Farmers to sell to Cuba

HAVANA -- Indiana farmers agreed to sell $15 million of goods to communist Cuba Wednesday as U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh declared that expanded American trade with and travel to the island could create a democratic opening.\n"I support expanding trade between our two nations as the best way to promote and secure our mutual prosperity," said Bayh, an Indiana Democrat. "It is our belief that increased economic interaction is the best way to promote positive change (in Cuba)." \n"An absence of economic interaction has been tried for 40 years, without success," he said, referring to the U.S. trade embargo against the island.\nBayh told international journalists there was no contradiction between his meeting Tuesday with democracy activist Oswaldo Paya and his business meetings with Cuban officials Wednesday at the head of an Indiana farm delegation.\n"I believe that a policy of engagement between our countries offers the best opportunity to facilitate progress and freedom that is every human being's right," he said.\nAt the start of the news conference, representatives for the Indiana Farm Bureau and the Cuban food import company Alimport signed a memorandum of understanding calling for $15 million in sales of retail brand food products, pork, soybeans, cattle and other agricultural goods to the island over six months.\nUnder an exception to the four-decade old sanctions, American producers can sell farm goods directly to Cuba on a cash basis.\nBayh is the third U.S. senator and the fourth member of Congress to visit Cuba in the past month.\nThe visits have been the first by members of U.S. Congress since the March arrests of 75 dissidents later sentenced to prison terms of six to 28 years.\nA majority of those arrested were connected with Paya's Varela Project, a signature-gathering campaign seeking a referendum on laws aimed at guaranteeing civil rights such as freedom of speech and assembly.\nBayh declared Paya "a courageous man" after their meeting Tuesday.