Lesson from the past could aid Cuba policy

I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba. We know that your lives and land are being used as pawns by those who deny your freedom.
--President John F. Kennedy, in an October 22, 1962, address to the nation during the Cuban missile crisis
Rivera

By DAVID M. RIVERA

Pope John Paul II's January trip to Cuba sparked calls on the U.S. government, and on President Clinton specifically, to reassess U.S. policy toward Cuba. President Clinton has now responded by lifting restrictions on flights and cash remittances to the island.

In reassessing U.S. policy toward Cuba, Clinton might have benefited by searching for lessons in President Kennedy's dealings with Cuba . Particularly lessons related to the infamous Kennedy-Khrushchev pact, an accord that ended the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw nuclear weapons from Cuba and the United States agreed never to initiate nor permit aggression against Cuba in this hemisphere.

In effect, the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact sealed the fate of the Cuban people. With the U.S. pledged as guarantors of Cuba's territorial security, the people of Cuba were condemned to what would become nearly thirty years of Soviet hegemony over the island and backing for the Castro dictatorship.

Now comes what I refer to as a Clinton-European Union (EU) pact. The Clinton-EU pact is an attempt by the administration to resolve differences over Title III of the Helms-Burton law, which allows U.S. citizens to sue foreign nationals or corporations that traffic in property stolen from these citizens by the Castro dictatorship.

The EU has taken umbrage toward Title III of Helms-Burton and threatened a legal challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO). President Clinton has chosen to appease the EU and suspend implementation of Title III.

The EU, in exchange, agreed to suspend its pursuit of the matter before the WTO -- thus the Clinton-EU pact.

The Clinton-EU pact demonstrates that in order to avoid any criticism from the EU, no matter how unjustified, President Clinton is willing to accept the status quo for the Cuban people: life under a communist dictatorship.

Helms-Burton, however, sets a higher standard than simple status quo in its Title III suspension provision. Helms-Burton states that the president must first demonstrate the suspension ``will expedite the transition to democracy in Cuba.''

For the two years that President Clinton has suspended Helms-Burton's toughest provision there has been no movement, much less expediting, toward democratic reform in Cuba. In fact, a recent Senate foreign relations committee report concludes that the EU has sytematically ignored its pledge to promote human rights for the Cuban people.

Over two years of appeasing the EU has failed and Clinton should thus choose to implement fully the Helms-Burton law. Such a decision would send a clear signal that efforts to promote democracy from outside Cuba are no longer enough, and that progress toward democratic reform must now occur inside Cuba.

Clinton should understand that without enforcement measures like Helms-Burton, and indeed the embargo itself, the U.S. and the international community are left with no leverage to ensure that a transition to democracy in Cuba is initiated and, more importantly, completed.

In the final analysis, it will take leadership from the President to do away with the Clinton-EU pact.

One hopes the President will not follow Kennedy's example and accept the endless languishing of the Cuban people under a repressive regime, simply for the sake of ``not making waves'' or placating the EU.