By Lincoln Diaz-Balart
At
this time, when the democratic opposition within Cuba is acquiring greater
strength and showing extraordinary political maturity, I believe it is
important to remember the reasons for the existence of the U.S. embargo and the
three conditions for its lifting.
When I
arrived in the U.S. Congress in January 1993, I was able to confirm that U.S.
law did not prohibit trade and financing with the Cuban regime by the great
majority of U.S. corporations. I was truly impacted by the fact that U.S. law
only prohibited trade and financing with the Cuban regime by foreign
subsidiaries of U.S. companies, but not by U.S. companies inside the U.S. (in
other words, the overwhelming majority of U.S. firms). Mass U.S. tourism to
Cuba was also not barred by law. All existing sanctions at that time were
contained in Executive Orders, that, of course, could be lifted by other Executive
Orders, at any time, by any President.
Since
I was convinced that no dictatorship in history has ever given anything to the
democratic opposition in exchange for nothing, and since I did not have
confidence that the President of the United States would insist that a genuine
democratic transition for the Cuban people be underway before lifting the
embargo on the regime, I decided to codify, to enact into law, those Executive
Orders; the prohibitions on commerce, on financing, and on mass U.S. tourism to
Cuba, and to condition the lifting of those sanctions (commonly known as the embargo) on three conditions within Cuba:
1) the liberation of all political prisoners, without exceptions; 2) the
legalization of all political parties, without exceptions, of the independent
press and free labor unions; and 3) the scheduling of free elections with
international supervision for the Cuban people.
In
March 1996, with the decisive help of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Bob Menéndez, I
achieved codification. All the Executive Orders that constituted the embargo
were made part of U.S. law, as well as the three conditions for their lifting. I
believe it was the most important achievement of my 18 years in the U.S.
Congress.
I
was convinced then, and I continue to believe, that the U.S. embargo and the
conditioning of its lifting upon the requirement that a genuine democratic
transition based on the three conditions be underway in Cuba, constitute
instruments of great importance in the hands of the Cuban opposition.
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