Groups urge U.S. to relax travel, aid restrictions to Cuba

Groups urge U.S. to relax travel, aid restrictions to Cuba
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
Associated Press
Posted December 4 2006, 4:46 PM EST

MIAMI -- Twenty mostly Cuban exile organizations called on the U.S.
government Monday to relax travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans who
want to visit family on the island nation and to permit Americans to
send humanitarian aid to the communist country.

The request by the coalition Cuban Consensus comes weeks after top Cuban
dissidents made similar requests. It also highlights the changing
political views among the exile community over how to respond to the
Cuban government's restrictions on freedom of expression and movement.

Among those demanding the changes is The Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan
Washington-based organization of business and community leaders, the
Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, as well as the
association of Independent Libraries of Cuba.

``I came from the hard-line position,'' Cuba Study Group Co-Chairman
Carlos Saladrigas said. ``But isolating a people has not brought us
change in 47 years. Isolating a people only helps to support the
dictatorship.''

Saladrigas added that the opposite tactic was used to promote change in
Eastern Europe.

``Why would we think that these measures that weren't used in any of the
transition processes in the Eastern European countries would work
here?'' he said.

The move comes at a time of great political uncertainty in Cuba, where
80-year-old Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother Defense
Minister Raul Castro more than four months ago following intestinal surgery.

It also comes two days after Raul Castro reached out to the United
States during a major military parade, offering to discuss the two
countries' differences on equal terms. Fidel Castro did not appear at
the parade as many Cubans had anticipated, making it seem more likely
that Raul Castro will be the Cuban leader the U.S. deals with in the future.

The coalition said the restrictions implemented by the U.S., as well as
those of the Cuban government, which severely restricts the travel of
its citizens, violate fundamental human rights.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Florida, a longtime supporter of the
U.S. embargo on Cuba, said he was glad to see growing consensus among
Cuban organizations but that the coalition was missing the larger issue.

``The genuine consensus that needs to be emphasized at this critical
moment must be focused on the immediate liberation of all political
prisoners without exceptions and in the scheduling of free, multiparty
elections in Cuba, not in unilateral concessions to the dictatorship,''
he said.

The coalition is taking aim in particular at U.S. restrictions
implemented in 2004 that made it more difficult for academic and
humanitarian groups to travel to the island and limited the number of
times Cubans can visit their families there from once a year to once
every three years.

At the same time, the coalition is calling on Fidel Castro's government
to make it easier for Cubans to visit their family outside the island,
as well as reducing the costs necessary to obtain permission to leave
the country. They are also asking the Cuban government to cut the
country's high long-distance telephone taxes and provide citizens access
to he Internet.

Associated Press Writer Anita Snow in Havana contributed to this report.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-124cubatravel,0,4585478.story?coll=sfla-news-cuba