By Mario Ramirez. TNA News with Commentary.
The New Australian, June 21, 2001.
A new group called the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF) has been created in
Washington D.C. The main goal of the Cuba Policy Foundation is to create a lobby
to lift the American sanctions on the Communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro.
The CPF also hopes to undermine the work being done by many pro democracy groups
inside and outside Cuba which hope to bring civil society to the island.
Although the CPF says that it’s a "centrist" or "non-ideological"
group not concerned with the actions of the either right or left regarding Cuba,
one can’t help but examine the group’s benefactors, leader, and
impetus to exist. Upon finding out more info on the CPF a pattern soon forms,
and one realizes that this "advocacy" group is not neutral, and that
it’s hiding behind an agenda more slanted towards helping Havana then
actually bringing democracy to Cuba.
In April, the "neutrality" of the CPF was questioned when it was
honored by the officialist propaganda organ of the Castro dictatorship, Radio
Havana. Radio Havana in its report ended up praising Grooms Cowal’s efforts
in starting the Cuba Policy Foundation by stating the following: "The Cuba
Policy Foundation has challenged the ultra-right-wing Cuban-American National
Foundation to a public debate concerning the merits of Washington's blockade of
Cuba."
Let the facts speak for themselves:
The Cuba Policy Foundation is headed by Ambassador Sally Grooms Cowal, who
acts as its president. If you can remember back to the Elian Gonzalez debacle,
Sally Grooms Cowal was the individual whose other group, Youth for Friendship, "hosted"
the Cuban boy in the Rosedale mansion after he was taken by Janet Reno’s
agents in Miami. The Rosedale compound, which is in Maryland, is owned and
operated by Youth for Friendship. Additionally Grooms Cowal, was a former deputy
assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs under President George
Bush in the late 1980s. She has also served as ambassador to Trinidad and
Tobago.
The CPF is bankrolled by the Arca Foundation.
For those of you who don’t know about the Arca foundation, it passes
itself as a philanthropic organization that gives millions of dollars annually
to organizations that fight for social justice around the world. Unfortunately a
grand majority of these organizations are of a far leftist nature, like in 1998
when it gave $1,000 to an obscure contingent called Fondo Del Sol which helped
surviving members of the Stalinist Abraham Lincoln Brigade view a photo exhibit
on the Spanish Civil War! Among the pro Castro groups Arca has funded have been
the Pastors for Peace ($10,000 in 1999), Global Exchange ($50,000 in 1999), and
the TransAfrica Forum ($100,000).
Communist Cuba is the main focus of Arca’s Foreign Policy grants list,
and although it gives money to other international and domestic institutions, it
annually gives a substantial amount of funds to causes dealing with communist
Cuba. In 1999 alone, the Arca Foundation gave to over 19 organizations that are
sympathetic to revolutionary Cuba.
The Arca Foundation’s records denote that it has spent over $3 million
dollars since 1995 devoted to institutions that ignore human rights in Cuba, but
fight aggressively to drop US sanctions to the rouge nation. The Arca Foundation
which is run by the R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir Smith Bagley, has silently worked
in the background with institutions and Castro sympathetic Democratic
politicians working to end economic sanctions against the dictatorship.
"Smith Bagley and the Arca Foundation is the pro-Castro lobby’s
sugar daddy," says Jose Cardenas, Washington spokesman for the Cuban
American National Foundation. "Arca is a walkup window for free checks
passed out to any and all comers with an ideological ax to grind against U.S.
policy on Cuba."
For the record, Smith Bagley was the individual who threw a party at his
mansion where Elian Gonzalez was the guest of honor after the boy was accosted
from the home of his Miami relatives. During this party, agents of the Cuban
Interests Section in Washington DC provided delicacies like smoked salmon,
shrimp and fruit that although taken for granted here in the United States, are
unavailable to most of the Cuban population back on the island. Yet, Bagley who
is a tremendously rich WASP sees no problem in giving money to organizations
that help the Cuban revolution while the rest of the island population goes
poor, hungry and oppressed.
According to a 1998 report by journalist Pablo Alfonso of the Miami Herald,
Arca has given money to the following other pro Castro causes: The American
Association for World Health, based in Washington. The association received
$134,500 to write a report on the impact of the U.S. embargo on the health of
the Cuban people. Oxfam-America Inc., received $35,000 in 1996 from the Arca
Foundation to help increase production in the ‘cooperative’ farm
Gilberto Leon, which belongs to the National ‘Association of Small Farmers.’
The World Policy Institute, based in New York City, which in the past two
years received $330,000 from Arca "to educate the American business
community" about the negative consequences of increasing the economic
sanctions against Cuba. The Center for International Policy (CIP), part of Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore and directed by Castro’s apologist Wayne
Smith. In the past three years, the CIP received $304,000 from Arca, of which
$20,000 went to publish its monthly newsletter! The rest was allocated to send
delegations to Cuba and organize seminars to lobby members of Congress to lift
the sanctions against Cuba.
