10.00.00

00.08

Subtitle

24 February 1996

00.12

Planes

On a still afternoon, 3 American planes from the ‘Brothers to the Rescue' project took off from Miami.  Their mission, to search for  Cuban rafters fleeing the Castro regime. Over Cuban airspace Castro orders his air force to attack. Two planes are shot down. Four Americans die.

00.44

Head lines

Washington erupts in outrage and extends the 34 year old Cuban embargo. Clinton signs the Helms-Burton Act designed to punish foreign companies who do business with Cuba.

00.53

White House

Europe then accuses the White House of breaking international law. But America defies disapproval insisting Cuba is a very real American problem - with implications for democracy around the world.

1.09

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton Spokesman

You don't want to bring these kinds of things up all the time, but let's be blunt...  the United States spent billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands - of lives protecting democracy in your hemisphere. Now we're asking you for help in establishing democracy in our hemisphere, and the reaction we got from our allies has not been the one we would have expected.

1.33

Ambassador Hugo

Paeman

EU Washington

Representative

It's not Cuba that's isolated it's the US that's isolated, the rest of the world is against Helms Burton. That's  not a good situation to be in for the United States and it's not good  for us that the United States  is as isolated as it is.

1.52

Amado Fakhre

Lebanese Foreign Investor

The Cubans are doing what they think is best for their people and I think it's an extraordinary feat of arrogance for a country like the United States to actually decide that it knows what's best for Cuba. You may be a Capitalist, you may be a Socialist but I don't think that one should try to impose that extra-territorially on another country.

2.12

Carlos Salsamendi

President of the Chamber of

Commerce in Cuba

We have learned to deal with such laws in the past 37 years. So we're ready to face it and we are facing it.

2.26

Flag

TITLE

THE NEW CUBAN CRISIS

2.50

For three decades Cuba has endured extreme US hostility. It's left this small communist island impoverished. The US trade embargo has brought the symptoms of a deep depression.

3.15

Decayed buildings

Until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Eastern block Cuba's trade and industry was entirely propped up by the Soviet Union.

3.33

ARCHIVE

Revolution

FX/MUSIC

When Fidel Castro swept to power he destroyed the US supported Batista dictatorship. The Cuban play ground of wealthy Americans was gone.

Thousands fled to America from where they would haunt Castro forever. Russia eagerly offered Cuba's new Communist regime a partnership. It gave the Cubans instant wealth and power...

4.05

Carlos Salsamendi

President of the Chamber of

Commerce in Cuba

We have no Soviet Union to be the puppet of; we have no troops in Angola or Ethiopia. There's no guerrilla warfare in Latin America and now they've come up with democracy.

4.19

B&W Archive - flag

But it was Castro's nationalisation of American business and property that angered the US most.

4.24

Newsreel  UPSOF

Today we nationalized all our petroleum companies.

3 million of our brothers took control of the land.

And today we also nationalised the electricity company.

There are many villages in Cuba that have been helped.

Today we nationalised the phone company.

Until today our land was our tomb.

4.56

Cuban Missile Headlines

Ever since the US and Cuba have been at loggerheads, in 1962 to the brink of nuclear war.

5.05

International Business

During Cuba's nationalisation campaign properties owned by foreign business were also taken by the new government. The US says it hasn't been paid for those properties and now wants the rest of the world to stop trading with Cuba.

5.20

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton Spokesman

The objective of the Helms-Burton bill is to discourage foreign investment. But anybody who is financing the investment or any bank or subsidiary, anyone who is connected with that investment, will also be subjected to the Helms-Burton bill. So banks etc.,  it's across the board.

5.40

Carlos Salsamendi

President of the Chamber of

Commerce in Cuba

It's interesting to note that this year, after the Helms-Burton law was signed by the US president, we have forty joint  ventures  signed.

5.54

Revolutionary billboard

Trade with Cuba continues amid allegations that the American tactics are illegal.

5.59

Robert Muse

Mansfield & Muse

US International Law Expert

If the United States violates international law it loses the moral authority to demand other countries comply with that body law. I think that's the most adverse consequence of the Helms-Burton Act.

6.14

But despite the uproar the US clings to the belief that they have a right to punish foreign companies who break American law by doing business in Cuba.

