Yahoo! News
December 10, 2001
Group calls for Cuba policy easing
WASHINGTON, 7 (AP) - Cuba's condemnation of terrorism after the Sept. 11
attacks should encourage the United States to take a fresh look at its policy
toward the island, a group of Cuba experts said Friday.
The 24-person group said in a statement that the administration should
consider removing Cuba from its list of countries that sponsor terrorist
activities.
"For the United States to hold that Cuba is a terrorist state isolates
the United States more than it does Cuba,'' said the Center for International
Policy, a liberal research group. It noted that America's closest allies are in
disagreement with the U.S. position.
Cuba has criticized the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan (news - web
sites) but the statement said this should not be a barrier to closer relations,
pointing out that other countries share that view.
Many longtime critics of U.S. policy signed the statement, including Wayne
Smith, a former U.S. diplomat who is an associate at the center.
The statement said that a dialogue with Cuba on terrorism could be useful
because Cuba has long-standing and close relationships with a number of
countries in the Middle East.
"Given the common goal of eradicating terrorism, there may be ways in
which, through constructive and imaginative diplomacy, that influence could be
directed toward positive ends,'' it said.
During talks on migration in Havana on Monday, Cuba proposed a terrorist
information exchange with the United States but U.S. officials showed no
interest, partly because of Cuba's forceful opposition to the American military
campaign in Afghanistan.
Castro to US students: Know world
HAVANA, 7 (AP) - Cuban leader Fidel Castro encouraged a group of college
students from the United States to keep visiting foreign countries, saying it's
critical for young Americans to know the world around them.
"What young Americans need more than anything is to know the world,''
the Communist Party daily Granma quoted Castro as telling the 672 students, who
were in Cuba for a two-day visit this week during a cruise-ship study program
operated by the University of Pittsburgh.
"Because it is such a powerful nation, with all of its technological
resources, all its political and military might, the fact that its young people
do not know the world constitutes - from a political point of view - a great
tragedy,'' the paper said he told the Americans.
During a meeting with Castro on Thursday at Havana's Palace of Conventions,
the students quizzed the Cuban leader on themes ranging from politics to
baseball, Granma reported Friday.
It was the fifth time that Americans in the Semester at Sea program have
visited Havana. The first visit came in 1999, when the floating campus came with
a special license from the U.S. Treasury Department (news - web sites).
The U.S. embargo in effect against Communist Cuba since the early 1960s
makes it impossible for most Americans to visit the island because it prohibits
them from spending money there. Exceptions are made under U.S. Treasury
licenses. | 
