ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
NOTE: Above
Faced with a tough call over whether to impose new anti-Cuba sanctions, President Clinton Tuesday decided yes - and no.
In a politically calibrated decision, the White House sought to split the difference between anti-Castro lawmakers eager to tighten the economic squeeze on Fidel Castro's regime, and European allies, who are bitterly opposed to measures punishing many foreign companies for doing business in Cuba.
Clinton said in a statement that he would allow a controversial provision of the so-called Helms-Burton law to formally go into effect on schedule Aug. 1.
The provision, known as Title III, permits U.S. citizens for the first time to sue foreign companies that benefit from property expropriated after the 1959 Communist revolution in Cuba.
However, Clinton said he was suspending the right to file such lawsuits for at least six months, an escape clause he had demanded be included in the controversial law.
The president said he would use that time to build international support for a series of steps to promote democracy in Cuba. Those steps include increasing pressure on the regime to open up politically and economically, supporting forces for change on the island, withholding foreign assistance to Cuba and promoting business practices that will help bring democracy to the Cuban workplace.
Predictably, both anti-Castro lawmakers and European allies were left fuming.
Congressional Republicans charged that the president blinked in a face-off with Castro and caved in to pressure from foreign governments. The Europeans and Canadians said they would continue to draw up plans to retaliate against Washington's anti-Cuba trade laws.
Bob Dole, the likely Republican nominee, accused Clinton of ``trying to have it both ways on U.S. policy towards Cuba.''
Such protests aside, Clinton's action is likely to have the desired effect of discouraging foreign investment in Cuba as a lever to pressure the Castro regime and avoid a fight with major trading partners.
Meanwhile, foreign companies that ``traffic'' in confiscated American assets - an extraordinarily broad term that can extend from companies profiting from former American-owned properties to businesses that supply them - face the possibility that they could be sued in U.S. courts at some future date.
``In a sense, the clock is ticking,'' said Sandy Berger, deputy national security adviser.
Clinton said the effort to cooperate with major trading partners, while keeping open the threat of lawsuits, was the best way to step up pressure on Cuba. He said he planned to name a special envoy to seek allied cooperation.
``By working with our allies - not against them - we will avoid a split that the Cuban regime will be sure to exploit,'' he said.
Clinton said he would decide whether to extend that waiver beyond the initial six-month period ``based upon whether others have joined us in promoting democracy in Cuba.''
But the United States is currently alone in seeking to use economic sanctions to force political change in Cuba, and many nations are angry at the efforts to use American law and American courts to punish foreign companies doing business there.
In response to the president's decision, the European Union issued a statement in Brussels, Belgium, saying it would still proceed with plans to retaliate for other elements of the Helms-Burton law. Canada, though encouraged by Clinton's decision to delay the lawsuits, said it would proceed with its own retaliatory legislation.
Leaving it to others to explain his decision, Clinton's written statement sounded tough enough to satisfy Cuban Americans and accommodating enough to get along with other governments.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Castro. color.by CNB