By Martin Langfield
MIAMI, July 20 (Reuters) - Cuban-American lawmakers on Monday accused U.S. President Bill Clinton of seeking to muzzle even peaceful protest against the Cuban government to pave the way for normalised relations with the communist-ruled island.
``In recent weeks the signs have been unmistakable from the Clinton administration that nothing is to be done even peacefully for the acceleration of the liberation of Cuba,'' Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, told a news conference.
``The message has been received and thus today we say: message received and message rejected,'' Diaz-Balart said. ``We will intensify our efforts in the upcoming weeks and months to accelerate the liberation of Cuba.''
His fellow Florida Republican, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said the Clinton administration clearly wanted to reestablish diplomatic links with Cuba.
``It is clear that he wants to normalise relations,'' she told the news conference. ``It is clear by statements, by actions, that the Clinton administration is on a slow and steady pace, a pace that is quickly building up...to seek a new policy with Fidel Castro.''
The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961 and has had an embargo on trade and financial relations with the island for 36 years.
Diaz-Balart, Ros-Lehtinen and most of Florida's 800,000-strong Cuban community virulently oppose President Castro's government. Castro came to power in 1959.
Diaz-Balart gave no details of what new actions Castro opponents might be planning.
He said the most active Cuban exile groups were being especially targeted by the Clinton administration, saying recent U.S. government actions were deliberately hostile to the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue and Democracy Movement groups.
The U.S. government declared almost all of Florida's coast a ``security zone'' last week in a clampdown on sea protests by the Democracy Movement against Castro.
Under the new policy, the Coast Guard required privately owned vessels of less than 150 feet (50 metres) in length leaving from almost anywhere in Florida to obtain permits before entering Cuban territorial waters.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration also sent a message the previous week to Brothers to the Rescue telling its pilots to follow the instructions of Cuban military aircraft if they intercept them and force them to land in Cuba.
Officials at the FAA have said the message was a normal directive given to pilots flying near Cuban air space, but group founder and leader Jose Basulto said it meant the U.S. government was washing its hands of his movement.
Diaz-Balart said the FAA message was tantamount to a conspiracy between the U.S. government and a ``terrorist state.''
Brothers to the Rescue had two planes shot down by Cuban fighter jets on Feb. 24, 1996, killing four members of the group. It flies missions to look at sea for Cuban rafters trying to reach the United States and also stages protest flights against Castro.
The plane downing led to the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which tightened the embargo on Cuba and locked the policy into law. Clinton has complained about the law, even though he signed it, saying it constrains his ability to conduct foreign policy.
Last week, citing increasing pressure on Cuba for a democratic transition, Clinton extended for another six months a waiver of part of the law that requires Washington to penalise foreign firms that invest in Cuba.
18:44 07-20-98
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