SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A18

LENGTH: 1064 words

HEADLINE: Hill Group Urges End To Sanctions on Cuba; Bush Plans to Keep Policy in Place

BYLINE: Peter Slevin and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writers

BODY:




Forty members of Congress called yesterday for unrestricted U.S. travel and increased trade with Cuba as the first steps in an overhaul of a decades-old foreign policy that has failed to topple Cuban President Fidel Castro or deliver democracy to the island.

Reflecting growing congressional dissatisfaction with the hard-line U.S. approach toward Cuba, the appeal from 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats came one day after former president Jimmy Carter delivered a speech in Havana urging closer relations between Cuba and the United States, and the lifting of travel restrictions and the economic embargo.

The Bush administration quickly asserted that the embargo and travel restrictions must remain as long as Castro continues to deny civil liberties to Cuba's 11 million citizens. President Bush intends to outline his policy Monday, emphasizing the idea of being tough with the Cuban government and open toward Cuban citizens. "President Carter speaks his mind, and he spoke his mind with respect to our policy, which he would like to see change but which is not going to change," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters on his way home from a NATO summit in Iceland. "I think the president will reinforce that when he gives his speech. And I'm sure it will be a speech, though, that also offers hope and promise to the Cuban people."

A debate over U.S. policy toward Cuba is brewing at a moment when Congress and the Bush administration are moving in separate directions. Administration policy, developed with the help of conservative Cuban American appointees, aims to enforce Castro's economic isolation and bolster pro-democracy forces, while congressional majorities have repeatedly voted to go further by increasing U.S. trade and travel.

The Cuba Working Group is a new caucus created this year to push for changes in policies followed by Republican and Democratic administrations. The range of districts and re[acute]sume[acute]s of its members illustrates the evaporation of the ideological cohesion that helped define U.S. policy during the Cold War, when Castro's communist government aligned itself with the Soviet Union.

The group's nine-point plan issued yesterday is meant as a series of incremental steps. It does not call for direct U.S. investment, diplomatic relations or foreign aid. The list included an appeal for normal exports of U.S. food and medicine; an end to limits on money sent by Cuban Americans to relatives in Cuba; and the sunset next year of the Helms-Burton Act, which tightened the U.S. embargo in 1996.

The group also recommended increased "security cooperation" between the two governments; an end to TV Marti, the U.S.-sponsored television network that costs more than $ 20 million a year but is rarely seen in Cuba; and the creation of scholarship programs to increase communication between Cubans and Americans.

In remarks to reporters yesterday, members of the working group asked why the administration enforces tougher trade rules against Cuba than against Iraq or China. They noted that the United States on Tuesday sponsored a successful U.N. resolution permitting virtually unrestricted trade in civilian goods with Iraq and that the administration pursues free trade with China despite its one-party state and long record of human rights abuses.

The embargo opponents also noted that exposure to Western ideas through trade and travel influenced the pro-democracy movements that swept aside the communist governments of Central Europe in 1989 and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet empire. They pointed to arguments by successive occupants of the White House that economic openings in China and Russia will lead to increased political freedoms.

"Adopt a policy of engagement. It has proven successful elsewhere in the world," said Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.), who worked with Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to assemble the group of representatives. The group's first goal is overturning the travel ban.

"It's way past due. The reasons for putting it into place are far gone by already," said Marilyn Meiser, 75, a retired schoolteacher who was fined $ 1,000 for taking a bicycle trip in rural Cuba. Reached in Milton, Wis., she said she had not known she was breaking the law.

Carter's call for the lifting of U.S. sanctions and the public appeal by the lawmakers put the administration on the defensive. Administration officials made clear, however, that the embargo policy will not change.

Bush also will remain firm on the travel policy, which led to 766 Americans being cited last year, up from 188 in 2000, officials said. One condition the administration expects to enforce is the requirement that pilots of pleasure boats traveling to Cuba obtain permission from the U.S. government.

"I wouldn't expect any dramatic departures from what the president and the secretary have said publicly about Cuba on numerous occasions," a State Department official said.

The president intends to support measures designed to "expand the flow and the breadth of information available to the Cuban people," the official said. That includes a revamping of the programming of Radio Marti, the Miami-based U.S. government radio station that is the sister network to TV Marti, and an increased distribution of radios by U.S. diplomats in Havana.

"It's important for information to be made available about the possibilities and the alternatives that are out there," said the official, who described the effort as "a continuation and a strengthening of the outreach program."

During the 2000 presidential campaign and his speech on Cuban Independence Day a year ago, Bush promised tougher measures against Castro's government, including increased aid to dissidents inside Cuba, strengthened U.S. government broadcasting to the island, and a tightened travel ban.

Proponents of such measures contend the administration has done too little in these areas over the past year. Hopes among some Cuban Americans that the administration would change the amount and type of U.S.-government aid provided to dissidents -- allowing direct cash payments in addition to office and information supplies -- have gone unfulfilled. TV Marti's weak signal is jammed by Castro, and some supporters favor broadcasts from the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.



LOAD-DATE: May 16, 2002