinton administration ``encouraged various official delegations going down.''
``It's a central part of our people-to-people policy,'' the official explained.
Meanwhile, dozens of lawmakers who want U.S.-Cuba policy to change are flying to Havana.
The Washington Office on Latin America hosted an April trip to Cuba for Reps. Joe Moakley and Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrats who have long criticized the Cuba embargo. In February, the group took Reps. Michael McNulty and Maurice Hinchey, New York Democrats.
Pastors for Peace, an interdenominational group of religious leaders who maintain that embargo restrictions are unconstitutional, has organized travel for the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, whose members have made five trips to Cuba in the last 18 months. Their travel was largely
funded by private foundations.
``Feeling that lifting the trade sanctions on Cuba for food and medicine is on the horizon, I wanted to make the trip there to lay the groundwork for South Carolina to take advantage of this new market,'' said Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., chairman of the black caucus. ``And believe me, I am
not alone.''
DELEGATES TRAVEL
When Clyburn was in Havana this month, he ran into Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Rep. Marion Berry, Arkansas Democrats, who were traveling with a 16-member delegation of Arkansas farmers.
While Cuba has always attracted liberal Democrats, it now has bipartisan appeal.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., visited last year, as did Illinois Gov. George Ryan, also a Republican. Both men discussed business opportunities with Cuban officials during their stay.
``It serves neither the U.S.'s nor Cuba's interest to continue the embargo on vital supplies like food and medicine,'' Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said during his trip last August.
In the last two years, representatives of U.S. Wheat Associates have visited Havana five times. They brought wheat donations on their first two visits, but now they are trying to sell.
NEW MARKET
Dawn Forsythe, spokeswoman for the group, acknowledges that the Cuban Catholic charity CARITAS and other nongovernmental groups in Cuba -- which are allowed by law to buy U.S. agricultural goods -- ``are not set up to handle'' the volume of wheat U.S. producers want to sell to Cuba.
Yet the opportunity to reach a new market compels the American wheat growers to keep trying, Forsythe said.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, the Texas Farm Bureau and the U.S. Feed Grains Council have also sent delegations to Cuba since the pope's visit.
Representatives of the U.S. Cane Sugar Refiners' Association also visited.
Nicholas Kominus, president of the association, said his members are preparing for the day they can import and refine Cuba's ``high quality'' sugar.
``If you're in the industry, going to Cuba is like going to Mecca,'' he said.
LAYING GROUNDWORK
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also sponsored two trips to the island in the past year, laying the groundwork for the day that its members are allowed to trade with the island.
Chamber Vice President Craig Johnstone predicts the embargo will be lifted because it is ``unhelpful for Cuba and unhelpful for the United States.''
Meanwhile, the chamber, the largest U.S. business group, has initiated several projects with Cuban officials. One would bring Cuban entrepreneurs to the United States. Another would begin talks between the Cuban government and some of the American companies that lost property during Castro's
nationalizations.
TRADE SHOW
The Clinton administration is wary of independent efforts to settle such claims, but it was more supportive of the first U.S. trade show in Havana. Peter Nathan, president of PWN Exhibicon, organized a January health trade fair, which was attended by 309 business people from 97 American
companies.
Since licensed sales of medicine and medical products are permitted under law, trade show participants signed contracts worth between $3 million and $5 million at the event. Since then, trade fair participants have received another $15 million to $20 million in orders from the Cuban government,
Nathan said.
Nathan, who produced the first U.S. trade shows in Communist China and the former Soviet Union, said embargo restrictions made the Cuba exhibit the most difficult of all his ventures. Yet he is planning a food and agribusiness show for American producers in Havana next year.
"There's just so much interest,'' Nathan said.
Deal close on sanctions
Would ease restrictions
By Jackie Koszczuk . Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Key members of the House agreed in principle Monday night on legislation to ease the 40-year-old economic embargo against Cuba.
House Republican leaders met late into the night with lawmakers on both sides of the emotional issue in an effort to work out differences on a bill that would relax restrictions on exports of food and medicine to Cuba. Sanctions against Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan would also loosen.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young told reporters around 10 p.m. that lawmakers had reached ``an agreement in principle'' on a compromise, but that details still were being negotiated behind closed doors.
Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Fla., emphasized that the talks were at a delicate stage. ``Negotiations could fall apart based on one word,'' he cautioned.
