Yahoo! July 26, 2000
Cubans Protest U.S. Embargo
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA (AP) - Wearing white athletic shoes with his olive green uniform, Fidel Castro led hundreds of thousands of Cubans in a march Wednesday demanding an end to the U.S. trade embargo against the communist nation.
``Down with the blockade! Long live the homeland!'' the marchers chanted as they started the 31/2 mile trek, many of them waving small Cuban flags.
After playing the Cuban national anthem to launch the event, a military brass band accompanied the protesters down Havana's Malecon coastal highway.
Independent confirmation was impossible, but state-run media said more than 1 million people were on the march.
It was the largest of a recent string of huge gatherings in Cuba in recent months, and President Castro had promised it would be the largest in the nation's history.
Besides Castro, the marchers included his younger brother, Gen. Raul Castro, defense minister and head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Vice President Carlos Lage, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and the rest of the nation's top leadership.
The Cuban president, who turns 74 next month, looked animated and rested as he greeted local party leaders before the event at the starting point in a park in Old Havana. He walked briskly as the march began.
Hundreds of thousands of people on foot and in buses streamed into and around the park and before sunrise Wednesday to prepare for the march.
``In the face of the stubborn enemy, against the trafficking of death and hate, with the strength that marks more than a century of struggle, Havana citizens, we will march!!!'' the official Radio Reloj exhorted early Wednesday.
The march marks the 47th anniversary of the attack on an army barracks by Fidel Castro and his comrades that launched the Cuban Revolution. The rebels seized power six year later, on New Year's Day in 1959.
Cubans celebrate July 26 as a national holiday, but this year the celebration comes amid growing moves in the U.S. Congress to chip away at the nearly 40-year-old trade sanctions against Cuba.
Cuba has been under a total trade embargo since February 1962, longer than any other country except North Korea. The sanctions were tightened in July 1963, and most travel by Americans to the island was made illegal then.
The march was the latest in an unprecedented string of gatherings that began last December when the government launched a national campaign for the return of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez from the United States.
Although Elian was repatriated last month, the government promised to continue the protests for up to 10 years if necessary to fight American policies it says harm its citizens.
The House of Representatives 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 prevents a president from blocking such shipments without congressional approval.
While Cuba welcomed the moves, it said they do not go far enough and continued to demand a lifting of the sanctions.
Surprise House Vote Indicates Overwhelming Support for Food and Medical Sales To Cuba - Senate Strengthens Its Stance
SOURCE: Americans For Humanitarian Trade With Cuba. Tuesday July 25, 1:48 pm Eastern Time. Company Press Release
3 to 1 House and 7 to 1 Senate Votes Show Lawmakers Want Real Change
WASHINGTON, July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Votes in both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate last Thursday, July 20, indicate unequivocal Congressional support for easing the US embargo on Cuba to allow for food and medical sales, according to Americans For Humanitarian Trade With Cuba, a
national coalition formed expressly to support such sales.
``The House of Representatives has signaled clearly to the House leadership to get out of the way and modify sanctions. We applaud this bipartisan effort to help US farmers while helping the Cuban people,'' Sam Gibbons, AHTC Co-Chair and former 34-year Florid US Representative, said.
``After years of legislative strong-arming to prevent a Cuba vote, the House spoke 3 to 1 in support of easing the embargo on Cuba,'' Silvia Wilhelm, a Cuban American leader from Miami and AHTC Executive Director said. ``Congress now recognizes that unilateral food and medical sanctions hurt the
innocent while failing to achieve US policy goals.''
The House vote came unexpectedly when Representative Jerry Moran (R-KS) offered an amendment to the Treasury Appropriations bill to cut enforcing the embargo's provisions blocking food and medical sales. Moran's measure passed by a vote of 301 to 116. The vote was a wake-up call to House
Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-TX). Delay blocked a vote on such sales last year in the House/Senate Agriculture Conference Committee despite committee support for change, an act that was decried as undemocratic by Congressional colleagues in both houses.
Last month, Rep. Delay offered a ``compromise'' to longtime food and medical sales advocate George Nethercutt (R-WA), which AHTC found would severely thwart humanitarian sales. AHTC sent a letter to Trent Lott voicing support for the more expansive Dorgan Amendment to the Senate Agriculture
Appropriations bill, which represents a compromise between Sens. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and John Ashcroft (R-MO) on Cuba sales which passed Helm's Foreign Relations Committee on March 23, 2000. The Dorgan Amendment passed the Senate by a 78 to 13 vote on Thursday as well, clearing the way for action on
the House/Senate conference committee this fall.
Noted economist and former Chairwoman of the US International Trade Commission, The Honorable Paula Stern Ph.D., recently published a study entitled ``The Impact on the US Economy of Lifting the Food and Medical Embargo on Cuba.'' Dr. Stern estimates that under the partial liberalization of
humanitarian sales the Dorgan amendment represents, the US could sell $444 million within five years and create 6,000 new American jobs. AHTC's analysis indicates that the House compromise would cut these gains to less than 20% of Dr. Stern's original estimates.
``AHTC will continue to push hard for normal humanitarian sales to Cuba when the Agriculture Conference Committee convenes in September. We believe last week's votes indicate a congressional mandate to end the food and medical embargo on Cuba this year,'' Craig Fuller, AHTC Co-Chair and former
Chief of Staff to Vice President George Bush, said.
AHTC is a national coalition of American business, humanitarian, medical, labor, religious, cultural and political leaders focused solely on ending the US food and medical embargo on Cuba. Formed in January 1998, AHTC's 29 individual State Councils have formed the basis of a national grassroots
campaign to eliminate the food and medical embargo on Cuba.
Advisory Council
Carla Anderson Hills
Former U.S. Trade Representative
Dwayne Andreas
Archer Daniels Midland Company
Phil Baum
American Jewish Congress
Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr.
Former Treasury Secretary
Reginald K. Brack, Jr.
Chairman Emeritus, Time Inc.
Dr. Joan Brown Campbell
Former General Secretary
National Council of Churches
Frank C. Carlucci
Former NSC Chief
A.W. Clausen
Former President World Bank
Francis Ford Coppola
Producer / Director
Michael C. Dow
Mayor of Mobile AL
Thom White Wolf Fassett
Methodist General Board of
Church and Society
Richard E. Feinberg
Former NSC Chief for Latin America
Craig L. Fuller [AHTC Co-Chair].
Former Chief of Staff VP Bush
Sam M. Gibbons [AHTC Co-Chair]
Gibbons & Co.
Former 34-year Congressman
Larry Gold, PhD
NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Mark O. Hatfield
Former Senate Appropriations Chair
Grazell Howard
Coalition of 100 Black Women
Bruce Josten
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
David G. Kay
American Rice, Inc.
Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Dr. Paul McCleary
For Children, Inc.
Bob Odom
Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture
George Sturgis Pillsbury
Sargent Management Company
Julius B. Richmond, M.D.
Former Attorney General
Dennis Rivera
1199, National Health & Human
Service Employees Union
David Rockefeller
Rockefeller Center Properties
James Rodney Schlesinger
Former CIA Director
Former Defense Secretary
Kurt L. Schmoke
Former Mayor of Baltimore MD
General John J. Sheehan (retired)
Former Supreme Allied
Commander, Atlantic (NATO)
Sargent Shriver
Special Olympics International
Oliver Stone
Producer / Director
Paul A. Volcker
Former Chair Federal Reserve Board
Malcolm Wallop
Former U.S. Senator, Wyoming
John Whitehead
Former Deputy Secretary of State
Silvia Wilhelm
Executive Director |