#1- HOUSE... #2-IF THE PRESIDENT...

House backs travel to Cuba Bush has vowed to veto legislation blocking enforcement of ban 07/24/2002 By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – The House voted late Tuesday to block the Bush administration from enforcing a ban on most Americans visiting Cuba, a move that suggests growing bipartisan support for lifting the decades-old economic embargo.

By a vote of 262-167, House members voted to block the administration from using funds to enforce the travel ban against Americans. They also voted 251-177 to lift restrictions on how much money Americans can send to Cubans. Americans are limited to $100 monthly.

The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved a Treasury spending bill that includes ending travel restrictions. The bill awaits a full vote in the Democrat-majority Senate.

If such legislation passes Congress, it would set up a possible showdown with President Bush, who has repeatedly vowed to veto any move to ease the embargo against Cuba.

"Our best ambassadors for change are ordinary American citizens," said Rep. Jeff Flake, a freshman Republican from Arizona and author of the amendment to lift the travel ban. "And we ought to allow them to travel to Cuba with that message."

The House action was the third time in three years that members had voted to lift the travel curbs. The margin of approval increased each time, although the Senate did not act in earlier instances.

The measure passed Tuesday was part of an $18.5 billion spending bill to fund the U.S. Treasury and general government operations next year.

In a statement, the White House said the president would veto the spending bill if it contained an end to the travel ban. "Lifting the sanctions now would provide a helping hand to a desperate and repressive regime," the statement said.

A vote to thwart the Flake amendment was rejected by the House, 247-182. The measure, introduced by Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., would have allowed the easing of travel only after the president certified that Cuba was not developing biological weapons and not supporting or harboring international terrorists. Cuba is one of seven nations on the State Department's terrorist watch list.

For more than 40 years, Cuba has been off-limits for most Americans, a symbol of the Cold War, when the nation once pointed missiles at major U.S. cities.

Supporters of lifting the travel ban have called for a new approach to topple Fidel Castro and usher in change.

Others, such as Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., urge more patience. They argue that the travel ban should remain until Mr. Castro agrees to respect human rights, releases political prisoners and holds free and internationally supervised elections.

During debate, Mr. Hyde said that Mr. Castro must continue to be treated as an "outlaw, and if we persist, sooner or later he will leave. It's Cuba that needs to change its policy."

But proponents of change, led by Mr. Flake, argued that a new approach is the best way to bring change and help prepare for the post-Castro era.

"Both sides want a free and prosperous Cuba. The question is how do we get there," he said. "The verdict is in: Forty-two years and nothing has changed."

A week ago, a study sponsored by the anti-embargo Center for International Policy said if Congress legalized travel to Cuba, it would mean an additional $415 million for the U.S. airline industry. Opponents of lifting the travel ban to Cuba scoffed at those numbers.

In Havana, not everyone appeared overly eager to receive Americans en masse. For years, Americans have been quietly – and illegally – traveling to the island, risking fines and even jail time. A senior Cuban official said in an earlier interview that the debate in Congress and growing bipartisan support for a change in policy toward Cuba are "very important steps."

But when asked whether Cuba was prepared for an influx of Americans, the official noted that 3 million tourists visit annually from Canada, Europe and Mexico.

The thought of tens of thousands of Americans traveling to the island, as they did before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, didn't sit well with Humberto Macias, 55, a psychologist.

"There has to be a balance," he said. "What I'm saying is every American who wants to visit can't do it at the same day, or the same time. We don't have the capacity."

E-mail acorchado@dallasnews.com Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/world/cuba/stories/072402dnnatuscuba.d6eab.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

WASHINGTON - Courting a presidential veto, the House on Tuesday night moved to lift restrictions on travel to Cuba that have been in place for more than four decades. The House also voted to remove hurdles on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba and lift the caps on money that Cuban-Americans can send back to relatives in Cuba. Both initiatives designed to avoid the fall of the only communist government in this hemisphere.

On a 262-167 vote, lawmakers approved a measure to end government obstacles to American tourists visiting Cuba.

The vote on the Flake provision came after the House rejected, 247-182, a measure that would have set tough conditions - including proof that Cuba was not developing a biological weapons - before American tourists could travel to Cuba.

The Cuba debate dominated action on an $18.5 billion spending bill to fund programs for the Treasury Department, the White House and other agencies in fiscal year 2003. Another amendment by Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., removed hurdles to the sale of food and medicine to Cuba.

And a second Flake measure removed the limit, now $1,200 a year, on what Cuban-Americans can send to their families in Cuba. That passed 251-177.

