House GOP Negotiates on Trade Sanctions
By Eric Pianin. Washington Post Staff Writer. Wednesday, May 24, 2000; Page A13
House Republicans, sharply divided over a proposal to ease economic sanctions against rogue countries, yesterday began discussing a possible compromise that would deny communist Cuba any of the benefits.
Proponents of improved trade relations in both the House and Senate succeeded last week in attaching amendments to agriculture spending bills lifting sanctions on the sale of food and drugs to Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Libya and North Korea. The push is being fueled by farm-state Republicans seeking
new overseas markets for constituents.
But House and Senate GOP leaders are vigorously opposed to any measure that would alter the 40-year-old sanctions on Cuba.
Rep. George R. Nethercutt (R-Wash.), a leader of the drive to end the sanctions, said he is considering a number of compromises that would carve Cuba out of the measure. "Maybe there's a middle ground," he said.
Nethercutt and House GOP leaders have also discussed removing the trade measure from the appropriations bill, stripping it of the Cuba language and attaching the prohibition against future food and medicine embargoes to a popular crop insurance bill nearing final action in Congress.
GOP leaders say easing sanctions against Cuba would only strengthen the hand of the Castro dictatorship. Proponents have argued that sanctions harm innocent people and deny U.S. farmers new markets.
The impasse has jeopardized swift passage of the 2001 agriculture spending bill, but yesterday House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) said a compromise could be worked out before the end of the week.
Next Stop for Elian: D.C.
By Sylvia Moreno and Karen DeYoung. Washington Post Staff Writers. Wednesday, May 24, 2000; Page B01
Elian Gonzalez, his father and a Cuban entourage of about a dozen relatives and friends are expected to leave the bucolic Eastern Shore of Maryland and move into the heart of the District, possibly by the end of this week.
The 6-year-old shipwreck survivor and subject of a highly publicized court battle over whether he should live in Miami with distant relatives or return to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel, is moving to the Rosedale estate in the Cleveland Park section of Northwest Washington.
At its request, the entourage is expected to move to the estate owned by Youth For Understanding International Exchange in spite of preferences by the State Department and the U.S. Marshals Service that it remain on the more isolated Eastern Shore.
"If they decide they're going, the marshals are going with them," one government official said.
Ensconced at Carmichael Farm on the edge of the Wye River Conference Center since April 25, the Gonzalezes and their entourage have been under the protection of the marshals. In addition to providing security, the marshals are charged with monitoring their movements to make sure they don't
violate a federal court order forbidding Elian to leave the country, according to an Immigration and Naturalization Service official.
The boy is forbidden to go to any place beyond the jurisdiction of the court--such as a Cuban diplomatic mission--until his case is resolved, which could take several weeks. He also is under an INS departure control order that forbids him to leave the United States until the INS gives
permission, regardless of the court case.
Nonetheless, that doesn't mean the marshals can tell the Gonzalez family and the other Cubans where to go or what to do, said Marshals Service spokesman Drew Wade.
"They are not in custody," Wade said. "They are free to move about."
So, apparently bored because of the lack of movies, stores, restaurants and other diversions and frustrated by the difficulty of reaching the family's attorney, Gregory B. Craig, the entourage is moving.
Located on the Rosedale estate in one of Washington's toniest--and most congested--neighborhoods, Youth For Understanding officials have opened the organization's property to the Cubans.
"We hope that by providing the Gonzalez family with shelter and hospitality in Washington's most historic residence, we can demonstrate to the family and to the citizens of Cuba that the American people bear them no ill will and we seek friendship and understanding between our two
countries," officials of the group said in a statement.
Just north of Washington National Cathedral, the international student exchange group's rolling 6.5-acre property contains a yellow clapboard farmhouse that dates to the Revolutionary War era and three brick buildings once used as dormitories for the cathedral's girls school.
The original Rosedale estate extended from what is now Newark Street NW north to the Montgomery County line and was considered a suburb and summer getaway from the Federal City.
The property was sold to the National Cathedral Foundation in the 1950s. The three modern buildings on the property were used as girls dorms until the late 1960s. Youth For Understanding purchased the property in 1978.
It is inside the two-story farmhouse, with its portico and 18th-century Federal-style columns, that Elian and his father, his stepmother, Nersy, and infant half brother, Hianny, his kindergarten teacher, his 10-year-old cousin and four of his first-grade classmates and their parents will live
while awaiting a federal appeals court decision regarding Elian's right to apply for political asylum in the United States.
The classmates and their parents originally were given visas to join Elian and his family for two weeks, shortly after federal agents removed Elian from the home of his Miami relatives April 22. The visas were extended for two more weeks and are due to expire June 1. The INS has indicated that
if there is no court decision by then, it would likely extend the visas again if asked.
Use of the farmhouse was requested by Craig, who lives in the neighborhood. He first approached Youth For Understanding President Sally Grooms Cowal in mid-April when it became clear that Juan Miguel Gonzalez, his wife and infant son would be coming to the Washington area. Craig asked Youth For
Understanding for the use of its grounds for the taping of a "60 Minutes" interview with Gonzalez that aired April 16. During that interview, Craig asked about the possibility of using the farmhouse and grounds for an extended stay for the Gonzalezes and their entourage, said organization
spokesman Len Doran.
Then, at the end of last week, Craig approached the INS expressing the family's interest in moving to the Youth For Understanding site, according to government officials. Craig would not confirm reports that the Gonzalezes are moving.
The six-member executive committee of the exchange group's 18-member board of trustees unanimously approved the use of the property as a temporary home for the Cubans.
"They had weighed the risks, but they also saw how they could play a substantive role in resolving this situation that all of America wants to see resolved," said Cowal, who polled the committee in a conference call.
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