Background on the Conflict
Communism and the Cuban Revolution
Since the 1960's the "Cuban threat" has been a primary focus of the United States' international relations. As a result of Castro's 1959 revolution, thousands of Cubans fled the island and headed for the democratic shores of Florida, mainly the Miami area. These exiles quickly regrouped and formed anti-Castro organizations that continually set the tone for the relationship between Cuba and the United States. Another consequence of the new regime, initiated on May 17, 1959, was the instillation of a new law entitled the Agrarian Reform Law. This land reform law prohibited ownership of farms larger than 1000 acres, with the exception of sugar and rice plantations. Most US owned land in Cuba was much greater than 1000 acres. In response to this law, back in the United States, the Wall Street price of Cuban sugar plummeted and the American media accused Cuba of becoming Communist. To add to the already tense relationship between the United States and Cuba, the Castro regime began exporting sugar to the former Soviet Union in case the US decided to cut off all imports from Cuba. To authorize this growing union between the Soviet Union and the Castro regime, in February 1961, the two parties signed the Cuban-Soviet trade agreement in which the Soviet Union agreed to give Cuba crude oil. The US and British response to this agreement was to refuse to refine the oil coming from the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower Administration then cut the Cuban sugar import quota by 700,000 tons and Castro responded by seizing all American refineries. Khrushchev then increased the Soviet's import of Cuban sugar and promised Soviet missiles to defend Cuba against a possible American attack.
The Bay of Pigs and the Embargo
The tension mounting between the U.S. and Cuba reached a climax when on April 16, 1961 approximately 1,300 CIA trained Cuban exiles left Nicaragua in American boats and planes to invade Cuba and liberate their fellow Cubans. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a complete disaster and the exiles who weren't killed were taken prisoner. More than a year later, in August 1962, U-2 planes flying over Cuba brought back a photograph confirming that the Soviets were building launch sites in San Cristobal (Cuba) for medium and long range ballistic missiles. The Kennedy administration responded by trying to convince other Latin American states to join the US in the embargo against Cuba. Some headway was made toward alleviating the ever mounting tension between the United States and Cuba when on May 5, 1992 President Bush signed the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA) which, among other things, permitted US NGO's to make humanitarian donations to Cuban NGO's and also allowed US citizens to travel to Cuba for educational or religious reasons.
The Helms-Burton Act
However, on Saturday, February 24, 1996, two planes carrying four Cuban exiles from the Miami based anti-Castro group, Brothers to the Rescue, were shot down over what the Clinton administration says was international airspace, but what the Castro regime maintains was within Cuba's territorial limits. The planes were dropping anti-Castro literature on Havana. The U.S. response to this action was the Helms-Burton Act, formally known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. The goal of the Act is to discourage foreign investments in Cuba and consequently quicken the fall of the economy and ultimately of the Castro regime. The Act refuses visas to anyone who is now a U.S. citizen and who had any kind of interest in property confiscated in the 1959 land reform. In addition, the Act permits American citizens who owned land confiscated in 1959 to file a suit in the U.S. against any foreign company using that land. However, the President can waive this provision every six months so courts don't get jammed with lawsuits. The Helms-Burton Act also closed off all charter air flights to Cuba, restricted movements of Cuban diplomats in the U.S., and expanded the broadcasting range of "Radio Marti", a government endorsed, anti-Castro radio station. Thus, in this web page we will explore the international view on the Helms-Burton Act and the expected consequences that the Act will have on international relations.
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Copyright ©1997, Julie Ogonowski