Text
"Prospects for a Peaceful, Democratic Transition in Cuba:
A U.S. Perspective"
Remarks to the West Point Society·of South Florida
September 8, 1995
Dr. Richard A. Nuccio
Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for
Cuba
I want to thank Dan Carlo and the West Point Society for
inviting me to speak to you this afternoon on a topic that is of
critical importance for the people of Cuba, and which will have a
direct impact on the lives of many who live in South Florida.
I believe that the Cuban people, when given the choice, will
share many of the same aspirations that we have seen expressed
throughout this hemisphere and in most of the nations formerly
under communist rule:
the desire for political democracy and a
better standard of living for themselves and their children.
Democracy will be a necessity for them, not a luxury, and they
will struggle to achieve it.
If the Cuban people want democracy, the United States, and
above all those who live here in South Florida, want it to come
through a peaceful transition that preserves the best of what the
Cuban people have and makes it possible for them to have a future
limited only by their own will and initiative.
I'd like to talk today about what prospects the
Administration sees for a peaceful, democratic transition in
Cuba.
I'd also like to discuss what the Administration is doing
to promote that transition, as well as what some others on
Capitol Hill propose to do. While none of us can ultimately
determine how and when a transition takes place - that will and
should be determined by Cubans on the island - what the United
States does or does not do will make a tremendous difference.
The Process of Change Underway in Cuba
Let me begin by telling you what we believe is happening in
Cuba right now.
A process of profound change is underway in Cuba, some of it
controlled by the Government, much of it not.
Some consider that
to be a controversial statement - believing that no real change
can occur while Fidel Castro is still in power - but I think the
evidence is clear.
During the heyday of $6 billion annual subsidies from the
Soviet Union, the Cuban regime was able to establish a completely
government-run, command economy, and provide free, universal
education and health care. The Government, then, was the only
source of everything for the individual, from his job to his home
to medicine for his family.
In return for the state's
generosity, the individual was expected to render unconditional
2
obedience. The regime's extensive and highly-effective
repressive apparatus stood ready to "discipline" those who did
not uphold their end of this "bargain."
The end of Soviet subsidies exposed the underlying weakness
of Cuba's economic system. Many of you may have heard some of
the startling facts about Cuba's economic free fall since 1989.
GNP has declined by half. Sugar exports, Cuba's main source of
hard currency, have declined by more than half. As a
consequence, Cuba's imports have declined almost 80 percent.
These cold economic numbers have had a devastating impact on
ordinary Cubans: monthly rations now barely supply enough food
for two weeks; bicycles have replaced cars and buses; oxen and
horses have replaced tractors; state industries operate at a
fraction of their capacity, and huge layoffs are rumored as the
government confronts a fiscal nightmare.
Cuba's standard of
living has gone through the floor.
Though the Cuban Government
has lately been claiming that the free-fall is over and a
recovery has begun, most economic experts do not believe that
Cuba has yet made the kinds of deep structural changes that will
produce sustainable economic growth.
As a result of the end of Soviet subsidies, plummeting
domestic productivity, and our continuing comprehensive embargo,
the Cuban government has been forced to enact a series of limited
economic reforms that have permitted the beginnings of a private
sector. Around 200,000 Cubans have taken advantage of a
government decree legalizing already existing but illegal
practices of self-employment in service areas like small
restaurants, barbershops, appliance repair and the like. Many
independent farmers and agricultural cooperatives have brought
their produce to farmers' markets where "excess" goods may be
sold at market prices. Dollars may now be circulated legally.
All these changes would have been unthinkable only a few years
ago, as would have been the enthusiastic pitch that Cuba is now
making to foreign investors.
The Cuban Government has not made these moves because it
recognizes that its economic or political system has failed, but
because circumstances have forced its hand.
It cannot any longer
afford to employ everyone, nor supply enough food for Cubans to
survive by doing what it did for some thirty years.
