Yahoo! October 20, 2000
CANF Calls Administration's Criticisms of Cuba Measure 'Groundless'
Friday October 20, 12:04 pm Eastern Time. Press Release.
SOURCE: Cuban American National Foundation
Accuses White House and State of Attempting to Mislead Public Opinion
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cuban American National Foundation
responded sharply today to Clinton Administration claims that a congressional
proposal to restrict U.S. leisure travel to Castro's Cuba would endanger human
lives by blocking air ambulances and other humanitarian contact with the island.
"Such claims are preposterous and utterly groundless,'' said CANF
Executive Vice President Dennis Hays, a former U.S. ambassador and coordinator
for Cuban affairs at the State Department. "Congress's decision to preserve
current U.S. travel policy towards Cuba has no bearing whatsoever on emergency
medical travel. That type of travel is-and has always been-expressly allowed
under Treasury Department regulations. All Congress has done is rule out an
expansion of travel categories to Cuba-in short, U.S. leisure travel to Cuba.''
Both White House and State Department spokesmen this week responded to
Senate passage of the Cuba measure by floating the idea that it could adversely
affect emergency and humanitarian travel to Cuba.
Hays said that regulations governing U.S. travel to Cuba are freely
available on the Treasury Department's website where anyone interested can see
the full range of travel exemptions in U.S. policy. "The idea that a brick
wall exists between the U.S. and Cuba is a myth,'' said Hays.
Hays also chastised the Administration for waiting until after the measure
passed the Senate before making public its objections, pointing out that the
proposal has been in the public domain since July. "These objections can't
be taken seriously if they are made public only after Congress has voted on the
issue,'' he said.
"This can really only be described as bad faith on the part of some in
the Administration and an attempt to negatively manipulate public opinion,''
Hays concluded. "It's all part of a disturbing pattern over the last year
in which the Clinton Administration is seemingly involved in an accommodation
process with the Castro dictatorship in all but name. Not surprisingly, Castro
has read their overtures as signs of weakness and has only intensified his
repression and intransigence.''
U.S. Cuban Embargo Still Survives
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 20 (AP) - When the United States first imposed restrictions on
trade with Cuba during President Fidel Castro's second year in office, few
thought the measure would be in effect for long.
But four decades have passed, and the curbs remain even though they have
been marginally weakened by legislation that received final approval this week
in Congress.
It was 40 years ago Friday that the Eisenhower administration, responding to
perceived provocations by Cuba, slapped a ban on most exports to Cuba. Castro
was a tender 34 then; he's an avuncular 74 now.
President Eisenhower's action was taken at the height of the election
contest between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Eisenhower hoped the measure
would help Nixon, a fellow Republican. It didn't.
Cuba assailed the embargo as another example of "Yankee imperialism''
and predicted, correctly as it turned out, that U.S. war preparations against
Cuba were under way. The Bay of Pigs episode occurred six months later.
The vitriol on both sides of the Straits of Florida remains.
The embargo-easing legislation Congress approved this week was so watered
down by anti-Castro hard-liners that Cuba is dismissing the measure as
irrelevant.
Cuba said it will have no impact at all on the "genocidal blockade'' it
claims the United States has imposed against the island.
"Our country will not purchase one penny worth of food or medicine from
the United States,'' the Communist Party said in a statement Monday two days
before the Senate gave final approval to the measure.
But the embargo has never been weaker and could face additional assaults in
Congress next year. Backers of the measure this time had to pull out all the
stops to prevent powerful farm groups from inflicting a significant dent in the
embargo.
The legislation eases curbs on the sale of medicine and allows the sale of
food to Cuba for the first time. But, significantly, it bars financing of such
sales by the federal government or private U.S. banks.
Despite the restrictions, State Department officials said the legislation
could benefit American food exporters and also enable Cuba to save money on food
imports because of lower shipping costs from U.S. markets.
At present, transportation costs for food imports from Europe and Asia are a
financial burden for the island.
Some experts believe Castro eventually could take advantage of the bill,
which is part of an agriculture appropriations package that President Clinton
(news - web sites) says he will sign.
Pamela Falk, a City University of New York professor who has traveled with
numerous trade groups to Cuba in recent years, says she believes Cuba's stated
opposition should not be taken at face value.
She points out that regulations governing prospective trade with Cuba are
yet to be written.
"How the regulations are written will shape how much trade is
possible,'' she says. "When U.S. farm groups go down there with an offer,
negotiations will begin.''
American rice growers are eager for a share of the island's sizable imports
of that commodity.
