Monday, February 13, 2006
U.S. Legal Antics Stir Up Controversy in Mexico
By Carlos Luken
Last week the U.S. Treasury Department informed Starwood Hotels, which operates the popular Maria
Isabel Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, that it was violating the Helms-Burton Act that prohibits American companies or their
subsidiaries from providing services to Cuban individuals or companies.
The Mexican hotel was the site of a meeting between officials from the Cuban Ministry of Basic Industry,
and U.S. oil and economic development executives, who met to discuss energy business possibilities. Brookly McLaughlin, from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control, confirmed that the hotel was ordered to expel the 16 Cuban delegates, in extraterritorial compliance with
the Helms-Burton Act. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman
Judith Bryan would not say if the State Department had been consulted.
According to Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuban Trade Association and organizer of the three-day
event, this meeting followed many that have taken place before. Executives who attended came from U.S. companies, which included
Valero Energy, Exxon Oil and the Caterpillar Corporation, plus representatives from the Louisiana Department of Economic Development,
and the Corpus Christi Port Authority.
The U.S. executives were evaluating investments in the island nation’s
emerging energy sector. Cuba has already negotiated drilling and offshore exploration deals with China, Canada and India.
Initial reactions by the Mexican government were mild, as Mexican foreign minister Luis Ernesto
Derbez referred to the extraterritorial issue as “troubling.” He also rejected the prospect of a U.S. law being
enforced on Mexican soil, cautioning that the government might take action against the hotel.
Cuba’s reaction was predictably bitter. Granma, the state-owned newspaper, ran a sharp editorial saying, "The
tentacles of the blockade, and the United States' criminal economic war against Cuba, tend to extend themselves to every corner
of the planet, including to the detriment of the sovereignty and laws of other states." When interviewed, Cuban officials denied that Havana would send a diplomatic protest, and they spitefully noted that
they expected no action from Mexican authorities either.
Taking his cue from the Cubans, Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas, of the leftist Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD), escalated the matter by demanding that city prosecutors investigate the hotel, to see if it had
broken anti-discrimination laws, and threatening its closure if it had.
As
well, members of the Movement for Cuban Solidarity protested by blocking the hotel’s entryways.
Mexican
Chamber of Deputies leader Marcela Gonzalez Salas, of the PRD, called the incident “shameful." And she questioned the
administration’s moderation by stating, "We have reached the stage where a U.S. company can tell us who we can receive
in our country and who we cannot."
Sensing
political consequences, several legislators and politicians, among them National Action Party (PAN) presidential candidate
Felipe Calderon, joined the chorus of criticism.
Foreign
Secretary Derbez later elaborated, “The Helms-Burton law does not exist, and shouldn’t be applied, in Mexico."
He added that if the hotel expelled the delegation because of its nationality, it would be subject to fines and sanctions
for violating local and federal laws.
The Maria
Isabel Sheraton Hotel was trapped between the U.S. government’s doggedness in punishing Cuba, and a Mexican government
anxious about looking weak in an election year. Caught in the middle, hotel officials
issued a lame statement “deeply regretting this incident and any inconvenience it may have caused.”
Needing
a campaign issue to revitalize the diminishing poll numbers of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the PRD’s populist presidential
candidate, Mexico City’s leftist and Lopez Obrador supportive government launched an inquisition-like investigation
for any municipal code violations that the 40 year old hotel might have, and city officials quickly issued a number of citations
that could lead to its closing.
Should
the city government close the Sheraton, it could have serious consequences on Mexico’s presidential campaign and the
nation’s image. As well, in one swift action it might frustrate many macro-economic advances that the Vicente Fox administration
has fashioned and put into place to maintain attractiveness for foreign capital.
Regardless
how this incident plays out, the damage has been done.
Either
this muscle flexing exercise represents another tactless effort by the Bush administration to endear itself with U.S. congressional
conservatives at the expense of Mexico. Or the executive branch is truly dysfunctional and uncoordinated.
Whatever
the case, the Mexican spirit has been senselessly provoked and the latent but omnipresent nationalistic issues of sovereignty
and self-determination have been awakened as electoral fodder strengthening leftist candidates.
Carlos Luken, a MexiData.info columnist, is
a Mexico-based businessman and consultant. He can be reached via e-mail at ilcmex@yahoo.com.
