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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Sept. 19, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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What do Jesse Helms, Dan Burton and Al D'Amato have in common?
These members of Congress are all loyal servants of U.S. big business who crafted sanctions legislation that unilaterally asserts Washington's right to paralyze the economies of targeted countries and punish whoever does business with them.
These sanctions have unleashed a storm of protest around the world.
The Helms-Burton Act, which President Bill Clinton signed into law early this year, not only attempts to tighten the economic noose around socialist Cuba. It also threatens penalties against firms that do business in Cuba.
D'Amato recently came up with a similar bill that would impose sanctions on foreign firms investing $40 million or more a year in Iran's or Libya's energy industries.
Just about every important meeting in Latin America these days ends with a resolution attacking the Helms-Burton law. On Sept. 5, a resolution of the Rio de Janeiro Group said these countries "categorically reject" the U.S. sanctions law. Heads of state of 14 countries attended the group's summit.
And, despite a special visit by Clinton envoy Stuart Eizenstat to try and sell Helms-Burton, on Sept. 8 a meeting of European Union foreign ministers announced "absolute opposition to legislation with extra-territorial effects," referring directly to the U.S. laws on trading with Cuba, Iran and Libya.
The failure of this legislation to whip the United States' imperialist allies into line and the political survival of independent governments in all three targeted countries has caused some second thoughts among elements of the U.S. capitalist class.
On Sept. 5, members of a U.S. corporate group that includes the aviation giant United Technologies told reporters in Malaysia that they oppose the D'Amato law. The corporate executives, members of the U.S.-ASEAN Council, were in Asia to drum up business there.
The Malaysian national oil company Petronas face sanctions under the D'Amato law because of its participation in a joint oil and gas venture with Iran.
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(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)