``Denying food and medicine to the people of Cuba is behavior unworthy of a great nation like the United States,'' said Willard Workman, international vice president of the chamber, which represents three million U.S. businesses, including many blue-chip firms.
Workman said ``life-sustaining'' U.S. goods should be available to anyone who wants to buy them.
``U.S. business takes no comfort when economic warfare is waged against Cuban children,'' he added.
The remarks were the latest salvo in a growing effort by critics of the nearly 36-year-old U.S. embargo of Cuba, which is expected to produce a congressional showdown next spring. Propelled by self-described Cuban-American moderates, including the Cuban Committee for Democracy, the campaign on food and medicine has won support from a handful of influential Republicans.
Chief among them is Sen. John Warner, a respected centrist from Virginia whose voice carries on military matters.
Last week Warner introduced the Cuban Women and Children Humanitarian Relief Act with Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who has long criticized U.S. policy toward Cuba. Joining them were Republicans Robert Bennett of Utah, Rod Grams of Minnesota and James Jeffords of Vermont.
A similar bill in the House has 82 co-sponsors, including Reps. Esteban Torres, D-Calif., a longtime embargo critic, and James Leach, an Iowa Republican who heads the influential Banking Committee. Hearings are expected on both bills next spring.
The Cuban Committee for Democracy said in a statement that the U.S. trade ban prevents Cubans from obtaining U.S.-patented medicines and spare parts for medical equipment, including dialysis machines.
``I used to support the embargo until I returned to Cuba to visit family members,'' said Silvia Wilhelm, the committee's executive officer. ``As a Cuban American I want Cubans on the island to view us as trying to improve their daily lives by ending such embargoes.''
Supporters of the embargo fear that such groups will exploit the suffering of ordinary Cubans -- which may be highlighted by Pope John Paul II's visit to the island in January -- to rip a hole in the trade ban, whose effects are being felt more intensely since it was tightened by the Helms-Burton Act of 1996. Since 1992, they note, the Treasury Department has licensed the transfer of $230 million in humanitarian donations to Cuba -- more than any other country.
In a letter to their House colleagues, Cuban-American Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Robert Menendez said the ban on medical sales to Cuba is necessary because ``there is documented evidence that [Cuban President Fidel] Castro uses medicines and medical equipment to torture political prisoners'' and would divert scarce supplies to the military and police.
The lawmakers called the House bill ``nothing more than [an effort] to aid the Cuban dictatorship masquerading as humanitarian concern.''
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald