U.S. lawmaker protests Cuba-U.S. baseball games

CNN March 23, 1999 U.S. lawmaker protests Cuba-U.S. baseball games

                  MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- Cuban-American U.S. lawmaker Bob
                  Menendez sent letters to President Bill Clinton and Baltimore Orioles players
                  urging them to reconsider two baseball games scheduled to be played
                  against a Cuban team, an aide said on Tuesday.

The Orioles on Sunday are to become the first U.S. Major League team to
play in Cuba since Jan. 1, 1959.

                  Some Cuba watchers have dubbed the Havana game and a May 3 contest
                  in Baltimore as an attempt at "baseball diplomacy" between Cuba and the
                  United States, referring to the "ping-pong diplomacy" involving a U.S. team
                  visiting China that helped thaw Sino-American ties in the 1970s.

But Cuban sports officials and the Orioles both have insisted this is a
sporting exchange with no political ramifications.

                  The exhibition games, one of a series of measures announced by the Clinton
                  administration in January to ease the U.S. embargo against Cuba, are
                  unprecedented in four decades of political hostility between Washington and
                  the Communist-ruled Caribbean island.

                  Foes in the U.S. Congress of Cuban President Fidel Castro including
                  Menendez and other Cuban American legislators, have condemned the
                  games on the heels of Castro's recent crackdown on internal dissent in which
                  four leading opponents of the Cuban government were jailed.

                  "As a baseball fan, I too look forward to the day when the Cuban National
                  Team can regularly play against American teams," Menendez, a New Jersey
                  Democrat, said. "Even more important ... I look forward to the day when
                  Cuban players share the same rights and liberties as Americans."

                  Washington has pursued a policy of isolating Cuba since shortly after
                  Castro's 1959 revolution. The economic embargo, in place since 1962, was
                  forged and backed by a large and vocal Cuban exile community in Miami.

                  Menendez sent copies of his letter to the White House and to about 50
                  members of the Orioles team at their ball park at Baltimore's Camden
                  Yards, his aide said.

                  "At a time when Castro has announced a new law authorizing extensive jail
                  terms for internal dissent and when Castro's kangaroo court has just
                  sentenced Cuba's leading human rights activists to prison terms ranging from
                  three-and-a-half to five years, it is not time to play with Cuba," he wrote to
                  Clinton.

He also urged Clinton to denounce the March 15 sentencing of the
dissidents and to repeal the January measures.

                  The games are not compatible with American values, which include the right
                  to organize labour unions, criticise the government and vote for leaders,
                  Menendez said.

"Cubans share none of these rights," he said.

Washington on Jan. 5 authorized the Orioles to visit the island and negotiate
playing the games with Cuba in an exception to the embargo.

                  U.S.-Cuban relations have deteriorated since then, with Cuba cutting most
                  U.S. telephone links due to unpaid bills by American phone companies, and
                  Washington condemning the recent trial of four prominent Cuban dissidents
                  for alleged sedition.