Yahoo! July 24, 2000
DeLay Decries Cuba Embargo Vote
By William C. Mann, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 23 (AP) - The House's third-ranking Republican said Sunday that he is ashamed of his colleagues for voting to ease the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and its ``ruthless, murdering dictator,'' Fidel Castro.
Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas believes Castro would use the food and medicines to increase repression in Cuba.
Two House amendments, both sponsored by Republicans, that were approved last week would ease sanctions in place for almost four decades against the communist-ruled island.
The amendments would restore virtually unlimited travel to Cuba as well as allowing export of food and medicine to Cuba. They were included in legislation to finance the Treasury Department in the next fiscal year.
``I think it's really unfortunate, and frankly, it's the first time I have really been ashamed of the House of Representatives,'' DeLay said on ``Fox News Sunday.''
Instead of helping the Cuban president, he said, Congress should have been ``turning down the screws on this dictator that kills people, has killed American citizens over international waters, has put people in jail for being dissident.''
The House vote was 301-116 to allow sales of food and medicine to Cuba. Voting ``yes'' were 119 Republicans, 180 Democrats and two independents. Opposed were 93 Republicans and 23 Democrats. The provision's sponsor was Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
The travel vote was 232-186, with support from 60 Republicans, 171 Democrats and one independents. Voting ``no'' were 153 Republicans, 32 Democrats and one independent.
DeLay said Democrats provided the important support, even though Republicans Moran and Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina sponsored the two amendments.
``Overwhelmingly, the majority of the Republicans voted against this,'' DeLay said. ``All those that believe in appeasement and have sympathy toward Fidel Castro come from the Democrat side.''
``This is a ruthless, murdering dictator in Cuba, and all the food will go through him,'' DeLay said. ``He'll use that food and medicine as a tool to continue to oppress his people.''
On ABC's ``This Week,'' White House chief of staff John Podesta welcomed the legislation as long as its benefits go to the Cuban people and not Castro's government. Generally, the Clinton administration has not supported tourist travel to Cuba for fear the influx of money would boost Castro.
``We want to try to work with Congress to see if we can implement that policy of creating ... more people-to-people contacts, which the travel amendment goes to, and to provide food and medicine to the people of Cuba,'' Podesta said.
He cautioned, ``We want to do it in a way that doesn't support the Castro government. So I think we can work something out.''
Cubans To Protest US Trade Embargo
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 22 (AP) - Cuba will begin national celebrations to mark the start of the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 41 years ago with a large demonstration in Havana to protest the U.S. trade embargo, an official newspaper said Saturday.
The Communist Party daily Granma said that participants will march down the Malecon coastal highway on Wednesday morning to the U.S. Interests Section to ``express to the world their profound and indignant rejection against the monstrous genocidal policy applied against our people.''
It called the embargo, imposed shortly after Castro's rise to power, ``the most prolonged blockade that has existed in history.
``We will show the world that the Cuban people, far from tiring, will increase their struggle in the coming months and years to end the grotesque imperialist aggressions!'' Granma said.
The announcement comes amid growing moves in the U.S. Congress to ease the trade sanctions, as well as travel restrictions on Americans, which were imposed 38 years ago.
The House voted 301-116 Thursday to stop enforcing provisions that ban U.S. food exports and limit sales of American medicine to Cuba and four other nations - Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan
The Senate passed a bill the same day to permit food and medical sales to the five countries. The Senate measure also prevents a president from blocking such shipments without congressional approval.
Cuban officials have not commented on the latest votes, saying they need more time to study the moves before making a public statement. But in the past they have insisted upon a complete lifting of all economic sanctions.
After the Wednesday march, separate national celebrations will be held in two other cities, one in the central provincial capital of Santa Clara on July 29 and the other in the western provincial capital of Pinar del Rio on Aug. 5, the newspaper said.
Usually, just one city is chosen as the site for the celebration, which almost always includes a speech by Castro that is considered one of his most important of the year.
The yearly ceremony commemorates the disastrous July 26, 1953, attack by Castro and his comrades on the Moncada army barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. The attack launched the revolution against the dictatorship of then-President Fulgencio Batista.
Although the attackers were all either killed or jailed, the movement later regained strength and triumphed on New Year's Day 1959 after Batista fled the country.
This year's celebration comes a month after a major victory for the Cuban government - the return of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to the island.