6.26

Ambassador Hugo

Paeman

EU Washington

Representative

We are strongly opposed to the extra-territorial application of domestic law... something which the Americans would never accept from anybody else in the world and which we don't like because it is against the normal principle of international law.

6.44

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton Spokesman

Let's be honest about what this bill does. This bill only affects  companies that are trafficking in stolen American property. What our friends in Europe are doing is defending the right of their citizens to take property that has been stolen by Castro from American citizens and use it for profit.

6.58

Guantanamo Bay         

But in Guantanamo Bay, Cubans say it's the Americans who are guilty of stealing. This is a US naval base but it's in Cuba.

7.12

From here American forces, join the ill fated Brothers to the Rescue, in watching out for the fleeing Cuban rafters. Over the years thousands have been hauled from the sea and brought into Guantanamo.

Until 1995, they were offered US citizenship. Today they are returned to Cuba.

Many question whether Guantanamo Bay still serves the Americans a purpose. They have a perpetual lease on it and don't want to leave.

7.43

Roger Robinson

Casey Institute of Foreign Policy

Chief Economist under Reagan

It's largely a training base. Certainly it's not designed to be a platform for any intimidation or military action against the island of Cuba. It is still probably a useful basing structure for the United States  as Cuba still plays a prominent role in certainly advancing Russian military intelligence.

8.10

Robert Muse

Mansfield & Muse

US International Law Expert

We've often acted towards Cuba in a proprietorial fashion. In the course of the debate on the Helms Burton act

Congressman Torrichelli of New Jersey said that "Cuba will be absorbed into the South Eastern US in the post Castro era". And I think many elements of the Helms Burton law are reflective of such an attitude.  That somehow Cuba's ours.

8.37

Exiles

For 35 years Cuban dissidents have been welcomed in the US with fewer restrictions than any other group of immigrants. They  are the strongest voice against the Castro regime. They've built up a mini political and financial empire aimed at bringing down the Cuban government. Many believe the Helms-Burton bill would not have been passed without them.

9.00

Mark Seibal

Editor ‘Cuba News'

Cuba has now about 11 million people living on the island. Well, another 1.2/ 1.3 million people live in exile, but they still think of themselves as Cubans. Well what do you do with those people? Do you say.... and most of them are only 120 miles away from the island... do you say you have no right to be involved in the affairs of your home land.

9.24

Ramon Granda

Cuban Exile

And they spend money, a lot of it. If  you combine passion, voting and money in a democracy, that means that you influence policy and we influence policy towards the island.

9.43

Chess playing at ‘Little Havana' Club

Most exiles arrive in the US with a deep resentment human rights groups say 54000 have died for political reasons, under Castro, among them 12500 executed by firing squad.

9.55

Jose Cardinas

Washington Director The Cuban American

National Foundation

There is not a Cuban American who doesn't have a story to tell about the impact of that regime on their  personal situation. It is very passionate... because we're dealing with a fundamental issue here, and that is human life.

10.17

Boys/rollerblades

The new generation growing up in Havana may well see changes in their lifetime but for now this remains a one party state. There is no official opposition, indeed no form of dissent is tolerated. Students beware! In Cuba you can be locked up on a charge of insolence.

10.38

Ship ramming

Castro has done nothing  to help his reputation,

10.41

going so far as to authorise the ramming of boats carrying Cuban citizens trying to escape.

10.51

Dr. Roberto Brier

Corporate Lawyer

It may be true that in Cuba a citizen cannot go to a newspaper and place an advertisement against the government, and that is the Western concept of human rights.

There are however, basic human rights such as the right to education, to public health, to children being able to attend school for the whole time, that we consider to be the basic rights of any citizen and these rights are completely guaranteed in Cuba.

11.27

Hospital

In return for loyal support Castro promised to provide free education,, housing, food, and more. Cuban's life expectancy compares well with America's and tops many European nations. As a Soviet acolyte the Cubans thrived, achieving a reputation at the head of some of the Soviet Unions greatest schemes.

11.58

Daisy Felipe setup

Daisy Felipe, the hospital's director, is proud to be Cuban. The US embargo includes medical supplies.

12.02

Daisy Felipe

Directora Hospital Pediatrico

Provincial

Despite the ‘special period' we are going through at the moment and the blockade enforced by our enemies,  our health system is fully stocked.

