‘Show Me’: The Allies Must Demonstrate Their Commitment To Changing Cuba By Halting The Cuban ‘Chernobyl-In-The-Making’

(Washington, D.C.): Six months ago,
President Clinton blocked the
implementation of key provisions of the Libertad
Act, known for its chief sponsors — Sen.
Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Rep. Dan Burton
(R-IN). By so doing, he blocked American
companies and individuals from pursuing
legal remedies against European, Canadian
and other foreign entities trafficking in
U.S. property confiscated by the
communist regime of Fidel Castro.

The President claimed at the time —
in the midst of an election campaign in
which he was eagerly soliciting the votes
of Cuban Americans in Florida and New
Jersey⁽¹⁾
— that his action was “a
postponement,” not a
waiver. As the Casey Institute noted at
the time: “It escaped few
commentators’ attention that this
[six-month postponement] extend[ed]
conveniently through the November
elections.”

“As a sop to those in the
Cuban-American community who
understand the gravity of the
President’s backtracking, the
Administration promised to use
the next half-year to bring the
allies around to an American-led
consensus view about the need to
stop propping up Castro. As
Deputy National Security Advisor
Samuel Berger put it: ‘[Friendly
foreign governments can either]
join our efforts to promote a
transition to democracy in
Cuba…or they can face full
implementation of the law.'”

“The only ‘leading’ likely
to arise from this Clinton
capitulation — and the
ignominious U.S. behavior that is
likely to follow it in the face
of further threats of economic
retaliation from the European
Union — is that of the United
States, by the nose.
Worse yet, in this
episode, the allies have clearly
served notice that they do not
intend to be dissuaded from
coddling rogue states, despots
and megalomaniacs, whether they
be Cuban or Iranian, no matter
how great the danger such bad
actors present to U.S. and other
Western citizens and
interests.”⁽²⁾

We Told You So

Last Friday (increasingly Friday is the day of
choice for the Clinton Administration to
unveil controversial announcements) Under
Secretary of Commerce Stuart Eizenstat
revealed that Mr. Clinton suspended
implementation of these portions of
Helms-Burton’s Title III, yet again. From
the beaches of the U.S. Virgin Islands
(ironically, not far from Cuba) where he
was vacationing, the President announced
that he was once more issuing a six-month
waiver. As a result, allied companies
will be able to do business using
property confiscated from Americans with
no fear of reprisals for another six
months. Worse still, Secretary Eizenstat
reported that “the President
has indicated that he expects to continue
suspending the right to file suit as long
as our U.S. friends and allies continue
their stepped up efforts to promote
democracy in Cuba.”

Rather than acknowledge the true
extent of the capitulation to pressure
from foreign capitals such actions
represent, Secretary Eizenstat declared
that this was a glorious achievement of
American diplomacy — what he termed
“an unprecedented diplomatic
initiative.” With all the
tendentiousness of an Oscar honoree
determined to acknowledge each person who
contributed to his career, Mr.
Eizenstat publicly implicated every
senior member of the Clinton
Administration who had anything to do
with Cuba policy. According to
the Under Secretary, these included in
addition to the President: Vice
President Al Gore; the incumbent
Secretary of State Warren
Christopher and Secretary-designate
Madeleine Albright; Under
Secretary of State Tarnoff; National
Security Advisor Sandy Berger; outgoing
Commerce Secretary Mickey Kanter;
U.S. Trade Representative
Charlene Barshefsky; NSC
Inter-American Office director Ambassador
Jim Dobbins; Assistant
Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs Jeff Davidow; Mr.
Gore’s National Security Advisor Leon
Fuerth; and “dozens
of our ambassadors in Europe and
the Americas.”

A Fraud By Any Other
Name…

Rarely have so many been
credited with so much for so little.
The truth of the matter, of course, is
that the Clinton Administration has
virtually nothing to show for its much
ballyhooed diplomatic endeavors — apart
from a common position adopted in early
December by the European Union. Mr.
Eizenstat described this position as
“historic, extremely positive and
legally binding…which commits all 15
members and the European Commission to
press harder on human rights and
political and economic reforms” in
Cuba. With no hint of the comic absurdity
of his stance, he went on to declare that
the EU had never promised as a group to
“press harder” for anything
before!

Then, seemingly in anticipation of a
blatant sell-out by the Europeans, the
Special Representative of the President
and the Secretary of State for the
Promotion of Democracy in Cuba”
announced that:

“…At the EU heads of state
meeting in the middle of
December…they went a step
further and indicated that in any
future agreement if they were
to reach an agreement with Cuba
that there would be a specific
suspension clause so that the
agreement would be suspended if
there are any human
rights abuses.”

Does Under Secretary Eizenstat actually
believe that the Europeans — who are so
determined to do business with Castro
that they are relentlessly challenging
Helms-Burton in every conceivable venue
— would in fact suspend promising trade
deals and painstakingly constructed and
(government-subsidized) export beachheads
over a single political prisoner rotting
in a Cuban jail?

