Cuban embargo prevented attacks, U.S. official says

By Jane Sutton

CORAL GABLES, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. economic embargo against Cuba has deprived its communist government of funds it might otherwise have used for military adventures, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said on Thursday.

The Cuban-born Gutierrez, who left his homeland with his family as a child, said the trade and financial embargo imposed by Washington three years after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 had been "an absolute and resounding" success.

At a Latin American conference sponsored by The Miami Herald, Gutierrez cited the 1962 Cuban missile crisis as one reason the United States sought to deprive Castro's government of funds.

"Think about in 1962 when they had nuclear weapons in Cuba, they wanted to keep that weapon. They wanted to use that weapon if necessary," he said.

"So think about what would have happened if that regime would have had more resources. History doesn't credit us for what doesn't happen. You never get credit for what you prevented," he said.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque recently called U.S. enforcement of the economic sanctions "ferocious and cruel."

The United Nations General Assembly has approved annual resolutions since 1992 telling Washington to lift the embargo. It is expected to do so again on October 30, but the U.S. government says the embargo will remain until the communist nation moves toward multi-party democracy.

Gutierrez said the embargo provided the Cuban government with a convenient excuse for its economic failures, but had no impact on Cuban citizens forced to stand in ration lines.

"When they have had resources, they've had military adventures in Africa, military adventures in Central America," he said. "When they have had resources, the Cuban people haven't seen a better life. ... It doesn't make a bit of difference for the people of Cuba."

He called Cuba "the human rights travesty of the hemisphere" but said the United States recognized that Cuba's future was in the hands of its citizens and had no plans for military intervention.

"The U.S. doesn't have any military plans to go into Cuba, we don't have any imperial aspirations to go into Cuba. People in Cuba are constantly hearing we do because that's a great pretext, it's a great excuse that the regime has to continue to clamp down and clamp down and clamp down on the Cuban people."