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By Stephen Johnson. Posted on Wed, Jul. 10, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
Some members of Congress seem desperate to ease the ban on U.S. tourist
travel to Cuba because they think that flooding the island with American
vacationers will hasten dictator Fidel Castro's downfall or produce windfall
profits for U.S. businesses.
Unfortunately, the prime beneficiaries of easing restrictions are the Castro
brothers -- Fidel and Raúl -- and the regime itself. Cuba's Armed Forces
Ministry runs state-owned or joint-venture tourist resorts. Profits from these
enterprises partly sustain the private fortunes of the Castros and provide
revenues to run the government that Cuba's decrepit sugar mills and Soviet-style
state enterprises never could support.
MISSING PAYMENTS
In fact, expanding tourism was the key to Castro's survival after the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of subsidies of up to $5.6 billion per
year. Since Sept. 11, however, travel to Cuba has fallen off, and hotels have
experienced high vacancy rates.
The recent decline in tourism only adds to Castro's financial worries. Last
year, Cuba defaulted on $500 million in loans, and France and the Netherlands
froze Cuban credit for nonpayment of arrears. Even Castro-friendly Venezuela cut
oil shipments in April after Cuba repeatedly missed payments totaling up to $63
million for petroleum purchased at below-market prices. Lifting the tourist ban
would give the regime a much-needed shot in the arm.
However, Castro is not likely to permit the ''flood'' of American tourists
that some in Washington expect, particularly the kind apt to challenge his
personal rule. His regime arbitrarily controls who may enter and what
requirements may be enforced. Tourists with dollars to spend at isolated resorts
are more likely to get a visa than those wanting to talk to local dissidents.
Current exchanges with academics, journalists and American relatives intended to
pave the way for future political reforms may suffer as a result.
INEXPENSIVE SEX
Even absent that, tourism won't necessarily encourage political reforms
anyway. Most of the Canadian and European tourists who have visited over the
last decade went to enjoy low-budget vacations, or set foot in a political
Jurassic Park, or to seek inexpensive sex with growing numbers of prostitutes
unable to survive on rations and meager state salaries of $10-$30 per month.
Such tourism has not helped release political prisoners, nor has it forced the
regime to change any of its totalitarian policies.
Instead, it has fueled a government moneymaking scam. Joint-venture tourism
enterprises must hire all workers from the state, which in turn pays them less
than 10 percent of the fees it collects for supplying them. Sadly, these same
Cuban employees may not use the services of, or buy products sold by, these
enterprises.
Claims of potential windfall profits of doing business in Cuba also are
exaggerated. Cuba must compete with better-developed and more family-oriented
tourist destinations in the Caribbean and southeastern United States. Nor will
the island's 11 million inhabitants do any traveling of their own thanks to
Castro's own embargo on Cuban travel. More important, the rule of law -- not
particularly strong in Latin America -- has no footprint in Cuba.
The European, Mexican and Canadian firms that have at- tempted to do
business there have lost investments because of arbitrary changes in policy or
demands for hidden fees.
If expanding opportunities for international commerce truly is important to
Congress, it should provide trade-promotion authority to President Bush to
conclude free-trade agreements with America's democratic allies. But if opening
tourism with a dictatorship sworn to bring down democracy somehow trumps
business with friendly neighbors, then the only ethical thing to do is condition
changes in U.S. law with reciprocal reforms by the Castro regime.
In keeping with Bush's new policy of encouraging reforms on the island, the
United States should offer to ease restrictions on U.S. tourist travel to Cuba
when the regime establishes fair labor practices -- that is, allow Cubans to
work for whomever they wish, receive fair-market compensation, organize
independent labor unions, and buy products and use services in facilities
currently off-limits to Cubans.
Such conditions, written into U.S. legislation, would not threaten Castro's
dictatorship. But they would lay the foundation for further reforms and allow
American tourists to visit Cuba knowing that those who wait on them are no
longer receiving prison wages or being segregated like second-class citizens.
Stephen Johnson is a policy analyst for Latin America at the Heritage
Foundation, a public-policy research institute in Washington, D.C.
www.heritage.org | 
