Dear Cuba Policy Advocates:

Greetings from the Latin America Working Group. There are many issues about which we could comment in this message; but, in order to limit its length, we'll focus on just several: (1) the LAWG Education Fund's joint publication with the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund (CAAEF), "Ignored Majority: The Moderate Cuban-American Community; (2) a request for your help to increase the number of co-sponsors on Congressman Jose Serrano's bill, Bridges to the Cuban People Act; (3) new outrages on OFAC's misuse of resources; (4) the report of the "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba" and its implications. In addition to this update, we encourage you to seek out alternative news sources for up-to-date information on U.S.-Cuba policy and to log in from time-to-time to our website, http://www.lawg.org/ and to http://www.cubacentral.com/ for current issues and actions.

(1) Hot off the press from LAWGEF and CAAEF, "Ignored Majority: The Moderate Cuban-American Community" points out that 70 percent of Cuban Americans feel misled by politicians on Cuba policy, and 55 percent want a change in policy--toward a more moderate strategy. These moderate voices are being ignored by politicians with a different agenda--one created by hardliners. The majority of the Cuban-American community is in favor of dialogue between Cuba and the United States, in favor of easing travel restrictions, and in favor of rethinking the failed strategy of the embargo. The younger generation of Cuban Americans and recent immigrants now make up more than half of the Cuban-American community, and their views are different from the old guard. In an intense election year, this publication is very timely; and we hope you will use it with your members of Congress, the candidates up for election in your state, and, at every opportunity, with the Kerry and Bush campaigns.

We are happy to offer one complimentary copy of this well-researched and documented 12-page publication; just drop an email to pschmidt@lawg.org , identifying yourself as a Cuba Policy Advocate and requesting your free copy. Remember to send your address. Of course, donations are always welcome. Additional copies are available for $4 each for up to 5 copies, or for $2 each for orders of 6 or more. Checks should be made payable to the Latin America Working Group Education Fund (LAWGEF) and mailed to us at LAWG Education Fund, Attn: Ignored Majority Order, 110 Maryland Avenue NE, Box 15, Washington, DC 20002. An online version is available on our website, http://www.lawg.org/docs/IgnoredMajority.pdf . We invite your comments.

(2) Late last year Congressman Jose Serrano (D-16th NY) introduced his Bridges to the Cuban People Act for the second time. The 2003/4 version in the 108th Congress, expanded from the 2001 bill, currently has 56 cosponsors, plus Congressman Serrano. Many more are needed. You may see a list of cosponsors at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/bridges_sponsors.htm . You may also read a recent letter sent by Mr. Serrano and Mr. Leach to their colleagues requesting their support at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/bridges.htm . The letter gives a good description of the contents of the bill.

ACTION: If your member of Congress has not yet cosponsored, we encourage you to call, email, or fax your member of Congress, requesting that she/he cosponsor this important bill. Talking points and a point-by-point summary of the bill are on our website at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/bridges_tlk_pts.htm . To reach your representative's office in Washington, call the US Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121 and ask to be transferred to your member's office. Or look your member of Congress up on the internet at http://www.house.gov .

(3) The US Department of the Treasury continues to waste time, money, and person-power enforcing outmoded, ineffective, and unethical sanctions against Cuba rather than pursuing the financial networks of international terrorists, its prime responsibility. Terrorism is a global concern, and members of Congress have repeatedly urged the Bush Administration to do more to stop the transit of illegal funds to terrorists organizations. But the key office in tracing these funds, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has only four staff persons tracing terror financing; but it has nearly two dozen employees working on Cuban embargo violations. This is an outrage.

The Associated Press story on this misallocation of federal resources is quite comprehensive. Read it at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/ofac_priorities.htm . Also, read a Decatur (Alabama) Daily online editorial protesting this twisted priority at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/ala_edit.htm .

ACTION: Write a letter to the editor protesting this policy. Dozens of newspapers across the country, from Pennsylvania to California, carried the AP story. We encourage you to write your local newspaper to demonstrate your concern about this waste of resources and dangerous strategy. See our website for tips on writing letters to the editor at http://www.lawg.org/tools/Media_lte.htm .

(4) Over the weekend, President Bush's panel, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, gave him its recommendations for changes to his administration's Cuba policy. As anticipated, the recommendations they made were not friendly to Cuba, to say the least. You may read an article about this report at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/comm_rpt.htm . The Miami Herald published the following "highlights" of the report:

• Limiting visits by Cuban Americans to the island to their spouses, parents, children or siblings. Currently, visits to more distant relatives are allowed. • Slashing the $1,200 a year that Cuban Americans can now legally send to relatives in Cuba.

