SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 29A

LENGTH: 731 words

HEADLINE: ONLY SMALL FISH CAUGHT IN U.S.-CUBA TRADE NET

BYLINE: Holger Jensen

BODY:
Almost unnoticed in President Bush's war on terrorism is his parallel war on those who trade with Cuba.

The Caribbean island is still labeled a "terrorist state," though Fidel Castro long ago stopped supporting Latin revolutionaries, and thus remains the target of a 41-year economic embargo that obviously has failed to topple the world's longest-reigning communist leader.

But the embargo, and laws designed to strengthen it, are only selectively enforced.

Earlier this month a Canadian salesman and his two American bosses were convicted of trading with the enemy by selling Cuba $2.1 million worth of resins used to purify water. Pennsylvania-based Bro-Tech Corp. and its three executives were accused of arranging the embargo-busting sales through intermediaries in Canada, Mexico, Spain, Italy and Britain. The case of the Canadian, James Sabzali, 43, is particularly interesting for two reasons: (1) he is the only foreign national ever prosecuted for violating the United States' 1919 Trading with the Enemy Act and (2) some of the alleged violations occurred while he was still living in Canada.

Seven of the 21 counts of which he was convicted involve sales he made from his Ontario home before moving to Bro-Tech's headquarters in suburban Philadelphia. Other counts involve sales made by his Canadian successor. Although Sabzali did not travel to Cuba after becoming a U.S. resident in 1996, he was held accountable for travel vouchers he approved for the Canadian salesman.

After his conviction by a Philadelphia jury, Sabzali was fitted with an ankle bracelet, which he has to wear until his sentencing June 28. He also had to surrender the deed to his house and his Canadian passport, along with those of his wife and children.

He faces a maximum sentence of 205 years in prison and more than $5 million in fines, though federal prosecutors have indicated they will settle for a prison term of 37 to 41 months without parole. His two American co-defendants, Stefan and Donald Brodie, face 41 to 51 months in prison and $9.3 million in fines.

The case has caused a public outcry in Canada, where members of Parliament accuse the United States of trampling on Canadian sovereignty. Cuba is Canada's largest Caribbean trading partner, accounting for more than $435 million in two-way trade annually, and Canadian "blocking legislation" actually prohibits Canadian citizens from complying with the U.S. embargo.

In other words, Sabzali would have been breaking the law in his own country if he had refused to do business with Cuba, at least while he was living in Canada. But he became liable for prosecution as soon as he moved to the United States, and federal attorneys convinced the jury to find him guilty of breaking our laws even before he arrived.

His lawyer is, of course, appealing. But the case revives doubts about the efficacy of an economic blockade that no other nation in the world honors and many U.S. corporations circumvent through their foreign subsidiaries.

The embargo, actually a set of regulations tagged onto the Trading with the Enemy Act, barred all Americans at home and abroad from doing business with Cuba as of 1961. The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 extended this prohibition to foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms and closed American ports for six months to ships that dock in Cuba.

The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 went even further, imposing penalties on foreign-owned companies that invest in or benefit from the expropriated property of Cuban-Americans. But, because of a worldwide backlash and the difficulty of enforcing what is essentially an extraterritorial law, every president has waived the most objectionable portions of Helms-Burton since its enactment.

Even so, one would not expect to find American goods in Cuba if the embargo truly worked. But they're everywhere.

Coke and Pepsi, Guess jeans, Nabisco foods, Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds cigarettes, Campbell soups, Gerber baby foods, Kodak film, Colgate toothpaste, Max Factor cosmetics and a host of other American products from Tabasco sauce to Zenith television sets are openly sold in Cuba's government-controlled stores.

In fact, more than 3,000 American trademarks are registered in Cuba. So if a hapless Canadian can be locked up for trading with the enemy, why aren't the CEOs of some of our largest corporations behind bars?

NOTES:
Foreign Affairs;
Holger Jensen is international editor. E-mail: hjens@aol.com. His column also appears on the Internet at www.RockyMountainNews.com/jensen/;
PERSPECTIVE

LOAD-DATE: April 13, 2002