Some argue that these grudging economic changes are in
themselves political changes or that they will inevitably have
political ramifications. This is probably true in the sense that
the regime's dire economic straits have made it increasingly
difficult to control all facets of life on the island. As the
state withdraws from areas it can no longer afford to control,
3
individuals, organizations that survived decades of repression,
and new institutions seek to respond to the needs of ordinary
Cubans.
In organizing to help the sick, the old, the needy, the
unemployed or those in spiritual crisis, these new and revived
actors of Cuban society build the foundations of a new Cuba.
The Cuban state fears these developments, but it would pay a
political and economic cost in attacking them frontally.
Rather
it seeks to portray them as "counterrevolutionary" and part of an
evil US plan to destabilize Cuba. After three decades of
revolutionary "advancement" and the building of the "new man" the
Cuban government is afraid that teachers of English as a second
language will infect the Cuban people with alien ideas and topple
a leadership that claims to represent the Cuban masses.
I wish I could tell you that there are indications that the
Cuban government recognizes the inevitability of this change and
is, however reluctantly or slowly, preparing to adapt and channel
these forces toward a peaceful transition.
I lived under the
Franco dictatorship in the early 1970s.
I had to recognize that
one of the world's longest-lived dictators had permitted local
elections in Madrid and allowed the emergence of groups of
intellectuals and others who questioned the regime a full decade
before he finally passed from the scene.
In Chile General
Pinochet, relinquished power after holding a national plebiscite.
But we have no such signs from Cuba. All indications are
that Fidel Castro is still firmly in control, and that he has no
intention of stepping down or initiating significant political
reforms.
Independent observers such as former Costa Rican
president and Nobel winner Oscar Arias who have recently visited
the island report no sign of any political opening paralleling
the economic changes that Castro is permitting.
What is the
u.s.
Doing to Promote a Transition?
Given the changes underway in Cuba and the apparent
resistance of Cuba's senior leadership to these changes, what
can the U.S. do to encourage those forces likely to promote a
peaceful transition to democracy?
First, let me assert what I believe to be true and is at the
heart of the Clinton Administration's approach to Cuba:
the
next president of Cuba is already on the island.
I don't know
who he or she is, but I do believe that the future of Cuba will
ultimately be determined by those currently living in Cuba, in
the same way that the present in Eastern Europe is being shaped
by those whose voices were once suppressed. The objective of
4
U.S. policy is not to determine who will govern Cuba, how its
budget will be spent, or what kind of health system will be
maintained. Our goal is to promote democratic elections that
will offer the Cuban people the opportunity to make these
choices.
For too long, choices have been made in the name of
the Cuban people, but without their free participation or
consent. Our first contribution to a peaceful democratic
transition on the island, therefore, is to focus our attention
on what is happening in Cuba, not on the domestic politics of
Cuba policy. My short-hand way of saying this is to assert that
our policy must be based on what is happening in and around
Cuba, not in Miami or New Jersey.
I say this not to exclude or
deny the important role of the Cuban American community in the
future of Cuba, but to focus all of our attention away from our
domestic battles and toward the eleven million people whom we
say we want to support.
Immodestly, I believe that the most effective role for the
United States in promoting a democratic transition in Cuba is
outlined in the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA), legislation I helped
draft as an advisor to Congressman Bob Torricelli in 1992 and
which President Clinton endorsed when he was still a candidate
for office. We are just now implementing important parts of
that legislation, but I believe the policy for which it laid the
groundwork is already bearing some fruit.
It has four main
aspects:
The first is well-known - our comprehensive economic embargo
on Cuba. The embargo is not popular with everyone.
I know no
one in this Administration who takes pleasure from the economic
hardship in Cuba to which our embargo contributes. On the
contrary, we are all eager to establish the kind of respectful
relationship with Cuba we have with our closest allies and to
participate in the rebuilding of Cuba's devastated economy. We
are frequently criticized in the United Nations and by many of
our allies for maintaining it. But it remains the most
effective leverage we have in pressing Cuba to reform. The
Cuban Government has undertaken the limited economic reforms it
has only because it has been forced to by its economic collapse.
