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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2006 
Mexico will Investigate Sanctions Against U.S.-Owned Hotel that Expelled Cubans
 Lisa J. Adams - Associated Press
| | The Maria Isabel Sheraton hotel located in Mexico City, Mexico. A meeting between U.S. energy executives and Cuban government oil officials was forced out of the U.S.-owned hotel in Mexico City under pressure from Washington, organizers said, the latest sign that U.S. President Bush's administration is tightening policy against Cuba. (AP/Marco Ugarte) |
Mexico City – Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said Monday the government is looking into possible sanctions against a U.S.-owned hotel if officials conclude it expelled Cuban guests because of their nationality or because of pressure from the U.S. government.
A meeting between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives was moved to another hotel Saturday after the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton asked the Cubans to leave.
Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, said the U.S. government pressured the hotel's owner, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., arguing that the U.S. company was violating a law that strengthened U.S. trade sanctions first imposed against Cuba in 1961.
The 1996 Helms-Burton law “does not exist, and should not be applied, in our nation,” Derbez told a Mexico City radio station in an interview, the transcript of which was distributed to the news media. Derbez was on a state visit to the Netherlands.
If officials determine that the hotel expelled the Cubans because of U.S. government pressure, Mexico would communicate to the United States “that the (Helms-Burton) law cannot in any way be applied extra-territorially,” and could possibly sanction the hotel accordingly, Derbez said. He did not say what the sanction would be.
Judith Bryan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City who was contacted on Saturday, did not confirm that the U.S. government had pressured Starwood to ask the Cuban officials to leave.
But she did say that “U.S. law prohibits U.S. persons and entities from providing services to Cuban national persons or entities, and the Sheraton, as a subsidiary of a U.S. company, is bound by U.S. law.”
The Embassy was closed Monday for a Mexican holiday.
Sheraton Hotel officials in Mexico City have declined to comment.
If the hotel wasn't bowing to pressure from the U.S., but was expelling the delegation because of its nationality, then it would be subject to fines and sanctions for violating both local and federal laws prohibiting discrimination, Derbez added.
“There are Mexican laws against discrimination, which prevent action against a consumer for that reason,” he said.
Also Monday, Mexico City's interior secretary, Ricardo Ruiz, told reporters that city officials were investigating the possible violation of local anti-discrimination laws and the application of sanctions ranging from fines to the hotel's closure.
The three-day energy meeting in Mexico City, which wrapped up Saturday after moving to a Mexican-owned hotel, was the first private-sector oil summit between Cuba and the United States.
The participants included representatives of Valero Energy Corp., the United States' biggest oil refiner, as well as the Louisiana Department of Economic Development.
Cuba lashed out at the United States on Monday for allegedly pressuring the Sheraton to oust the Cubans. Their expulsion also was denounced by Mexican politicians.
“The tentacles of the blockade and the U.S. government's criminal economic war against Cuba are willing to reach beyond any boundary on the planet, even to the detriment of the laws of other nations,” the Communist Party daily Granma said Monday.
Mexico Spurns US Anti-Cuban Policy
Prensa Latina
Mexico - Mexican social-political organizations are rallying Tuesday to thwart implementation in Mexico of US anti-Cuban laws, widely snubbed by national sectors.
The political gathering is taking place in front of the Maria Isabel Sheraton hotel, whose executives expelled February 3 a Cuban delegation by order of the US government.
Pedro Gellert, leader of the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba said the repudiation rally will further buttress Cuba and damn Washington´s over forty-year blockade on the island.
A meeting had been scheduled at the Maria Isabel Sheraton between Cuban officials and businesspeople with representatives from large US companies interested in the potential of the Cuban energy market.
Organized by the US-Cuban Commerce Association, the business gathering was open to the media and press and would bring together representatives from Exxon Mobile, Caterpillar, the Valero Energy Corporation, which runs the US largest refinery, and from the National Council of Foreign Trade with Cuban officials and businesspeople.
Also attending were members of the Louisiana State´s Economic Development Department and the Corpus Christi port in Texas.
The extraterritorial imposition of US policies on Mexico has been slammed alike by opposition parties and government officials.
On Monday evening, the Speaker of the House of Representatives Marcela Gonzalez Salas said the expulsion of the Cuban delegation based on a US law was a real shame and called for Sheraton hotel be sanctioned.
Also Monday, the coalition backing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the action against Cuban officials, who had planned a three-day meeting with US businesspeople, fully outrageous.
Meanwhile, the alliance made up by Democratic Revolution and Labor and the Convergence for Democracy opposition parties demanded from President Vicente Fox respect for the national sovereignty and independence.
For his part, Ricardo Ruiz, secretary of the Federal District, asserted the hotel could be sanctioned and even closed for violating Mexican laws. |
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