Life Support for Castro: New Commission on Cuba,
Paris Club ‘Rescheduling’ of Havana’s Defaulted Debt
(Washington, D.C.): With the mid-term election an accomplished fact, the “usual suspects”
are
resuming one of the hardiest perennials of what passes for President Clinton’s foreign policy
agenda: the effort to normalize relations with communist Cuba.
In recent days, proponents of ending the economic embargo against Fidel Castro’s regime
have
opened a two-front campaign:
- A Stacked-Deck ‘Commission’: One track involves the creation of a
so-called National
Bipartisan Commission on Cuba. In keeping with the increasingly common practice of fobbing
intractable public policy problems off onto independent, “bipartisan” entities, its champions
claim that such a Commission would be able to provide an objective assessment of the
effectiveness of America’s present policy toward Cuba and offer suggestions for altering it
where necessary.
- All other things being equal, despite the likely inclusion of token representation from
Cuban-Americans and others opposed to any initiative that would ease the isolation of
and provide economic and/or political life-support to the Cuban dictatorship, this
Commission’s membership will mostly be comprised of advocates for
easing/eliminating the embargo.
- Debt-Relief for Castro: The Paris Club is reportedly considering
rescheduling more than $10
billion in Cuban hard currency debt. According to a 17 November Financial Times
article
entitled “Cuba Edges Toward Paris Club Accord,” momentum is building to overlook Cuba’s
non-payment over more than a decade of some $10-14 billion owed to Western governments
and private firms (i.e. payments ceased in 1986) and to in effect make Havana’s debt profile
current.
- The FT reports that, during a September visit to Paris, Cuban Vice-President
Carlos
Lage met with Paris Club Chairman Frances Mayer, who actively supported this
initiative. Cuba’s largest Western creditors are France, Argentina, Japan, Spain
and Belgium with almost 60% of Cuba’s total hard currency debt owed to Western
governments. An ad hoc committee may be configured, as soon as next month, to
speed this process. (Since Cuba is not an IMF member and the U.S. has the power to
block any multilateral rescheduling in the Paris Club. Accordingly, Havana has been
pursuing bilateral debt reschedulings. Japan and Italy have already agreed to this
strategy designed to circumvent American opposition in the unlikely event it is
forthcoming.)
A Natty Little Problem: Cuba Still Represents a Clear if
Asymmetric Threat
American advocates of normalization usually contend that Cuba no longer poses any threat to
the
United States and that the U.S. embargo is, therefore, basically an obsolete and harmful relic of
the Cold War. Unfortunately, this view — as is typically true of the philosophy of trade uber
alles
— ignores the abiding, menacing character of the Castro regime. This is all the more remarkable
given the emphasis Secretary of Defense William Cohen (among other Clinton Administration
officials) have placed on asymmetric threats — the very sorts of threats Cuba
continues to pose to
American citizens and interests.(1) These include the
following:
- Information and Intelligence Warfare
Thanks to the vast signal intelligence facilities operated near Lourdes, Cuba by Havana’s
and Moscow’s intelligence services — facilities that permit the wholesale collection of
sensitive
U.S. military, diplomatic and commercial data and the invasion of millions of Americans’
privacy — the Cuban regime has the capability to conduct sustained and systematic
Information
Warfare (IW) against the United States.
A stunning example of the potentially devastating consequences of this capability was recently
provided by former GRU Colonel Stanislav Lunev. As one of the most senior
Soviet/Russian
military intelligence officials to come to this country, Lunev revealed that in 1990 the Soviet
Union acquired America’s most sensitive Desert Storm battle plans, including General Norman
Schwartzkopf’s famed “Hail Mary” flanking maneuver, prior to the launch of the U.S. ground war
in the Persian Gulf. Moscow’s penetration of such closely-guarded American military planning —
via its Cuban ally — may have jeopardized the lives of literally thousands of U.S. troops in the
event the intelligence had been forwarded to Saddam Hussein.
What is more, Russia may have recently learned in the same way about the
particulars of
U.S. plans to strike Iraqi targets last weekend. Given the close relationship between
Russian
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Saddam Hussein (the former served for years as the
latter’s KGB case officer), the apparent compromise of that operation may have occurred when
sensitive intelligence collected by the Lourdes sigint facilities was turned over to Baghdad. And,
had President Clinton not aborted the mission, this compromise may well have reduced its
effectiveness and sacrificed American service personnel.(2)
- Cuban Chernobyl-Equivalent
Castro is also pursuing what amounts to a nuclear
catastrophe-in-the-making for as
many as 50 to 80 million Americans, according to the General Accounting Office and other
official sources. Due to design, construction and other irretrievable flaws, the two reactors that
have long been under construction near Juragua, Cuba — 180 miles upwind from the American
mainland — will almost certainly be subject to a major accident if allowed to come on-line.