While Cuba's economic crisis stems primarily from its hopelessly
inefficient, centrally planned economic system, the embargo
limits the flow of hard currency to Cuba from the U.S., and so
forces the Cuban regime to make tough choices sooner.
Perhaps unwittingly, the Cuban government has just given a
public confirmation of this assertion of mine. The new foreign
investment law passed -without one dissenting vote of course
by Cuba's Popular Assembly falls far short of what the Cuban
government had promised to investors and other governments
5
seeking to encourage greater reform in Cuba. The only
explanation possible for this outcome is that the government has
taken advantage of the mild upturn in the Cuban economy to
reassert ideological purity and reaffirm its adherence to
socialist principles of bad economics and ineffective policies.
Tragically, Cuba has just demonstrated that any unilateral
relaxation in the US embargo would be used to delay a economic
and political transition, not to smooth the way towards it.
The second aspect of our policy is to provide support for
the Cuban people.
Since the enactment of the CDA three years
ago, the U.S. Government has licensed over $90 million in
private humanitarian aid to Cuba, mostly food and medicine from
non-governmental groups in the U.S. distributed through
non-governmental organizations on the island.
In addition to
humanitarian aid, we also licensed telecommunications agreements
that have dramatically increased communications between the U.S.
and Cuba, including telephone, e-mail, and fax connections.
This increased flow of information has strengthened ties between
Americans and Cubans, and has begun to break the regime's
monopoly on information.
While what we have done thus far has beEn significant and
has directly contributed to the emergence of civil society in
Cuba, we need to do much more to further increase the flow of
information to, from and within the island, and to strengthen
the institutions of civil society in Cuba that are the only
guarantee we have that when change comes it will be more
peaceful and more democratic in Cuba. We are continually
reviewing new means of accomplishing these goals.
Unfortunately, because of the way Washington works that means
that you get to read about some of them in the newspaper before
the President does. However, I want to underline that what is
speculated about in the press are ideas we are seeking to
develop and test out, not Presidential decisions.
I'm still
very old fashioned about Presidential decisions and believe that
he should get to make them before he reads about them in the NY
Times.
Thirdly, we are prepared to reduce the sanctions against
Cuba in carefully calibrated ways in response to positive change
in Cuba.
If the Cuban Government begins implementing
fundamental political and economic reforms - for example,
legally recognizing genuinely independent organizations or
permitting Cubans to own and operate small businesses - we are
prepared to modify our policy to support these positive
developments. We want to encourage Cuba to undertake real
change, and to respect basic, internationally-recognized human
rights.
Unfortunately, the evidence to date suggests that the
6
Cuban Government is unwilling to take these steps. As long as
that is the case, we will continue our work in the United
Nations and other international fora to focus the attention of
the world community on the lack of fundamental freedoms and the
ongoing, systematic abuses of human rights in Cuba.
Fourth, we are committed to providing for safe orderly
migration from Cuba to the U.S., including special in-country
processing of political refugees, through our bilateral
migration agreement with the Cuban Government. We are equally
committed to deterring the kind of unsafe, illegal migration
that we witnessed in the massive wave of rafters in the Summer
of 1994. We recently fulfilled our commitment to provide at
least 20,000 visas to Cubans wishing to come to the United
States and intend to uphold all aspects of the agreements we
have made with Cuba on migration issues.
The Wrong Way to Promote a Democratic Transition
I've just described for you the approach the Administration
takes to promoting democratic change in Cuba, which we believe
is tough but flexible.
Meanwhile, however, a number of members
of Congress, led by Senator Helms and Representative Dan Burton,
have taken a considerably more extreme approach.
The
Helms/Burton bill, currently before the Congress and supported
by a number of representatives from South Florida, would.in its
current form damage prospects for a peaceful democratic
transition.
