Dismantling sought of Cuban embargo - on ''a collision course'' with the White House

WASHINGTON - An unusually diverse and bipartisan group of 34 legislators on Thursday announced that they had formed a congressional bloc to seek step-by-step loosening of the trade embargo of Cuba and permit U.S. citizens to travel to the island.

''We all agree that the current policy has failed,'' said Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican and ardent free-trade proponent who is a leader of the bloc.

The group's members asserted that the four-decade-old embargo is a relic of the Cold War. They said the Bush administration should abandon attempts to isolate the Fidel Castro regime in favor of the openness it shows toward communist regimes in China and Vietnam.

Creation of the bloc foreshadows a showdown between Congress and the Bush administration this spring over policy toward Cuba. The White House, eager to please Cuban-American voters in Florida who play an outsized role in national politics, plans soon to announce moves to tighten the embargo. An increasingly significant number of legislators, in contrast, say heartland farm interests are hurt by the embargo, and that many U.S. citizens oppose current policy.

''Most people in America think we should change our policy. It's a few people in Florida who do not,'' said Rep. Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat.

Leaders of the group, comprised of 17 Democrats and 17 Republicans, said they would seek freedom for U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, and to allow U.S. companies to sell agricultural goods to the island on credit. The bloc may also seek greater counter-drug cooperation with Cuba, which straddles sea lanes from South America.

Castro, one of the world's last stalwart communists, has ruled through eight U.S. presidents since taking power in 1959. At 75, he still firmly controls the island.

Flake, a member of the House International Relations Committee, said the U.S. government should stop levying fines against U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba.

''This is an issue of freedom,'' Flake said. ``Every citizen ought to have the right to see firsthand what a mess that man has made of that island.''

Moves in Congress to relax the travel ban have gained steam. Last year, legislators voted 240-186 to stop enforcing the ban, but action was later derailed by the Republican House leadership working with the White House.

'It's rather ironic that Americans today can travel to Iran, can travel to North Korea. By my calculations, that's two-thirds of the `axis of evil,' '' said Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat who is a leader of the bloc, referring to President Bush's remarks in January about nations that sponsor terrorism. Bush also fingered Iraq.

A conservative Republican from Washington state, Rep. George Nethercutt, said the legislators are not blind to the kind of regime Castro leads.

But Nethercutt said U.S. farmers are losing out on a $1 billion agricultural market with the boycott.

An advisor to the legislative bloc, Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute, a policy research group in Arlington, Va., said Congress and the White House are on ''a collision course'' over the direction of Cuban policy.

U.S. policy on Cuba to receive full review [Excerpt] The Bush administration has ordered what it calls the first comprehensive review of U.S. policy on Cuba in several years in an effort to find more effective ways to bring about democratic changes on the island, senior administration officials say.

Otto J. Reich, the Cuban-born top State Department official in charge of Latin American affairs, said in a telephone interview that he has ordered a review of all areas of the policy, including the four-decades-old U.S. trade sanctions on the communist-ruled island. The review is scheduled to be completed within weeks, he said.

While not ruling out any outcome, Reich said the administration is seeking to make the policy more effective and thus is not likely to loosen the embargo -- a position that would have Congress and the White House headed in opposite directions.

…………. Reich, who will be officially sworn in Monday as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said one area of innovation may be greater support for civil society groups in Cuba. Other U.S. officials say this may include support for human rights activists who are deemed ''traitors'' by the Cuban government.

The officials say they are considering ways to overcome the Cuban government's jamming of the U.S.-financed Radio and TV Martí, and new rules to limit travel by Cuban diplomats in the United States.

''We are going to review the whole thing,'' Reich said. ``The problem is that we have relied entirely on one component of the policy, the embargo.''

He added that U.S. foreign policy has a variety of tools at its disposal, including ''political, economic, diplomatic, informational and military components,'' and that some of these may be employed.

Asked specifically about the trade sanctions, Reich said that ``we are taking a closer look at the efficiency of our economic sanctions. I don't think we are going to loosen them. Unless we have changes in Cuba, we are not.'' [End Excerpts]

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Jeff Jacoby's three part series on Cuba "A walk in Havana" - "Keeping hope, conscience alive in Cuba" - "The US embargo and Cuba's future"--[Excerpt] And make no mistake: Doing business with Cuba means doing business with Castro. There is no private property in Cuba, no private enterprise, no private employers. Foreign investors must deal with the government. They cannot hire Cuban workers directly; a government agency chooses their workers for them. The investors pay Castro - in hard currency - for each worker; Castro in turn pays the workers a fraction of that amount - in all-but-worthless pesos.

So long as Cuba's dictator maintains his stranglehold on every aspect of Cuban life, ending the embargo would be counterproductive. It would do nothing to end the far more restrictive embargo that Castro imposes on the Cuban nation. It would give him the propaganda victory and the US dollars he craves, but it would do little to bring liberty or hope to ordinary Cuban citizens.

Every president since JFK has extended the Cuban embargo; to lift it in exchange for nothing - no free elections, no civil liberties - would be a betrayal of the very people we want to help. ''Tiende tu mano a Cuba,'' says Paya when I ask what he thinks of American policy, ''pero primero pide que le desaten las manos a los cubanos.'' Extend your hands to Cuba - but first unshackle ours.[End Excerpt]

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