September 17-18, 2002

Stronger Action Than Mere Embargo Urged to End Castro’s Reign

Miami/Washington— Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government abuse and corruption, will join thousands of Cuban exiles in Washington next week to argue against the lifting of the U.S. embargo on the communist island, which for years has appeared on the United States’ list of certified terrorist nations. Ironically, Judicial Watch believes that the Bush Administration’s policy toward Cuba to simply continue the embargo is not enough.

Judicial Watch expressed outrage when the House of Representatives recently voted (262 to 167) to lift the decades-old travel ban on Cuba and days later revealed its plan to open trade even further. On September 17-18, a large group of American agricultural firms, looking to make millions of dollars selling their products to Cuba, will demonstrate what they call broad support across the United States for easing the 40-year-old embargo. Ironically, the Bush administration has looked the other way as trade has expanded, particularly since many of these companies are large campaign contributors.

Supporting the embargo will be several Cuban exile groups from Miami, along with Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman, who last year presented a case against Castro for terrorist crimes against humanity in the Belgian Royal Courts. Sandra Cobas, Director of Judicial Watch’s Southern Regional Office in Miami, will join Klayman in this important effort.

“Ironically, merely monitoring and strengthening the trade embargo against Castro, which the Bush Administration has weakened, is not enough! (Millions of dollars worth of grains, beans and fruit have been sold directly from this country to Cuba in the last year for the first time since the embargo was implemented). Why is the Bush Administration allowing the Cuban embargo to be circumvented and why is it promoting only the invasion and liberation of Iraq, when the world’s oldest living terrorist, Fidel Castro, who has killed many more innocents than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden combined, is alive and well just 90 miles off the Florida coast? If President Bush is as serious about terrorism as he claims, why isn’t there also a directive by President Bush to take Castro dead or alive?