By Rafael Lorente, Washington Bureau. Tribune staff reporter David Cazares contributed to this report. May 17, 2001. Chicago Tribune.
WASHINGTON -- In a shift of momentum and tactics over United States policy toward Cuba, leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation joined several influential senators Wednesday to introduce legislation that would provide direct aid to independent business people, journalists, libraries
and dissidents inside the island.
The bill, which earmarks $100 million in aid over four years, marks a significant change from this time last year, when the foundation and its allies were fighting two defensive battles: one over Elian Gonzalez and the other over a series of bills moving through Congress to ease or eliminate the
U.S. trade embargo and travel restrictions to Cuba.
But the furor has since died down about Elian's return and the foundation is altering its stance on the embargo.
"It's no longer necessary to debate the embargo, it's our policy, it exists," said Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the foundation and son of its late founder, Jorge Mas Canosa. "We are reshaping the debate. We're being successful doing that."
Mas Santos has some powerful allies too. The dissident aid bill counts among its influential sponsors Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.). The House version, which Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) introduced last month, has dozens of sponsors.
President Bush has not taken a position on the bill, but foundation leaders said they have discussed it with administration officials and received favorable responses. Cuban officials have said the country will not accept any such aid.
The dissident aid bill, known as the Cuban Solidarity Act, would send money as well as printing presses, photocopiers, fax machines and other equipment to dissidents on the island. The idea is to emulate similar aid programs used in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
The bill would allow small, independent Cuban entrepreneurs to export goods to the U.S and it would increase the amount of money individual Americans can send to the island to $4,000 per year, more than triple the amount allowed.
But critics say the idea will fail because Cuban leader Fidel Castro will not allow the money and equipment to get to dissidents. They also believe that American aid will only bolster Castro's argument that the dissidents are pawns of the United States and he will use that as a pretext for
further crackdowns.
"How in the world are you going to send a cell phone to the dissidents?" said Elena Freyre, executive director of the Cuban American Defense League, a Miami-based group that focuses on 1st Amendment rights. "How are they going to get them activated? And those that do are going to
have their phones listened to by the government 24 hours a day. How are they going to get fax machines in there? It just doesn't make any sense."
Mas Santos dismissed such concerns, saying dissidents are oppressed in Cuba with or without American aid.
Whether or not the Cuban Solidarity Act passes and is signed into law, it represents another step in the foundation's efforts to change the debate about the United States' Cuba policy. And so far this year they seem to be succeeding.
"Right now the pro-revocation of the embargo movement is in a pause," said Larry Birns, director of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington think tank opposed to the embargo. | 