Clashes erupt at hearings on ending Cuba embargo
'Castro's government does not present an intelligent nor ethical
investment
environment.' -- REP. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Miami Republican
BY ANA RADELAT
Special to The Herald
WASHINGTON -- A government hearing on the economic impact of ending
the
38-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba drew repeated clashes Tuesday,
with
opponents saying the policy damages both the Cuban and U.S. economies,
and
supporters declaring Cuba would make a poor investment partner.
The two-day hearings before the International Trade Commission,
an independent,
nonpartisan federal agency, are part of a study the agency is
preparing at the
request of the House Ways and Means Committee on the sanctions.
A DIPLOMAT
Fernando Remírez, Cuba's highest ranking diplomat in the
United States, claimed
the embargo has ``a dramatic impact on the living standards of
the Cuban people''
that results in shortages of food and medicine.
Remírez contended the embargo has caused $300 billion in
economic damages
and monetary compensation for human suffering.
Cuba rarely testifies at U.S. government hearings, and Reps. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen
and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, Republican members of Congress
from Miami,
complained that Remírez had been invited to speak.
``Officials of this regime customarily manipulate the facts and,
history has shown,
systematically violate the rule of law by acting against internationally
legal
standards,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.
CASTRO
Díaz-Balart maintained that ``Castro's government does
not present an intelligent
nor ethical investment environment.''
Dennis Hays, the executive vice president of the Cuban American
National
Foundation, said the high-profile hearing on the embargo served
as a ``distraction''
from Cuba's human rights record.
The ITC hearings were requested by the head of the Ways and Means
panel,
Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, at the behest of Rep. Charlie Rangel
of New York, the
senior Democrat on the powerful panel and a longtime critic of
U.S. sanctions
against Cuba.
``The logic that convinced America, Congress and the administration
that we need
to trade with China and Vietnam applies also to Cuba,'' Rangel
said. The Senate
voted Tuesday to give China preferential trading status.
THE CONTROVERSY
Held as Congress debates easing restrictions on the sale of food
and medicine to
Cuba, the hearings are aimed at helping the ITC compile a report,
to be submitted
to Congress in February, on the embargo's economic impact on
U.S. businesses
and Cuba's foreign investors and people.
But the controversy Cuba stirs forced ITC commissioners to repeatedly
ask
witnesses to limit themselves to economic, not political, discussions
of the
embargo.
``Most of your answers are directed at whether sanctions serve
a political
purpose, which is an interesting question. But that's not what
we're charged with,''
Commissioner Jennifer Hillman said.
Trading with Cuba was portrayed as the best way to undermine Fidel
Castro's
government while helping U.S. businesses and lifting living standards
of ordinary
Cubans.
But embargo supporters maintained that Cuba's unpredictable regulatory
system
and lack of cash would make it an poor trading partner. They
also said that lifting
sanctions would only shore up Castro's government and increase
repression on
the island.
``Unilateral lifting of the embargo now will condemn the Cuban
people to a longer
dictatorship and will prevent a rapid transformation of Cuba
into a free and
democratic system,'' said Jaime Suchlicki of the Institute for
Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.
LARGEST MARKET
Richard Bell of the USA Rice Federation said Cuba has imported
$3.1 billion
worth of rice since 1962 and could once again become the largest
market for U.S.
rice if the embargo were lifted.
``The only real winners as a result of our Cuban trade sanctions
are the suppliers
of lower quality rice elsewhere in the world,'' Bell said. ``The
big losers are the
U.S. rice industry and the Cuban consumer.''