• Cutting by half the $164 a day that U.S. visitors can legally spend in Cuba.

• Restricting the amount of baggage that travelers can take to Cuba so that Havana can't make money from fees charged for extra weight beyond the current 40-pound limit.

• Eliminating a provision that now allows U.S. travelers to bring back up to $100 worth of goods, including rum and cigars.

• Increasing U.S. funds for programs designed to strengthen civil society in Cuba.

It is rumored that the president may decide which recommendations to implement as early as Thursday of this week, instead of waiting to give his traditional "Get Tough on Cuba" speech on May 20, as he has done in the past. Though we have no direct line to the White House, predictions range from his choosing to implement the full Monty to picking some of the "lesser" nasty options. Cuban-American sources that we have consulted are afraid that the president will actually implement the reduction in the remittances that Cuban Americans can legally send to their families. We'll send a quick update to you when the president makes his announcement.

Members of the House Cuba Working Group weighed in on this issue by sending a letter to the president with their own recommendations for changes in Cuba policy--drastically different from the Commission's. You may read the letter at the end of this email, or view it on our website at http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/comm_ltr.htm . Signers of the letter were Representatives:

Jeff Flake, R-AZ
Bill Delahunt, D-MA
Jim McGovern, D-MA
Jo Ann Emerson, R-MO
John Boozman, R-AR
Wm. Clay, D-MO
Peter DeFazio, D-OR
Tim Johnson, R-IL
Butch Otter, R-ID
Sam Farr, D-CA
Charles Rangel, D-NY
Jim Ramstad, R-MN
Paul Ryan, R-WI
Vic Snyder, D-AR
Christopher Shays, R-CT
Mike Thompson, D-CA

These members deserve your thanks.

Well, we apologize for this lengthy message. We hope you find that
information useful; please take action by calling your representative with a
request to cosponsor the Bridges to the Cuban People Act. It is important
in this election year that we not let Cuba policy disappear from the radar
screen of members of Congress, the media, and candidates. We are making
progress; we need you to help us and dozens of other national organizations
continue the momentum. Please take five minutes and make your call!

LETTER FROM HOUSE CUBA WORKING GROUP TO THE PRESIDENT, sent April 30:

Dear Mr. President:

We write to respectfully offer ideas and recommendations with regard to your
Administration's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which seeks to
hasten a political transition in Cuba and to design a future aid plan.

Last year in the Senate and for the past four years in the House, we have
voted as part of bipartisan majorities to end the Cuba travel ban. These
votes focus on a single element of the sanctions that penalize both American
and Cuban citizens, but they indicate a desire for broader change in the
policy our nation has long pursued to isolate Cuba economically and
diplomatically.

To explain our recommendations, we begin with our view of the situation in
Cuba.

We share your assessment of the lack of basic freedoms in Cuba and of the
need for change. Cuba's economy fails to offer the growth, income,
opportunity, and hope that Cubans desire. The dissident movement grows
larger and more active, and it has planted the idea of political and
economic reform. However, this movement is still relatively weak and not
well known among Cubans. It is stifled by the Cuban government's repressive
actions. It is also hindered by the fact that so many Cubans wish to
emigrate, having given up on prospects for change in their country, and so
much of the opposition to the Cuban government is consequently in the United
States, rather than in Cuba.

We respectfully differ from your Administration's assessment that Cuba's
government is in its "final days." It faces serious challenges, but it is
stable and its grip on power is relatively strong by any objective measure.
Nor do we share the belief that the Cuban government's fortunes depend
closely on the way we regulate hard currency flows from the United States.
The government survived the horrendous economic crisis of the early 1990's,
which leads us to conclude that economic hardship is not the key to
political change today.

These two assertions - that Cuba's government will soon fall, and that U.S.
economic sanctions are of pivotal political importance in Havana - are not
only mistaken, in our view, but they also limit this country's policy
vision. They lead to passivity and a posture of waiting for change, with
few contacts between our governments and severe restrictions on the contacts
between our peoples. The result is reduced American influence.

However, we do believe that Cuba is poised for change as its leadership
passes from one generation to the next. Based on a realistic reading of the
situation in Cuba, the opportunity before us is not to attempt from the
outside to trigger a "transition" that Cubans alone will bring about, but
rather to pursue an active policy designed to affect the change that will
inevitably come to Cuba.

We offer not simply new measures, but a new and different course that
maximizes the ways in which America, not merely the United States
government, extends greater influence in Cuba.

Recommendation 1: Remove restrictions on Cuban American travel and
remittances.

