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Normal U.S.-Cuba Relations Predicted Jim Burns, CNSNews.comCNSNews.com -- The head of a group that wants to end U.S. sanctions against Cuba said she is optimistic that both chambers of Congress will enact legislation to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Cuban Policy Foundation President Sally Grooms Cowal, a former U.S. ambassador and member of the Nixon administration, led a delegation of congressmen to Cuba last week. Speaking Monday in Havana, she called her talks with Castro government officials "successful." "There is a great interest in making progress toward a more normal relationship. And that would include a trade dialogue and diplomatic relations," Cowal said. Cowal said the United States and the Castro government could have a good trading relationship if the embargo is lifted. "There are things here that we want to buy. I would say that would certainly include services and not just the traditional products like sugar. But it would also include things that are the product of the wonderful educational system that exists here." She also commented on Cuba's "human capital" - Cubans who are trained in the computer field, for instance. "The world is one place," Cowal concluded. Accompanying Cowal were Democratic Congressmen William Delahunt and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Vic Snyder of Arkansas, Bill Clay of Missouri, Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Hilda Solis of California. Jo Ann Emerson, a Missouri Republican was also part of the delegation. On Monday, the delegation meet with Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Havana, then held talks later in the day with several Cuban dissidents. Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., told reporters at the end of those sessions, "We have to work together, we have to put the cold war behind us." Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and a well-known human rights activist was among those who met with the congressional delegation. However, Dennis Hays, executive director of the (anti-Castro) Cuban-American National Foundation suggested that Cowal doesn't know the meaning of the word "progress." "The problem is that Ambassador Cowal and others always talk about what the United States is going to do and never about what Cuba needs to do. Were any political prisoners freed? Were these 'highly trained' Cubans given free access to the Internet? Or to outside sources of information? Were the Cuban farmers allowed to determine what crops to plant and who they want to sell them to?" Hays asked in an interview with CNSNews.com. "The answer regrettably in all of these cases is 'no,'" Hayes said. "Nothing has changed and so again it's a question of people wanting to give something for nothing."
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