taken from http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/6666091.htm

Posted on Mon, Sep. 01, 2003

Keep Cuba sanctions, Democratic presidential candidate Kerry says

BY PETER WALLSTEN
pwallsten@herald.com

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a Democratic candidate for president who has campaigned heavily in Florida for cash and votes,
appeared to shift his stance on the trade embargo with Cuba on Sunday, telling a national television audience that he now supports
keeping sanctions in place.

Kerry's remarks, delivered on NBC's Meet the Press, seemed to contradict statements he made during a 2000 interview with The Boston
Globe that a reevaluation of the embargo was ''way overdue'' and that the only reason Cuba has been treated differently
than China and Russia is the ``politics of Florida.''

Kerry on Sunday called that ''an honest statement,'' but when NBC's Tim Russert asked whether he endorsed lifting sanctions he
replied: ``Not unilaterally, not now, no.''

The Massachusetts senator, who has met privately over the past year with exile leaders, said Sunday that he would support easing
travel restrictions, though he was vague about how to do it and whether he was referring to tourism. He also said he
might consider allowing more money to be sent to dissidents.

''I think that people traveling in there weakens Castro,'' Kerry said.

``I don't like Fidel Castro. Some people have cottoned to him in our party and go down and visit. I went to Cuba once and I
purposely said I don't want to.''

Kerry's shift was similar in tone to that of his biggest rival for the Democratic nomination, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who
told The Herald last week that recent human rights abuses by Castro have convinced him that now is the wrong time to end
the embargo -- even though his inclination is to ease sanctions as a path to democratization.

The attention to nuance by the two leading Democrats in the race on what is essentially an issue of higher interest in South
Florida illustrates the growing belief among Democratic strategists that they can make a legitimate appeal for traditionally
Republican Cuban-American voters in the state that decided the 2000 election and could do the same next year.

Cuban Americans were decisive in 2000, when more than 8 in 10 of the state's 400,000 Cuban-American voters backed Bush.
But leading Cuban-American activists recently have criticized what they call the Bush administration's failure to follow through on
campaign promises to ratchet up pressure on Castro's government -- especially after last month's repatriation of 12
suspected boat hijackers, sent back after the Cuban government agreed to sentence them to a maximum of 10 years in prison instead
of executing them.

Some elected Republicans and the Cuban American National Foundation have even said they would consider withholding their support
from Bush's reelection if his administration didn't intensify its focus on Cuba.

Two of the demands were satisfied this month: the indictment of Cuban pilots who shot down planes flown by Brothers to the
Rescue
activists in 1996, and technological improvements to TV Martí broadcasting into the island.

Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and one of the leading critics of Bush's policies,
likened the shifts by Kerry and Dean to that of other high-profile former advocates for lifting sanctions, such as Secretary of
State Colin Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney.

''We've had eleventh-hour conversions from Cheney, Powell, Spain and Mexico,'' said Garcia in an interview Sunday. ``If John
Kerry has seen the light, welcome to the fight.''

But, he added, ``The distinction between Kerry today and George Bush today is that George Bush has the responsibility to act
because he's president and Kerry has yet to be tested on the issue.''

Kerry indicated Sunday that his stance was not dramatically different from that of Dean, who has surged over the past month to
surpass Kerry in opinion polls in the key early-primary states. Dean last week chided Castro for imprisoning dissidents and
holding ''show trials,'' saying those developments make lessening sanctions inappropriate for now.

Under questioning Sunday, Kerry tried to appease Cuban-American activists while not necessarily recanting an anti-embargo
stance popular in farm states such as Iowa, home of the first in the nation presidential caucuses, where business leaders
thirst for lucrative new markets in Cuba.

''I don't change what I said,'' Kerry said. ``But I think we need to move step by step in a way that begins to engage and see
what we can do. But I wouldn't just give [Castro] a reward for nothing, no.''