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Grant aims to help U.S.,
Cuba prepare for post-Castro era
By Suzanna Stagemeyer /
The Associated Press. Lincoln
Journal Star, November 20, 2005.
OMAHA - As birthdays come and go for Fidel
Castro, the United States sees reconciliation
with Cuba nearing.
But more than the 79-year-old dictator
stands in the way of a renewed friendship.
An enduring source of conflict is compensating
Americans for property seized when Castro
imposed communist rule more than four decades
ago.
A Creighton University team has begun a
controversial effort to bridge that gap,
creating a claims tribunal supported by
a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for
International Development's Cuban Transition
to Democracy Program.
"There's an increasing sense of urgency
as Castro gets older to have these things
ready and waiting," said Michael Kelly,
an international law specialist at Omaha's
Creighton University and a grant team member.
"You don't want to begin the planning
process when the crisis has arrived on your
doorstep."
Over two years, the team will create a
model for a U.S.-Cuba property claims tribunal,
anticipating Cuban democracy and renewed
economic relations.
But another model is not needed, some critics
say.
"The grant is a sham and totally counterproductive,"
said Wayne Smith, director of the University
of Havana exchange program at Johns Hopkins
University and of the U.S. Center for International
Policy's Cuba program.
"Looking at Iraq and some of our other
misadventures around the world, I can't
imagine other countries wanting us to come
in and have us play a role in the transition,"
Smith said.
Property claims must be addressed for economic,
political and legal reasons, but the United
States has no real jurisdiction over Cubans
or those who were Cubans when their properties
were confiscated, Smith said.
Miami lawyer Timothy Ashby, however, supports
the idea of an all-encompassing tribunal
model.
"Cubans will resist being told what
to do by the U.S., definitely, but if the
U.S. has a model, they can sit down together
and try to come to terms," said Ashby,
who dealt with the restitution issue while
serving in the U.S. Commerce Department's
International Trade Administration during
the 1980s and early 1990s.
International law obligates Cuba to compensate
owners of seized property. But too many
claims could overwhelm a fledgling democracy,
Kelly said.
And the claims are many.
The 5,911 claims determined valid by the
U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission
were valued at $1.8 billion in 1960s dollars,
said David Bradley, chief counsel of the
commission.
Over the years, Cuba has approached the
United States with restitution plans but
has been rebuffed, Smith said.
The United States is banking on a democratic
Cuba after Castro, even though the transition
may take years.
"In some respects, it might take a
generation if you think in terms of the
kinds of transformation of values and attitudes
that need to occur in Cuba," said Frank
Mora, professor of national security strategy
at the National War College in Washington,
D.C.
The Cuban democracy movement is stronger
today than it was a decade ago, Mora said,
but it doesn't have enough power to incite
change today.
Until the change occurs, the compensation
model most likely remains merely that -
an idea - which bothers Florida businessman
Teo Babun.
The $750,000 grant is a lot of money, he
said, to be spent on redundant research.
And it's money that should be spent on changing
Cuba today, Babun said.
Other U.S.-funded groups have used grant
money to educate and equip Cubans so they
don't have to rely on the communist government.
"Even if they (the Creighton team)
come up with the best program in the world
and it works, it is for after the transition
(to democracy). It has nothing to do with
what USAID should be doing today to accelerate
the transition," said Babun, executive
director of Evangelical Christian Humanitarian
Outreach to Cuba.
Babun, whose family lost land in 1960 to
Castro's expropriation, said substantial
claims research already exists - research
such as that done by the Cuba Claims Registry
Assistance LLP, of which Babun was an executive
partner.
But Creighton grant team members say their
research will yield a Cuba-specific model
that balances the desires of Cubans, Cuban-Americans
and U.S. claimants.
"We'll propose things that haven't
been proposed before," said grant team
member Patrick Borchers, dean and professor
of law at Creighton. "It may be more
useful for claimants to have, say, a tax-free
zone than a back payment."
Such an agreement would satisfy claimants,
who could recover their money through the
venture, as well as help develop the Cuban
economy, he said.
"Whatever model emerges, it has to
have such a degree of legitimacy that all
shareholders will buy into it," Kelly
said. "It has to stabilize the island
so it doesn't slip into chaos after Castro."
While Castro has negotiated settlements
with European claimants, Cuba's debt to
the United States is too overwhelming to
repay in a lump sum, said Ashby, the Miami
restitution expert.
However their model turns out, the grant
team members - five from Creighton and one
from the University of Iowa - know they've
taken on a stiff challenge.
"It'll be like playing three-dimensional
chess, putting something like this together,"
Kelly said.
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