WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday said it had approved over $1 billion worth of donations to Cuba since 1992 despite an embargo aimed at forcing political change on the communist-ruled island.
The announcement by the State Department seemed designed to undercut a new push for relaxation of the embargo by an influential mix of prominent Americans.
Through its licensing arrangements, "the United States has in effect provided more medical assistance to the people of Cuba than their own government has," deputy spokesman James Foley asserted.
A new coalition, Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba, said Tuesday it would press for passage of pending bills in Congress that would carve an exemption in the existing embargo for food, medicine and medical-gear sales.
Members of Congress, the clergy and the business community announced the formation of the new grouping at a packed press conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has opposed the U.S. embargo since the 1960s.
The campaign was launched a week before Pope John Paul is due to begin a historic visit to the island, 90 miles (145 km) off the coast of Florida.
Foley rejected the coalition's call for an end to the embargo on Cuba and said reality belies coalition concerns about suffering of children, the sick and the elderly in Cuba.
"The United States has licensed donations of over $227 million in medicines and medical supplies since 1992," he said.
"Moreover, over $1 billion worth of donations of all types of humanitarian assistance, including food and a variety of other goods, have also been licensed in this time period," he said.
The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 permits U.S. firms to export medicines, medical supplies and equipment to Cuba provided that end-use monitoring arrangements are in place.
Given the record, "we believe that we are authorizing the types of humanitarian commerce and assistance that ... helps meet the needs of the Cuban people on a properly licensed basis. There is not a crisis of this nature," Foley said.
He stressed the U.S. view that "the problems in the Cuban economy and the Cuban health sector are a direct result of mismanagement of the Cuban economy, which is a dysfunctional economic model."
While reaffirming U.S. determination to maintain a multifaceted approach to Cuba that includes an embargo, Foley reiterated that Washington might alter its approach if Havana made fundamental democratic changes in its system.
He noted that the pope has delivered powerful messages that "had a reverberating effect in other closed and totalitarian societies."
If next week's papal visit "can be a spark for a humane response to the hunger and thirst of the Cuban people for real democratic change, then we certainly would welcome that," Foley said, but Cuba's record does not inspire optimism about fundamental change in the communist system.
20:52 01-14-98