Cuban exile groups softening embargo stand

MIAMI, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. Cuban exile groups, who for 47 years have opposed official contact with Havana, say they are debating relaxing the U.S. trade embargo.

The reason, they say, is a pair of devastating hurricanes and a new generation of leadership among many of the hard-line anti-Castro Cuban-American groups. The new leaders favor a more open approach to the island, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Damage in Cuba by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike prompted the United States to offer direct aid to the country for the first time in the Castro era, an offer that Cuban President Raul Castro turned down. But anti-communist exile groups want the United States to go further, the newspaper said.

"A whole group that you could consider extreme right-wing a year ago is now in favor of two very important changes," Alfredo Duran, a Miami lawyer and a member of the Cuban Committee for Democracy, told the Post, referring to proposals to lift restrictions on sending money and travel to Cuba, as well as holding a debate the embargo itself.

"A lot of people in the past would not even talk about it," he said. "They basically shunned the issue."