December 28, 2006.
Martha Beatriz Roque
Assembly to Promote Civil Society
Gisela Delgado Sablon
Independent Libraries Project
Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz
Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation
Vladimiro Roca
Social Democratic Party and spokesman of "Todos Unidos"
Havana, Cuba
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your letter of December 16, which we received from the
U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
We also saw the statement that you issued on November 23, in which you
call for an end to the restrictions that the United States imposes on
travel and the sending of aid to Cuba. We agree that the elimination of
those restrictions would provide humanitarian and many other benefits to
the peoples of both our countries. We also want you to know that in
talks with Cuban officials in Havana, we once again urged the
elimination of travel restrictions that the Cuban government imposes on
its own citizens.
We would like to address your questions about the GAO report on the Cuba
programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
We have sought information about the USAID program. We began by asking
direct, routine questions of AID officials. After that agency declined
to answer questions, we asked GAO, an auditing agency, to do a report.
The report found that there are serious management problems in the program.
Some of USAID's management failures have led to excesses that have
subjected the program to public ridicule. We expect that the program's
management will be improved.
Your letter is the first information we have received regarding an
interruption of aid under this program. The U.S. Interests Section did
not mention this in our conversations. We do not doubt the information
you are providing us, but we would be surprised if the Administration
were to have reacted to the GAO report by suspending humanitarian aid.
No one in Congress has asked for aid to be suspended, and we know of no
one in the Administration who supports such a step.
Nonetheless, as we noted above, it is often difficult to obtain
information about this program. We will seek answers to your questions
and we will ask that the Administration answer you directly.
We and our colleagues very much appreciate your letter and your views on
these issues. We have long believed that the U.S. travel restrictions
and other aspects of the embargo block contacts that we should be
encouraging between our two countries - exchanges of information and
ideas, family visits, student and people-to-people exchanges,
humanitarian aid of all types. We believe that, especially now, the
relations between the Cuban and American peoples should be far broader
than merely those envisioned in U.S. government programs. As we continue
our work we hope we will always be able to count on your candid opinions.
Sincerely,
Bill Delahunt
Jeff Flake
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