It would also harm a number of other vital U.S.
interests, including U.S. efforts to strengthen democracy in
Russia, U.S. trade obligations under NAFTA and the WTO, and the
ability of U.S. businesses and investors to operate overseas.
While there are some elements of the legislation that the
Administration could support, including a mandate to accelerate
the Administration's planning for U.S. assistance and other
benefits to transition and democratic governments in Cuba, many
other aspects of the bills would cause serious problems.
The legislation would, for example, create the legal grounds
for a flood of lawsuits against foreign investors who have
invested in property in Cuba to which Americans hold claims.
The U.S. has condemned the Castro government's expropriations
and intends to encourage strongly a transition government in
Cuba to resolve all expropriation claims as quickly and fairly
as possible. The Helms/Burton lawsuits, however, would be
inconsistent with international legal precedents since the
property and the transactions involved are outside U.S.
jurisdiction.
Enactment of the provision could for this reason
undermine important international legal principles and expose
7
American businesses abroad to similar lawsuits.
Key U.S. allies
in Europe and Latin America have also expressed strong
opposition to this measure. The impact at home could be equally
painful -- the suits could number in the tens or even hundreds
of thousands, and could clog up Florida courts. Associations of
certified U.S. corporate and individual claimants who were
American citizens at the time their property was taken 35 years
ago have spoken out against this legislation, rightly claiming
that the suits could damage their prospects for eventual
compensation.
The Helms/Burton lawsuits are also likely to discourage
democratic change in Cuba. Already the Castro regime has used
these provisions to play on the fears of ordinary citizens that
their homes and work places would be instantly seized by Miami
Cubans if the regime falls.
However inaccurate, this perception
plays directly into the hands of the Cuban Government.
The U.S.
must do everything it can to make clear that we believe it is up
to future Cuban governments to decide how best to resolve the
claims of those who were Cuban citizens when their property was
taken, not U.S. courts.
Other provisions of the Helms and Burton bills would prevent
the Administration from doing all it could to promote the
smoothest and most rapid transition possible to a prosperous,
democratic Cuba.
For example, the bills would bar the U.S. from
supporting World Bank and IMF involvement in Cuba under a
transition government, just when such help would be needed most.
The bills would also establish a number of strict requirements
for determining when democratic and transition governments are
in power.
The last time I checked the Constitution, it was up
to the President to make foreign policy decisions like that.
These criteria could leave the U.S. on the sidelines when events
in Cuba start moving rapidly.
Rather than go into further detail about the bills, let me
sum up by saying that Helms/Burton would jeopardize key U.S.
interests across the globe by putting Cuba (awkwardly) at the
center of U.S. foreign policy, and would likely work directly
against its stated goal -- promoting a democratic transition in
Cuba.
The Administration has tried to work with the Congress to
modify the bills, and remains willing to do so, but so far the
bills' sponsors have shown little willingness to address our
profound concerns.
It's anyone's guess whether Helms/Burton
will make it through both houses of Congress, but unless it is
significantly changed in the process it will not have the
Administration's support.
The Transition:
Where Are We Now?
8
I've tried to present you some varying perspectives on
Cuba's inevitable transition to democracy.
I've told you what
the Cuban Government appears to be aiming for, what some in
Congress propose to do, and what approach the Administration
brings to Cuba policy. One thing I haven't told you is when the
transition will happen.
(Refunds are available at the door.)
That's because I don't know.
I don't think anyone does.
Moreover, I think it would be a mistake for US policy to imagine
that after thirty-six years there is a single step, a change in
policy, or a new piece of legislation that will fix the date of
the peaceful democratic transition that is in the best interests
of the Cuban people and of the United States. The best we can
do is to keep the pressure on the Cuban Government for
political and economic reform, provide what support we can to
the Cuban people as they struggle to overcome the limitations
imposed on them by the Cuban leadership, and prepare to respond
quickly to that change when it comes.
