THE SPECIAL envoy appointed to sell Washington's anti Cuba trade laws to the rest of the world called yesterday for US allies to join "a first, genuine, multinational effort" to bring democracy to Havana. The envoy, Mr Stuart Eizenstat, is today meeting the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, in Dublin.
He has said he was not attempting to justify the controversial Helms Burton Act but rather to coordinate and focus international opposition to President Fidel Castro's government.
"I can't stop the opposition [to the Act]," he said in an interview. "But what I am asking for is more effort, more willingness, more desire to bring democracy to what is the last truly oppressive regime in the western hemisphere."
Mr Eizenstat, who until earlier this year was Washington's ambassador to the EU, was speaking in Belgium. The EU - along with Canada and Mexico - has led opposition to the Act. Among other things, the Act allows American citizens to sue in US courts foreign companies that have benefited from investments made in property confiscated since Cuba's 1959 revolution.
The practical implications of this part of the Act have been suspended until next year. But Mr Eizenstat said President Clinton would willingly suspend it further if the US's allies joined its efforts to isolate Cuba.
The EU has already outlined the reprisals it plans to take regardless of a future suspension, and this week the Rio Group of Latin American countries strongly opposed the US policy.
. Mr Eizenstat will also meet over breakfast a small number of business people from Co Louth about their proposals to improve Irish cross border trade.