By María Fernanda Barreto on May 25, 2019
A few days before Chapter III of the Helms-Burton Act came into force, we had the opportunity to talk with Rogelio Polanco, ambassador of the Republic of Cuba in Venezuela, about it. We discussed with him the reasons for this measure, its geopolitical implications and the possibility that this U.S. law fulfils the objective that the United States has set for itself; to pressure Cuba to break the deep relationship that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez woven between the two countries.
Ambassador, what is Title III of the Helms-Burton Act that is now in effect?
This law is a nefarious U.S. legislation adopted in 1996 by the U.S. Congress which seeks the recolonization of Cuba. That is why our people have rightly called it, “The Law of Slavery”.
It is the most complete attempt to establish in a single legal norm the entire historical intention of the American power to subject our country to its designs. With it, they take away the executive power of the US president to carry out the foreign policy towards Cuba, and codifies all the previous laws into a single legislation that has a distinct extraterritorial character, and therefore illegal from the point of view of international law. It consists of four titles in which establishes in detail all the actions that the U.S. should develop in order to guarantee the overthrow of the Cuban Revolution, the submission of the current government of Cuba to the jurisdiction of the U.S. and thus, establish a so-called transitional government that would certify when the properties nationalized by Cuba would be compensated in order to end the objective of this law. Title III is the one that allows the activation of courts in the U.S. to receive lawsuits from U.S. citizens against companies and citizens of third countries that have invested in properties that were nationalized by the Cuban Revolution in the 1960s. This sets a very negative precedent, first because it would question a country’s right to establish its own nationalizations and, on the other hand, it would allow a country to take legal action against events that occur in a foreign nation.
Until now, all administrations prior to Trump – and even in the first year of this administration – had suspended the implementation of this title because it entails legal risks and in turn implies serious confrontations with other allied countries.
Hadn’t Cuba offered compensation for these nationalizations many years ago?
Yes, Cuba carried out a series of nationalizations in 1959 as part of the fulfilment of the objectives of the Revolution that was to make Cuba a truly sovereign and independent nation that would return to the people its natural resources that had been in the hands of foreign companies and citizens of other countries, mainly the United States. One of the first laws that was enacted was the Agrarian Reform Law, which fulfilled a dream of our people and that was the land could not be controlled outside of the one who works it. This involved a conflict with numerous U.S. companies that owned the most fertile lands and in turn the Revolution passed another series of laws that confronted U.S. hegemony in Cuba. Sugar mills, banks, mines, electric companies and other companies owned by U.S. citizens were nationalized. That was a big part of the class struggle that took place at the beginning of the revolution. Let’s remember that the U.S. refused to refine oil from the U.S.S.R. and then, in another arbitrary action, stopped receiving part of the so-called sugar quota of exports from Cuba to its country, which dealt a serious blow to our economy and in turn to the well-being of our people. So legally, our government took the decision to nationalize the refineries and sugar mills, and finally all U.S. companies in Cuba. We then offered compensation equal to that offered to five European countries and Canada.
With the governments of Spain, France, Great Britain, Switzerland and Canada, it was possible to reach fair compensation agreements in a dialogue of equality. The U.S. government, in an arrogant manner, did not agree to take part in any negotiations and instead broke off relations with our country and in 1962 established a blockade against our country. The compensation process established deadlines, costs under international law, and even the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the nationalizations made by Cuba at that time had been in accordance with the law. However, the U.S. government prevented an agreement from being formally reached.
What companies are expected to sue? I ask because lately people have been declaring in the U.S. press that they are descendants of Cuban families who at the time owned banks, hardware stores and other businesses, that is, families of the Cuban bourgeoisie and not U.S. businessmen.
For many years a U.S. entity determined the number of potential plaintiffs, which according to that list are about six thousand. This issue has been permanently open to negotiation, the United States has even raised amounts. On that list were those who at the time were U.S. citizens. But the Helms Burton Act opened the possibility for citizens who were Cuban at the time of nationalization and who later acquired U.S. citizenship to be included in these lawsuits. This is even more arbitrary and would further complicate the process of solving an eventual negotiation on compensation for those who were actually citizens of that country at the time of nationalization and to whom Cuba has always been willing to engage in a comprehensive negotiation process that also includes the demands of the Cuban people for the damages caused by the blockade during all these years. These demands were introduced in 1999 and 2000 in Cuban courts, and therefore they are obligatory for the Cuban government to comply with in any process of negotiations with the United States, these damages are around 300 billion dollars. In fact, during the Obama administration there were conversations on this complex issue as a gesture of mutual goodwill to address this issue.
Since 1996 several of the countries that can be harmed by the scope of Title III of the law established so-called antidotes laws that prevent the application of the law Helms´-Burton in their jurisdictions. It is for this reason that the rapid and forceful declaration of several countries of the European Union and Canada was given, which established that they would defend their companies with investments in Cuba and that they would bring lawsuits before the World Trade Organization.
How will all this benefit Donald Trump?
I think that there is an obvious error on how to proceed with this and also in diagnosing the current administration’s foreign policy towards Cuba. Such an action goes against the interests of the United States in the international arena and of its citizens. In 2018, for example, 650,000 Americans and 500,000 Cubans residing in the United States travelled to Cuba.
Any action that seeks to limit relations with Cuba goes against the interests of its own citizens, and at the same time this title of the Helms-Burton law goes against its allies and against the freedom of navigation, the freedom of trade, that is to say, the very fundamental laws of capitalism. This administration has had unpredictable actions in its foreign policy, it has acted against multilateralism, isolating itself from important multilateral agreements.
But don’t you think this activation could come from an electoral reason?