A U.S. Perspective"
Remarks to the West Point Society·of South Florida
September 8, 1995
Dr. Richard A. Nuccio
Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for
Cuba
I want to thank Dan Carlo and the West Point Society for
inviting me to speak to you this afternoon on a topic that is of
critical importance for the people of Cuba, and which will have a
direct impact on the lives of many who live in South Florida.
I believe that the Cuban people, when given the choice, will
share many of the same aspirations that we have seen expressed
throughout this hemisphere and in most of the nations formerly
under communist rule:
the desire for political democracy and a
better standard of living for themselves and their children.
Democracy will be a necessity for them, not a luxury, and they
will struggle to achieve it.
If the Cuban people want democracy, the United States, and
above all those who live here in South Florida, want it to come
through a peaceful transition that preserves the best of what the
Cuban people have and makes it possible for them to have a future
limited only by their own will and initiative.
I'd like to talk today about what prospects the
Administration sees for a peaceful, democratic transition in
Cuba.
I'd also like to discuss what the Administration is doing
to promote that transition, as well as what some others on
Capitol Hill propose to do. While none of us can ultimately
determine how and when a transition takes place - that will and
should be determined by Cubans on the island - what the United
States does or does not do will make a tremendous difference.
The Process of Change Underway in Cuba
Let me begin by telling you what we believe is happening in
Cuba right now.
A process of profound change is underway in Cuba, some of it
controlled by the Government, much of it not.
Some consider that
to be a controversial statement - believing that no real change
can occur while Fidel Castro is still in power - but I think the
evidence is clear.
During the heyday of $6 billion annual subsidies from the
Soviet Union, the Cuban regime was able to establish a completely
government-run, command economy, and provide free, universal
education and health care. The Government, then, was the only
source of everything for the individual, from his job to his home
to medicine for his family.
In return for the state's
generosity, the individual was expected to render unconditional
2
obedience. The regime's extensive and highly-effective
repressive apparatus stood ready to "discipline" those who did
not uphold their end of this "bargain."
The end of Soviet subsidies exposed the underlying weakness
of Cuba's economic system. Many of you may have heard some of
the startling facts about Cuba's economic free fall since 1989.
GNP has declined by half. Sugar exports, Cuba's main source of
hard currency, have declined by more than half. As a
consequence, Cuba's imports have declined almost 80 percent.
These cold economic numbers have had a devastating impact on
ordinary Cubans: monthly rations now barely supply enough food
for two weeks; bicycles have replaced cars and buses; oxen and
horses have replaced tractors; state industries operate at a
fraction of their capacity, and huge layoffs are rumored as the
government confronts a fiscal nightmare.
Cuba's standard of
living has gone through the floor.
Though the Cuban Government
has lately been claiming that the free-fall is over and a
recovery has begun, most economic experts do not believe that
Cuba has yet made the kinds of deep structural changes that will
produce sustainable economic growth.
As a result of the end of Soviet subsidies, plummeting
domestic productivity, and our continuing comprehensive embargo,
the Cuban government has been forced to enact a series of limited
economic reforms that have permitted the beginnings of a private
sector. Around 200,000 Cubans have taken advantage of a
government decree legalizing already existing but illegal
practices of self-employment in service areas like small
restaurants, barbershops, appliance repair and the like. Many
independent farmers and agricultural cooperatives have brought
their produce to farmers' markets where "excess" goods may be
sold at market prices. Dollars may now be circulated legally.
All these changes would have been unthinkable only a few years
ago, as would have been the enthusiastic pitch that Cuba is now
making to foreign investors.
The Cuban Government has not made these moves because it
recognizes that its economic or political system has failed, but
because circumstances have forced its hand.
It cannot any longer
afford to employ everyone, nor supply enough food for Cubans to
survive by doing what it did for some thirty years.