The infrastructure to cover the patients is there, and I'm very proud to say that despite the fact that there are those who would wish to harm us. Those who want our children to come out of hospital unhappy have not succeeded because we don't lack any medicine, or any piece of equipment.

12.36

Chemist

Even with restricted access to the world Cuba has managed to maintain a lead in the pharmaceuticals industry. Cuban medical research has been at the forefront of many world breakthroughs. They were the first to come up with the Meningitis B vaccine.

12.54

Dr. Rosa Simeon

Ministerio de Ciencia Tecnologia Y Medio Ambiente

Our greatest scientific achievement has been the ability to vaccinate the entire Cuban population. And except for polio we can make all the vaccines we need.  So you can see that despite the embargo we have been able to keep up the Cuban vaccination programme.

13.30

Statue and pillars

And Cubans get free education to university level. It's  given them one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Their policy on education has helped to create a forward looking people, even if their government has resisted change.

13.44

Irene

School Teacher

Shoe Shine

The spirit of the revolution has evolved with the different

generations. It is not heard in the same way now as with my generation, when I was a student and with other students now. Students these days are far less concerned, they were born with the revolution in place. They are used to education being free.

14.13

Bread Giving

                                                                 There are no other Socialist regimes                                  surviving today which still hand out  free bread.

14.30

Handing out bus tickets

They also hand out bus tickets, clothes and other basic necessities. Cuba is a modern day anachronism but also a viable place to invest.

14.40

Ulrich Mockenhaupt

General Manager LTI Group

We have a very fortunate situation in this country. People have all enjoyed a good education. People are used to discipline. People can read and write. This is obviously a good base to start off a business.

15.01

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton Spokesman

Castro has looked at his compatriots, and he doesn't want to wind up like Jaruzelski or Gorbachev and he sees all the reformed leaders who have opened up their economies and who have instituted democratic reforms and none of them are in power any more. He doesn't want to end up like Jaruzelski and Gorbochev. He wants to keep control.

15.21

Ambassador Hugo Paeman

EU Washington Representative

and potato field

We think contacts. More contacts than ever, explaining, showing what the advantages of our regime, of our values, are. That's how we brought down the wall in Berlin. That's how the Soviet Union came down. If more and more contacts would take place between us Europeans, Americans, and whoever in the world, with Cubans, not with Fidel Castro or his people but with Cubans, then I think we would see very soon a development of the situation in Cuba.

15.56

MUSIC MONTAGE

16.14

Pedro Gonzales' Farm

In 1993 with the country facing food shortages the government decided undertake economic reforms. They gave 11% of Cuba back to some land owners.

This and other  reforms were widely hailed as an important step in the right direction. Just outside Havana Pedro Gonzales owns and runs this farm.

16.35

Pedro Gonzales

Private Farmer

Before the revolution we were the land owners. We got a subsidy for it  when the state took it over. Now again it's our land, so the state pays us for the produce. Some of us have this type of contract and some don't.

16.54

Old building

For the first time since they lost Soviet support the Cuban economy recovered last year but since the Helms Burton Bill was tabled 10 months ago it's taken another dive.

17.04

Market FX

pause

17.12

Market                         

Surplus produce from privately owned farms is sold here, in one of the now common free markets. It's an  uneasy alliance of Capitalist reforms and Socialist belief. But in the markets much of what is traded is still illegal. It's just that the authorities are becoming more adept at looking the other way.

17.30

Cash changing hands

And as the economy opens up it's not only the Cuban peso that's changing hands but ironically, also American dollars which Cubans can now put in the bank.

17.42

Carlos Salsamendi Chief of Chamber of Commerce in Cuba

I don't believe there have been any places in which so many

changes have taken place in such a small amount of time, maintaining, keeping the basic principles of the economic and political structure.

17.58

Jose Cardinas

Washington Director

The Cuban American National Foundation

Those reforms, or changes, would never have been implemented by Castro if he was not forced to do so by the current economic  conditions on the island I think  that if the United States unilaterally lifted the embargo it would totally remove any incentive for Fidel Castro to continue trying to make changes.

18.30

Encouragement of foreign investment

In 1992 Cuba rewrote the law to allow in foreign business. But companies working in Cuba still face major restrictions carrying echoes of totalitarianism.  One of the most disliked hangovers from the past are the labour laws restricting employers from dealing directly with their workers.

