WASHINGTON -- President Bush announced Friday a crackdown on unlicensed travel to Cuba and said his administration would boost funding for groups on the island opposed to President Fidel Castro.

 Bush also tapped a veteran Miami radio broadcaster to head Radio and TV Martí and told him that his number one priority is to overcome jamming of the outlets so that all Cubans have access to accurate news and information.

 In recent years, travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens has increased, spurred partly by media reports portraying the island as an exotic locale that may be overrun with tourists once its communist government falls. Much of the travel is in defiance of U.S. law, which strictly regulates who may travel to Cuba and spend U.S. dollars there. Bush pledged to ``enforce the law to the fullest extent to prevent ``unlicensed and excessive travel to Cuba.

 Some 200,000 U.S. citizens now travel to the island each year, about 120,000 of them Cuban Americans on legal family visits. In recent months, officials in the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control have toughened enforcement of travel restrictions, issuing fines of up to $7,500 to violators.

 In his five-paragraph statement on Cuba, Bush said he would also enforce limits on remittances to the island, and act to ensure that ``humanitarian and cultural
 exchanges actually reach pro-democracy activists in Cuba.

 ``I will expand support for human rights activists, and the democratic opposition; and we will provide additional funding for nongovernmental organizations to work on pro-democracy programs in Cuba, Bush said. He added that the White House will ``oppose any attempt to weaken sanctions against the Castro regime until it frees political prisoners, allows free speech and holds free elections.

 The announcement drew a mixed reaction from three Cuban-American congressmen. ``The steps [President Bush] has announced are unprecedented in their clarity and determination, said Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a Miami Republican. Fellow Miami Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hailed Bush for ``reiterating his support for programs that will help bring freedom to the Cuban people.

 The only Cuban-American Democrat in Congress, Rep. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, said that Bushs ``words and promises are hollow unless he decides next week to uphold a Helms-Burton provision that would allow U.S. citizens to file suits against those who benefit from properties confiscated after Cubas 1959 revolution.

                                    © 2001 The Miami Herald