Some argue that these grudging economic changes are in
themselves political changes or that they will inevitably have
political ramifications. This is probably true in the sense that
the regime's dire economic straits have made it increasingly
difficult to control all facets of life on the island. As the
state withdraws from areas it can no longer afford to control,
3
individuals, organizations that survived decades of repression,
and new institutions seek to respond to the needs of ordinary
Cubans.
In organizing to help the sick, the old, the needy, the
unemployed or those in spiritual crisis, these new and revived
actors of Cuban society build the foundations of a new Cuba.
The Cuban state fears these developments, but it would pay a
political and economic cost in attacking them frontally.
Rather
it seeks to portray them as "counterrevolutionary" and part of an
evil US plan to destabilize Cuba. After three decades of
revolutionary "advancement" and the building of the "new man" the
Cuban government is afraid that teachers of English as a second
language will infect the Cuban people with alien ideas and topple
a leadership that claims to represent the Cuban masses.
I wish I could tell you that there are indications that the
Cuban government recognizes the inevitability of this change and
is, however reluctantly or slowly, preparing to adapt and channel
these forces toward a peaceful transition.
I lived under the
Franco dictatorship in the early 1970s.
I had to recognize that
one of the world's longest-lived dictators had permitted local
elections in Madrid and allowed the emergence of groups of
intellectuals and others who questioned the regime a full decade
before he finally passed from the scene.
In Chile General
Pinochet, relinquished power after holding a national plebiscite.
But we have no such signs from Cuba. All indications are
that Fidel Castro is still firmly in control, and that he has no
intention of stepping down or initiating significant political
reforms.
Independent observers such as former Costa Rican
president and Nobel winner Oscar Arias who have recently visited
the island report no sign of any political opening paralleling
the economic changes that Castro is permitting.
What is the
u.s.
Doing to Promote a Transition?
Given the changes underway in Cuba and the apparent
resistance of Cuba's senior leadership to these changes, what
can the U.S. do to encourage those forces likely to promote a
peaceful transition to democracy?
First, let me assert what I believe to be true and is at the
heart of the Clinton Administration's approach to Cuba:
the
next president of Cuba is already on the island.
I don't know
who he or she is, but I do believe that the future of Cuba will
ultimately be determined by those currently living in Cuba, in
the same way that the present in Eastern Europe is being shaped
by those whose voices were once suppressed. The objective of
4
U.S. policy is not to determine who will govern Cuba, how its
budget will be spent, or what kind of health system will be
maintained. Our goal is to promote democratic elections that
will offer the Cuban people the opportunity to make these
choices.
For too long, choices have been made in the name of
the Cuban people, but without their free participation or
consent. Our first contribution to a peaceful democratic
transition on the island, therefore, is to focus our attention
on what is happening in Cuba, not on the domestic politics of
Cuba policy. My short-hand way of saying this is to assert that
our policy must be based on what is happening in and around
Cuba, not in Miami or New Jersey.
I say this not to exclude or
deny the important role of the Cuban American community in the
future of Cuba, but to focus all of our attention away from our
domestic battles and toward the eleven million people whom we
say we want to support.
Immodestly, I believe that the most effective role for the
United States in promoting a democratic transition in Cuba is
outlined in the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA), legislation I helped
draft as an advisor to Congressman Bob Torricelli in 1992 and
which President Clinton endorsed when he was still a candidate
for office. We are just now implementing important parts of
that legislation, but I believe the policy for which it laid the
groundwork is already bearing some fruit.
It has four main
aspects:
The first is well-known - our comprehensive economic embargo
on Cuba. The embargo is not popular with everyone.
I know no
one in this Administration who takes pleasure from the economic
hardship in Cuba to which our embargo contributes. On the
contrary, we are all eager to establish the kind of respectful
relationship with Cuba we have with our closest allies and to
participate in the rebuilding of Cuba's devastated economy. We
are frequently criticized in the United Nations and by many of
our allies for maintaining it. But it remains the most
effective leverage we have in pressing Cuba to reform. The
Cuban Government has undertaken the limited economic reforms it
has only because it has been forced to by its economic collapse.
