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By Rodolfo Casals
TOURISM, agriculture, telecommunications and energy are the sectors that inspire the greatest interest among U.S. businesspeople who want normal trade relations established with Cuba, according to John Kavulich, president of the Cuba-United States Economic Council.
Kavulich says that the last few months have been especially fruitful for this institution. Membership has grown, as has the number of companies doing business with the island.
There has also been an increase in exchanges with Cuban officials and company representatives, as well as visits to Cuba.
The primary goal of the Cuba-United States Economic Council is to monitor and promote business with the island. Its members include companies representing a wide range of production and service sectors; their names are not generally made public, however, in order to avoid reprisals.
There is a general consensus among these business people that the 35-year-old blockade against Cuba is obsolete. Highly placed executives from numerous U.S. corporations and companies have travelled to Havana and expressed their intent to study investment and trade potential.
These U.S. executives are closely following the progress of an initiative launched by a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators aimed at their government's lifting of the prohibition on selling food, medicine and medical equipment to Cuba.
The bill in question, still a long way from being debated in Congress, was presented in Washington by a dozen Democratic and Republican representatives, headed up by James Leach, the president of the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, in what is considered a highly significant step, as this is the first time that legislators from both parties have joined with the Cuban community in the United States to demand permission for the supply of food, medicine and medical equipment.
Following its presentation in mid-June, the proposed legislation known as the Bill for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba will be introduced in the House Committee on Ways and Means. From there it will pass to the Subcommittee on Hemispheric Affairs, and then the Committee on Foreign Affairs, before being debated and voted on by the House of Representatives as a whole.
One of the bill's sponsors, Esteban Torres, a California representative for the Democratic Party, believes that the inhumane consequences of the blockade must be corrected. The obsession of some members of Congress regarding a cold war issue is no longer valid, and blinds them from seeing the reality of the humanitarian goals of this bill, says fellow Democrat Charles Rangel, in reference to the reactionary views held by those who represent the anti-Cuba sector in Miami and who, on the contrary, advocate a reinforcement of the siege on Cuba.
José Serrano, a Democratic representative for New York state, has reminded the U.S. public that the prohibition on selling medicine and food provokes suffering for the Cuban people, and that the United States stands alone in the world when it comes to this policy.
An American World Health Association report released in New York recognises that a human catastrophe has been avoided thanks to the Cuban government's efforts to maintain a program designed to provide medical care for all citizens.
It is immoral and unworthy to prohibit sales of food and medicine and to use sick people, women and children as weapons against the Cuban government, according to Republican Washington representative James McDermott, a doctor who has visited the island.
At a press conference in Washington, another Republican legislator, Connie Morella, denounced the fact that it is precisely because of the laws against the island that U.S. citizens of Cuban origin have been forced to act like criminals in order to send needed goods to their relatives in Cuba.