Castro's administration converted the fight for Elian's return from the United States into a national campaign, with marches, rallies, television programs and other events held almost daily to demand the boy's return.
2 Cubans With Sports Team Defect
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica 22 (AP) - Two Cubans visiting Costa Rica for a sports competition have defected and plan to seek political asylum to stay in this Central American country.
Alieth Garcia, a player on Cuba's futsal - or indoor soccer - team, and the team's doctor, Gustavo Gonzalez, defected Friday. Both said they want to live in Costa Rica. The two emphasized that they do not plan to try to enter the United States.
Government officials have not provided any comment.
The Cuban team was in Costa Rica to compete ahead of the futsal World Cup to be held Nov. 18-Dec. 3, 2000 in Guatemala City. The draw is scheduled for August 2000.
Futsal, or five-a-side soccer, was born on the beaches of Brazil in the 1920s and has slowly spread around the world. It is now played indoors on an international level. Though still not an Olympic sport, futsal has had three World Cups, in 1989, 1992 and 1996, all won by Brazil.
Cuba Cruise Corporation Addresses Pent Up Demand for Travel to Cuba
Company Press Release. Friday July 21, 6:37 pm Eastern Time
The US House of Representatives Votes to Lift Ban on Travel to Cuba
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 2000--There has always been a pent-up demand for Americans to travel to Cuba.
But they maybe able to get there sooner than they think. The House of Representatives on July 20 voted 232 to 186 to lift the ban on travel to Cuba. This is the first time in 40 years the full house has addressed the issue of sanctions and Cuba.
The Cuba Cruise Corporation of Toronto, Canada is poised to fill the demand.
``The hand of those willing to lift the sanctions was greatly strengthened by this vote,'' said Sam Blyth, president, The Cuba Cruise Corporation.
Blyth put a plan in place earlier this year whereby Americans beginning on November 16, 2000 can sail from Nassau Bahamas to Havana on four and five day cruises featuring solely Cuba.
``We think the M.V. La Habana cruises are an important first step in helping Americans to catch up with vacuum that has existed between the two countries for the last 40 years,'' said Blyth.
``For those who can't wait until November, the Valtur Prima a five-star deluxe cruise ship sailing under an Italian flag makes Friday departures from Montego Bay, Jamaica to two ports of call in Cuba, as well as other Caribbean destinations. The ship that is scheduled for the November 16
program, which will operate year round, is called the M.V. La Habana. Its focus will be strictly on Cuba offering passengers an intensive onboard and onshore immersion into the history culture art and music of Cuba.
For information and reservations: Call 800-387-1387, or visit the websites at www.cubacruising.com and www.visitcubanow.com.
Contact:
Hawkins & Widness, New York
Jennifer Hawkins, 646/602-7010
Economists Evaluate Embargo Impact
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 21 (AP) - Economist Jonathan Coleman nodded his head as a Havana city historian explained how things would be different if the 38-year-old U.S. embargo against the communist island no longer existed.
``You would see cruise ships full of American tourists arriving here,'' the historian, Eusebio Leal, told him and another economist hired by the U.S. government to evaluate the sanctions' impact on the two nations.
``We would be able to buy more cheaply the materials needed to renovate these old buildings,'' Leal said, motioning at the recently rehabilitated office and apartment buildings that were too dangerous to occupy just a few years ago.
While lawmakers in Washington voted this week to chip away at sanctions and travel restrictions by Americans to Cuba, the economists were in Havana quietly working on an independent government investigation of the embargo that could guide future American policy on the issue.
Findings from their field work, with testimony from public hearings in September, will form the first government report of its kind since the embargo was imposed during the Kennedy administration.
The report by the U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent nonpartisan federal agency, will be released on Feb. 15, 2001, and will look at impacts on both the American and Cuban economies.
``This study is substantially significant,'' said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a business-funded educational organization that studies the island's economy. The organization takes no public stance on the embargo.
``They are starting from a blank slate, beginning from a level playing field to produce for policy-makers a report that is believable and objective,'' Kavulich said. ``This will produce the first document of its kind in the public domain.''
Kavulich said the council projects that the value of unrestricted annual U.S.-Cuba bilateral trade five years after normalization of commercial, economic and political relations would range from $3 billion to $5 billion, with perhaps 65 percent to 70 percent being exports from the United States
to Cuba.
That projection assumes no travel restrictions, he said. U.S. citizens traveling annually to Cuba on an unrestricted basis could reach 3 million to 5 million, he said.
