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CUBA
NEWS
Yahoo!
Senate committee gives its blessing
to lifting Cuba travel ban
WASHINGTON, 6 (AFP) - The Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, by a vote of 13-5,
approved lifting a ban on travel to Cuba
by US citizens, following recent similar
votes in both the House of Representatives
and the US Senate.
The bill would withhold funds to enforce
the travel ban, effectively ending restrictions
on US citizens' travel to Cuba.
Lawmakers made some modifications however,
unanimously approving an expression of "outrage"
about human rights conditions in Cuba.
They also unanimously approved a measure
which would require the US State Department
to issue a report on Cuba's alleged financing
of terrorism.
The legislation is likely to be voted upon
by the full Senate next year, lawmakers
said, because only a few weeks remain before
the US legislature adjourns for the year.
The Foreign Relations Committee bill, sponsored
by Wyoming Republican Michael Enzi, would
bar the US government from preventing ordinary
citizens from travel to Cuba, except in
the case of war or armed hostility with
Havana, or an imminent threat to the health
of US travelers.
Under current US law, diplomats, politicians,
journalists and academics are allowed to
travel to Cuba without restriction, while
Americans with family ties on the communist
island are permitted to travel there one
time per year.
The Treasury Department estimated that
about 160,000 Americans legally visited
Cuba last year, but thousands more made
illegal visits through third countries.
In a separate measure last month, as an
amendment to funding legislation for a treasury
and transportation bill, the full Senate
voted to end the four-decade US ban on travel
to Cuba -- despite President George W. Bush's
veto threat -- by a 59-36 vote.
The House of Representatives, voting on
an identically worded amendment, last September
approved lifting the travel embargo by a
vote of 227 to 188.
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