Calls to Havana enliven U.S. debate of Cuba travel

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Calls to Havana enliven U.S. debate of Cuba travel
Lawmakers on opposite sides of the U.S.-Cuba travel policy debate reached for the phone to make their case.

BY LESLEY CLARK
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WASHINGTON -- On one phone line was a senator from Florida talking to a hunger-striking dissident in Central Cuba about how President Barack Obama must resist ``commercial temptation.''

In another office on Capitol Hill, the call was with an opposition journalist in Havana, telling a crowded press conference that contact between Americans and Cubans is ``of the utmost importance.''

Lawmakers wrestling over whether to allow Americans to visit Cuba phoned dissident leaders on the island Thursday to underscore support for their opposing stances. The dueling calls came as members of Congress -- buoyed by a new president who has suggested a fresh look at Cuba -- introduced bills that would lift all restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. William Delahunt held a press conference to discuss his bill -- with 122 co-sponsors -- that would end the limits on travel to Cuba for all Americans. Right now, travel to the hemisphere's last communist country is highly restricted to some lawmakers, scholars, journalists, farmers, and others with special licenses.

''I'm confident it will come to the floor,'' Delahunt said of the bill. ``We're not going to let a stone go unturned.''

Travel to Cuba is hotly debated in the exile community, where many conservatives believe that it boosts the Castro regime by supplying much-needed cash and does not hasten democracy. But to show that even members of Cuba's opposition favor more contact with Americans, event organizers called up Miriam Leiva, a dissident journalist from Havana.

She told a House conference room packed with journalists and activists that she believes U.S.-Cuba policy has been ``used by the Castro government as an excuse to justify repression.''

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http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/981916.html