AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Democracy Now!, Pacifica Radio’s daily grassroots election show, heard in states throughout the country, and we’re hoping more states will be picking us up. Tell your friends to call their public radio stations, community radio stations, university radio stations, and ask those stations to run Pacifica’s Democracy Now!

Right now we’re turning southward. We’re going to take a look at Florida and also Cuba, on this day that President Clinton is signing the Helms-Burton Act at a White House ceremony. It was passed in response to Cuba’s downing of two civilian planes last month. In addition to stricter sanctions, the bill also gives Cuban exiles the right to sue over property they lost during Fidel Castro’s regime. And also, anti-Castro feeling is strong among many Cuban exiles and immigrants in South Florida, one of the Super Tuesday primary states. Clinton is seeking new appreciation from Cuban exiles who generally vote Republican.

Joining us to talk about this issue are three people. We’re joined in Florida by Frank Manitzas, who is former Latin American bureau chief for ABC News. He’s covered Cuban politics for 35 years. We’re also joined by Jane Franklin, contributing editor to Cuba Update and author of The Cuban revolution and the United States: A Chronological History. And joining us from New York is New York Congressmember Charles Rangel, who’s been quite outspoken on the issue of Cuba.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Congressman Rangel. your response today to President Clinton’s signing of the Helms-Burton Act?

REP. CHARLES RANGEL: Well, the act is unenforceable. It’s really an embarrassment to all of our trading partners to think that we can dictate to Mexico and to Canada and to Europe and Asia as to whom they can trade with, and just refuse to allow them to come into the United States if indeed they’re occupying property that at one time belonged to a Cuban American here. But the sad thing is that the president said it was a bad bill before, and now, because of the tragedy of Americans being shot down near or over Cuba, all of a sudden it’s become a political issue in a presidential year. And with all of the sympathy and appreciation I’ve had for those courageous pilots to risk their lives, I just don’t believe that our foreign and trade policy should be governed by people who differ with the president of the United States, or the Congress, for that matter.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman, isn’t this somehow a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement to now go after Canada and to sanction and put obstacles in the way of Canadian trade, which does trade with Cuba?

REP. CHARLES RANGEL: What this really does is magnify all of the violations that America has committed in terms of international law. The embargo itself is violative of our own trade law, as well as international law, and we’re the only nation in the entire world that supports this. We’re constantly condemned. But the whole idea now that we will have extralegal authority over the jurisdiction of foreigners is absolutely a theory that is embarrassing. It is unenforceable. And nations that are kind to us just say that it’s a stupid law, and the president is in panic over attempting to pick up some votes in Florida. And others, of course, are not that gentle in just saying this is the working of an arrogant country that believes it can dictate its policy to the entire world. It’s an embarrassment to us. This does not mean that I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for those people seeking democracy in what could be considered their homeland, but for the president to take all of the power that we’ve given to him and to use it in this petty political way by signing this legislation, it degrades everything that we do as a nation, and certainly everything we do internationally. We are the laughingstock of the international community, because we cannot enforce this law.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Rangel, we want to move south for a minute to Miami, where Frank Manitzas is standing by. Can you tell us, do you see the signing of this bill today, the Helms-Burton bill, as very much tied into the Florida primary that’s taking place? And what are Cuban radio and leaders saying about the primary and the signing of the bill today?

FRANK MANITZAS: Well, Congressman Rangel is correct. This so-called Libertad Act is really just a graffiti, a piece of graffiti, because I’ve never seen a law in the United States that includes so many paragraphs trying to justify why they are saying this should be a law. And it’s all in those 40 pages, all single-spaced. But here, as you can imagine, the Cuban American community, that is vociferous, is very much in favor of the bill.

And President Clinton, who originally had planned to sign the bill on Wednesday, is doing it today, and this is taking all the spotlight away from the Republican primary that’s going on here, that Dole is expected to win. But the interesting thing is that neither Dole nor Forbes nor Buchanan are really suggesting anything stronger than what the president himself is doing. There have been some clips that go out by Pat Buchanan of “We ought to try these people,” who says — Bob Dole and Buchanan said, “We ought to shoot them out of the sky,” etc., etc. But they don’t really mean that, and they laugh when they say it, in a way.