18.49

Amado Fakhre

Lebanese Foreign Investor

They force the joint  venture to take on employees through the government agency. It ends up creating a situation where there isn't a general identification between employer and employee to maximise profits.

19.11

Ambassador Hugo Paeman

EU Washington Representative

There is certainly not  yet political democracy. There's certainly not yet a market economy. Cuba is still an undeveloped country. It certainly needs a lot of investment for its development and I think our people would like to do this. We came to the conclusion that the conditions are not right, are not there, for having this kind of relationship with Cuba... at least for the moment.

19.47

Oil Well

Cuba has some oil but still imports 70% of what it needs. The US dominated IMF and the World Bank won't deal with them, so  they must resort to expensive private finance costing them far more than any other country pays. And if Helms Burton really starts to bite it's going to get even more expensive.

20.11

Riad Bassatne

Oil Importer

The total invoice for oil in Cuba is about 800 million dollars. They are paying something around 15% over and above the normal prices.

20.26

Sugar

Fresh sugar cane juice is a favourite tipple of the Cubans and here they also turn it into oil. As the world's largest sugar producers they like to barter it for their fuel and there's always a queue of businessmen lining up.

20.37

Riad Bassatne

Oil Importer

In fact it was only the information that I was receiving from newspapers that there is no gasoline, there is no light, everybody's on a bicycle... there is a shortage of oil. So I took the chance and I came here

and I started meeting the right people and we were able to make our first contract.

21.07

White House

Following the West's de facto victory over the Soviet block Cuba seems to many Americans like unfinished business. Cuba's economic reforms cut little ice in Washington where they  are instead renewing and tightening measures against Castro.

Helms-Burton setup

The Helms Burton Act is sponsored by he Republican Senators Jesse Helms and Dan Burton. Their bill has significantly hardened America's Cuba policy.

21.31

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton

Spokesman

Up until that point the embargo was done by executive order which meant that any President at any time could by simply signing a piece of paper end the embargo on Cuba or reduce the embargo. It's now codified by law and to lift the embargo and normalize relations with Castro would require an act of Congress.

21.47

Congress

Most controversially Helms Burton will allow US citizens to sue foreign companies or individuals using American property that was taken by Castro.

Many Europeans have negotiated compensation deals for their own properties. The US alone remains adamant, words and diplomacy won't work.

22.05

Roger Robinson

Casey Institute of Foreign Policy &

Chief Economist Under Reagan

We're certainly going to need more than words and therefore I think that it's tragic that we're seeing yet again this ideological gulf this disconnect between Europe and the United States playing out as it is in the Helms-Burton and Demotto cases, where we're legislating now against each other... we're making it illegal to comply with one another's legal and other regimes.

22.33

Bank of New York

Its properties like these which are at the core of the dispute. This used to be a branch of the Bank of New York today it's The Bank of Cuba.

22.44

To the US it represents a huge investment and they still want to be paid for it.

22.49

Oil Refinery

This refinery is disputed property.

22.54

Domus

Mexican Telecommunications Company

And Domus, a Mexican telephone company is in a 1B$ deal to modernise the antiquated Cuban phone system. But by using telephone lines that used to belong to a US company, they risk a law suit. Letters have been sent to executives telling them they'll be refused US visas.

23.12

Statue of Liberty

Companies that do business involving confiscated properties can now also be sued by Cuban Americans who were not even US citizens at the time of nationalisation.

23.24

Mark Seibal

Editor ‘Cuba News'

International law has always given a sovereign government sovereignty over the real estate within its boundaries. International law has a different  view when you expropriate the property belonging to a foreign national. For the first time the US is saying these people who are now our nationals.... we're going to protect their property rights as if they were our nationals when you expropriated their property 30 years ago.

23.58

Robert Muse

Mansfield & Muse

US International Law Expert

I've calculated between three and four hundred thousand such law suits....  by comparison the number of properties subject to claims by US citizens when taken would number less than 500.

24.13

Jose Cardinas

Washington Director

The Cuban American National Foundation

Fidel Castro has never made any serious attempt to offer American property owners compensation. To this day what Castro offers in terms of compensation to American property owners in Cuba is a counter-claim of $40 billion that he says the United States owes Cuba for the implementation of the embargo.

24.41

Constitution Avenue

Every six months the president must review the parts of Helms Burton which concern the international community. Many believe it's just a ploy to maximise uncertainty.

