Posted on 04/24/2003 1:33:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Congressional leaders have acknowledged that recent developments in Cuba have hurt initiatives to ease the 4-decade-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. But the resignation of the Cuba Policy Foundation's board members stands out because of their prominence in U.S. policy circles.
Appalled by repression in Cuba and accusing the Castro government of trying to ''embarrass and humiliate'' anti-embargo advocates, leaders of a formidable Washington foundation that has fought to change U.S. policy toward the island resigned en masse on Wednesday.
''We organized, funded and supported the foundation because we hoped, and had reason to believe, that its energetic efforts to modify the ban on Cuba . . . might succeed over time,'' the Cuba Policy Foundation, a group of prominent academics, business leaders and former high-ranking State Department officials, said in a statement. ``We can only conclude, however, that in spite of its claims to the contrary, Cuba does not share our enthusiasm for a more open relationship.''
They join dozens of governments, political parties, unions and human rights groups that have condemned Cuban President Fidel Castro's government for executing three men for trying to hijack a ferry to the United States, and for a crackdown on dissidents that jailed 75 people with sentences as long as 28 years.
The foundation's board members still believe lifting the embargo is essential for democratic change in Cuba, their statement said.
But recently Castro's government actively worked against their movement, executive director Brian Alexander said Wednesday. He cited as an example state spies posing as waiters who served members of Congress who recently dined with dissidents in Havana.
Those ''waiters'' later testified at trials against the dissidents.
''It's difficult to imagine an effective political strategy in the United States when you don't know what kind of bomb is going to be thrown over the fence next,'' Alexander said, using harsh words for a group that spent nearly $1 million over two years trying to bring the United States and Cuba closer. ``Unfortunately, Castro has handed the hard-liners in the United States a silver platter.''
Some Cuba observers were not surprised.
The resignations are ''to be expected, insofar as Cuba's actions put moderates in a very untenable situation,'' said Damian Fernandez, professor of international relations at Florida International University.
Joe Garcia, spokesman for the Cuban-American National Foundation, a longtime proponent of the embargo, said the disbanding of the Washington foundation shows Castro has again proved he can't be negotiated with.
''I believe these are people who in their heart of hearts thought Castro was someone you can deal with. But in the end he's not negotiable. He's a murderer and a dictator. You can't screw with Castro,'' Garcia said.
Elena Freyre, a longtime Miami advocate of lifting the embargo, was saddened to learn of the foundation's resignations.
Freyre, now with the Cuban-American Defense League, a First Amendment group against trade restrictions, said her group won't change its views, or give up, despite the odds of changing policy at this point. The embargo hurts the Cuban people and should be lifted, she said.
`UPS AND DOWNS'
''I understand their frustration, but anybody that goes into this anti-embargo fight has to go into it with their eyes wide open. It's a 40-year-old policy that is not going to be changed in a day. There are going to be ups and downs, and you have to be ready for that,'' Freyre said.
Formed in 2001, the Cuba Policy Foundation lobbied lawmakers, encouraged them to visit Havana and held town hall debates on Cuba policy around the United States.
TOP LEADERS
At the forefront was Sally Grooms Cowal, a former deputy secretary of state for inter-American affairs under former President George Bush. Cowal is better known in Miami for arranging a place to house the father of Cuban boy Elián González during his stay in Washington.
Among the others heading the foundation: William Rogers, chair, former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs under President Gerald Ford, who pushed for normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations in the 1970s; and Diego Asencio, former U.S. ambassador to Colombia and Brazil.
EFFORT `HOPELESS'
Rogers said Wednesday he would continue to fight for a gradual easing of the embargo, but that under the current political climate, the effort is ``hopeless.''
Congressional leaders have acknowledged that recent developments in Cuba have hurt initiatives to ease the 4-decade-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. But the resignation of the Cuba Policy Foundation's board members stands out because of their prominence in U.S. policy circles.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Their resignations came even as human rights groups decried Wednesday the transfer of Cuban dissidents to prisons hundreds of miles from their families.
