Rights group: EU economic policy in Cuba unjustified

Published Saturday, September 21, 1996, in the Miami Herald.

Rights group: EU economic policy in Cuba unjustified

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Herald Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- The European Union's policy of investment in Cuba and engagement with its government is not morally justifiable unless its nations press Havana for concrete political reforms, a human rights group asserted Friday.

At the same time, the group, Human Rights Watch/Americas, criticized U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba as ineffective, and said its 34-year-old economic embargo has been motivated more by domestic U.S. politics than by human-rights concerns.

The critique represents some of the most aggressive positions taken on policies toward Cuba by an internationally recognized rights watchdog.

Envoy rebuffed

It appears as the Clinton administration seeks to enlist its European allies and others to pressure Cuba to initiate democratic and free-market reforms. So far, Stuart Eizenstat, Clinton's envoy for the task, has been rebuffed by Europeans who are furious over the recently ratified Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to scare off investors from Cuba.

Most striking in a two-page article written by Jose Miguel Vivanco, the executive director of Human Rights Watch/Americas, is the call for the European Union to demand reforms from Havana.

Policies not influenced

While acknowledging that Europe's dialogue with Cuba has led to the periodic release of some political prisoners in Cuba, Human Rights Watch/Americas asserts that repression of basic liberties has not been ``even minimally influenced by European Union policy.''

Political dialogue and economic investment in Cuba are not in themselves a human rights accomplishment, Vivanco said in an interview Friday.

``You have to use the leverage that you have been able to build,'' he said.

Human Rights Watch/Americas specifically called on the European Union to demand three steps: that Cuba grant unconditional access to a U.N. human rights special rapporteur, who has been barred from the island since 1992; that Havana allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to have full access to Cuba's prisons, a privilege revoked in 1989; and that Cuba repeal legislation that criminalizes the exercise of internationally protected rights such as freedom of speech and association.

Exploiting system

Referring to joint ventures between foreign investors and the Cuban government -- which have become a cornerstone of Cuba's bid for economic recovery -- the rights group said Europe, Mexico, Canada and other nations take advantage of a system that denies basic labor rights, including the right to unionize.

``Profiting from this shameful arrangement can be justified only if investors press Castro to repeal laws that violate the basic international principles governing modern labor relations,'' Human Rights Watch/Americas said.

Frank Calzon, the Washington director of Freedom House and a longtime advocate for rights in Cuba, said he was gratified that influential human rights groups now appear more willing to give the same scrutiny to Cuba that they have given to right-wing dictatorships in the past.

``The human rights issue in Cuba, China or anywhere else is not a matter of right or left,'' Calzon said. ``It's a matter of human decency.''