State Department official says goal is to press for democracy

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA – In a move that could mean the loss of millions of dollars for farmers in Texas and other states, the U.S. government has revoked the visas of at least
four Cuban officials interested in buying agricultural products from the United States.

A State Department official said Tuesday that the denials comply strictly with the law and meet a Bush administration policy goal of discouraging trade with Cuba.

"We're committed to maintaining pressure on the Cuban government to encourage a rapid transition to democracy," said the official, who requested anonymity.

Former President Bill Clinton signed a trade law in October 2000 allowing food sales to Cuba. The first shipments to the island in 40 years began arriving weeks
later, and by December 2001, half of the 50 American states were sending some sort of agricultural product to Cuba.

A state-run Cuban company called Alimport bought $36 million in agricultural products from those states in November 2001 and $37 million in February 2002. It
had been expected to buy $25 million more in products by June, but that deal may now be postponed or canceled because of the visa denials, said John Kavulich,
president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York.

Still, he said, "The goal of the companies involved is to resolve the problem, not to create a public spectacle, and not to create problems with the Bush administration.
The quieter the environment, the better."

American farmers are losing up to $1.24 billion per year in sales with the blockade in place, according to a report by the Cuba Policy Foundation, a Washington,
D.C.-based group led by senior diplomats from Republican administrations.

"If the embargo were lifted, the average American farmer would feel a difference in his or her life within two to three years," says the report's co-author, C. Parr
Rosson, an agricultural economics professor at Texas A&M.

The report says that farmers in Arkansas, California, Iowa and Louisiana would benefit most if the trade ban were abolished. Those states would be followed by
Texas, in fifth place, which could expect additional agricultural sales of $53.8 million per year if there was free trade with Cuba.

The number of visas denied wasn't immediately clear. The State Department official said it was fewer than a dozen and probably closer to six.

He added that if the officials were going to the United States to inspect agricultural plants – and not purely for marketing purposes – then their requests would be
considered.

At least two of the officials denied visas work at Alimport, Mr. Kavulich said. A man at the company's Havana office said he had little to say about it.

"We applied for visas, and our visas were denied," he said.

Actually, according to Mr. Kavulich and others, the visas were issued and approved but later revoked on orders from Otto Reich, a Cuban-born former Reagan
administration official who recently became the new chief of hemispheric affairs at the State Department.

Mr. Reich, a staunch foe of Fidel Castro, has made it clear that he doesn't support any trade that bolsters the socialist government.

"We are not going to be economic suckers to this regime," he has said.