27.52

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton Spokesman

This is the law. Everybody's saying is it going to be softened, is it going to be withdrawn, is it going to be repealed? The Congress has passed this law... there is no support in the Congress to repeal the Helms-Burton bill and they're going to have to get used to it.

25.05

Cubans on rafts

For years the US ignored the small planes illegally crossing into Cuban airspace. When the MiG jets fired their missiles that US ploy had become explosive.

25.17

Montage

Dancing

Pause

25.31

Montage

It's a generation since the revolution and young Cubans today have a more modern outlook. A new breed of young Cuban officials are most responsible for the latest reforms.

25.45

And the exile community has also come forward a generation. Time may be gradually healing their rift, if not that of the US and Cuban government. Some exiles have even started to drift back.

26.00

Bar

As Cuba's links with the world have grown many have realised today they risk little by returning.

26.04

Ramon Grande setup

Ramon was born in Miami. He visited Cuba for the first time recently.

26.14

Cigar factory

Home for Ramon is Pinar del Rio, one of the largest tobacco areas in Cuba. Ramon comes from a long line of aristocratic tobacco growers who supported Castro's dictatorial predecessor. He finds it difficult to come to terms with socialism.

26.33

Ramon Granda (V/0)

Cuban Exile

My father, grandfather and great grandfather were congressmen

from the province of Pinar Del Rio, and represented the district around Mantwa. My grandfather was a landowner and involved in the business of tobacco and cattle. On my mothers side my grandmother and grandfather were political prisoners. On my father's side my Uncle Lewis was a political prisoner.

27.02

Ramon Granda

Cuban Exile

I believe the Helms Burton law is irrelevant. We have a family squabble. We also were caught up in the cold war. Whether it was by design as the exile community says, or by necessity as the people here say is irrelevant. The fact is that we have a family squabble with ideological over tones.

27.26

Many more moderate exiles believe that the US government is fanning the flames of their conflict for its own political purposes.

27.38

Ramon Granda

Cuban Exile

It's not a US problem. It's not a European Union problem. It's not a Latin American problem. It's a Cuban problem.

27.47

Ships and Billboards

Canada is Cuba's largest investor and has invested $500M. The business world could easily generate the Cuban renewal needed  so badly. It's left the them feeling frustrated and deeply wronged.

28.02

Ibrahim Ferradaz Garcia

Minister for Foreign Investment & Economic Cooperation

First of all, it is not just a question of solidarity with

Cuba, nor merely question of economic interests.  Above all every country with any self-respect should stand up to that legislation in that it attacks their own sovereignty.               

28.22

Sea and big building

In large much of the world Castro still generates huge admiration. Many would be sad to see him go.

28.32

Timothy Towell

Former US Section Officer in Cuba

There's a long romantic tradition both in Latin America and Europe to sort of admire Fidel. A man who's been there longer than almost anybody, a man who's told the Americans, the imperialists the Yankees, the Imperialist, to stuff it, if you'll excuse the vulgarity, for decades.

28.50

Helms-Burton Mural

And Castro's old fire has not yet left him. Daubed on the walls of Havana angry caricatures of the US as the world's financial bully boy. Clinton recently offered $8 billion of aid to a post-Castro, democratic Cuba. ‘You will never devour this lamb!'

Castro cried in answer.

29.14

Factory

Evidence is that Helms Burton is putting investors off. And with few new goods coming into the country industry here is unlikely to come out of the dark ages any time soon. As things have again become tougher Cuba has been forced to find new ways of circumventing the US blockade.

29.39

Carlos Salsamendi

President of the Chamber of Commerce in Cuba

They come to us to see how we can help them to be able to go around and not be targeted by the law. And we do help them out. If they want to change their name, we change their name... if they want to change their address, we change their address - there's no problem.

29.59

Tourism

Sea, sand and a tropical climate have long guaranteed Cuba a place

in the hearts of tourists. Tourism represents the biggest foreign earner. The German LTI Group is one of Cuba's biggest investors.

A million tourists came to Cuba last year bringing in nearly one and a half billion dollars.

30.21

Ulrich Mockenhaupt

General Manager LTI Group

As tourism has been declared industry no 1 as the biggest earner  of foreign exchange all doors are open and green lights for everyone to support growth in this industry.   Last year we had an average occupancy of 86%. That is very high even for other destinations in the Caribbean.  We have future plans to extend our operations in this country. If we felt it would be difficult we wouldn't do that.

