Bush To Offer Eased Restrictions For Cuba Elections

May 20, 2002
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Bush plans to challenge Cuba to hold free and open elections next year and will pledge to work with Congress to ease economic and travel restrictions if Fidel Castro agrees.

In a speech at the White House today, Bush is expected to reiterate his support for the embargo on Cuba. The president has taken a hard-line stance on Cuba, but a senior administration official said Sunday that he will announce an easing of some U.S. policies toward the hemisphere's only communist nation:

• U.S. government help and fewer restrictions for religious and human rights groups that provide humanitarian support to Cuba. Those changes would make it easier for organizations that want to ship lumber and send volunteers to Cuba to rebuild church roofs, for example.
  
  
• New negotiations with Castro's government to allow direct mail service between the USA and Cuba, which is now banned. Direct mail between the two countries was suspended in 1962, and mail is sent through third countries. Congress authorized a resumption of mail in 1992, and President Clinton made it a priority in 1999. But Castro would not agree.
  
  
• A scholarship program for Cuban "professionals" who are trying to restore democratic government and for the children of dissidents and political prisoners. Details, including where recipients would study, the amount of federal funds and how money would be awarded, will be worked out later.
  

Bush will outline his proposals in a speech at the White House before he travels to Miami to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of Cuba's independence from Spain and attend a fundraiser for the Florida Republican Party.

The president's focus on Cuba could help solidify Cuban-Americans' support for his brother Jeb, who is running for a second term as Florida governor. Cuban-Americans are a key voter bloc in South Florida, and 74% of them voted for Jeb Bush in 1998.

Former president Jimmy Carter, who ended a historic visit to Cuba Friday, said limits on tourism and trade could hurt Americans more than Cubans. The best way to promote peaceful change in Cuba is "through maximum contacts between our two countries," he said.

Administration officials say Bush wants to offer Castro a chance to end his country's isolation.

"Cuba has the opportunity to offer Cuban voters the substance of democracy, not just its hollow, empty forms," Bush intends to say, according to speech excerpts released Sunday. "The 2003 elections should be monitored by objective outside observers. These are the minimum steps necessary to make sure that next year's elections are a true expression of the will of the Cuban people."

Bush also is expected to call for freedom for opposition parties and the release of political prisoners.

The last elections for members of Cuba's 601-member National Assembly were held in January 1998. Castro has said the next elections will be held sometime next year. The Assembly meets only twice a year for a few days and has far less power than the 31-member Council of State, which Castro controls.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2002/05/20/usat-cuba.htm