Morning Edition's report by Tom Jelton about the dispute between the US and the Cuban Government over the "Havana Club" trademark on rum (8/25/99) grossly distorts the issue. After the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba nationalized numerous businesses and properties. Most of these seized businesses, especially the gambling casinos, were partially or wholly owned by US citizens and corporations. Many wealthy Cubans fled taking with them to the US as much of their money and property as they could.
Since that time, the right wing political movement in the US has successfully lobbied the US Government to embargo trade and travel between the US and Cuba and to even threaten other nations to force them to honor the blockade. Especially during the 1980 Reagan period, conservative officials treated the rich Cuban expatriates as though they were "freedom fighters". This is all part of the anti-Castro, anti-communism, of the bygone Cold War era. Additionally, the expatriates, with official US Government assistance, have promoted a continuing immigration of disaffected Cubans who are suffering under the embargo-damaged economy. Recently there has come a new call for the US to protect pre-revolution property rights to the "Havana Club" trademark on rum - in an attempt to protect the now US-based "Bacardi" brand of rum.
In a very different case, in 1948, during the establishment of the State of Israel, the Jews confiscated the homes and businesses and land of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs. This was no revolution as in Cuba and, not only did the Jews take individual Arabs' homes and property, they drove the people into exile. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have remained refugees in Lebanon and elsewhere ever since and cannot return due to the Israeli military occupation of their homeland. The US has continuously protected the Israeli confiscations against international challenges in the United Nations. In the 1967 War, Israel seized even more Arab property and has occupied the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank of the Jordan River for over 30 years - in defiance of the overwhelming condemnation of the UN General Assembly. Only the US veto in the UN Security Council has allowed the Israeli confiscations and occupation to continue in blatant violation of international law.
When NPR reports on the Cuban situation, the audience deserves to hear a balanced account of US history revealing us as a renegade nation and international scofflaw. Whenever the US refusal to recognize the wartime confiscation of land and property is reported, as in the 1990 seizure of Kuwaiti land by Iraq which occasioned the Gulf War, the instance of Israel and Palestine should be presented as an example of the arbitrariness with which the US applies the principles of international law.