Of course, we have only one element left to take into account to understand this senseless action of the Trump administration, the domestic politics, and electoral outreach of Florida. Once again, foreign policy towards Cuba becomes an element of internal politics, especially electoral politics. In the conflict between the parties of that country, some consider that an aggressive action against Cuba would give political advantage to the Republican Party and President Trump for their re-election. This is far from the reality because President Obama won in Florida precisely with a change of vision of politics by attempting to interpret the generalized feeling of the Cuban community and in general, of U.S. society in relation to our country.
Last September Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine at the UN, now one of the arguments being given to justify this tightening of the blockade to exert pressure on Cuba in order to stop supporting Venezuela. Does it seem likely that the Cuban government will yield to this blackmail? Or that the Cuban people, feeling pressured by this measure, will demand that their government move away from Venezuela?
They know that’s never going to happen. The foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution has always been based on solidarity, internationalism and loyalty to the values we defend. Our people and our revolutionary government have never yielded to blackmail of this nature by any foreign government and in particular by the United States.
It is the historical course of imperialism that has always sought to subdue other peoples by force. The reality is that from the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, the United States has tried to hamper any improvement in bilateral relations with Cuba ceasing to comply with its foreign policy of solidarity or making concessions in its domestic policy. Cuba never gave in to blackmail. Let’s remember the solidarity of the Cuban people with the peoples of Africa, the people of Vietnam, the support for Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence and the support for the national liberation struggles of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Our people have always refused to accept pressure to surrender any of their sovereign, independent and supportive policies.
The current US administration’s attempts to use Cuba’s solidarity aid to Venezuela as a pretext are doomed to failure. In addition, we take this opportunity to denounce that the United States pretends to justify its actions on the basis of slander, saying that Cuba has an occupying army in Venezuela. Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton has even gone so low to call our worthy doctors, who render their internationalist service on Bolivarian soil “thugs”.
We reject this type of malicious slander and reiterate our total solidarity with the Bolivarian government headed by President Nicolás Maduro and we also emphatically reiterate that no threat will impede the relationship of solidarity between our countries.
On May 2, there are also new measures against Iran. Do you think it is a coincidence or is this evidence that both measures are part of the same geostrategic plan?
This administration has been attacking international law since it came to power. The withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change, from the nuclear agreement with Iran, from UNESCO, from the UN Human Rights Council and from all the main multilateral economic agreements of which it was a part of, has, of course, brought them in conflict with the whole world by trying to use these elements as a weapon of pressure.
The fact that these measures coincide on the same date is only part of an aggressive escalation against any government and any country that does not submit to it. The United States is threatening international peace and security, because we remember that the UN Charter establishes the prohibition of the threat of the use of force, non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and the sovereign equality of states. These are fundamental elements of international law that are being trampled underfoot and that act constitutes a threat to peace.
Cuba has sixty year of resisting the political and also military pressure of the United States. Is it really likely that the current U.S. government will dare to take direct military action or support a new attempt by the Miami based Cuban-American lobby like the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs?
The US has based its foreign policy on permanent aggression against other countries and the use of force, with its most blatant act being an invasion of other countries, on the basis of the most unusual pretexts. It is part of its unilateral, militaristic geopolitical vision. That is why they have 800 military bases in 80 countries with more than 250,000 troops. Their foreign policy is based on the use of force in international relations, so nothing can be ruled out and that is why in Cuba we have always maintained our military preparation based on the doctrine of “All People’s War”.
We are a small country only ninety miles from the greatest economic, military and technological power in the contemporary world. We have been subject to a criminal blockade for decades, we have been subjected to violent actions of all kinds, and as you mentioned we were also subject to a direct military invasion of our country, funded by the U.S. government.
During all these years Cuba has been threatened. However, we have maintained our conviction that the unity of our people and the preparation to face any imperialist aggression is our life insurance. We know that to the extent that an action of this nature is more costly, they will think about it several times before committing the most serious mistake of a military action against Cuba.
What about a military aggression against Venezuela?
All U.S. spokespeople have repeated as their mantra over the past few months that “all options are on the table”. This arrogant phrase is the recognition that they are making use of the threat of using force against an independent and sovereign country like Venezuela. Many times Cuba denounced, in a timely and firm manner, the movement of troops and means necessary for military action against Venezuela.
The threat against the Bolivarian nation remains latent. That’s why it’s important for the whole world to denounce it, reject it and prevent an action of that nature from taking place.
Do you think that these political, economic and military pressures on Cuba and Venezuela could lead to the definitive imposition of the Monroe doctrine?
We totally reject that possibility. Despite the fact that the US has invoked the Monroe Doctrine, and security advisor Bolton, to the group of the defeated at the Bay of Pigs in Miami, said that the Monroe doctrine is alive and well, this does not correspond to reality. They have had to recognize that they are facing a different world, a Latin America that will not allow the aggressions and invasions that for decades the U.S. government carried out.
It is true that historically Latin America and the Caribbean have been considered “their backyard” and numerous theories have been invoked for more than two centuries to try to justify that purpose. However, today’s Latin America is not the same as it was two hundred years ago. It has lived through a process in which in recent years progressive, left-wing, revolutionary governments came to power. Although today we are seeing a regression of this process, that regression is circumstantial. We have to view it in a strategic perspective.
The fact that we have had these recent experiences gives the revolutionary and progressive movements in this region lessons of mistakes that could become experiences for new victories in the future because what is clear is that the predatory nature of capitalism has no future in our region. This is demonstrated by the fact that the right-wing governments that have recently come to power in the region are far from consolidated and far from secure in their continuity in power.
Looking at the long term, it will be increasingly difficult for the hegemonic power of the United States to take the history of Latin America back to the periods in which, through military power and other instruments of domination, they tried to make Latin America an integral part of their territory.
Source: Correo del Alba, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau