CASTRO’S POTEMKIN NUCLEAR SHUTDOWN: CHERNOBYL AT CIENFUEGOS STILL IN PROSPECT

(Washington, D.C.): What would appear
on the surface to be a welcome
announcement by Fidel Castro over the
week-end — to the effect that the
dangerous, Soviet-designed VVER-440
nuclear power project at Cienfuegos has
been canceled — is probably yet another
in a long list of ruses perpetrated by
the Cuban despot. In fact, there is
important evidence that suggests Castro
is merely postponing the
completion of work on this ticking
nuclear time-bomb — not scrapping it.

The Center for Security Policy has
long warned U.S. and Russian
policy-makers that bringing the
Cienfuegos reactors on line would create
just ninety miles off the American coast
a threat akin to, if not greater than,
that posed by Chernobyl href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾.
In the view of leading experts, a nuclear
accident would be inevitable
given the serious problems with the
design and construction of the Cuban
reactors including: faulty seals and
defective welds; long exposure of
sensitive equipment to corrosive
salt-water air; substandard materials;
incompetently designed safety features;
and insufficiently trained operators and
technicians. The consequences of
such a disaster for the United States
would make those of Hurricane Andrew pale
by comparison.

Castro’s Stratagem?

In his annual 5 September speech
commemorating Cuba’s communist
revolution, Castro lambasted Russia for
altering its payment terms connected with
the project which has already cost a
reported $2 billion. Since April, Russia
has insisted that payment for nuclear
equipment and technicians associated with
the project be made in hard currency,
rather than as a part of a subsidized
barter arrangement in effect during
Mikhail Gorbachev’s tenure.

According to a Reuters report dated
the same day, Russia’s revised terms
include: a demand for an immediate
payment of $200 million in hard currency
in order to continue construction; $200
million in financing to be obtained from
third party sources; modified terms for
the supply and delivery of parts and
equipment; and Cuba’s acquisition of an
automated control system from another
source. (The German multinational Siemens
has reportedly obtained a letter of
intent, but not a purchase order, from
Cuba for two automated control systems
valued at $30 million each.)

Castro lamented that “We don’t
have any other alternative than to halt
the construction of this project….The
Russian authorities…have proposed
continuing the electro-nuclear plant
under terms and conditions which make
this totally impossible.”

It would be wholly out of character,
however, for Fidel Castro to use the
occasion of Cuba’s revolutionary
anniversary to publicize one of his
regime’s most monumental failures. Far
more in keeping with his modus
operandi would be the utilization of
such a forum and such a dramatic
denunciation of his partners in the
Cienfuegos project as a device to euchre
them into granting more favorable terms.

Castro may also be trying to warn
Moscow that his government will consider
arrangements with other potential
collaborators — such as Iran, China or
North Korea — in the absence of a more
forthcoming Russian stance. In this
connection, it is worth noting that
delegations from all three of these
countries have paid visits recently to
Cuba’s nuclear facilities.

Gutting the Mack Amendment

Castro’s pronouncement may also have
another intended audience: the U.S.
Congress. His highly visible statement
that the Cienfuegos project was being
dropped could have been timed to
encourage conferees on H.R. 4547, the
so-called “Freedom Support
Act,” to drop a provision included
in the Senate version at the initiative
of Senator Connie Mack (R-FL). The Mack
amendment would condition future U.S.
economic assistance to Cuba on the
willingness of Soviet successor states to
halt the sale of key components to the
Cienfuegos project.

Specifically, the amendment requires
that within six months after enactment of
the Act, neither Russia nor any other
Commonwealth state may:

“[supply or sell] nuclear
fuel, technical advisors, or
construction assistance to
nuclear reactor complexes under
construction in Cuba unless the
President certifies and justifies
in writing to the Congress that
such state has provided
appropriate assurances to the
United States that such state
will not provide nuclear fuel
rods to Cuba unless:

• Cuba has provided
  assurances that it will
  not act in a manner
  inconsistent with the
  basic principles of the
  Nuclear Non-Proliferation
  Treaty and the Treaty of
  Tlatelolco;

• Cuba has committed to
  comply with the proposed
  IAEA standards of 1991 or
  the current country of
  origin (for example,
  Russia) reactor safety
  standards; and

• Cuba has committed to
  accept verification of
  compliance with such
  safety standards by a
  special international
  commission approved by
  the United States and
  such state, preferably in
  conjunction with the
  IAEA….”

Evidence That the Cienfuegos
Program Lives

Within
the last four months, a Ukrainian team of
technicians has moved all of the nuclear
system components from locations exposed
to the elements to the inside of the
plant — enabling the structure
to be properly mothballed. What is more,
according to yesterday’s Washington
Post, a Russian delegation
has just left Moscow for Havana to
discuss the resumption of work on the
Cienfuegos project.

At this juncture, 90 percent of the
reactors’ structures have been completed
— not 70 percent, as Castro claimed last
weekend — and approximately 60 percent
of the associated electrical work has
been done. According to Dr. Nils Diaz,
professor of engineering at the
University of Florida, the plant could be
completed within two years with
sufficient assistance and technical
support from Russia or Ukraine.

In addition, some $2 billion — not
the $1 billion acknowledged by Castro —
has been invested in the project. As a
practical matter, the Cuban regime cannot
afford to write the Cienfuegos nuclear
program off. Given the radical reduction
in energy supplies Havana receives from
the former Soviet Union, Castro has no
alternative but to find some way to bring
on line these two nuclear reactors, each
of which is expected to save 600,000 tons
of fuel annually.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
believes that there is ample reason to
expect that Fidel Castro will try to keep
his ambitious — and highly dangerous —
nuclear power program on life support as
long as he remains in office. Were
he to succeed, his regime will present a
greater danger to the security of the
American people than at any time since
the Cuban missile crisis.

The Center consequently regards the
prompt termination of Castro’s despotic
hold on power to be a more urgent
priority than ever. It strongly supports
the Cuban Democracy Act sponsored by Rep.
Robert Torricelli (D-NJ). It also regards
the Mack amendment as an absolutely
essential safeguard against the
prospect that U.S. tax dollars may be
used to support governments in the former
Soviet Union who may yet prove
indifferent to the vital U.S. national
interest in terminating the Cienfuegos
project once and for all.

– 30 –

1. See
for example, Cienfuegos — ‘A
Hundred Fires’: Muchas Gracias Moscow,
But no American Chernobyls,
No. 91-P 44,
31 May 1991; A ‘Ticking’
Anniversary Present: Will Russia Give Us
a Chernobyl Ninety Miles Off the U.S.
Shore, href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=92-D_41″>No. 92-D 41, 23
April 1992; and ‘Hear Us Now
and Believe Us Later’: Business Done with
Fidel Means Big Losses When Communists
Fall, No.
92-D 51, 8 May 1992.