By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Staff, 6/21/2001.
Boston Globe
''THE SANCTIONS our government enforces against the Castro regime are not
just a policy tool; they are a moral statement.'' Thus spake President Bush last
month, at a White House ceremony marking the 99th anniversary of Cuban
independence.
''My administration will oppose any attempt to weaken sanctions against
Cuba's government - and I will fight such attempts until this regime frees its
political prisoners, holds democratic, free elections, and allows free speech.''
Good words; strong words. Whether they are also true words we will find out
next month, when Bush must decide whether to let Title III of the Cuban Liberty
and Democratic Solidarity Act finally take effect.
President Clinton signed the law, also known as Helms-Burton, in March 1996,
following the Cuban government's murder of four unarmed American civilians. The
four, members of Brothers to the Rescue, had been flying over international
waters, searching for stranded Cuban refugees. They died when the Cuban Air
Force, without warning, blew their two small planes out of the sky. In the
uproar that followed, Clinton agreed to let Helms-Burton become law, but then
suspended Title III, its most important provision.
Title III is rooted in an ancient and obvious principle of law: A thief
cannot pass good title to the property he has stolen, not even to an innocent
third party who buys it from him in good faith. The original owner retains his
rights and can assert them against the third party in any court having
jurisdiction.
After seizing power in 1960, Fidel Castro nationalized - stole - all
foreign-owned private property in Cuba. According to the Foreign Claims
Settlement Commission, the property confiscated from American owners - houses,
factories, banks, mines, real estate - was valued at more than $1.8 billion in
1960. The Castro regime never acquired lawful title to those assets. And when,
desperate for hard currency after its subsidy from the former Soviet Union dried
up, it began selling them to Canadian, Mexican, and European companies, they
didn't either.
The American owners never surrendered their rights to their stolen property.
But since the property remained in Castro's physical control, they also never
had any realistic way of asserting those rights. Title III of Helms-Burton
partially rectified that injustice by permitting the owners to bring suit in US
court against the foreign companies that acquired the stolen goods from the
Cuban government.
As former US Court of Appeals Judge Malcolm Wilkey analogized it in a 1997
essay, the foreign purchaser, ''knowing that the property had been confiscated
without payment to the rightful owner, is in no better moral or legal position
in regard to his use of the property than a sleazy used car dealer who buys a
car with the serial numbers chiseled off.'' Title III doesn't restore that
stolen car to its original owner, but it lets him demand compensation from the
sleazy used-car dealer who acquired it from the thief.
The purpose of Helms-Burton is to bring the Cuban people closer to freedom
by applying economic pressure to the Cuban dictatorship. Title III would make it
harder for foreign firms to do business in Cuba; that in turn would make it
harder for Castro to amass the wealth that keeps him in power. But Title III has
never taken effect because Clinton repeatedly invoked a presidential waiver to
suspend it.
The most recent waiver expires in July. If Bush really meant the words he
spoke on Cuban Independence Day, he will refuse to extend it. That will send a
message to our business-uber-alles allies in Canada and Europe: There is a price
to pay for trafficking in stolen American property. And it will signal the
abused and persecuted Cuban people that they have not been forgotten.
It is not repeated enough: Cuba under Castro is a hideous place to live. It
is the only dictatorship in this hemisphere, a once-vibrant island ground into
desolation by a Stalinist despot. It is a place where freedom of speech, of the
press, of association are nonexistent. A place where government agents eavesdrop
on private phone calls, read private correspondence, censor private e-mail. A
place where all media is Castro's media, and where journalists who don't play
ball can end up in prison.
Cuba's dictator has always had an American cheering squad: leftist
sycophants who look at 40 years of Communist ruin in Cuba and blame it on the
United States, or the credulous celebrities who gush about the ''good things''
Castro has done for ''his people.'' With those sort of people, the Clinton
administration was always quite comfortable.
That is going to change, says Bush. Liberty for Cuba will now be a priority.
We will know that he means it if Title III takes effect.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.
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