While Cuba's economic crisis stems primarily from its hopelessly
inefficient, centrally planned economic system, the embargo
limits the flow of hard currency to Cuba from the U.S., and so
forces the Cuban regime to make tough choices sooner.
Perhaps unwittingly, the Cuban government has just given a
public confirmation of this assertion of mine. The new foreign
investment law passed -without one dissenting vote of course
by Cuba's Popular Assembly falls far short of what the Cuban
government had promised to investors and other governments
5
seeking to encourage greater reform in Cuba. The only
explanation possible for this outcome is that the government has
taken advantage of the mild upturn in the Cuban economy to
reassert ideological purity and reaffirm its adherence to
socialist principles of bad economics and ineffective policies.
Tragically, Cuba has just demonstrated that any unilateral
relaxation in the US embargo would be used to delay a economic
and political transition, not to smooth the way towards it.
The second aspect of our policy is to provide support for
the Cuban people.
Since the enactment of the CDA three years
ago, the U.S. Government has licensed over $90 million in
private humanitarian aid to Cuba, mostly food and medicine from
non-governmental groups in the U.S. distributed through
non-governmental organizations on the island.
In addition to
humanitarian aid, we also licensed telecommunications agreements
that have dramatically increased communications between the U.S.
and Cuba, including telephone, e-mail, and fax connections.
This increased flow of information has strengthened ties between
Americans and Cubans, and has begun to break the regime's
monopoly on information.
While what we have done thus far has beEn significant and
has directly contributed to the emergence of civil society in
Cuba, we need to do much more to further increase the flow of
information to, from and within the island, and to strengthen
the institutions of civil society in Cuba that are the only
guarantee we have that when change comes it will be more
peaceful and more democratic in Cuba. We are continually
reviewing new means of accomplishing these goals.
Unfortunately, because of the way Washington works that means
that you get to read about some of them in the newspaper before
the President does. However, I want to underline that what is
speculated about in the press are ideas we are seeking to
develop and test out, not Presidential decisions.
I'm still
very old fashioned about Presidential decisions and believe that
he should get to make them before he reads about them in the NY
Times.
Thirdly, we are prepared to reduce the sanctions against
Cuba in carefully calibrated ways in response to positive change
in Cuba.
If the Cuban Government begins implementing
fundamental political and economic reforms - for example,
legally recognizing genuinely independent organizations or
permitting Cubans to own and operate small businesses - we are
prepared to modify our policy to support these positive
developments. We want to encourage Cuba to undertake real
change, and to respect basic, internationally-recognized human
rights.
Unfortunately, the evidence to date suggests that the
6
Cuban Government is unwilling to take these steps. As long as
that is the case, we will continue our work in the United
Nations and other international fora to focus the attention of
the world community on the lack of fundamental freedoms and the
ongoing, systematic abuses of human rights in Cuba.
Fourth, we are committed to providing for safe orderly
migration from Cuba to the U.S., including special in-country
processing of political refugees, through our bilateral
migration agreement with the Cuban Government. We are equally
committed to deterring the kind of unsafe, illegal migration
that we witnessed in the massive wave of rafters in the Summer
of 1994. We recently fulfilled our commitment to provide at
least 20,000 visas to Cubans wishing to come to the United
States and intend to uphold all aspects of the agreements we
have made with Cuba on migration issues.
The Wrong Way to Promote a Democratic Transition
I've just described for you the approach the Administration
takes to promoting democratic change in Cuba, which we believe
is tough but flexible.
Meanwhile, however, a number of members
of Congress, led by Senator Helms and Representative Dan Burton,
have taken a considerably more extreme approach.
The
Helms/Burton bill, currently before the Congress and supported
by a number of representatives from South Florida, would.in its
current form damage prospects for a peaceful democratic
transition.
