The Cuban American National Foundation on Thursday provided details about the Bill to Provide Assistance and Aid to Cuba, sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The proposal calls for sending as much as $100 million in food and medicine to the island through the American Red Cross or the Catholic Church in Cuba, if the Cuban government can assure the aid is not diverted to government stores or Communist Party officials. The U.S. Congress must be allowed to monitor delivery of the aid.

``The Cuban government must provide public guarantees that it will not interfere with the distribution of the humanitarian aid and that it will not attempt to charge taxes or distribution fees that have not been stipulated,'' said foundation President Francisco ``Pepe'' Hernandez, who supports the bill, at a Miami news conference.

The proposal was unveiled days after Pope John Paul II left Cuba, an event that embargo opponents in the United States hoped would give them the momentum needed to begin dismantling the 37-year-old policy.

Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both Miami Republicans, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., have called the bill ``unnecessary [because] it could create serious confusion regarding existing law.''

``We're not going to co-sponsor it or help turn it into law,'' Ros-Lehtinen said Thursday. ``It has the support of the Clinton administration, and there's a lot of people around the President who want to help [Cuban President Fidel] Castro.''

Helms issued a statement Thursday calling the initiative ``a worthy proposal based on sound principles.''

``This assistance will get food and medicine directly to Cubans who need it most -- those who cannot possibly afford to buy it because of the brutal, Marxist-Leninist economic policies of the Castro regime -- and not to foreign tourists and cronies of the regime,'' the statement said.

``Most importantly,'' Helms added, ``it will keep firmly in place a U.S. policy that is committed to economic and political freedom for all Cubans: the economic embargo on the Castro regime.''

Even supporters of a rival bill that would allow the direct sale of food and medicine to Cuba voiced approval.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, a sponsor of the rival bill, said the foundation plan at least acknowledges that the United States should do more to alleviate Cuba's humanitarian crisis.

``We're certainly encouraged that people are at least acknowledging the problem exists,'' said Dodd, D-Conn. ``All in all, I'm happy to see opponents of our measure move in our direction.''

However, Dodd warned that Cuba's shortages are too extensive to be solved with donations alone.

This report was supplemented with Herald wire services.