Yahoo! April 20, 2001
Group Wants End to Cuban Embargo
By Mark Babineck, Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON (AP) - The former diplomat who housed Elian Gonzalez for the final
five weeks of his stay in the United States announced the formation of a group
Thursday to promote an end to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
Sally Grooms Cowal said her Cuba Policy Foundation believes resumption of
trade is the best way to foster reforms on the communist-ruled island.
"The only chance we really have to grow this American economy is growth
in our exports and growth in our markets,'' Cowal said.
Cowal served in various diplomatic posts from 1971 through 1994, including
as ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. She also was president of Youth for
Understanding, an organization that promotes exchanges involving high school
students from the United States and foreign countries.
Elian and his father stayed at the organization's estate in Washington
before they returned to Cuba.
The boy was the victim of a shipwreck off the Florida coast during a
crossing from Cuba that claimed the life of his mother in November 1999. He was
rescued and spent five months with relatives in Miami before federal agents
seized him in a gunpoint raid in April 2000 and delivered him to his father.
The United States has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for 40 years. Last
year Congress approved a measure loosening the embargo for sales of U.S.
agricultural products and medicines.
Press Briefing By National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice And U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick (Excerpt on Cuba)
WASHINGTON, April 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a press briefing by
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick:
The James S. Brady Briefing Room
4:20 P.M. EDT
(…)
Q: President Bush is the 9th President to adopt the strategy of trying to
encourage democracy in Cuba by strangling it economically. And yet, the theme of
the summit seems to be largely one of economic engagement promotes and
strengthens democracy.
I'm wondering why this administration believes that strategy would not be
effective in trying to promote democracy in Cuba.
DR. RICE: There are societies that are open enough and in transition enough
that trade and involvement and engagement can actually make a difference, and
then there are those that are so closed that any effort to engage actually ends
up simply reinforcing the regime; and the administration believes that Cuba is
in that second category.
Unlike some other countries that may not have made all of the progress that
we would like them to in human rights and democratization, but nonetheless are
developing, for instance, private entrepreneurial sectors, which will have an
effect, then, on the politics, in Cuba, if you own a hotdog stand, it really is
the government's hotdog stand. And so we don't see the openings in Cuba that
make it possible for that kind of engagement to make a difference.
Fidel Castro is a one-man band. We believe that just about anything that you
do with Cuba simply reinforces his regime, and that is not good for the Cuban
people, because ultimately they will not be in a position of having the freedoms
that they deserve until the Castro regime is gone.
I might just note that the Europeans have had plenty of economic activity
with Cuba over the last few years and hasn't made one bit of difference to
Cuba's political or human rights situation.
(…)
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