It would also harm a number of other vital U.S.
interests, including U.S. efforts to strengthen democracy in
Russia, U.S. trade obligations under NAFTA and the WTO, and the
ability of U.S. businesses and investors to operate overseas.
While there are some elements of the legislation that the
Administration could support, including a mandate to accelerate
the Administration's planning for U.S. assistance and other
benefits to transition and democratic governments in Cuba, many
other aspects of the bills would cause serious problems.
The legislation would, for example, create the legal grounds
for a flood of lawsuits against foreign investors who have
invested in property in Cuba to which Americans hold claims.
The U.S. has condemned the Castro government's expropriations
and intends to encourage strongly a transition government in
Cuba to resolve all expropriation claims as quickly and fairly
as possible. The Helms/Burton lawsuits, however, would be
inconsistent with international legal precedents since the
property and the transactions involved are outside U.S.
jurisdiction.
Enactment of the provision could for this reason
undermine important international legal principles and expose
7
American businesses abroad to similar lawsuits.
Key U.S. allies
in Europe and Latin America have also expressed strong
opposition to this measure. The impact at home could be equally
painful -- the suits could number in the tens or even hundreds
of thousands, and could clog up Florida courts. Associations of
certified U.S. corporate and individual claimants who were
American citizens at the time their property was taken 35 years
ago have spoken out against this legislation, rightly claiming
that the suits could damage their prospects for eventual
compensation.
The Helms/Burton lawsuits are also likely to discourage
democratic change in Cuba. Already the Castro regime has used
these provisions to play on the fears of ordinary citizens that
their homes and work places would be instantly seized by Miami
Cubans if the regime falls.
However inaccurate, this perception
plays directly into the hands of the Cuban Government.
The U.S.
must do everything it can to make clear that we believe it is up
to future Cuban governments to decide how best to resolve the
claims of those who were Cuban citizens when their property was
taken, not U.S. courts.
Other provisions of the Helms and Burton bills would prevent
the Administration from doing all it could to promote the
smoothest and most rapid transition possible to a prosperous,
democratic Cuba.
For example, the bills would bar the U.S. from
supporting World Bank and IMF involvement in Cuba under a
transition government, just when such help would be needed most.
The bills would also establish a number of strict requirements
for determining when democratic and transition governments are
in power.
The last time I checked the Constitution, it was up
to the President to make foreign policy decisions like that.
These criteria could leave the U.S. on the sidelines when events
in Cuba start moving rapidly.
Rather than go into further detail about the bills, let me
sum up by saying that Helms/Burton would jeopardize key U.S.
interests across the globe by putting Cuba (awkwardly) at the
center of U.S. foreign policy, and would likely work directly
against its stated goal -- promoting a democratic transition in
Cuba.
The Administration has tried to work with the Congress to
modify the bills, and remains willing to do so, but so far the
bills' sponsors have shown little willingness to address our
profound concerns.
It's anyone's guess whether Helms/Burton
will make it through both houses of Congress, but unless it is
significantly changed in the process it will not have the
Administration's support.
The Transition:
Where Are We Now?
8
I've tried to present you some varying perspectives on
Cuba's inevitable transition to democracy.
I've told you what
the Cuban Government appears to be aiming for, what some in
Congress propose to do, and what approach the Administration
brings to Cuba policy. One thing I haven't told you is when the
transition will happen.
(Refunds are available at the door.)
That's because I don't know.
I don't think anyone does.
Moreover, I think it would be a mistake for US policy to imagine
that after thirty-six years there is a single step, a change in
policy, or a new piece of legislation that will fix the date of
the peaceful democratic transition that is in the best interests
of the Cuban people and of the United States. The best we can
do is to keep the pressure on the Cuban Government for
political and economic reform, provide what support we can to
the Cuban people as they struggle to overcome the limitations
imposed on them by the Cuban leadership, and prepare to respond
quickly to that change when it comes.