It’s no surprise that none of the organizations listed on Arca’s
Cuba list are supportive of pro democracy dissidents fighting for human rights
inside of Cuba.
The new Cuba Policy Foundation is no exception.
After important US law makers proposed the "Solidaridad Act of 2001",
which would bring $25 million in food, medicine, office, and educational
equipment for independent journalists, dissidents and non governmental
organizations inside of Cuba, CPF boss Grooms Cowal cynically said the following
of the Solidaridad Act in a March 28, 2001 Washington Post article: "We
have been promoting dissidents (In Cuba) for 40 years without measurable
results."
Not only is the above statement an ignorant one, but it lacks sensitivity
and compassion for the thousands of dissidents that have been unlawfully
discriminated, jailed, and even killed for daring the Cuban dictatorship to
respect the most basic human rights like freedom of speech, religion, and the
right to hold multi party elections. Grooms Cowal either fails to understand, or
ignores the fact that in Cuba there exists an advanced police/security apparatus
modeled after the former KGB and East German Statsi.
Cuban state security along with the Gestapo like Comité de Defensa de
la Revolución (CDR), neighborhood watch groups, and non Cuban
procommunist sympathizers like Venceremos Brigade, Global Exchange,
International Action Center, and Pastors for Peace, have contributed greatly to
spreading propaganda and helping the Cuban dictatorship in the repression of the
Cuban people. It’s no surprise that some of the non Cuban communist groups
mentioned have been funded by none other than the Arca Foundation.
Grooms Cowal says she was inspired to form the Cuba Policy Foundation
because of a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, which made arguments
for lifting the embargo. The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) recently made a
trip to Cuba where CFR notables like David Rockefeller cavorted and only had
good words to say about Fidel Castro and the island's alleged free health care
and educational systems. It’s also important to point out that the CFR has
received over $150,000 from the Arca Foundation to carry on its Cuba related
projects since 1998. Is it no coincidence when William Rogers, an organizer of a
CFR task force to Cuba last year has been named chairman of the new Cuba Policy
Foundation?
In retrospect it is doubtful that the Cuba Policy Foundation will offer
anything we haven’t heard before regarding Cuba. Since it is being funded
by Arca, it doesn’t matter how much neutrality it alludes to —
unfortunately when it comes to Cuba there is no center — you are either for
a democratic change on the island, or you are a supporter of the Western
Hemisphere’s longest running dictatorship.
Finally Grooms Cowal gives herself away too easily, seemingly to be more
interested in making a profit for Americans on the island rather then helping
the actual Cuban people overcome their hardships. At times, Cowal seems to have
a wishy-washy attitude, not knowing what to say, as it’s evident in the
following quotes:
March 28 /PRNewswire report:
"Our businesses, cities and ports are losing millions of dollars every
year because of the embargo... No one can objectively dispute that the embargo
has hurt American businesses." On an April 2, 2001 report by the Cybercast
News Service, Grooms Cowal stated the following contradicting herself: "There’s
a real need for a new centrist group, not left-leaning activists, and not just
business interests." In a Washington Times report
that appeared on April 5, 2001, Cowal said that the CPF will argue that
Americans are losing millions of dollars in trade by maintaining an ineffective
embargo on Cuba.
The bottom line is — the CPF is funded by the Castro friendly Arca
Foundation, Grooms Cowal housed Elian after he was taken by Janet Reno's storm
troopers, and she seems to be more concerned with Americans making a buck or two
in Cuba, thus propping up the dictatorship a little longer.
Sally Grooms Cowal and her new Cuba Policy Foundation is not to be trusted.
Editor: What the likes of Cowal don’t understand is that trade is a
two-way street. For America to benefit from selling to Cuba it would have to
import Cuban goods. This is because the exports are the price of imports.
However, the Cuban economy is such a shambles that only the ignorant, the
delusional or fellow travellers could preach that America has lost huge amounts
by not trading with Castro’s vicious regime.
Since last year, for example, Congress has allowed the sale of medicines and
agricultural products to Cuba. Result? Zilch. Because Castro cannot afford to
pay for foreign goods. No doubt mercenaries like Cowal will suggest massive
loans (read gifts) by American taxpayers to El Commandante. Someone should
remind this lot that several countries have already cut off credit to the
psychopathic Castro because he took huge amounts of goods for which he could not
pay.
On a final note, perhaps Cowal would like to explain to her fellow Americans
why she is acting for Arca (which is basically what she is doing) when this
foundation also funds the Institute of Policy Studies, a pro-Castro organisation
that also acted as a front for the KGB? | 