But here, it is serious business. And what it has done, unfortunately, it has put the Americans and the Cuban Americans who were seeking a change in Cuba, a peaceful change in Cuba, on the defensive, and now it’s going to be much more difficult to have talks that could lead to that.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. It says — or, polls show that Bob Dole is ahead in Florida of Clinton when it comes to Cuban exiles and who they prefer. But in 1992, wasn’t it candidate Clinton who signed first on to the Cuba — so-called Cuba Democracy Act of New Jersey Congressman Robert Torricelli, forcing Bush to do the same? In fact, he has been much more out there on behalf of these Cuban Americans, whose money he has taken for his campaign, than any other candidate.

REP. CHARLES RANGEL: If we want to hear an inside story on that, during the Bush administration, I was asked by the assistant secretary of state whether or not I would debate the Torricelli bill on the floor, because the Bush administration was against it. I was surprised that a Republican administration would ask me to do it, but I guess they felt that it was better that a Democrat would do it, rather than they lose grace with the Cuban Americans in Miami that were supporting the bill. And so I had agreed to do it, until such time as I saw it coming on the floor in a manner that restricted debate. I called the State Department, and they said, “Oh, Rangel, I forgot to tell you. We’re supporting the bill.” I said, “I don’t believe this!” And I went into detail with the conversations and the briefings I had by State. They said, “Oh, no. Your boy Clinton changed his mind in Miami, and we’re changing our mind in Washington.” So Clinton really was against Torricelli, as was Bush, but when the Clinton handlers in Florida decided that it would be in his best interest to support it, the Bush administration changed its mind and supported it.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it also came at a very key time for the candidate, Bill Clinton. I think it was the time that the Gennifer Flowers scandal was blossoming, that his money was at an all-time low, and that he was being promised hundreds of thousands of dollars from Miami Cuban Americans.

FRANK MANITZAS: That’s correct. It was that — it was timing that did it. He desperately needed money at the time. The Cubans came through with it. And what happened is that, to back up what Congressman Rangel said, at that time in Foreign Affairs magazine, Jean Kirkpatrick had written a big article against the Torricelli bill. And, of course, it was out of date by the time it came out, because everybody was for it at that time, thanks to Clinton.

REP. CHARLES RANGEL: It’s interesting to note that every secretary of state, Democrat, under Democratic administrations, or Republican, and every one that had anything to do with the Latin American desk, say that the embargo, in its present form, is against our national interest. Of course, that includes Kissinger. It includes Eagleburger. And it includes Bernie Aronson, who was assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration. So, with those who respect international law and value what we do in foreign and trade policy, they know that this is merely a political thing. And it’s sad, because no one is more of a politician than I am. I love it. But to get our foreign policy and our trade policy at the detriment of the United States — we are the leaders in encouraging trades, whether it’s the General Agreement on Tariffs and Taxes or whether it’s the North American Free Trade Agreement. That’s our thing, and we hope to become a competitive leader. We can’t do it unless everyone participates. And so, if we want to break the spirit of trade with Cuba, now for us to bring in all of our trading partners that we work so hard in getting to sign agreements, and say, “Unless you boycott Cuba, we’ve got to penalize you” — they’re not afraid of being penalized. We can’t use our courts to drag in all of these cases. Mind you, over $50,000, so we know which Cuban Americans we’re trying to get their attention. It’s a sad day in American history.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to New York Congressmember Charles Rangel. Also we’re joined in Miami by Frank Manitzas, who’s former Latin American bureau chief for ABC News, covering Cuban politics for 35 years. And I want to bring Jane Franklin into the conversation, contributing editor to Cuba Update and author of The Cuban Revolution and the United States: A Chronological History. Jane, you’ve been documenting these moves over the years. How does the new Helms-Burton Act, which President Clinton is signing today — how does it increase the stranglehold from the so-called Cuba Democracy Act signed just a few years ago and introduced by Torricelli from New Jersey?

JANE FRANKLIN: Well, it simply tightens the domestic regulations of that bill even more and takes it to the international community, as well, as Congressman Rangel has pointed out here and Frank Manitzas is dealing with the graffiti-like character of this bill. It is — it is ludicrous. But, unfortunately, it’s also — now all of these regulations are going to be codified into law. All these previous regulations and rules that had been the prerogative of the president will now be codified into law. And so, our right to travel, our right to free trade, our fundamental rights are being codified into law as being violatable.

