U.S., Cuba compromise in `food fight

Published Thursday, November 7, 1996, in the Miami Herald

U.S., Cuba compromise in `food fight'

U.N. document to criticize embargo, but promote democracy

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

U.S. and Cuban officials preparing for a United Nations summit on hunger next week have finally settled a quarrel that some diplomats called ``a food fight'' and others compared to ``a choreographed dance.''

The compromise: a document mildly rebuking the United States for its trade embargo against Cuba, but insisting that democracy and human rights are the best way to assure a nation's food supplies.

``If Cuba does what part of the document says, there would be no need for the other part,'' said an official with the U.N.'s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Agencies, hosting the meeting of some 100 heads of state.

Cuban officials had proposed that the ``Rome Declaration on World Food Security,'' to be adopted at the summit's end, strongly condemn the trade sanctions Washington has applied to Cuba for more than three decades.

Its language: ``Food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure. We reaffirm the importance of international cooperation and solidarity as well as the necessity of refraining from unilateral measures by one state or a group of states against another that affect the free flow of international commerce and endanger food security.''

Backing Cuba was the U.N. bloc of 132 developing nations. Against were the United States, Europe and Australia. The United States denies the embargo affects Cuba's food supplies because it says Havana can trade with everyone else.

Final compromise

The final compromise includes the first part of the paragraph but drops the embargo reference and changes the end to simply urge that states refrain from `` . . . unilateral measures, not in accordance with the international law and the Charter of the United Nations and that endanger food security.''

One European diplomat, exasperated with the U.S.-Cuba bickering that made this paragraph the last item to be approved at presummit meetings last week in Rome, called it ``an unseemly food fight.''

But Thomas Forbord, U.S. envoy to the Food and Agriculture Agencies, said the dickering was a mere replay of persistent Cuban attempts to win strong condemnation of the U.S. embargo at every possible international meeting.

U.S. and most Western delegations always oppose the Cuban-proposed language, and Havana almost always settles for indirect language, Forbord said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

``This gives the Cubans a chance to make a couple of major speeches at every international meeting,'' Forbord said. ``But this is a choreographed dance. We all know our parts, and we all know our steps.''

One exception: The U.N. General Assembly in New York, where Cuba wins strong condemnations of the embargo every year. This year's vote is expected next week.

Both sides satisfied

Forbord said the final language on the political use of food ``satisfied both sides at the end.''

But it's not clear how Cuban President Fidel Castro, who is expected in Rome for the Nov. 13-17 summit, will view two other blocks of language in the final document.

``Democracy, promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development and the full and equal participation of men and women, are essential for achieving sustainable food security for all,'' says the fourth paragraph of the final declaration.

The more detailed ``plan of action'' that follows mentions participatory democracy, the work of nongovernmental organizations and the need to promote a ``civil society'' outside the control of governments.

``We've won Cuba's recognition that food security is not really about food supplies,'' said one diplomat involved in summit preparations, ``but about the underlying environment that a solid democratic system can provide.''