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Lawmakers urge easing of
Cuba embargo
By Guy Dinmore in Washington.
The Financial
Times, January 23 2007.
Members of Congress who believe Cuba is
making a smooth transition of power said
on Tuesday they would propose legislation
to ease US embargo and travel restrictions.
"Contrary to the notion that once
Fidel Castro was gone there would be uproar
and the Americans would come marching in,
I didn't sense that at all," said Jo
Ann Emerson, a Republican representative
for Missouri who visited Cuba last month
as part of a delegation of US lawmakers.
Ms Emerson and James McGovern, a Massachusetts
Democrat, said the House Cuba working group,
equally represented by both parties, was
agreed on the need to remove travel restrictions
and loosen the embargo. This was the "mainstream
view" in Congress, Mr McGovern said.
Previous initiatives have failed in committee,
but with both houses of Congress under Democratic
control for the first time in 12 years,
President George W.?Bush may be forced to
use his veto if he is to keep his hardline
Cuba policy intact.
"Our policy to Cuba has done more
to keep Castro in power than anything else,"
Mr McGovern told a seminar hosted by the
Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.
He said the Cuban people were taking the
demise of Mr Castro in their stride, and
that the Bush administration was starting
to accept this "reality".
John Negroponte, director of national intelligence,
said the Cuban "regime" was trying
to create a "soft landing" while
transitioning power to Raúl Castro.
"We don't want to see that happen,"
he told the Senate intelligence committee.
"But what is not known is whether people
are holding back. Maybe we're not seeing
the kind of ferment yet that one might expect
to see once Mr Castro has definitively departed
the scene."
Julia Sweig, analyst at the Council on
Foreign Relations, says Washington must
"finally wake up to the reality of
how and why the Castro regime has proved
so durable, and recognise that, as a result
of its wilful ignorance, it has few tools
with which to effectively influence Cuba
after Fidel has gone."
The official Commission for Assistance
to a Free Cuba, whose recommendations have
been accepted by Mr Bush, has proposed maintaining
economic pressure on Cuba to undermine its
succession strategy. A big humanitarian
relief operation is ready to be mounted
- once a new Cuban government asks for it.
"Our Cuba policy hasn't changed,"
the State Department said.
Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of
state, on Tuesday spoke of 2007 being the
year of engagement and listening in the
region for the US. He spoke positively about
efforts to get a dialogue going with Venezuela's
President Hugo Chávez, but made no
mention of Cuba in more than an hour speaking
to the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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