AMY GOODMAN: Meaning that the president will no longer have deciding power here?

JANE FRANKLIN: He will no longer be able to impose or lift these regulations, like the travel ban. For instance, the Carter administration was able to lift the travel ban, which has to be reinforced every six months or goes out of existence. If this law goes far enough and they are able to codify this, which the law says they will, that means that those regulations will be part of our daily lives in a way that they weren’t before.

And it’s interesting, Amy, on Democracy Now!, because this puts Cuban policy into the hands of the far right, Jesse Helms and the Cuban American National Foundation. And the far right generally says they want to get the government off our backs, but they are the very ones that support legislation that intrudes even more against our fundamental human rights in this country.

And I’d like to point out that in these international ramifications of this law that Congressman Rangel was talking about, that Jesse Helms is imposing his own agenda, because he, by putting in here that the United States can deny entry to corporate officers and so on of these foreign firms who trade with Cuba, he is enforcing his own idea of what the CIA should be all about, which is international espionage. This is a period when the CIA’s role is being reevaluated. Some people are even calling for an end to the CIA. Here, he’s opening up this vast new area in which they can go to work. Plus, he’s opposed to the arms control agreements with Russia and the former Soviet Union states. And so, when he says that the United States will have to — when the law says that the United States will have to reduce aid to Russia by the amount that Russia gives to Cuba for the Lourdes listening station in Cuba, he’s enacting something that’s against START I, which the arms control agreements give Russia the right to a listening post.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Rangel, let me ask you something: Why is it so easy to get something like this passed around Cuba, but when it comes to sanctions against governments like Indonesia, military dictatorships that kill their own people and the people they occupy, like the East Timorese, governments like Nigeria, and sanctions also against the corporations that do work there, you don’t have anything like this kind of frenzy that’s developed in Washington?

REP. CHARLES RANGEL: Someone once asked a member of Congress, “How many people in your congressional district support gun control?” And he said, allegedly, “About 85%.” And they said, “Well, why do you always vote against gun control?” He said, “Because the other 15% are organized.” And I think that’s the answer to your question.

I don’t recall any group as small as this group that really would advocate an invasion of Cuba to restore democracy, not as America understands it, but as they understand it, which includes the restoration of land which they thought was theirs. And Jorge Mas Canosa, who is the leader of this group, will not deny that becoming president of that, of Cuba, of the new Cuba, is off his agenda.

So, most people haven’t the slightest idea where Cuba is or how it fits into anything. It is not on the list of priorities of any member of Congress. These people raise a whole lot of money, and politically, they are vindictive. I was at a Democratic affair last night, and a Cuban American belonging to the foundation, who had come into my office in Harlem in New York a couple years ago to make it clear that either I was going to eat the honey out of a jar, imaginary jar, or they’d hit me in the head with it, and it turns out that I found out later that my opponent in the Democratic primary, 85% of his money came from the Cuban American community, and he had no relationship with Cuba and reversed his position on the embargo to get the money. And last night, the guy told me that they could do it again. And so, no one wants a headache if they can avoid it. And they actually help people who help them, and try to hurt people who disagree with them. It’s a very tight, well-financed organization that can turn out people at the drop of a hat and intimidate people.

AMY GOODMAN: Interesting —

REP. CHARLES RANGEL: And the bottom line to your question is, most politicians would say, “Who needs the aggravation? Who cares?”

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Rangel, we’re going to have to cut you off here. We want to thank you very much for joining us from New York. We want to thank Frank Manitzas from Miami and from the primary state of Florida, and Jane Franklin, contributing editor to Cuba Update. Clearly, there is a debate within the establishment, that you don’t see it today with President Clinton about to approve tougher sanctions against Cuba. You’ve been listening to Democracy Now!, produced by Julie Drizin with Pat Greenfield. Our engineers are Kenneth Mason at WPFW here in Washington and Bob Cham in Houston at KPFT. For a cassette copy of this program, call the Pacific Archives at 1-800-735-0230. That’s 1-800-735-0230. For another edition of Democracy Now!, thank you for listening. I’m Amy Goodman.