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July
11, 2003 Port
signs first pact with Cuba HAVANA - Cuba signed its first strategic shipping agreement with a U.S. port on Thursday and a Port of Corpus Christi official said the act could help erode the long-standing U.S. embargo of Cuba. "It's another very progressive step toward the ultimate abolition of an embargo whose time has long passed," said Ruben Bonilla Jr., chairman of the port's commission. " We also are very hopeful that this step will ultimately lead to an opening of tourist opportunities," Bonilla said at a news conference. (Port officials said they knew Bonilla and Port Commissioner Robert J. Gonzalez were in Cuba for a meeting but did not know that the two had signed a strategic agreement. (Officials said they tried to reach the delegation in Cuba after learning about the news from the Caller-Times but were unable to make contact. (Port Secretary Bill Dodge also did not know about the agreement, but he said it will make the port more diversified. ("Mr. Bonilla's actions today take the port a step away from being heavily dependent on oil and petrochemical industries toward a more diverse economy, something this commission has been working hard to achieve," he said.) While Cuba has operating agreements with 11 other U.S. ports, the Corpus Christi deal is the first "agreement on strategic work" that sets out plans for future activity, said Pedro Alvarez, chairman of Cuba's food import agency, Alimport. It calls for initial bulk shipments followed by development of refrigerator and container shipping. (Dodge said the signing of the agreement with Alimport takes the port back to its roots as an agricultural port. ("It's also symbolic of the opening of trade between North and South America, where in the past it has traditionally been between East and West," he said.) Bonilla said that Corpus Christi, America's fifth largest port, hopes to take some of the business now going through Florida, which has a large population of Cuban exiles, many vehemently opposed to the socialist government here. He said it was curious that while much of the population of Florida opposes normalized relations with Cuba, "they receive the economic benefit" of trade. Mexican-Americans, who are a major part of the population in South Texas, have a less-hostile attitude toward Cuba and its socialist government. Criticizing U.S. travel restrictions on Cuba, Bonilla said, "We have generations of schoolchildren who have been denied the opportunity and cultural richness of visiting this wonderful community, this wonderful city and this wonderful nation." The Texas delegation follows the path of numerous other U.S. port, farm and industry groups that have visited Cuba since the U.S. government eased restrictions on farm and some other exports to Cuba in December 2001. Since then, Alvarez said, Cuba has contracted for more than $480 million in U.S. goods and has paid $339 million of that. The pace of contacts, if not contracts, had slowed after Cuba sentenced 75 dissidents to prison terms of six to 28 years in April, but a delegation from Iowa visited in May. The sentencing of the dissidents was among the factors that led the U.S. government to announce recently that it was going to tighten rules on U.S. visits to Cuba. Bonilla said Cuba already is among the top 40 export markets for U.S. farm goods. "It's a mere ripple in what will ultimately be a tidal wave of commerce," he said. Staff writer Alison Zielenbach contributed to this report. Contact
her at 886-3678 or zielenbacha@caller.com
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