And also on Wednesday, for the first time in 23 years, the Organization of American States attempted to debate human rights in Cuba, but in the end couldn't agree on whether it had the authority. A resolution sponsored by Nicaragua, the United States and Costa Rica, which ''deplored'' recent events on the island, however, was sent to committee for review.
Although the CPF says that it's a "centrist" or "non-ideological" group not concerned with the actions of the either right or left regarding Cuba, one can't help but examine the group's benefactors, leader, and impetus to exist. Upon finding out more info on the CPF a pattern soon forms, and one realizes that this "advocacy" group is not neutral, and that it's hiding behind an agenda more slanted towards helping Havana than actually bringing democracy to Cuba.
In April, the "neutrality" of the CPF was questioned when it was honored by the officialist propaganda organ of the Castro dictatorship, Radio Havana. Radio Havana in its report ended up praising Grooms Cowal's efforts in starting the Cuba Policy Foundation by stating the following: "The Cuba Policy Foundation has challenged the ultra-right-wing Cuban-American National Foundation to a public debate concerning the merits of Washington's blockade of Cuba."
Let the facts speak for themselves:
The Cuba Policy Foundation is headed by Ambassador Sally Grooms Cowal, who acts as its president. If you can remember back to the Elian Gonzalez debacle, Sally Grooms Cowal was the individual whose other group, Youth for Friendship, "hosted" the Cuban boy in the Rosedale mansion after he was taken by Janet Reno's agents in Miami. The Rosedale compound, which is in Maryland, is owned and operated by Youth for Friendship. Additionally Grooms Cowal, was a former deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs under President George Bush in the late 1980s. She has also served as ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.
The CPF is bankrolled by the Arca Foundation.
For those of you who don't know about the Arca foundation, it passes itself as a philanthropic organization that gives millions of dollars annually to organizations that fight for social justice around the world. Unfortunately a grand majority of these organizations are of a far leftist nature, like in 1998 when it gave $1,000 to an obscure contingent called Fondo Del Sol which helped surviving members of the Stalinist Abraham Lincoln Brigade view a photo exhibit on the Spanish Civil War! Among the pro Castro groups Arca has funded have been the Pastors for Peace ($10,000 in 1999), Global Exchange ($50,000 in 1999), and the TransAfrica Forum ($100,000).
Communist Cuba is the main focus of Arca's Foreign Policy grants list, and although it gives money to other international and domestic institutions, it annually gives a substantial amount of funds to causes dealing with communist Cuba. In 1999 alone, the Arca Foundation gave to over 19 organizations that are sympathetic to revolutionary Cuba.
The Arca Foundation's records denote that it has spent over $3 million dollars since 1995 devoted to institutions that ignore human rights in Cuba, but fight aggressively to drop US sanctions to the rouge nation. The Arca Foundation which is run by the R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir Smith Bagley, has silently worked in the background with institutions and Castro sympathetic Democratic politicians working to end economic sanctions against the dictatorship.
"Smith Bagley and the Arca Foundation is the pro-Castro lobby's sugar daddy," says Jose Cardenas, Washington spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation. "Arca is a walkup window for free checks passed out to any and all comers with an ideological ax to grind against U.S. policy on Cuba."
For the record, Smith Bagley was the individual who threw a party at his mansion where Elian Gonzalez was the guest of honor after the boy was accosted from the home of his Miami relatives. During this party, agents of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington DC provided delicacies like smoked salmon, shrimp and fruit that although taken for granted here in the United States, are unavailable to most of the Cuban population back on the island. Yet, Bagley who is a tremendously rich WASP sees no problem in giving money to organizations that help the Cuban revolution while the rest of the island population goes poor, hungry and oppressed.
