September 12, 2005

Advocacy Agreements?

Here's a very interesting read from the Miami Herald on the resignation of John Kavulich from the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

The money quote, at least for me, is here:

But as Cuban imports of U.S. goods increased, Kavulich began going public with controversial issues. The trade council's newsletter was first to report that Havana was buying goods from specific U.S. states in order to push their congressional representatives to vote for easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba.

It also first reported in 2003 that Havana was requiring U.S. firms and some U.S. politicians to sign ''advocacy agreements'' -- promising they would lobby Congress to ease the sanctions -- before Cuba would buy their goods.

''These agreements are a corruption of the commercial process,'' Kavulich complained at the time. ``Once you include an advocacy clause, they're no longer commercial agreements; they're political documents.''

That, my friends, is called extortion.

Posted by Val Prieto at September 12, 2005 10:14 AM

Comments

Well, well, well. I had missed this, but here's a reprint of an article from the Herald a year ago that talks about the advocacy agreements.

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y04/oct04/04e6.htm

I wonder if Kathleen "Hurricane" Blanco signed one?

Posted by: Juan Paxety at September 12, 2005 11:57 AM

Totally creepy. Exotortion indeed.

Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at September 12, 2005 03:21 PM

I wonder how many academics castro has pulled this on? I can smell it from their direction already. Think about all those schmucks who signed the 'Free The Five' document? I bet there's a lot of quid pro quo in all that.

Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at September 12, 2005 03:23 PM


Umm, doesn't extortion imply that you are getting something from someone they ordinarily would not want to? In these cases US farmers and states are the one's profitting from sales to Cuba, so if they don't want to sign something, they don't have to. Or do you all believe Castro is going to ave em offed like the supposed gangster is is?

Posted by: Matthew Glesne at September 12, 2005 03:58 PM


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