We believe that the United States government should not stand in the way of
Cuban Americans who want to visit or assist their relatives in Cuba. We
recognize that some voices in Florida are calling for an end to family
visits and remittances, and we note that the Secretary of the Treasury has
indicated possible new restrictions on remittances.

As a purely humanitarian matter, and out of respect for the right of
Americans to extend charity within their families, we urge you to remove
restrictions on visits and remittances. These family contacts are a
lifeline for millions of Cubans, providing support, information, and funds
that improve their standard of living.

New restrictions on visits or remittances would be contrary to American
values and, in the context of the Commission's mandate, would send a signal
that the United States wants to promote political change in Cuba by
increasing economic hardship for Cuban families. Many parts of our trade
embargo already send this counterproductive signal, which contributes to the
stability of Cuba's socialist system. In this case, our signal should be
one of support for Cuban families and the help they provide one another.

Recommendation 2: End all restrictions on travel and people-to-people
contacts.

We believe it is time to end all restrictions on American citizens' travel
to Cuba. We see no reason to diverge, in the case of Cuba, from the
approach that Administrations of both parties have pursued toward other
communist countries, and that your Administration pursues toward China,
Vietnam, and even North Korea. We also note that, with the removal of the
ban on U.S. travel to Libya - even though it remains a dictatorship with a
closed economy and is on the State Department's list of state sponsors of
terrorism - Cuba is now effectively the only country in the world to which
the U.S. bans ordinary travel by its own citizens.

Discussing exchanges with the Soviet Union, President Reagan asserted that
"civilized people everywhere have a stake in keeping contacts,
communication, and creativity as broad, deep, and free as possible." He
continued: "The way governments can best promote contacts among people is by
not standing in the way."

President Reagan in no way approved of the atrocities of the Soviet
government. "We must be careful in reacting to actions by the Soviet
Government," he said, "not to take out our indignations on those not
responsible." Acting in the spirit of the Helsinki accords, he sought to
extend the influence of Western ideas by maximizing the flow of people and
unregulated contact, regardless of restrictions on travel and contacts
imposed by Soviet bloc governments on their own citizens.

In the case of Cuba, the benefits of an open travel policy would be many.

The visit of President Jimmy Carter to Cuba in 2002 is the clearest case in
point. In an address at the University of Havana, President Carter called
on the Cuban government to open its political and economic systems and to
join the democratization movement that has swept this hemisphere. He
praised the Varela Project, a pro-reform petition drive organized by Cuban
pro-democracy activists. His address was carried live on Cuban radio and
television and printed in the next day's Cuban official press. For the
first time, the entire Cuban nation had an opportunity to learn of the
Varela Project, and to hear a prominent American's support for democracy and
his praise for the Cubans who are working to achieve it.

Of course, not all American travelers have the impact of a former President.
But Americans would unleash a flood of contact with Cubans, transmitting our
nation's ideas and values to Cubans across the island.

Freed of licensing requirements, many private American institutions -
faith-based, political, educational, cultural - will have greater incentive
to establish visits and exchanges. Considering that we do not know who
Cuba's future leaders will be - but we can bet that they are in Cuba now,
and they include people in government or other positions of responsibility -
it is in our nation's interest to foster the broadest possible contact with
Cubans in all walks of life who will decide their country's future. It
bears noting that even cultural exchanges, beyond their intrinsic value to
both peoples, can put Americans in contact with future leaders. The great
statesman and anti-communist leader Vaclav Havel was a playwright; and
Vytautas Landsbergis, the first post-communist prime minister of Lithuania,
was a professor of musicology. Former communists of diverse backgrounds,
such as Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, now serve in positions of
responsibility throughout Eastern Europe's democratic governments.

Increased travel will help Cuba's small entrepreneurs - especially
restaurateurs, taxi drivers, and families that rent rooms in their homes -
whose revenues will increase as American visits increase. Their numbers
will expand, they will gain independence, and their families will have
better livelihoods. It is simply not true, as Administration officials
assert, that revenues from travel benefit the Cuban government alone. These
entrepreneurs are but one visible example.

Finally, an end to travel restrictions would free American citizens of
federal enforcement actions aimed at the harmless offense of travel to Cuba.
It would end an unjustifiable burden on the Treasury Department officers who
should otherwise be dedicated to anti-terrorism. And it would end
regulations that are enforced in a discriminatory manner - while people
across America are being fined for travel to Cuba, we see no case in which
Cuban Americans are subjected to these penalties.

Recommendation 3: Restore full Presidential foreign policy authority with
respect to Cuba.