According to a 1998 report by journalist Pablo Alfonso of the Miami Herald, Arca has given money to the following other pro Castro causes: The American Association for World Health, based in Washington. The association received $134,500 to write a report on the impact of the U.S. embargo on the health of the Cuban people. Oxfam-America Inc., received $35,000 in 1996 from the Arca Foundation to help increase production in the 'cooperative' farm Gilberto Leon, which belongs to the National 'Association of Small Farmers.'
The World Policy Institute, based in New York City, which in the past two years received $330,000 from Arca "to educate the American business community" about the negative consequences of increasing the economic sanctions against Cuba. The Center for International Policy (CIP), part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and directed by Castro's apologist Wayne Smith. In the past three years, the CIP received $304,000 from Arca, of which $20,000 went to publish its monthly newsletter! The rest was allocated to send delegations to Cuba and organize seminars to lobby members of Congress to lift the sanctions against Cuba.
It's no surprise that none of the organizations listed on Arca's Cuba list are supportive of pro democracy dissidents fighting for human rights inside of Cuba.
The new Cuba Policy Foundation is no exception.
After important US law makers proposed the "Solidaridad Act of 2001", which would bring $25 million in food, medicine, office, and educational equipment for independent journalists, dissidents and non governmental organizations inside of Cuba, CPF boss Grooms Cowal cynically said the following of the Solidaridad Act in a March 28, 2001 Washington Post article: "We have been promoting dissidents (In Cuba) for 40 years without measurable results."
Not only is the above statement an ignorant one, but it lacks sensitivity and compassion for the thousands of dissidents that have been unlawfully discriminated, jailed, and even killed for daring the Cuban dictatorship to respect the most basic human rights like freedom of speech, religion, and the right to hold multi party elections. Grooms Cowal either fails to understand, or ignores the fact that in Cuba there exists an advanced police/security apparatus modeled after the former KGB and East German Statsi.
Cuban state security along with the Gestapo like Comité de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR), neighborhood watch groups, and non Cuban procommunist sympathizers like Venceremos Brigade, Global Exchange, International Action Center, and Pastors for Peace, have contributed greatly to spreading propaganda and helping the Cuban dictatorship in the repression of the Cuban people. It's no surprise that some of the non Cuban communist groups mentioned have been funded by none other than the Arca Foundation.
Grooms Cowal says she was inspired to form the Cuba Policy Foundation because of a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, which made arguments for lifting the embargo. The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) recently made a trip to Cuba where CFR notables like David Rockefeller cavorted and only had good words to say about Fidel Castro and the island's alleged free health care and educational systems. It's also important to point out that the CFR has received over $150,000 from the Arca Foundation to carry on its Cuba related projects since 1998. Is it no coincidence when William Rogers, an organizer of a CFR task force to Cuba last year has been named chairman of the new Cuba Policy Foundation?
In retrospect it is doubtful that the Cuba Policy Foundation will offer anything we haven't heard before regarding Cuba. Since it is being funded by Arca, it doesn't matter how much neutrality it alludes to - unfortunately when it comes to Cuba there is no center - you are either for a democratic change on the island, or you are a supporter of the Western Hemisphere's longest running dictatorship.
Finally Grooms Cowal gives herself away too easily, seemingly to be more interested in making a profit for Americans on the island rather then helping the actual Cuban people overcome their hardships. At times, Cowal seems to have a wishy-washy attitude, not knowing what to say, as it's evident in the following quotes:
March 28 /PRNewswire report:
"Our businesses, cities and ports are losing millions of dollars every year because of the embargo... No one can objectively dispute that the embargo has hurt American businesses." On an April 2, 2001 report by the Cybercast News Service, Grooms Cowal stated the following contradicting herself: "There's a real need for a new centrist group, not left-leaning activists, and not just business interests." In a Washington Times report that appeared on April 5, 2001, Cowal said that the CPF will argue that Americans are losing millions of dollars in trade by maintaining an ineffective embargo on Cuba.