According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, depending upon the
prevailing winds at the time of such a Chernobyl-like disaster, areas as far north as Washington,
D.C. and as far west as Texas could fall under the resulting radioactive plume.
- Facilitating the Drug Trade
The Cuban regime no longer enjoys the multi-billion dollar annual subsidies from
Moscow
that once enabled it to serve as the USSR’s Foreign Legion in Africa and as a proxy for the
Kremlin in the subversion of democratic and other, pro-Western governments throughout this
hemisphere. The loss of this revenue stream has been offset somewhat by Havana’s
narco-trafficking under the protection and with the assistance of the Cuban military.
The
gravity of this danger for the United States was explained in a letter sent by
Representatives
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Dan Burton (R-IN) and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) to Gen.
Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton’s Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy, on
18
November 1996. It states, in part:
- “Overwhelming evidence [including a number of cases cited in the letter] points to
ongoing involvement of the Castro dictatorship in narco-trafficking. The Congress
remains deeply concerned about this issue, and we are deeply disappointed that the
Administration continues publicly [to] ignore this critical matter.”
- Biological Weapons
In remarks made earlier this year at a Casey Institute Symposium on “Vital U.S.
Security
Interests in Cuba” in Palm Beach, Florida, Rep. Diaz-Balart expressed concern that Cuba
is
pursuing an ominous biological weapons program
- “There is a developing file on the biological weapons component of the Cuban reality.
It is obvious that we are seeing a cover-up by the Clinton Administration of the drug
trafficking aspect of that reality. I have more than enough evidence of that cover up.
And I am reaching the conclusion, as well, of the existence of a cover up on the
biological weapons reality.”
- “The Clinton Administration has decided that Castro is to be confronted in no
way — that there is not to be made public any possible concern that could affect
the national security of the American people from Castro’s Cuba. That is a policy
of the Clinton Administration. I say that publicly, privately, and everything in
between, because I am absolutely convinced of it.”
The Bottom Line
The United States cannot afford to ignore the abiding — and, in some areas, increasing —
threat
posed by Cuba to the United States. Make no mistake about it, as long as Castro remains in
power, American citizens and interests will continue to be at risk from such asymmetric threats.
No less troubling than the willingness of some to discount this reality is the naivete of those
who
believe that “engagement” with Communist dictators — involving intensified commercial relations
and “people to people” contacts — will transform those regimes. In fact, such steps
would have
perpetuated the Soviet Union. Today, they are propping up, if not actually
strengthening,
potentially hostile governments in places like Beijing, Pyongyang and Hanoi.
The United States must not permit the multilateral rescheduling of long-defaulted
Cuban
debt since such a step will, by design, immediately and officially open the floodgates to new
investment and credit flows to the Castro regime. Prior to the Paris Club sessions on
this
subject (expected to be held next month), the Congress should insist that the U.S. exercise its
effective veto of this sort of life-support gambit. Moreover, those allied capitals that have already
agreed to bilateral reschedulings of Cuba debt — or are contemplating such a move —
should be
put on notice by the Congress that there may be repercussions for the banks and governments
involved.
Finally, if the so-called National Bipartisan Commission on Cuba is going to
proceed, its
membership should be comprised equally of individuals who favor the present policy and
those who wish to see it changed so as to permit the merits of policy options to be
vetted in a
thorough, balanced and non-pre-determined way.
– 30 –
1. See the Casey Institute’s Perspective entitled
Secretary Cohen, Casey Institute Symposia
Agree: Castro’s Cuba Remains and Asymmetric Threat (
2. Congressional hearings into the apparently compromised
operational security of the U.S.
operation last weekend should be an early priority for the 106th Congress. See
Will Clinton Just
Pay Lip-Service to the ‘Liberation’ of Iraq — Or Will He Take Concerted Action to Achieve
It? (No. 98-D 185, 16 November 1998).
3. For more information on this subject see the following Casey
Institute Perspectives entitled
Castro’s Cuba: A Classic Asymmetric Threat (
Forward, Two Back on U.S. Vulnerability: Clinton Announces Defenses, Limits Their Effect
— Perhaps Fatally (No. 97-C 91, 27 May 1998).
4. See the Casey Institute’s Perspective entitled
Secretary Cohen, Casey Institute Symposia
Agree: Castro’s Cuba Remains and Asymmetric Threat (
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