Bush announces to "hasten the arrival of a new, free, democratic Cuba"

[Grojlach]

*sigh* Déjà-vu, anyone? Apart from the fact that Castro's reign will probably outlive the terms of any of the next three US presidents, this is what? the fifth, sixth? country Bush wishes to make changes to in what little remains of his term.

Bush announces initiatives for Cuban dissidents

Cuban-Americans significant voting bloc in Florida

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring that "Cuba must change," President Bush Friday announced modest initiatives to "hasten the arrival of a new, free, democratic Cuba" and to prepare for the day when President Fidel Castro -- who seized power more than four decades ago -- is in charge no more.
"Cuba will soon be free," Bush said in Spanish in a Rose Garden address to a crowd that included a number of politicians from South Florida, a politically powerful haven for anti-Castro exiles.
Bush said Castro has responded to his diplomatic initiatives aimed at easing restrictions on trade and travel between the two countries "with defiance and contempt and a new round of brutal oppression that outraged the world's conscience."
Bush cited lengthy prison terms meted out to Cuban opposition members.
Friday was a national holiday in Cuba and no immediate response was available from Havana.
In addition, Bush said, elections in Cuba "are still a sham. Opposition groups still organize and meet at their own peril, private economic activity is still strangled. Non-government trade unions are still oppressed and suppressed. Property rights are still ignored and most goods and services produced in Cuba are still reserved for the political elite.
"Clearly, the Castro regime will not change by its own choice, but Cuba must change," Bush said.
Enforcement of travel restrictions already in place will be strengthened, he said. "We've instructed the Department of Homeland Security to increase inspections of travelers and shipments to and from Cuba."
The U.S. Treasury Department forbids Americans to spend money in Cuba on pleasure trips, but exceptions are made for people visiting relatives, offering humanitarian aid or conducting research.
"Those exceptions are too often used as cover for illegal business travel and tourism or to skirt the restrictions on carrying cash into Cuba," Bush said.
In addition, U.S. citizens who travel to Cuba through third countries or by boat in violation of the U.S. embargo will be targeted, he said.
Bush said U.S. travelers to the island enrich the Castro government simply by paying their hotel bills in dollars. "Foreign-owned resorts in Cuba must pay the wages of their Cuban workers to the government. The government, in turn, pays the workers a pittance in worthless pesos and keeps the hard currency to prop up the dictator and his cronies."
In Cuba, leading dissident Vladimiro Roca told CNN that he applauded the speech, but felt U.S. tourism has little impact on Castro's hold on power. "Our fight is with the Cuban government, not with the Americans," he said.
Bush also said he would work to "ensure that Cubans fleeing the dictator do not risk their lives at sea" by increasing the number of Cuban immigrants allowed to enter the United States each year and by informing Cubans "of the many routes of safe and legal entry into the United States."
In addition, the U.S. government will establish a committee to "hasten" the arrival of "the happy day when Castro's regime is no more and democracy comes to the island," Bush said.
It will be led by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, who was born on the island.
"We'll be prepared," said Bush, who has been criticized for what some have called his government's lack of planning prior to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Bush further promised to "continue to build a strong international coalition to advance the cause of freedom inside Cuba."
The president said he would increase the distribution of printed material on the island, increase the effectiveness of Radio and TV Marti, whose communications are regularly jammed by the Cuban government, and boost Internet-based information for Cubans, though few of the island's residents have access to the Internet.
"We're determined to bring the truth to the people who suffer under Fidel Castro," he said.
Cracking down on U.S. travel will also help limit the island's prostitution -- "a modern form of slavery which is encouraged by the Cuban government," Bush said.
The Castro regime has publicly opposed the sex trade. It has flourished on the island in the wake of economic pressures caused by the dissolution of its former trading ally, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. embargo, which was imposed in 1961.
Asked what evidence Bush had to support his contention that the Cuban government encourages the sex trade, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he did not have that information with him, but would make it available to reporters later.
Administration officials said the new measures, while modest, were, as one put it, "real things" to strengthen the administration's Cuba policy.
Bush has steadfastly resisted calls by those who believe easing sanctions would do more to advance the cause of democracy in Cuba.
One of those, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, expressed disappointment in the speech.
"For more than four decades, the U.S. has pursued an absurd policy of embargo that has accomplished nothing but to increase the misery of the Cuban people and further isolate them from the American people," the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said in a written statement. "The only beneficiary of the embargo is Castro himself, who is sheltered by the wall we have built around the island."
Baucus added, "I would hope that, at some point, we could move beyond a policy toward Cuba that is held hostage by the politics of the Electoral College. Today's announcement indicates that the administration isn't ready to put the needs of the Cuban people before politics."
It is no secret that Bush is courting anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in advance of next year's presidential election, believing their support is critical in presidential battleground states like Florida.
Bush is the 10th U.S. president since Castro took power in 1959.
A Cuba policy analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington was also critical of the changes.
"If we're waiting for Fidel Castro to pass, we could be waiting for a couple more presidents," said Anya Landau. "These are simply rehashed, repackaged versions of a very tired and ineffective policy."

Source: CNN

[Timber Loftis]

While I don't agree with arresting or sanctioning travellers to Cuba, I certainly agree that the end of this dictator's reign is long overdue. He lied to the Cuban people about everything and then enslaved them. A lawyer, doctor, construction worker, or shop owner can't make a living, but the street sluts and cabies make a comparable fortune catering to foreign travellers -- often, a whore makes in one night what a doctor/lawyer makes in a week in Cuba.