In fact, the
European Union made no such
commitment. In a statement
released on 14 December, it simply said:
“The EU will lend its support to
progress towards democracy, including
the possible negotiation of a cooperation
agreement. Any agreement
would, in accordance with EU practice,
contain a suspension clause in the event
of a serious breach of the human
rights provisions.”
(Emphasis added.)

What is more, it was only under
questioning by a reporter that Mr.
Eizenstat acknowledged that Canada
had not even gone through the motions of
providing a fig leaf for the
Administration’s appeasement. He
shrugged it off, however, saying:
“We have been in very close dialogue
with Canada….We’ve had a sustained
dialogue from them. Canada has
its own way of acting. We will
continue to have consultations with them
and we will see what develops from
that.”

Get Real

What Mr. Eizenstat has done,
presumably inadvertently, with his
listing of all those who share
responsibility for perpetrating such a
flim-flam on the American people — and,
in particular, the Cuban-American
community — is to permit a welcome
accountability for fraud when
the whirlwind is reaped. And, as the
Casey Institute observed on 17 July 1996,
there is little doubt that a whirlwind is
coming — a nuclear
whirlwind:

“Of perhaps greatest
immediate concern to the American
people, however, is the
assistance now in prospect from
European and other sources to
Fidel Castro’s bid to complete
two Soviet-designed and
irretrievably flawed VVER-440
nuclear reactors. According to
U.S. government estimates, the
all-but-certain accident that
will occur if one or both of
these reactors go on-line could
expose as many as 50-80
million Americans living
downwind to deadly levels of
radiation not seen since the
Chernobyl disaster of 1986.”

The Casey Institute continues to
believe:

“It must be a non-negotiable
condition of any further
conversations with allied
governments about implementation
of the Helms-Burton legislation
that all European and
Canadian assistance to the Cuban
nuclear reactor complex at
Juragua — including the
supplying of any component,
technical assistance or financing
— must be permanently halted.
As the nature of the flaws in
these reactors are systemic
(e.g., myriad faulty welds in the
cooling system; some 60%
defective equipment; rampant
corrosion; design problems in the
reactor dome and elsewhere,
etc.), no amount of
Western assistance short of
demolition and a complete fresh
start will significantly
address these reactors’ critical
safety deficiencies.

“By denying the Castro
regime the ability to correct its
current 15-20% energy shortfall
— to say nothing of
substantially expanding the
output of its electrical
production capability needed to
satisfy the requirements of
prospective tourist and
industrial (notably, mining)
concerns — the U.S. can obtain a
two-fer: 1) protecting
the American people
against a potential nuclear
catastrophe and 2) greatly
increasing the chances that the
objective of the Libertad
Act, namely, freedom at
long last for the beleaguered
Cuban population, will
actually be met.

“A failure to make the
termination of European and
Canadian component supplies and
financing to the Juragua nuclear
reactor complex near Cienfuegos
the minimal price for any further
accommodation on the Helms-Burton
Act would be a
breathtaking betrayal of
the public trust. Should it
result in a nuclear disaster for
the American mainland, fair
warning is served: The President
responsible for such a betrayal
may well be held to the ultimate
account by the American people
and their elected representatives
— impeachment
proceedings.”

As best as can be determined, not one of
the Administration officials identified
by Stuart Eizenstat even mentioned the
Cuban Chernobyl-in-the-making near
Cienfuegos, to say nothing of explicitly
tying even one more waiver of
Helms-Burton’s provisions to a
“binding legal commitment” to
the termination of any and all allied
cooperation (including equipment and
financing) to the Juragua nuclear reactor
complex.

The Bottom Line

It is simply intolerable that the
Clinton Administration would permit the
evisceration of any elements of
Helms-Burton — and most especially, a
presidential pledge to waive its most
exacting provisions permanently
— without at a minimum
protecting the American people from an
incipient nuclear danger. By doing just
that, though, the President is
not only betraying the commitment he has
repeatedly expressed (notably, before
his reelection) to the triumph of
democracy in Cuba. He is also betraying a
sacred trust to his own countrymen.

The 105^th Congress
must not stand idly by. It must
go forward with new legislation to
prevent any further waiver of
Helms-Burton’s provisions unless
accompanied by a presidential
certification that no European, Canadian,
Russian or Latin American material,
technological or financial assistance is
being used to bring on-line the fatally
defective nuclear reactors in Juragua,
Cuba.

– 30 –

1. Indeed, there
are some who believe that Mr. Clinton’s
willingness to sign the Helms-Burton
legislation into law in the first place
was almost entirely motivated by his bid
for Cuban-American votes.

2. See The
price of Compromise on Helms-Burton Must
Be Nothing Less Than an End to European
Help for the Coming Cuban ‘Chernobyl’
(No. 96-C
69, 17 July 1996).