U.S. to Warn Mexican Firm on Its Cuba Investments

WASHINGTON — The State Department is warning several top executives of a Mexican telephone company that they could lose their U.S. visas because of the company’s investments in Cuba, officials said Monday.

About six executives of Grupo Domos of Monterrey will receive letters informing them that their visas will be revoked in 45 days unless they divest or otherwise come into compliance with U.S. laws concerning foreign investment in Cuba, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said.

Domos spokesman Hector Cuellar told Associated Press on Monday that the company had not received any formal notification from the U.S. government and would not have any official response until such notification arrived.

But the Wall Street Journal previously quoted Cuellar as saying company executives had discussed the possibility of U.S. action. “It is something that, if it happens, we will have to respect,” he told the newspaper.

The Helms-Burton Act, signed by President Clinton in March, stipulates that top executives of foreign companies doing business in Cuba on property confiscated from Americans are no longer entitled to U.S. visas.

Grupo Domos holds a 37% stake in Cuba’s national telephone company, which was confiscated from a unit of the U.S. company ITT soon after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

Domos executives had received a State Department warning in late May that the company’s activities in Cuba appeared to be in violation of Helms-Burton. The warning promoted an energetic protest by the Mexican foreign ministry, which called it an unjustified attempt to impose U.S. law against Mexico.

On July 9, the State Department notified top executives of a Canadian mining firm they would be denied entry to the U.S. because of the company’s investments in Cuba. The executives had a 45-day grace period that expires this week.

* MEXICO’S TURNAROUND

Second-quarter figures show surprising economic vigor. A1