Marcela Sánchez. Special to washingtonpost.com.
The Washington Post
Wednesday, March 28, 2001; 11:30 AM
Congressional supporters of a tougher policy toward the government of Fidel
Castro plan to introduce bills next week to strengthen the Cuban opposition and
support independent economic activities in the island.
According to the draft of the Senate bill by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.),
chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, $25 million would be
allocated to independent individuals and nongovernmental organizations in Cuba
for food, medicine, office and educational equipment and other supplies.
The so-called "Solidaridad Act of 2001" would allow the United
States to import crafts made byindependent Cubans, transfer up to $1,000 every
quarter to assist micro-enterprises and independent nongovernmental groups in
Cuba and reduce assistance to Russia to protest its support of Cuban
intelligence installations.
Helms and Cuban American activists say the new measures were inspired by the
experience of Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia during the 1980s at the
end of the Cold War. "The economic and political transitions in Eastern
European countries" the bill reads, "can serve as models for Cubans
seeking to recover their country after the lost decades of the Communist
dictatorship of Fidel Castro."
Critics of tougher strategies say the Polish and Czechoslovak experiences
are not comparable to Cuba’s. They say these proposals would only shore up
a policy that has not been effective and guarantees that groups opposed to
Castro in this country continue to receive federal funds.
"We have been promoting dissidents for 40 years without measurable
results," said former ambassador Sally Grooms Cowal, head of the new Cuba
Policy Foundation which opens Monday in Washington.
During a recent visit to Washington, two pro-democracy Czech activists
detained in a Cuban prison eariler this year, said it is "definitely
worthwhile" to take a chance on helping Cuban dissidents and suggested that
new resources be channeled through organizations in other Latin American
countries.
Ivan Pilip, a member of the Czech parliment, and former student leader Jan
Bubenik traveled to Cuba with supplies for dissident groups financed by U.S.
funds channeled through Freedom House in Washington. Pilip and Bubenik were the
first to be detained and accused of "counterrevolutionary" activities
in Cuba since the approval of the Helms-Burton Law in 1996, which began this
type of activity on a small scale.
According to the two Czechs, their interrogators indicated that an important
reason for their detention was the Cuban government’s growing concern about
the election of a Republican president with the help of Cuban Americans in
Florida.
They also pointed out that important leaders in the transition to democracy
in their country, such as Communist Marion Chalfa who became prime minister
under President Vaclav Havel, were never dissidents.
Cowal, who headed Youth for Understanding which provided a home for Elian
Gonzalez and his family before he returned to Cuba, said the Polish and
Czechoslovak experiences are two cases where opening a dialogue helped make the
transition to democracy peaceful. For this reason, she said, part of her work
will be to discuss with the Bush administration and members of Congress, such as
Sen. Helms and Otto Reich, the Cuban American nominated as assistant secretary
of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, the need to find "new common
ground which avoids polarization."
The foundation also will invite Jorge Mas Santos, head of the powerful
conservative Cuban American National Foundation, to a series of debates over
whether to lift the embargo against Cuba.
In Congress supporters of lifting economic sanctions and travel restrictions
to Cuba have presented their own which they hope will be more successful than
last year’s when the Republican leadership managed to reverse many of its
principal proposals.
Helms’s new bill complements in many ways the "Libertad Act,"
better known as the Helms-Burton Law of 1996. Just as in 1996, the bill would
allocate up to $5 million to finance human rights observers, electoral observers
and electoral support by the Organization of American States. The funds are
expected to be approved for the 2002 fiscal year, which an OAS official, who
asked not to be identified, interpreted as a way to put Cuba in the difficult
position of refusing to allow international participation in future elections.A
less detailed House version of the bill will be sposored by Rep. Lincoln Diaz
Balart (R-Fla.).
The bill also calls for the introduction of a resolution in the U.N.
Security Council asking the Cuban government to respect human rights, legalize
independent political parties, allow unions and conduct free elections. A
resolution condemning human rights violations on the island will be presented
soon at the meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
A similar resolution was approved last year with 21 votes in favor, 18
against and 14 abstentions, but recently the Cuban government has been
pressuring other countries, especially in Latin America, to reject it.
In addition, the effort by Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan to include in
the resolution criticism of the U.S. embargo against Cuba has caused Poland to
refuse to join the Czech Republic in presenting the resolution as it did in the
two previous years. | 