President's Plan Draws Mixed Reaction on Hill

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush announced yesterday that his administration will work harder to identify and punish Americans who visit Cuba in violation of U.S. laws, whether they
travel from the United States or through a third country.

Such travel only helps "prop up the dictator and his cronies," Bush said, referring to Cuban President Fidel Castro. "Clearly, the Castro regime will not change by its
own choice, but Cuba must change."

The measures were among a set of policy refinements Bush announced to an invited audience of Castro opponents in the Rose Garden. The announcement, certain
to resonate among Cuban Americans in the crucial electoral states of Florida and New Jersey, came as Bush steps up his reelection effort.

Bush also established a government committee to plan for Cuba's post-Castro future, naming Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Mel R. Martinez as co-chairmen. He said the administration will allow more Cubans to emigrate and will expand the U.S. distribution of
radios and reading material in Cuba.

The measures, Bush said, are "only the beginning of a more robust effort to break through to the Cuban people."

In a Congress largely united on the desirability of transforming Cuba but seriously divided about how to achieve it, Bush's announcement drew calls for a
follow-through from some quarters, but others, who belong to a bipartisan majority that favors more engagement after a 41-year-old embargo, criticized it.

"For more than 40 years now, our Cuba policy has had the same effect as beating our head against a wall. By tightening enforcement of the travel ban, we will
essentially just be beating it harder," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

"At some point," Flake continued, "we need to concede that our current approach has failed and try something new."

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) called for a hard-line approach, saying that Bush "must match his rhetoric on Cuba with strong
action, something he has failed to do in the past."

Dagoberto Rodriguez, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, spoke out against U.S. policy and the embargo at a news conference on Thursday. He
called on the U.S. government to "stop acting like a lawless cowboy" and "stop making the policy toward Cuba a circus led by the Miami mafia."

The travel ban is a particularly sensitive subject. Supporters say that foreign visitors help perpetuate Castro's rule, but opponents counter that the presence of tourists
undermines the Cuban leader by enriching ordinary Cubans culturally and financially.

About 200,000 Americans visit Cuba each year, an estimated one-third of them illegally. To travel legally, for such purposes as scientific programs or cultural
exchanges, U.S. citizens must obtain licenses from the Treasury Department. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega recently criticized some trips as little more
than exotic holidays.

Bush said he had instructed the Department of Homeland Security to increase the questioning and inspection of travelers and shipments between Cuba and the
United States. He also said the government will "target" people who travel to Cuba through third countries and those who reach Cuba illegally on private boats.

The travel crackdown, Bush said, will also weaken Cuba's prostitution trade. He called the business "a modern form of slavery which is encouraged by the Cuban
government."

For those who favor an opening to Cuba, the Castro government's arrest of 75 independent journalists and activists in April complicated matters. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) declared at a hearing last week that U.S. strategy toward Cuba "has not worked" and asserted that
increased travel would infuse the island with fresh ideas.

"Opening up to Cuba now, however, would send the wrong signal, appearing to reward Castro for his crackdown, and it would be too divisive here at home," Lugar
said. He called for a "rational end" to the travel restrictions, but "at an appropriate time."

Bush told his audience yesterday that he had already given Castro a chance by pledging to relax U.S. policy if Cuba held free elections and permitted more private
enterprise.

"Elections in Cuba are still a sham," Bush said. "Opposition groups still organize and meet at their own peril. Private economic activity is still strangled.
Non-government trade unions are still oppressed and suppressed. Property rights are still ignored."

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of policies that dramatically changed the Soviet Union, called last week in Miami for the United States to
expand contacts and exchanges with Cuba.

Powell, asked about Gorbachev's views during an Oct. 3 interview with The Washington Post, defended the administration's approach.

"This isn't the Soviet Union in 1987 and '88," Powell said. Gorbachev "realized that change had to come, and he was willing to lead that change. Castro is quite the
contrary. He has used openings not to benefit his people. He has used openings to enhance his power."

Powell also said that Europeans, Latin Americans and Canadians who invested heavily in Cuba in the 1990s and traveled there by the thousands did not appreciably
improve Cubans' lives.

"Well, guess what?" Powell said. "They not only pulled back from those investments, they didn't help anybody, they helped the regime. And we think there is a body
of evidence that suggests this is not the way to deal with Castro."

                                               © 2003