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March 22, 2002.
House members seek easing of Cuba policy
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer. Thu Mar 21, 6:32
PM ET
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan House group took aim Thursday at the
administration's Cuba policy, calling for an easing of the trade embargo and an
end to restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans.
"Quite simply, our Cuba policy has failed," said Rep. Jeff Flake
(news, bio, voting record), a member of the House International Relations
Committee. "After 40 years, the U.S. policy toward Cuba has yielded few
results. I think it's time to try something new,"
He said that only through engagement can the United States promote democracy
and improve human rights in Cuba.
At a news conference, Flake recommended an end to restrictions that limit
legal travel to Americans to those who have a professional interest in the
island.
For the most part, he said, Americans are unable to see what President Fidel
Castro has wrought.
"Every American should have the right to see first hand what a mess he
has made of that island," Flake said.
Rep. William Delahunt (news, bio, voting record) said it was an anomaly for
the government to bar most Americans from visiting Cuba while allowing them to
visit Iran and North Korea .
"By my calculation that's 2/3 of the axis of evil," Delahunt said,
referring to the description of these countries by President George W. Bush in
his State of the Union address.
The administration is determined to maintain the embargo and the travel
restrictions. Lifting these curbs would give a boost to the Cuban economy and
prolong communist rule, the administration says.
Otto Reich, the State Department's top official for Latin America, said last
week the United States can speed a democratic transition in Cuba by "not
throwing a lifeline to a failed, corrupt, dictatorial, murderous regime."
But congressional opponents of the policy appear to be growing in number.
Traditional embargo critics have joined together with anti-embargo lawmakers
from farm states who see Cuba as a lucrative market for American farm products.
They have banded together in a "House Cuba Working Group" to
undertake a policy review.
Their two main legislative priorities are lifting restrictions on travel to
Cuba and permitting private financing for agricultural sales to the island.
Cash sales of food to Cuba were permitted starting in 2000 but financing by
the U.S. government or private entities were barred. Cuba began importing U.S.
food last fall, after a hurricane devastated the island, and total sales have
been in the dlrs 70 million range.
According to a study, Arkansas farmers could export goods worth dlrs 500
million to Cuba, more than any other state. Rep. George Nethercutt (news, bio,
voting record) said Cuba is a potential dlrs 1 billion market for U.S. farm
products. The administration says Cuba is too broke to be a major U.S. market.
Beyond that, Rep. Lincoln Diaz Balart, a pro-embargo stalwart, said Thursday
it was "inconceivable that in the midst of a U.S. war on terrorism, a war
that has cost American lives, members of Congress would actually propose that we
become business partners with a terrorist dictatorship."
Castro, Chávez decry inequalities, condemn IMF
Diego Cevallos,Inter Press Service. Fri Mar 22, 5:39 AM ET
MONTERREY, Mexico, Mar 21 (IPS) - Presidents Hugo Chávez, of
Venezuela, and Fidel Castro , of Cuba, urged the international community
Thursday to straighten out the path of the global economy and harshly criticized
multilateral financial organizations in speeches addressing more than 50 heads
of state and government gathered in this northern Mexican city.
"The current world order constitutes a system of plunder and
exploitation like never before in history. The people believe less and less in
declarations and promises. The prestige of the international financial
institutions has fallen below zero," said Castro.
The heads of state and government are meeting Thursday and Friday, the last
two days of the five-day International Conference on Financing for Development,
convened by the United Nations .
Also in attendance are executives from the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), World Bank , World Trade Organisation, and leaders of pro-development
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with many of the latter supporting the
arguments of Castro and Chávez.
The world is living "a true genocide" and one cannot blame "this
strategy on the poor countries. They are not the ones who conquered and pillaged
entire continents over the centuries, nor did they establish colonialism,
implant slavery, or create modern- day imperialism," said the Cuban leader
in a speech that won enthusiastic applause from NGO delegates at the conference.
According to his colleague Chávez, the world "is not only
twisted," but it is "backwards," and the leaders of the world
must straighten it out, he said in his address on behalf of the Group of 77, a
bloc of 133 developing countries, plus China.
"In name of all the poor of the planet," the Venezuelan president
called upon governments "to act, and not just speak," and urged them
to save the world, which, he said, suffers a grave "social crisis."
He also demanded that the role of the IMF be revised, because its "recipes"
for development have been "venom" for poor countries.
According to Castro, the final document to be signed by the government
officials Friday in Monterrey is "a project of consensus that has been
imposed upon us by the masters of the world...in which we resign ourselves to
humiliating, conditional, and interventionist handouts."
"It is time for calm reflection among politicians and national leaders.
The belief that an economic and social order that has proven to be unsustainable
can be imposed by force is a crazy idea," he said.
The discourse laid out by Castro and Chávez was among the only ones
that the NGO leaders said they supported.
"Finally someone stated the truth to the powerful," commented one
activist.
The "Monterrey Consensus", the final document to be signed by the
official delegates, will not alleviate the problems related to poverty as it
proposes to do, because it prescribes the same free- market strategy that
created them, according to the NGO delegates.
The Cuban president commented that "the world economy today is a
gigantic casino," and, like Chávez, said he is in favor of creating
a tax on speculative international transactions in order to create a fund for
development assistance (known as the 'Tobin Tax', proposed by U.S. Nobel
Economist, James Tobin).
But Castro stressed that the fund must be managed by UN agencies "and
not by ruinous institutions like the IMF."
The tone and direction of Castro's and Chávez's speeches contrasted
with those made by most of the other national leaders who participated in the
conference Thursday.
For Mexico's President Vicente Fox , the meeting "marks the beginning
of a new kind of development," a notion echoing the statements of many of
his colleagues.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that developing countries have come
to Monterrey not to seek handouts, but to be heard.
The contributions made by wealthy nations for financing development, some 50
billion dollars annually, must at least be doubled in order to attend to the
needs of the world's poor, said Annan.
The UN official defended the content of the Monterrey Consensus. It is not
weak, as some claim, he said, but it will be if it is not implemented.
The heads of the IMF and the World Bank also addressed the conference,
defending the market strategies as they are included in the conference's final
document, but they did not recognize errors, nor did they make reference to the
criticisms they have received.
IMF managing director Horst Köhler maintained that trade is the most
important path for self-help and creates a situation in which everyone wins,
rich and poor.
James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, agreed, adding that
developing countries "don't need charity, but opportunities." | 