The draft legislation under discussion would allow unlimited exports of U.S. commodities such as wheat, rice and grain to Cuba, provided that President Fidel Castro's government could pay for them with hard currency or with loans from other countries.
The legislation would forbid Castro to buy U.S. products with credit from U.S. banks or the government.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, confirmed about 11 p.m. that those terms were among the points agreed to in principle.
Herald special correspondent Ana Radelat contributed to this report.
Final plea to keep Elián in U.S. made by relatives to high court
By Jay Weaver . jweaver@herald.com
The legal team for Elián González's Miami relatives took their final plea to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday -- one last attempt to stop the boy from returning to Cuba with his father later this week.
The team's dozen lawyers filed an emergency request to block his departure and a formal appeal to force the federal government to grant the 6-year-old a political asylum hearing. If the high court denies the injunction barring his removal from this country, Elián and his father, Juan
Miguel González, could leave Washington, D.C., as early as Wednesday afternoon.
``The preeminent issue deals with the constitutional right of an alien to apply for asylum,'' said Roger Bernstein, one of the relatives' immigration attorneys. ``Various [appellate] courts have been split on this issue.''
On Friday, however, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument and another basic contention: that the Immigration and Naturalization Service overstepped its authority when it ruled that Elián was too young to apply for asylum and that his father was the only person who
could speak for him on the issue.
The INS, which has waged a bruising battle with the boy's Miami relatives and their legal team in federal court, plans to fight back again. ``We will definitely file a motion in opposition,'' said Justice Department spokeswoman Carole Florman.
The 11th Circuit Court's earlier injunction barring Elián's removal from the United States expires at 4 p.m. Wednesday. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy could rule on the latest emergency request by himself or refer it to the entire high court.
Unless the Supreme Court issues the injunction -- considered unlikely by many independent legal scholars -- the saga of the Cuban rafter could come to an end seven months after Elián was rescued from an inner tube off the South Florida coast on Thanksgiving Day. He survived the journey
from Cuba that cost the lives of his mother and 10 others.
The Miami relatives' legal team argues that the injunction should be granted so the Supreme Court can settle the question of whether an alien has a constitutional right to apply for asylum under the 1980 Refugee Act.
Their lawyers claim the 11th Circuit Court's decision in 1984 -- that ``aliens seeking admission to the United States . . . have no constitutional rights with regard to their applications'' -- conflicts with other appellate rulings across the country.
They cite a 1982 case in which the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami sued the INS over the constitutional right to apply for asylum. In that instance, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that right.
Similarly, the lawyers argue, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that aliens seeking asylum are entitled to due process.
In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the lawyers argue that the INS improvised informal policy in Elián's case. They assert the Supreme Court should order the agency to hear the boy's asylum request on grounds that he will be politically persecuted back in Cuba.
But INS officials counter they followed immigration law and conducted extensive research here and in Cuba -- including interviews with Elián's father to ensure he genuinely wanted his son returned home. They did not think interviews with the boy were necessary because his father asked
that his asylum applications be withdrawn.
In a related legal development, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy on Monday dismissed a separate lawsuit by the Miami relatives. Filed in the District of Columbia, their suit contended that human-rights treaties and anti-torture conventions signed by the United States should bar the federal
government from returning Elián to a repressive regime like Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Broward's Cubans seek political clout
By Charles Savage. csavage@herald.com
Confronted by bitter feelings in the wake of the Elián González controversy, Broward's Cuban-American movers and shakers this week will found the American-Cuban Political Action Committee, the first Cuban-specific political organization in the county.
The PAC will be kick-started with $10,000 that the founders themselves plan to contribute this week.
The group will serve as a way for Cuban Americans interested in politics to aid candidates they support. Several founders said they want the group to focus on local issues, not foreign policy.
``We are Americans, and we have to take care of our interest in Broward County,'' said co-founder Jose ``Pepe'' Lopez, the executive director of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and a 25-year Broward resident who has run for political office.
``This is not a Cuban organization to war on problems in Cuba. That's what the Cuban-American National Federation is for. This is a PAC in Broward, for Broward. And we don't want to get involved in what happened in Dade County, either. That's not our problem.''
While its founders say they ``have a love for Cuba,'' they consider themselves ``Americans first'' and distinguish themselves from the Cuban-American stereotype that was fueled by television coverage of street protests following the federal seizure of Elián González.