The most far-reaching attempt to reverse the decades-old policy of isolating Castro's Cuba, an amendment by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to end the economic embargo, was defeated, but by a narrow 226-204.

Rangel, a strong proponent of lifting sanctions on Cuba, said politics in Florida, where President Bush's brother Jeb is governor, is a big reason the United States continues to isolate Cuba. ``Don't allow your local politics to influence what's in our national interest,'' he said.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a version of the Treasury spending bill that includes an end to travel restrictions.

The White House, in a statement, said the president would be urged to veto the spending bill if it contains an end to the travel ban. ``Lifting the sanctions now would provide a helping hand to a desperate and repressive regime,'' it said.

On Monday, Otto Reich, head of the State Department's Western Hemisphere affairs bureau, said American tourism would only give President Fidel Castro greater access to dollars. ``When he's had hard currency, he's used it to support terrorist or other anti-American or anti-Western democracy activities,'' he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Supporters of the White House policy sought to head off the Flake amendment with a proposal, introduced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., that would have allowed an easing of travel restrictions only after the president certifies that Cuba is not developing biological weapons, is not providing terrorist states with technology to develop biological weapons and is not supporting or harboring international terrorists.

``The Castro dictatorship, a totalitarian regime long known to be a safe haven for terrorists and a nerve center for international espionage, is a continuing and growing threat to our national security that we cannot afford to underestimate,'' said Cuba-born Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

The Treasury bill focuses on law enforcement and anti-terrorism programs, increasing funds for the Customs Service to tighten border controls. It also includes a 4.1 percent cost-of-living raise for civilian federal workers. Last week, on a procedural vote to the Treasury bill, the House also opened the way for a 3.3 percent pay raise for members of Congress to kick in.

Received: www.lavozdecubalibre.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

COMMENTS: The reason for this??? GREED. What's happening in Wall Street is a malady that corrupts our entire system. Unless Americans demand accountability and weed out the criminal and corrupt, we will see more ADM's, ENRON, GLOBAL XNG., MARTHA STEWART, and many more. The Rangels, Serranos, Waters, Renos, VonMeissners and the likes of the Andreas criminal family are in power and manipulating our existence, just like Satan is in control of this world. WAKE UP AMERICA, IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK. Act now or forever hold your piece. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ COMMENTS: What to say about the passage of this bill in the House of Representatives? Only that members of Congress either ignore or don't care what the real situation is in Cuba. They are acting out of extreme ideological positions or pure political/economical perceived advantages for themselves or their constituency. It reminds one of the historical alliances with dictators all over the world just to benefit the interests of this country and regardless of hardships the citizens of those states were subjected to, much critisized by the left. I wonder if Congress would have passed similar bills to preserve tyrannies such as Franco's, Somoza's, Trujillo's, Pinochet's or Hitler's in this day and age. What is the difference between right and left winged dictatorships in terms of moral implication when trading and supporting them? It is quite arrogant to think American trade and tourism will change this oppressive system when for 42 years Cuba has traded with and has been exposed to tourism from Europe, Asia and Latin America to the benefit of only the ruling class but not of the enslaved people. History, a long history for Castro's regime with this kind of help, will determine who was right and what were the motivations for such a blunder. God protect us!

FOR FREEDOM & JUSTICE GROUP http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ForFreedomandJustice

Personally I feel the ban SHOULD be lifted, it hasn't worked for 40 years and it could very well be the boost this ecconomy needs to get back up and running.

Trade to Cuba along with open travel would create jobs, add flights to the airline industry and allow friends, realatives and vacationers a chance to experience for themselves all that Cuba has to offer. It's a wonderful cultural experience!

Castro has already offered FAIR MARKET value (as soon as sanctions are lifted) for the property taken when American interests were kicked out.

This could only be a good thing for the US

Trade to Cuba along with open travel would create jobs, add flights to the airline industry and allow friends, realatives and vacationers a chance to experience for themselves all that Cuba has to offer.

I disagree. If we are not going to deal with Castro, and our position is he is a dictator running a repressive regime, then this must be vetoed.

I realize that we deal with China, and the Saudis, and other countries that you could make the "repressive regime" argument for, but our policy on Cuba is already in place.

We make a great deal of his prison camps, and how the locals can't go to the resorts, and other issues. The point is that Castro WOULD have access to more US dollars if the travel ban was lifted. This just seems like a bad time to give any creedance at all to his government. And since GWB already said there will be no dealing with Cuba until after the seeds of democracy are in place, I would expect him to veto this quickly.

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