Published Friday, July 28, 2000, in the Miami Herald .
Republican leaders drop plan to ease sanctions on Cuba
By Jackie Koszczuk. Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders in Congress have dropped a measure seeking to ease economic sanctions against Cuba by blocking the White House from enforcing them. But this is not expected to upset a deal to open trade at least partially with the communist-ruled island.
The provisions, attached to a spending bill by the House last week, would have prevented the Clinton administration from spending any money to enforce prohibitions on most travel to Cuba, including tourist travel, and the embargo on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba.
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., stripped the measures from the bill just before the House prepared to open debate on a final version. The bill funds the Treasury Department, the principal overseer of embargo regulations.
The bill was shelved Thursday amid several other disputes over funding. It is unlikely to be brought to the House and Senate floors for final action until September, after the month-long congressional recess in August.
House leaders stripped out the Cuba provisions because they believed they would interfere with a delicate compromise between pro-embargo and anti-embargo forces in Congress, a spokesman said. That agreement is pending on another bill.
The House forbade spending to enforce the embargo last week in a surprisingly strong 301-116 vote that took leaders by surprise. By a smaller margin, the House also barred the Treasury from enforcing restrictions on U.S. travel to the island. A similar move was brewing in the Senate.
The original compromise would have allowed U.S. exports to Cuba as long as they were not financed by U.S. banks or the federal government. The deal would open the door to sales of food also to Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan but would likewise prevent the use of public and private financing
in those sales.
The House-brokered agreement is supported both by some farm-state lawmakers who want to liberalize trade with Cuba and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, both Miami Republicans who take a hard line against Cuban President Fidel Castro.
But the House agreement will be tested this fall during talks to reconcile differences between the Senate, which has approved a broader opening of trade with Cuba. Farm state lawmakers seek more liberal trade, with credit guarantees for Cuba.
The House and Senate will take up the agreement as part of an agriculture spending bill.
Published Friday, July 28, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Cuban espionage ring trial to stay in Miami, judge rules
Attorneys said the anti-Castro community would not fairly judge their clients.
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com
A federal judge on Thursday ruled in favor of holding the trials of an alleged South Florida Cuban spy ring in Miami, saying there is not enough evidence to suggest the alleged spies will not get a fair trial here.
Lawyers for accused spy master Gerardo Hernandez, who lived in South Florida as Manuel Viramontez, and the other accused agents of Fidel Castro had asked that the trial be moved, possibly to Broward or Palm Beach County.
They argued that exile-rich Miami was too swept up in anti-Castro fervor to fairly judge the men, who were arrested in a predawn FBI sweep in September 1997.
But Judge Joan Lenard said Thursday that lawyers for the accused spies ``have not demonstrated the degree of pervasive community prejudice which would warrant a presumption of jury prejudice''
Hernandez, 33, also known as John Doe No. 1; Luis Medina III, 32, also known as John Doe No. 2; René González, 43; Antonio Guerrero, 42; and Ruben Campa, 35, also known as John Doe No. 3, are accused of being members of a Cuban espionage network that set up shop for several years
in South Florida.
Hernandez, characterized in court documents as a spy master, is also accused of conspiracy to murder four volunteers aboard two Brothers to the Rescue flights, shot down by Cuban MiGs in February 1996. Lenard has ordered Guerrero's trial delayed until January because his attorney has been ill
and will not be available for the Sept. 5 start date.
Five other Cubans arrested at the same time, among them two married couples, pleaded guilty to lesser crimes of acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government or being foot soldiers of the spy ring.
On Thursday, Lenard said careful juror instructions will ``safeguard defendants' right to a fair and impartial jury in Miami-Dade County.'' She said defense lawyers can argue later to move the trial away from Miami if it proves impossible to seat a jury.
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