Regardless of when and how change comes to Cuba, it is necessary for the
United States to be able to adapt its policies rapidly in response to new
conditions and opportunities. The Helms-Burton law of 1996 severely
restricts the executive's foreign policy authority, making it impossible for
the executive to alter U.S. economic sanctions even if a new Cuban
leadership embarks on a significant liberalization of political and economic
life. This law's punitive measures against investors in Cuba - measures
that your Administration has commendably decided not to use - also divide us
from allies in Canada, Europe, and Latin America, with whom we should
cooperate especially in a time of change or crisis. We are prepared to work
with you to repeal this counterproductive law and thereby to restore the
foreign policy tools that should be at your disposal.

Recommendation 4: Use diplomacy to address security concerns.

Your Administration has not spoken with one voice regarding U.S. security
interests in Cuba. Officials have accused Cuba of destabilizing Latin
American governments, without offering evidence. Some officials have
claimed Cuba is developing biological weapons, while others state that Cuba,
as is well known given its technological capabilities, has the capability to
do so. Cuba is cited as a state sponsor of terrorism, leading to long
delays in processing of visas for Cubans who seek to travel for family,
official, or academic reasons. Yet the idea of Cuba as a terrorist threat
is regularly dispelled by the Administration's practice of promptly
admitting Cubans who arrive illegally on our shores, without the background
checks imposed on visa applicants in Havana, as if a true terrorist state
would not infiltrate operatives by sea.

Drug trafficking, migration, alien smuggling, and terrorism are important
security issues that deserve vigilance, especially regarding a communist
country so close to our homeland. We urge you to deal with genuine security
concerns by having your Administration speak with one voice, presenting
clear information to Congress and the public. Considering that Cuba and the
United States collaborate now in controlling migration and drug traffic, we
also urge that the Administration address significant security concerns
through serious bilateral or regional diplomacy, as is done in the cases of
North Korea, Libya, China, Iran, and other countries with which we have
profound political differences.

Recommendation 5: Evaluate effectiveness of aid to dissidents.

We await with interest your Commission's recommendations regarding aid to
those Cuban citizens who are attempting to form a democratic opposition.

In principle, we do not oppose aid to pro-democracy activists anywhere. In
practice, we are not convinced that such aid has in fact helped the Cuban
opposition. Given Cuba's history and the deep-seated Cuban rejection of
interference from foreign powers, U.S. aid programs enable recipients of
such aid to be painted as tools of a foreign power, despite the patriotism
and nationalism that truly motivate them.

Moreover, Cuban state security is not heavily challenged to stay a few steps
ahead of a public U.S. program that sends, as Administration officials
assert, more resources than ever to activists in Cuba. We note that Cuban
agents posing as pro-democracy activists have made use of the facilities of
the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, their real work unknown to our
diplomats, and that in conjunction with our diplomats they even organized
seminars on our diplomatic premises.

We therefore hope this entire program will be evaluated rigorously as to its
costs, benefits, and political risks.

Conclusion

Finally, we note that it is argued that Cuba, unlike China, has made no
significant reforms that merit American engagement. However, American
engagement with China began in 1972, before China's initiation of
market-based reforms in the late 1970's.

Since 1993, Cuba has allowed foreign investment, small-scale
entrepreneurship, incentive-based farm production, and free-market sale of
farm produce. Cuba's people know that these limited reforms have worked.
Their leaders will one day have to decide whether to expand them, knowing
that the Cuban people desire reforms that will make them more free and their
nation more prosperous.

Cubans alone will make these decisions. But as Cubans mull these issues,
American interests are ill served by a timid policy that keeps our people
and ideas out of Cuba. Our strong belief in American ideas should lead us
to strong efforts to spread those ideas in Cuba now, not at an undefined
time in the future when one man leaves office. Unbridled contact with
American society should be used to influence Cuba now.

"When the travel of Americans to Cuba and the free sending of remittances
are approved, the struggle for democracy and freedom will by no means end,"
wrote Cuban prisoner of conscience Oscar Espinosa Chepe in August 2002. "To
the contrary, these measures create better conditions to achieve these
objectives." If the U.S. government were to end travel restrictions, he
said, "Both peoples will appreciate it and remember it forever."

We hope you take this brave man's words to heart, Mr. President.

We also hope you will consider our view that the best way to prepare for
change in Cuba is to undertake a transition in our own policy. Opening
America's doors to Cuba - and challenging Cuba to open its doors to the
world - will be an act of strength and magnanimity, an expression of
confidence in the power of the great ideas that animate our country and are
reflected in our people wherever they go.