Falk also notes that the legislation restores the pre-1992 situation when
foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies were allowed to trade with Cuba. Food
sales via that route were in the hundreds of millions of dollars, she says.
Ana Julia Jatar of the Inter-American Dialogue, a local public policy group,
believes Cuba wants the embargo to remain on the books, notwithstanding its
protests to the contrary.
She says Castro has always been able to blame the embargo for Cuba's
economic problems. "The embargo is the best thing to keep them in power,''
she says.
Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba says Castro is too broke to be a
good U.S. customer and, in any case, will always find excuses not to do business
with the United States.
"He will stop being anti-American when he dies,'' Calzon said.
State Dept. Fears Cuba Travel Bill
By Ken Guggenheim, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 19 (AP) - Newly approved legislation easing the embargo against
Cuba could hamper efforts to help sick Americans on the island or prosecute
criminals because it limits the ability of the United States to authorize
travel, officials said Thursday.
The changes in the legislation the Senate approved Wednesday "might
eliminate the president's flexibility and discretion to conduct aspects of our
foreign policy with Cuba,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said
Thursday.
President Clinton is expected to sign the measure.
The department used more stark language in an informal position paper that
said it may become more difficult to "help American citizens in need.''
"There is no allowance made for licenses for air ambulance companies.
So even if a gravely ill American citizen in Cuba were in need of medevac, we
would be unable to issue a license for that purpose,'' the paper said.
The State Department said Thursday it had no idea how many Americans were in
Cuba. The Cuban government has said 160,000 U.S. citizens visited the country
last year.
The bill aims to freeze existing travel restrictions by making them law. But
State Department officials believe it tightens the rules by eliminating the
administration's ability to allow travel by anyone not specifically covered by
the bill.
That could prevent defense attorneys from visiting Cuba to take depositions
or contractors from repairing equipment at the U.S. Interests Section, the
American mission in Havana, said the paper, obtained by The Associated Press.
The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro's
government.
State Department officials have raised these concerns to Congress. But Steve
Vermillion, spokesman for anti-Castro Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said the
officials did not bring up these problems until after a House-Senate conference
and finalized the bill's contents and it was too late to change it.
The agricultural spending bill would ease the 38-year-old embargo by
allowing food sales to Cuba. However, it prohibits U.S. financing of those
sales, so it is expected to have little effect. The embargo is intended to
pressure Cuba to make democratic changes.
But a senior official in Fidel Castro's government insisted that Cuba will
buy "not one gram'' of food from the United States under the legislation.
"We will not buy not one aspirin, nor a gram of rice, nor wheat or
corn, nor anything under these conditions,'' said Carlos Lage, vice president of
Cuba's ruling Council of State and the man described as architect of the
communist country's modest economic reforms over the past decade.
Under a compromise with pro-embargo legislators, the bill would also make
into law the government's existing travel restrictions, which effectively
prohibit most Americans from visiting Cuba.
The existing restrictions include 12 specific exceptions - such as
journalists and researchers - and gives the administration flexibility to permit
travel on a case-by-case basis.
The bill includes the 12 exceptions, but doesn't provide the flexibility
Spokesmen for anti-Castro lawmakers say they weren't trying to tighten the
travel ban and they don't know if the new law will have that effect.
"Our only attempt was to lock in current law and prevent the president
from expanding travel to Cuba,'' Vermillion said.
It was not clear how many people might be affected by the change. The
Treasury Department which oversees the Cuba travel ban, had no statistics
available on how many people are authorized travel on a case-by-case basis.
Rights Group Denounces Detentions
HAVANA, 19 (AP) - Cuba's best known human rights group on Thursday denounced
what it described as a recent wave of more than 100 temporary detentions of
people around the communist island.
In most cases, the detainees - all of them men - were released after a few
hours without being formally charged, said Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban
Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. The detentions occurred
over a two-week period ending Thursday, he added.
Three men reportedly remain behind bars, according to a four-page news
release distributed by Sanchez.
There was no official response from the communist government to the
commission's complaint.
Sanchez also said that ``for the first time in a long time'' he had also
received a report of a government opponent being physically struck. Independent
journalist Victor Arroyo reportedly was held for several hours and struck
several times by four to five members of the government's Interior Ministry,
which is charged with internal security, Sanchez said.
Reports of physical violence by members of Cuba's security forces are rare,
and such acts by authorities are prohibited by law. Sanchez said Arroyo
currently is free in the western province of Pinar del Rio, where he lives, and
has filed a complaint with the military courts that oversee members of the
security forces.
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