HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- With more than a touch of irony, Cuba on
                 Thursday endorsed U.S. legislation to aid dissidents on the island,
                 saying it would display U.S. efforts to create subversion in the
                 communist nation.

                 "It seems like an excellent, brilliant idea," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe
                 Perez Roque told a news conference, saying Cuba endorses the measure
                 "fervently and emphatically."

                  He called the proposal "authentic testimony" of what Cuba has been
                 saying for a long time -- that dissidents on the island are financed by the United
                 States. Most dissidents on the island deny such allegations.

                 The proposal was authored by a group of U.S. senators led by Foreign Relations
                 Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Joseph Lieberman of
                 Connecticut. It would provide $100 million in aid over four years to help
                 dissidents with cash, fax machines, telephones and other items.

                 Helms last week called it "a blueprint for a more vigorous U.S. policy to liberate
                 the enslaved island of Cuba."

                 When a Spanish journalist nicknamed "Monkey" suggested Perez Roque explain
                 that the Cuban endorsement was ironic, Perez Roque replied, "I think Monkey is
                 singing the sense of the thing."

                 He grew more serious when asked what Cuba might do with dissidents who receive
                 such funds.

                 "In the total of all countries, to receive money from a foreign power to organize
                 subversive activities inside the country is a crime," Perez Roque said.

                 But he declined to be specific: "We do not renounce any options," he said,
                 comparing it to a guerrilla struggle based on surprise.

                 Perez Roque also ridiculed U.S. President George W. Bush for remarks at a
                 May 20 White House reception for anti-Castro Cuban-Americans, where he said
                 that freeing Cuba from communism was "a moral imperative" for the United
                 States."

                 "Our reaction is of stupefaction and surprise. We did not believe it was possible
                 that President Bush could speak so long without saying absolutely anything
                 coherent or with common sense," Perez Roque said.

                 "The president has given us a new proof that (Winston) Churchill was right
                 when he said that Americans do the right thing after having tried everything
                 else."

                 He claimed that the Cuban-Americans at the event were not representative of
                 Cubans in the United States, saying that 120,000 Cuban-Americans visited
                 relatives in Cuba last year and that 80,000 other U.S. citizens came to the island.

                 "To call all those Cubans exiles seems like a bad joke to me because exiles don't
                 come for visits and vacations. So the president should educate himself on the
                 topic," Perez Roque said.

                   Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.