The bottom line is - the CPF is funded by the Castro friendly Arca Foundation, Grooms Cowal housed Elian after he was taken by Janet Reno's storm troopers, and she seems to be more concerned with Americans making a buck or two in Cuba, thus propping up the dictatorship a little longer.
Sally Grooms Cowal and her new Cuba Policy Foundation is not to be trusted.
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Editor: What the likes of Cowal don't understand is that trade is a two-way street. For America to benefit from selling to Cuba it would have to import Cuban goods. This is because the exports are the price of imports. However, the Cuban economy is such a shambles that only the ignorant, the delusional or fellow travellers could preach that America has lost huge amounts by not trading with Castro's vicious regime.
Since last year, for example, Congress has allowed the sale of medicines and agricultural products to Cuba. Result? Zilch. Because Castro cannot afford to pay for foreign goods. No doubt mercenaries like Cowal will suggest massive loans (read gifts) by American taxpayers to El Commandante. Someone should remind this lot that several countries have already cut off credit to the psychopathic Castro because he took huge amounts of goods for which he could not pay.
On a final note, perhaps Cowal would like to explain to her fellow Americans why she is acting for Arca (which is basically what she is doing) when this foundation also funds the Institute of Policy Studies, a pro-Castro organisation that also acted as a front for the KGB? [End]
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Arca Foundation Backed (Smith Bagley) U.S. Anti-Embargo Group Disbands Over Cuba Actions
Port director George Williamson was surprised to hear about the review by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control because other port authorities have received licenses and traveled to Cuba to promote products moving across their docks. "Jacksonville, Texas ports -- everybody's been down there," he said. "Now we're saying, 'Wait a minute.' " Tampa's port applied for a different kind of license than port authorities traveled under in the past, said Treasury spokesman Taylor Griffin. "The Office of Foreign Asset Control and State Department are reviewing the request," he said.
Congress voted in 2000 to ease the trade embargo and let U.S. companies sell certain food, agricultural and medical products to Cuba on a cash-only basis. Port authority officials skipped a major food and agriculture expo in Havana last fall and had dismissed the possibility of significant trade with Cuba. After learning that local companies with contracts from Cuba were shipping products through other Florida ports, the port authority board changed course. Cuba's import purchasing arm, Alimport, invited board members in February to Havana to get acquainted and talk about trade opportunities. The port applied in March for a six-month travel license to attend a "tentatively scheduled" meeting with Alimport in June to determine demand for cargo from Tampa.
The delegation would include Williamson, authority chairman Joseph Diaz, Hillsborough County commissioner Pat Frank, port counsel Dale Bohner and two guests: Louis Ricard of Cargill Inc. and Joe Guidry, the Tampa Tribune's deputy editorial page editor. Bohner said Wednesday that the trip wasn't nailed down. Port officials had expected to get the license in May, then call Alimport to work out details, he said. "We're still hopeful that we'll be granted the license," he said.
In another sign of its new attitude, the port authority sponsored a seminar Wednesday on the opportunities and legalities of trading with Cuba. Experts from academia, business and government told about 130 people at the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel that Cuba holds tremendous trade potential for Tampa and Florida. But because Cuba has so little hard currency and the U.S. government doesn't allow sales on credit, they said, it's unlikely export sales will exceed the current $200-million a year in the near future.
Cuba's recent crackdown on dissidents and the approaching 2004 presidential elections make it unlikely the Bush administration will loosen trade restrictions, said Van Yeutter of Cargill, which sells food and agricultural products to Cuba. "It's not the bonanza people think it is at this time," said Diaz, the port authority chairman. [End]
-- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.
I'm sure if asked, they'll say subsidized loans to buy American goods and more student groups and dollar paying tourists visiting the wonderful little island would help democratic change (cough) more than Bush's OVERT push for Castro to try just an itty-bitty bit to act like a human being.
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