30.51

Beach                           

And the tourists are perhaps the most effective of international diplomats. Whatever America does it's unlikely to stop more and more travelers seeking out the unspoiled Cuban destinations. That means more contacts between ordinary Cubans and their Western counterparts.

31.20

Ibrahim Ferradaz Garcia

Minister for Foreign Investment & Economic Cooperation

I think the mere fact of having a million visitors is important enough in itself, because they will be able to see for themselves that in Cuba we are neither so completely terrible as our worst enemies would have you think, nor are we as fantastic as our best friends would make us out to be.  We are a country with virtues and defects carrying on a head on battle to maintain our sovereignty, to maintain our independence and our victory.

31.56

Nuclear Power Station

But the US insists that Cuba remains a potent danger on their shores. They believes this nuclear power station could cause a disaster stretching deep into the US.

32.06

Roger Robinson

Casey Institute of Foreign Policy &

Chief Economist Under Reagan

The shoddy construction, the defective building materials and welds and the array of irretrievable flaws is so profound and pronounced that there is no expert who I've talked to, or who the congress of the United States has talked to who think that it is anything other than a Chernobyl type accident in the making.

32.38

Old men

The world is not what it was when Cuba's old revolutionaries first came to power.

32.47

Castro Archive

When they took the government  in 1959 they promised their citizens freedom and justice after the brutal Batista government.  And today as ordinary Cubans are again suffering it seems history could repeat itself.

33.04

Revolution

A new revolution promoted by the US to bring down Castro would  plunge the country and its neighbours into a violent morass.

33.18

Ambassador Hugo Paeman

EU Washington Representative

We don't think it's a good way to have economic sanctions as an alternative to diplomacy or war. We don't want to have a third category and we'd prefer to have diplomacy.

Rafts

33.37

Jose Cardinas

Washington Director The Cuban American National Foundation

Fidel Castro exists, his raison d'être is to fight the Americans, to oppose the Americans, to upset the Americans, so I don't think there is a policy maker in Washington who seriously believes Fidel Castro is serious  about negotiating some thing of that nature with the US government.

34.06

Roger Robinson

Casey Institute of Foreign Policy & Chief Economist Under Reagan

We get into either some sort of limp diplomacy, words, or we have to revert  immediately to military action. And all the myriad costs, uncertainties and spiraling out of control that that could portend, so be careful what you wish for in Europe.

34.33

Brothers to the Rescue

Cuba's shooting of two of these light aircraft was a dangerous escalation of the conflict. Activists  couldn't taunt Castro with journeys into Cuba of this kind if the United States didn't want them to. That laisser faire  attitude is likely to give Cuban exiles encouragement to go further in the future.

35.01

Boy on Bike

In Cuba Helms Burton has provoked a new deluge of anti US rhetoric. Cubans insist reform just won't happen overnight.

35.08

Ibrahim Ferradaz Garcia

Minister for Foreign Investment & Economic Cooperation

Our final aim is  to uphold and maintain our country's  victory, and to continue to fight for a more just and equitable society And financial profit, made in various ways and including the profits of foreign investment  should go towards the benefit of the whole society.

35.36

Business

For Cuba a thriving market is their only chance of survival. For entrepreneurs the opportunities in Cuba are big. Their sugar crop is something the world needs and that's sure to generate business, with or without Helms-Burton.

35.51

Amado Fakhre

Lebanese Foreign Investor

I'm personally not politically inclined at all. I'm here to invest, to make money to create a better environment for myself  and for my partners. So I think that the Cuban system, whether it's fair or unfair, right or wrong, is none of my business.

36.09

Communist Statue

Cuba's artwork is a monument to a system out of step with Western standards. How fast that changes depends on a combination of dialogue, embargo and dollars.

36.19

Marc Thiessen

Helms-Burton Spokesman

Every Canadian dollar, every deutschmark, every pound, every peso that goes into Castro's coffers puts off the day when the embargo will have its intended effect which is to squeeze the Castro regime out of power.

36.32

Traffic

Overnight Cuban society is being transformed. Most countries around the world are prepared to wait for that process to unfold. Only America thinks differently.  And many are questioning a foreign policy designed around yesterdays Cold War paranoia.

Ends 37'30