Cuba: NYC Councilman to Introduce antiBlockade Resoln

sent by Walter Lippmann (cubanews)

The New York Sun - August 1, 2005

Barron Plans to Introduce Bill Calling for Normalization of Relations with Cuba

By MEGHAN CLYNE Staff Reporter of the Sun

Praising the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, as a better leader than President Bush, City Council Member Charles Barron plans to introduce legislation next month calling for the normalization of America's relations with communist Cuba. The Brooklyn Democrat is also joining an effort spearheaded by members of New York's congressional delegation to lift the American embargo of Cuba and to support Pastors for Peace, an anti-sanctions organization seeking to export computer technology to Cuba. The State Department has identified Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Mr. Barron said yesterday he plans to introduce his resolution - which he described as being in its "embryonic stages," but which would allow for the unrestricted export of humanitarian aid to Cuba - at the first full meeting of the council in September, "to send a signal to the world that we're not going to just send out military equipment to destroy life." The legislation, Mr. Barron said, would also include an expression of support for Pastors for Peace, on whose behalf the councilman pledged to hold rallies in the weeks preceding the introduction of his legislation.

Pastors for Peace is a nonprofit group describing itself as a "catalyst ... for social justice" that for 16 years has agitated against sanctions against the Castro regime. In 1994 and 2000, Pastors for Peace acted as a host to President Castro during his visits to New York City, arranging meetings for him with members of the clergy.

The organization has stepped up its protests of America's Cuba policy since Washington's July 21 seizure of goods the group was delivering to the island. The group said the shipment was part of a humanitarian mission to distribute aid to Cuba after Hurricane Dennis, which early last month ravaged the island and left much of the nation's already-poor infrastructure in ruins, depriving many Cubans of access to cooking gas, electricity, and water. Pastors for Peace - which said it does not have, and never had, a license to export goods to Cuba - said that its caravan was stopped at America's border with Mexico at Hidalgo, Texas, and that 12 computers and 43 boxes of computer equipment were captured by the Customs Department agents.

The organization is now staging vigils and other protests at the Hidalgo crossing to denounce the confiscation. Reached there by cell phone, the executive director of Pastors for Peace, Reverend Lucius Walker, said the group's caravan was stopped because "the Customs Department is enforcing an order within the administration to stop Pastors for Peace."

Calls and e-mail messages to the Customs Department requesting comment were not returned. Cuba is one of six countries identified by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism, along with Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, and Sudan. According to State Department regulations, such a designation imposes a requirement for a 30-day congressional notification before exporting "dual-use" goods that could aid the country's military capabilities or sponsorship of terrorism - which, according to a federal official, could include computer technology.

Rev. Walker said the mission was meant to aid Cuba's disabled and eliminate America's economic embargo against the Cuban regime, which the clergyman labeled "mean-spirited" and a policy "designed to force Cuba into the orbit of influence of the U.S., to make it part of the empire."

"We're stuck as a country with a failed policy that makes us look stupid in the eyes of the world," Rev. Walker said of the sanctions, citing the level of support for the embargo in the international community as evidence that the policy should be abandoned. Only four countries, he said, consistently vote with America in the United Nations in support of the embargo, including Israel, but "the billions of dollars that we give Israel effectively buys their vote," Rev. Walker, who is pastor at the Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn, said.

Mr. Barron said yesterday of Rev. Walker: "He's absolutely right. "It's the racist arrogance of this country to tell a country of color what kind of government they should have," the councilman said of America's Cuba policy.

Mr. Barron said his council resolution would urge New York's support for Rev. Walker's mission and call for the normalizing of America's diplomatic relations with Cuba. Mr. Barron said that, comparing the American regime to the Cubans', "There is no question in my mind that Castro is a better leader than Bush.

"If you want to look at morality and humanity," the councilman said, "Castro has exported medical equipment and medical services and engineers and architects. ... Every time you hear of Castro exporting something, it's humanitarian aid. When America exports something, it's killing and war machines and plants and troops."

Lauding Mr. Barron and Rev. Walker and taking their fight to Washington are several members of New York's congressional delegation, led by two veteran Democrats, Jose Serrano of the Bronx and Charles Rangel of Harlem.

Mr. Rangel also said he agreed with Rev. Walker's position on Cuba and has urged Mr. Bush to "get out of the way" if he is unwilling to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Cuba, which he labeled "outrageous."

"It's only done to pick up votes in Florida for the Electoral College, and a handful of people in Miami are able to manipulate foreign policy as it relates to Cuba," the congressman said.

Mr. Rangel is supporting legislation introduced in the House last month by Mr. Serrano calling for a temporary lifting of the embargo in the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis. The congressional bill currently has 68 plus 1 co-sponsors, nine of whom are Democratic members of New York's delegation - including a mayoral candidate, Anthony Weiner of Queens.

One of the Cuban-American community's leaders in the House, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, was dismissive of the Serrano legislation, which he said was unlikely to pbutt, and described Pastors for Peace as activists for Cuba's communist regime.

"They are just a front for Castro sympathizers who are either in business with Castro or seeking to be in business with Castro," Mr. Diaz-Balart, a Republican of Florida, said.

Mr. Diaz-Balart cited Mr. Castro's refusal of millions of dollars in aid offers from America and the European Union in the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis as evidence that the lack of resources available for rebuilding the island was the fault not of Bush administration policy but of Havana's strongman. Moreover, the congressman said, there are virtually no restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid that can be sent to Cuba, so long as the aid is funneled through licensed organizations directly to the Cuban people and not sent to the regime.

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