``This American-Cuban PAC is envisioned to be bipartisan and not exclusive to right-wing issues,'' said co-founder Frank Vargas, the incoming president of the Latin Chamber. ``Many of us are second-generation. We speak English perfectly. Not everybody wants to go into the street to burn tires.
That's not a typical Cuban. Most are law-abiding citizens, and they are American first.''
ISSUE-ORIENTED
Vargas said the group will support candidates based on issues rather than exclusively backing Cuban Americans.
And, he added, it will welcome Democrats. The first candidate he expects the PAC will back is Diana Wasserman-Rubin, a Cuban-American Democrat on the School Board who is now running for the County Commission District 8 seat in Southwest Broward.
Wasserman-Rubin, who is the only Hispanic politician in Broward history to win a countywide election, said she welcomed the support of the new group.
``I like the concept of it being a Broward focus,'' Wasserman-Rubin said. ``That's an important message to bring to the community, that a Cuban-American PAC is going to focus on the economic development of Broward and our schools and county government.''
Not every founder shares quite the same vision, however. Tony Chao, vice president and owner of Allied Mortgage, said he was backing the group because he felt that Broward needed to be better educated about why Cuban Americans want to keep Elián González and the embargo in place.
``I was shocked to learn with the Elián case about the lack of perspective or knowledge that the majority of Americans have about the situation and because of the types of comments and criticisms being made,'' Chao said. ``They compare Cuba to other countries, like Haiti or Mexico, where
there is a migration problem as well. But the bottom line is that in Cuba, there is still a Communist dictator.''
Told of his co-founders' competing visions for the PAC, Chao said that difference demonstrates the open-mindedness the group will achieve.
``The most important thing is that everybody is entitled to come to the table with their own opinions, and points of view are open for discussion,'' he said. ``It's not going to be a `This is what we think, and that's the only way to think' kind of thing. We really want to represent all American
Cubans.''
The group's founders, mostly businessmen associated with the Latin Chamber of Commerce, say they have resisted separating themselves from other Hispanic groups until now.
But a spate of new groups for other Hispanic ethnicities over the past few years, compounded by anti-Cuban-American feelings they say they endured in Broward County in the past six months, compelled them to raise their profile in the county.
``I was always the one opposing dividing up the Hispanic community by creating different groups within the ethnicity,'' Lopez said. ``But after this problem in Dade County with Elián, and the backlash that came with that, we have seen a lot of the political groups in Broward County
[paying attention to] every Hispanic group except Cuban Americans. We've been relegated to fifth place, and yet we still own most of the businesses and we control most of the money. So we created this PAC to put some political might out there.''
POPULATION INCREASE
In 1990, the U.S. Census counted 24,611 Cubans living in Broward, about one out of every four people who described themselves of Hispanic origin. There were several thousand more people from Puerto Rico here at the time.
But since then, migration into the southwest sector of the county -- driven by Hurricane Andrew and rising affluence -- has significantly changed the county's demographics.
Both Vargas and Lopez predict that the 2000 census will reveal that far more Cuban Americans live in Broward today than any other Hispanic group.
Four refugees from Cuba found on Hollywood shore
By Johnny Diaz. jodiaz@herald.com
The group was well-dressed and clean-shaven when they walked onto the Hollywood construction site near the beach Monday.
They told U.S. Border Patrol agents a fisherman helped them to shore after their makeshift 16-foot boat began taking on water during a four-day voyage from their native Santa Cruz, Cuba.
Agents suspect the group -- three men and a woman -- was smuggled. ``It's not an unusual story. None of them were sunburned,'' said Joe Mellia, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol based in Pembroke Pines. ``We are thinking they were dropped off.''
The group was found on shore near Sheridan Street and Ocean Drive about 6:30 a.m. Monday.
They strolled up to a construction site, where workers called police.
The Cuban nationals told authorities they left Santa Cruz about 9 p.m. Thursday in a makeshift boat with an inboard motor.
They said they had run into some engine trouble off Florida when a fisherman rescued them, Mellia said.
Members of the group looked to be in their early to mid 20s.
They were taken to the border patrol for questioning and later to the Krome Detention Center in West Miami-Dade, where they were being processed late Monday.
So far this year, 1,061 Cubans have landed on South Florida's shores, Mellia said. Thirteen of those have made it to Broward while the others arrived in Miami-Dade or Monroe counties.
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