** Visit AAM's new website! http://www.africanassociation.org **
The Cuba issue is long overdue. That's a good news for many Americans and other nationals. It's good to go there to learn how to become a good doctor or nurse. Cuba has an excellent record when it comes to trained doctors and nurses.
We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that time is ripe to do right.
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Munoz <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, October 24, 2003 2:02 pm
Subject: Senate Approves Easing of Curbs on CubaTravel
> ** Visit AAM's new website! http://www.africanassociation.org **
>
> fyi
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Senate Approves Easing of Curbs on Cuba Travel
>
> October 24, 2003
> By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
>
> WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 - In a firm rebuke to President Bush
> over Cuba policy, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly
> voted to ease travel restrictions on Americans seeking to
> visit the island.
>
> The 59-to-38 vote came two weeks after Mr. Bush, in a Rose
> Garden ceremony, announced that he would tighten the travel
> ban on Cuba in an attempt to halt illegal tourism there and
> to bring more pressure on the government of Fidel Castro.
>
> The House of Representatives has repeatedly passed
> legislation to ease the travel ban, including a vote of 227
> to 188 last month approving virtually identical language.
> But in previous efforts, the House leadership has been able
> to use back-room maneuvers to bottle it up. Thursday's vote
> was the first time the Senate had acted to loosen the ban,
> which is in the form of a prohibition on spending more than
> a token amount of money in Cuba.
>
> The Senate vote placed the president and Republican
> Congressional leaders on a collision course, leaving an
> angry White House threatening to veto an important spending
> bill that contained the provision easing the travel
> restrictions and a growing number of lawmakers from both
> parties demanding an overhaul of the American sanctions
> against Havana.
>
> In the final dash to approve sweeping appropriations bills,
> it remains uncertain whether the White House threat is a
> negotiating ploy and whether supporters of looser travel
> restrictions could muster a two-thirds majority to override
> a veto.
>
> The vote also highlighted a widening split between two
> important Republican constituencies: farm-state
> Republicans, who oppose trade sanctions in general or are
> eager to increase sales to Cuba, and Cuban-American
> leaders, who want to curb travel and trade to punish Mr.
> Castro. The White House views Cuban-Americans as essential
> to Mr. Bush's re-election prospects in Florida.
>
> The Senate last rejected an easing of travel restrictions
> in 1999, by a vote of 43 to 55. But in an indication of how
> much the political and policy pendulum has swung, 13
> senators who voted against easing the curbs four years ago
> switched sides and voted for it on Thursday.
>
> Several influential Republican senators voted against the
> president, including John W. Warner of Virginia, the
> chairman of the Armed Services Committee; and Pat Roberts
> of Kansas, the chairman of the intelligence committee; as
> did many conservatives from farming states, including James
> M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sam Brownback of Kansas and Kay
> Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
>
> Senator Michael B. Enzi, a Wyoming Republican who
> co-sponsored the amendment, criticized what he called an
> American "stranglehold" on Cuba, a country of 11 million
> people less than 100 miles from the United States. The
> decades-old travel ban, he said, merely deepens Cubans'
> misery without providing fresh ideas to the Marxist-led
> nation.
>
> "Unilateral sanctions stop not just the flow of goods, but
> the flow of ideas," Mr. Enzi said. "Ideas of freedom and
> democracy are the keys to positive change in any nation."
>
> The White House countered that allowing unfettered travel
> to Cuba would provide Mr. Castro's government with an
> economic bonanza, allowing him to cover up his shortcomings
> as a repressive dictator.
>
> On Oct. 10, Mr. Bush defended tight restrictions, saying
> American tourist dollars go to the Cuban government, which
> "pays the workers a pittance in worthless pesos and keeps
> the hard currency to prop up the dictator and his cronies."
>
>
> "Illegal tourism perpetuates the misery of the Cuban
> people," he said.
>
> Mr. Bush pledged to step up enforcement of the travel ban,
> by increasing inspections of travelers and shipments to and
> from Cuba. The Department of Homeland Security immediately
> announced that it would direct "intelligence and
> investigative resources" to identify travelers or
> businesses that circumvent the sanctions against Cuba.
>
> The president's statement represented the first substantive
> response to a mounting outcry among some Cuban exile groups
> over Mr. Castro's imprisonment of about 75 Cuban dissidents
> last spring.
>
> But Mr. Bush's adherence to a hard-line policy identified
> with the most conservative exile groups has increasingly
> left him at odds with Congress. In 2000, lawmakers, under
> pressure from the farm lobby, approved the limited sale of
> food and medicines to the island; since then, Cuba has
> bought $282 million in agricultural goods, according to the
> U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
>
> The Senate vote was on an amendment to the $90 billion
> spending bill for the Treasury and Transportation
> Departments. A senior administration official said the
> president's advisers would recommend that he veto the bill
> if it emerges from a House-Senate conference committee with
> the amendment still in it.
>
> Advocates of easing restrictions said they had taken steps
> to prevent the travel measure from being stripped away
> again in conference committee. They cited the lopsided
> Senate vote supporting it.
>
> With food and medical sales authorized on a case-by-case
> basis, the travel ban is one of the last remaining pillars
> of the trade embargo, which was first imposed by President
> Kennedy in 1962.
>
> Before then, Cuba's sandy beaches and Spanish colonial
> architecture had made it a popular tourist spot for
> Americans. In recent years, it has become so again, to the
> chagrin of administration officials. As many as 25,000
> Americans visited Cuba without authorization from the
> Treasury Department last year, according to the U.S.-Cuba
> Trade and Economic Council. About 140,000 Americans, mostly
> Cuban exiles on family visits, traveled to the island
> legally, the council said.
>
> The legislation approved by the House last month and the
> Senate today does not officially legalize travel to the
> island. Rather, it strips the Treasury Department's Office
> of Foreign Assets Control of its ability to enforce the
> travel restrictions.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/politics/24CUBA.html?ex=1068019960&ei=1&en=046610e20b78f519
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine
> reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like!
> Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy
> now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/ads/nytcirc/index.html
>
>
>
> HOW TO ADVERTISE
> ---------------------------------
> For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters
> or other creative advertising opportunities with The
> New York Times on the Web, please contact
> [log in to unmask] or visit our online media
> kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo
>
> For general information about NYTimes.com, write to
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:
>
> http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html
>
> AAM Website: http://www.africanassociation.org
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html
AAM Website: http://www.africanassociation.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
