The squeeze on Cuba now includes compensation lawsuits : NPR

ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

The Trump administration continues to increase pressure on Cuba. The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group are in the Caribbean. The US military announced the increase the same day…

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TODD ​​BLANCHE: We are announcing an indictment charging Raúl Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. persons.

FLORIDA: Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche has filed charges against Cuba’s former president, who remains one of the island nation’s most influential political figures. This comes on top of the US blockade on oil shipments to the country, which has caused a rapid economic collapse. And also this week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a U.S. company seeking to recoup its losses on property seized during the revolution, allowing a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in compensation to move forward. The United States has long demanded that Cuba reimburse people and businesses whose property the communist government took.

We called on American University professor William LeoGrande – an expert on US policy towards Latin America – to help us understand how this long-unresolved issue fits into the context of the current political crisis on the island. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Thank you for joining us.

WILLIAM LEOGRANDE: With pleasure.

FLORIDA: Castro’s government sees all kinds of private property – U.S. oil refineries, sugar plantations, shipping docks – but also the homes, businesses and ranches of Cubans who fled the revolution and moved to the United States. Why is the US demand that these assets be returned or compensated so important at this time?

LEOGRANDE: Well, it actually goes back to the origins of the split between Cuba and the United States in 1959 and 1960. The very first expropriation carried out by the Cuban government was a land reform that took over sugar plantations, many of which were owned by American investors. And then, in 1960, Castro seized almost all American property and, over the next few months, most private property owned by Cubans. So that’s really the fundamental grievance, if you will, that the United States had with Cuba. Since then, all American presidents who have discussed with Cuba the possibility of improving their relations have always had the question of demands on the agenda.

FLORIDA: The United States has created a commission that handles claims from businesses and Cuban Americans who say Cuba owes them goods or compensation. These claims are worth approximately $9 billion. Cuba doesn’t have as much money to pay these claims. So how to solve this problem?

LEOGRANDE: No, Cuba certainly doesn’t have that amount of money. The Cuban government recognizes that it owes compensation to U.S. investors who lost their property, and it has in fact settled claims with investors from other countries who lost their property at that time. But Cuba has counterclaims against the United States for damage caused by the embargo and by the CIA’s paramilitary war against the island in the 1960s. But if both sides have the political will to resolve the problem, there are a variety of different models that could be used that could potentially open a path other than just Cuba paying a lump sum of $9 billion, which of course they cannot do.

FLORIDA: Congress says these companies and people must be reimbursed or have their property returned before the United States lifts its decades-old economic embargo on Cuba. Does this congressional requirement enshrined in law complicate efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the current crisis?

LÉOGRANDE: Oh, that certainly complicates things. The Cuban Freedom and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 states that U.S. claimants and Cuban-American claimants must be compensated for the U.S. economic embargo to be lifted. Title III of this law also gives plaintiffs the right to sue, in a United States federal court, any person making beneficial use of their nationalized property. The Supreme Court case was a case brought under Title III of that law.

FLORIDO: Professor, what incentive does Cuba have to recognize these demands for reimbursement to people for property seized, you know, almost seventy years ago?

LÉOGRANDE: Well, the first is to pave the way for foreign investors to return to the island. It desperately needs an injection of foreign capital. So to attract foreign companies and eventually American companies, these complaints will have to be resolved. The Cuban-American demands are more severe because those involved were Cuban citizens at the time. It was Cuban property. The Cuban government therefore believes that this is none of the United States’ business.

But I think the Cuban government would still be wise to come up with some sort of formula to compensate Cuban-American claimants in exchange for their return to the island and their economic reengagement with the island. Cuban-Americans, because they have an emotional attachment to their homeland, are more willing to take these risks and more likely to be the first to enter and revive the Cuban economy.

FLORIDO: You know, everywhere you go in the Cuban-American community, you hear these stories of… Castro took my family’s house, my family’s ranch, my family’s business. It’s such an open wound within the community after all these decades. Why is it still so important that people get compensation for land that may have been taken from their grandparents who are no longer even alive?

LÉOGRANDE: Well, because it’s so deeply personal. I know a number of Cuban Americans who are less interested in getting their property back than in having the Cuban government acknowledge that it did them an injustice and compensate them for it. And I think that would go a long way to healing some of these wounds and bringing the Cuban population and the diaspora together.

FLORIDO: I spoke with William LeoGrande, a government professor and Cuba expert at American University here in Washington. Professor, thank you very much for joining us.

LÉOGRANDE: Thank you for inviting me.

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