VATICAN CITY -- (AP) -- Just days before sending its foreign minister to Havana, the Vatican issued its first public attack Friday on the latest U.S. law intended to isolate Cuba.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray called some provisions of the Helms-Burton law ``legally questionable'' and noted that the Roman Catholic bishops of Cuba have spoken out against the legislation.
The cardinal, who heads the Vatican's peace and justice commission, told Vatican Radio on Friday that Helms-Burton has not only drawn criticism from Latin America, ``but even among the Western allies of the United States.''
The law, which President Clinton signed in March after Cuban air force jets shot down two U.S. civilian planes, allows Americans to sue foreign firms for using property seized from them after Cuba's 1959 revolution.
It also bans executives of companies that traffic in former U.S. properties in Cuba from entering the United States.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. mission to the Vatican.
Etchegaray's comments clearly had the support of top Vatican officials and seemed designed to ease talks in Havana next week between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran.
Tauran will be the highest-ranking Vatican visitor to Cuba in 22 years when he arrives in Havana late next week. His mission is to prepare a meeting between Castro and Pope John Paul II in Rome next month.
The talks could lead to a papal visit to Cuba next year.
Castro is one of the few world leaders John Paul has never met, and Cuba is the one of the few nations in the Western Hemisphere that the much-traveled pope has not visited.
In past years, Cuba has appeared reluctant to host the pope. Castro accused the Church in Cuba of ``anti-revolutionary'' meddling when a papal visit seemed imminent in 1990.
The pope has publicly criticized U.S. sanctions against Cuba, but Etchegaray's comments were the first to cite the Helms-Burton legislation.
Copyright © 1996 The Miami Herald