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By Jim Loney
MIAMI, Jan 29
(Reuters) - The leading Cuban exile group in the United States on Thursday
unveiled a plan to send U.S. food and other humanitarian relief to the needy in
Cuba, but said it did not expect Cuban President Fidel Castro to approve it.
The proposal by the hard-line anti-Castro Cuban American Foundation was
endorsed by conservative North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, a long-time
advocate of harsh economic sanctions against the communist-ruled island.
The Cuban American Foundation proposed that millions of dollars worth of aid
be sent to Cuba and distributed through non-governmental organizations such as
the American Red Cross or the Roman Catholic Church directly to Cubans,
including political prisoners and their families.
But the group, the lobbying arm of the better known Cuban American National
Foundation, said the plan would need Castro's approval and he was not expected
to give it.
Castro's refusal would demonstrate clearly that "the Cuban government
is hurting the Cuban people", the group said.
The proposal was the latest development in a growing debate over the
35-year-old U.S. economic embargo against Cuba following Pope John Paul II's
recent trip to Cuba.
The pontiff called for reconciliation between Cuba and its exiles and an
easing of the U.S. embargo. Its opponents claim the embargo hurts the neediest
Cubans and allows the Castro regime to blame Cuba's economic crisis on the
United States.
Helms, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and
co-author of a law that tightened the U.S. embargo in 1996, said the aid
proposal would get medicine and food to Cubans who need it most without helping
Castro.
"If Castro refuses to allow delivery of donated food and medicine,
then it will be clear to all Cubans exactly who is responsible for their
suffering," Helms said in a statement issued in Washington.
"The pope's visit has created an historic opportunity for bold action
in Cuba," Helms said.
The Cuban American Foundation said the Cuban government would have to offer
assurances it would not tax or interfere with the aid. It suggested the aid
should equal that sent to Haiti and proposed that the U.S. government's "Food
for Peace" program could be used.
"We think this is what the Cuban people, the victims of Fidel Castro,
deserve," Francisco Hernandez, president of the Cuban American National
Foundation, said at a news conference.
The proposal highlighted a growing rift in Miami's Cuban community over the
embargo.
Two Cuban-American lawmakers, Miami Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, issued a statement on Wednesday criticizing the use of U.S.
food aid to Cuba and any weakening of current U.S. law on Cuba, the cornerstone
of which is the embargo.
"Fidel Castro has never allowed food and medicine to flow freely to the
Cuban people because in his repressive police state, absolute control of basic
goods is needed in order to maintain the domination of his regime over every
detail of Cuban life," the statement said.
Cuban American Foundation officials conceded their greatest potential
victory in the aid proposal could be Castro's refusal to allow it, diminishing
his claim that Washington is responsible for Cuba's misery.
"I think that will expose Fidel Castro for what he is," said Jorge
Mas Santos, son of the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa.
23:58 01-29-98 |