Query from Michael Lebowitz

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Anyone been doing work on fractions of US capital lately who can identify
what this is all about and whether it extends beyond differences on Cuba
policy?
        mike
--------------------------

PROMINENT GROUP CALLS SUPPORT FOR NEW SENATE BILL TO END BAN ON
AMERICAN TRAVEL TO CUBA 'A MORAL IMPERATIVE'

April 30, 2002, New York, New York. Americans For Humanitarian Trade
With Cuba (AHTC) announced its support for legislation that would lift
the ban on Americans' freedom to travel to Cuba introduced today by U.S.
Senator Michael B. Enzi (R-WY) and the equally bipartisan Senate Cuba
Working Group. Companion legislation in the House of Representatives
will be introduced in the coming weeks backed by the 50 members of the
House Cuba Working Group, according to Congressional sources.
AHTC Advisory Council members include: Milton Friedman, PhD, economist
renowned for his work at the University of Chicago now at the Hoover
Institution; Peter H. Coors, Chairman, Coors Brewing Company in
Colorado; South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who initiated the
assault on the travel ban as a U.S. Representative several years ago;
David Rockefeller, former U.S. Trade Representative under first
President Bush Carla Anderson Hills; former chair of the U.S. Federal
Reserve Bank Paul Volcker; Reagan National Security Adviser Frank
Carlucci; former Nixon CIA Director and Secretary of Defense James
Schlesinger; former Assistant Sec. of State John Whitehead; former
NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Jack Sheehan; Francis Ford
Coppola; Archer Daniels Midland's Dwayne Andreas; Mobile Alabama Mayor
Micheal Dow; Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture Bob Odom; and former
U.S. Surgeon General Julius Richmond, among many others.

"Now more than ever we must send the Cuban people a clear message of
support by extending America's helping hand through travel," said AHTC
Co-Chair Sam Gibbons, a former 34-year member of Congress from Tampa,
who cochairs AHTC with Craig Fuller, former chief of staff to former
Vice President Bush. "It is a moral imperative for us to finally
listen to what all the human rights groups and Cuban dissidents such as
Oswaldo Paya are saying: help the Cuban people by lifting the ban on
travel."

"The current crackdown, rather than eliciting an even more hardline
response, should make the defects of our current approach all the more
obvious," said Human Rights Watch Americas Director Jose Miguel Vivanco
in a congressional hearing on April 16, 2003. Despite growing
Congressional support for lifting the travel ban, the Bush
Administration recently announced plans to cut off all
'people-to-people' educational travel to Cuba, which accounts for about
40% of all current licensed travel to Cuba, according to reports from
the top Cuba charter service providers.

"Recent events are proof positive that ratcheting-up pressure on Cuba
costs Cuban lives, as do the continued obstacles to normal sales of food
and medicine to the island," said Cuban American Silvia Wilhelm,
President of the Miami-based Puentes Cubanos and an AHTC Board Member.
"All the polls show that the South Florida Cuban American community
increasingly sees free travel as a way to promote the well-being of the
average Cuban.

"Working with a prominent roster of American leaders and a national
network of 23 state councils, AHTC will redouble its humanitarian
mission to lift all restrictions on the sale of food and medicines to
Cuba, including restrictions on travel to Cuba. Such restrictions block
efforts to achieve humanitarian trade and violate Americans' fundamental
right to freedom of movement," said AHTC Executive Director Lissa
Weinmann.

---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6


Currently based in Cuba. Can be reached via:


Michael Lebowitz
c/o MEPLA
Calle 13 No. 504 ent. D y E, Vedado, La Habana, Cuba
Codigo Postal 10 4000
(537) 33 30 75 or 832  21 54
telefax (at night): (537) 33 30 75


Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org