Much of the exports from the United States to Cuba would be directed toward tourism, agriculture, durables goods such as vehicles and light industry, Kavulich said.
There is a dearth of U.S. government information on the embargo's impacts. Several recent attempts in Congress to set up bipartisan commissions to study the issue have been shot down by embargo supporters worried that they could help end the sanctions.
Coleman said he and his fellow trade analyst from the commission, James Strong, would not provide recommendations to the House Ways and Means Committee, which requested the study. He noted that the commission does not set policy.
Instead, he said, the report will consist of facts gathered during their weeklong meetings here with Cuban economic, trade and banking officials, American diplomats, and foreign investors.
Coleman said they would also conduct a telephone survey of about 100 American businesses on how they are affected by the sanctions.
The investigation comes amid growing moves in Congress to soften the embargo.
The House late Thursday approved language in a Treasury Department spending bill that would halt enforcement of restrictions against travel to Cuba as well as sales of food and drugs to the island, but not actually eliminate those restrictions.
Also Thursday, the Senate approved an agriculture spending bill for the coming fiscal year with language requiring congressional approval for food and drug embargoes against any country, including Cuba.
At the same time, a House-backed compromise on sales of food and medicine to Cuba was recently forged between Rep. George Nethercutt, who supports such sales, and House Republicans.
Farm and business groups have endorsed the House agreement, but Democrats who oppose the Cuba embargo say the deal doesn't go far enough.
Defector Wants To Win World Series
By Jaime Hernandez, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 21 (AP) - One full day into his life in the United States, Cuban baseball star Andy Morales already has hopes of winning the World Series.
``My aspirations are to play in the major leagues and play on a team that will reach the World Series,'' Morales said Friday during a news conference in Little Havana. ``I have no preference on any teams.''
Morales, who came ashore near Key West with eight other migrants, said the group spent two days on a deserted island with very little water in their journey from Cuba to the United States. It was Morales' second try. He was caught at sea on his first attempt and taken back to Cuba by the U.S.
Coast Guard.
``I feel happy,'' said Morales, flanked by agent Gus Dominguez and Rene Guim, Dominguez's publicist.
``I tried to leave and U.S. immigration laws made me turn back. This time, thank God I was successful.''
However, Morales refused to say whether the migrants were smuggled into the country. The U.S. Border Patrol is investigating the possibility that they might have been smuggled in on a speed boat for up to $5,000 each.
Dominguez said five teams have expressed interest in signing Morales. He declined to name the teams.
But the agent said he hadn't discussed with Morales about going to another country to try to get a work visa so he can negotiate with major league clubs as a free agent. Otherwise, Morales would have to enter baseball's amateur draft and risk being selected by a team he might not want to play
for.
Dominguez said his primary concern was ``making sure he's spoken to his family back in Cuba and making sure he feels OK.''
Morales, a third baseman, caught the eye of baseball fans when he hit a home run in Baltimore last year in the Cuban national team's 12-6 victory over the Orioles.
He looks to join other Cuban national team members who have defected to play baseball in the United States. They include New York Yankees pitcher Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez, his half brother, San Francisco Giants pitcher Livan Hernandez, and New York Mets shortstop Rey Ordonez.
Several of those players called Morales on Thursday night after hearing he was released to his family members.
``They called me to wish me well,'' he said.
Morales tried to enter the United States last month, along with 30 other Cuban nationals, but they were refused asylum and sent back to Cuba after being picked up at sea near Key West.
Under a ``wet-foot, dry-foot'' policy, Cubans who actually land in the United States are generally allowed to stay after a brief immigration process.
Cuban officials had insinuated after his first, unsuccessful attempt to leave Cuba that Morales wasn't a great player. Those suggestions continued this week.
``Luckily, here there are 10 third basemen who are equal to or better than Andy Morales,'' Cuban television journalist Reinaldo Taladrid said in a Thursday government broadcast.
Morales' wife Daiyana and their 7-month-old son remain in Cuba awaiting approval from that government to leave for the United States, Guim has said.
None of Morales' family members in Cuba knew of his plans for a second attempt to reach the United States, Morales said. After realizing he had left the island, Morales' father began growing a beard and vowed not to shave until he knew his son was OK.
``I spoke to my father at about 11 o'clock last night and I told him I was OK, so he can go ahead and shave the beard,'' he said.
Copyright © 2000 The Associated Press.
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