As well, I am certain I know more Cuban exiles than any of IWF's other 13,000 members, and will say without a doubt that things need to change there. Cuba was a haven -- a wonderful tropical paradise with a good economy and a lot of natural beauty. Castro ruined that. There is still a lot of beautiful countryside and mountains there, but the communist government very quickly turned into a brutal one-man-serving dictatorship. I for one hope we reinitiate our attempts to assassinate him (which were given up after several CIA SNAFUS in the 60s and 70s.

We owe it to Cuba, and to the millions of Cubans in S. Florida, to finish what JFK started but balked on.

[edit]P.S. if your comeback to this has anything to do with the US embargo, let me be the first to preemptively tell you you are an idiot who is analyzing trees while missing the forest.

[ 10-11-2003, 11:29 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: [edit]P.S. if your comeback to this has anything to do with the US embargo, let me be the first to preemptively tell you you are an idiot who is analyzing trees while missing the forest.

Please spell out for me what you are trying to say here very slowly and very carefully for me. I'm awful slow dear Pip old chap.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: [edit]P.S. if your comeback to this has anything to do with the US embargo, let me be the first to preemptively tell you you are an idiot who is analyzing trees while missing the forest.

Please spell out for me what you are trying to say here very slowly and very carefully for me. I'm awful slow dear Pip old chap. [/QUOTE]I'm rather puzzled myself... Did I just get flamed for posting a recent CNN-article (which is in any way a topic of which I've never written a single word about as long as I have been on IW, so the "comeback"-bit is extremely puzzling) or is this pointed towards an invisible entity only Timber is able to see? Or did someone respond, only to delete his/her post later?

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: [edit]P.S. if your comeback to this has anything to do with the US embargo, let me be the first to preemptively tell you you are an idiot who is analyzing trees while missing the forest.

G'day Timber! Long time no speak. I know that you're trying to make a point here, and I understand sarcasm perfectly, but could I also preemptively say that anyone who calls anyone else an idiot here for any reason, justified or not, will be preemptively sent from the forum a week to cool off and think about the error of their ways. In other words, yellow card. Cheers.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: While I don't agree with arresting or sanctioning travellers to Cuba, I certainly agree that the end of this dictator's reign is long overdue. He lied to the Cuban people about everything and then enslaved them. A lawyer, doctor, construction worker, or shop owner can't make a living, but the street sluts and cabies make a comparable fortune catering to foreign travellers -- often, a whore makes in one night what a doctor/lawyer makes in a week in Cuba.

That has more to do with the economy than Castro - in order to pay doctors high salaries, the state has to earn hard cash. It's impossible for Cuba to earn large amounts of money when its nearest neighbour blocks all economically useful imports and exports and leans heavily on everyone else in the neighbourhood to do the same.

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: As well, I am certain I know more Cuban exiles than any of IWF's other 13,000 members, and will say without a doubt that things need to change there. Cuba was a haven -- a wonderful tropical paradise with a good economy and a lot of natural beauty. Castro ruined that.

Yes, you're right - it was a haven: for the mafia
"Batista established lasting relationships with organized crime, and under his guardianship Havana became known as "the Latin Las Vegas." Meyer Lansky and other prominent gangsters were heavily invested in Havana, and politicians from Batista on down took their cut.

Through Lansky, the mafia knew they had a friend in Cuba. A summit at Havana's Hotel Nacional, with mobsters such as Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr., Moe Dalitz and others, confirmed Luciano's authority over the U.S. mob, and coincided with Frank Sinatra's 1946 singing debut in Havana. It was here that Lansky gave permission to kill Bugsy Siegel.

Many of Batista's enemies faced the same fate as the ambitious Siegel. Nobody seemed to mention the many brutal human rights abuses that were a regular feature of Batista's private police force. Nobody, that is, except the many in Cuba who opposed the U.S.-friendly dictator."

And of course, the fact that literacy rates are now higher than the US and infant mortality is now lower than the US are not *facts* that we should forget. Should we Chastise Castro for:
Education and health care were made available to all, even those living in the remotest corners of the island. UNESCO statistics confirm that Cuba's rate of basic literacy is now among the highest in Latin America...

Few Cuban children live on the streets - unlike in many neighbouring countries. Infant mortality rates are the lowest in the region (and slightly lower that those in the United States), health care is excellent and all receive free milk until the age of six. Besides entertainment, Cuban television broadcasts college-level courses for the adult population.

The Cuban media often highlight the contrast between contented Cuban children and their counterparts in Bogotà, Los Angeles or Buenos Aires - dealing in drugs, dragged into prostitution or living in shanty towns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro

Castro is certainly no angel - but he is in comparison to Batista. Cuba's democratic system may not be perfect - but it does garner enough support amongst the populace to refute the charge that it is a full blown dictatorship.

However, perhaps it is time for Cuba to amend its Constitution to limit the term of office of President to a fixed number of years, and to remove articles 5 and 6.

Castro is old and will die soon enough - change will come when he has gone - but a stable and peaceful society that is pro-American is unlikely to appear with US meddling of this nature...

[khazadman]

Cuba's democratic process is not perfect? You're kidding right? their democratic process is non-existent. When was the last time someone opposed the butcher Castro? And lived or didn't spend the rest of his life in one of their hell hole prisons that is? And their health care system is really that great huh? Then why is it that when high ranking communists need medical attention they go outside the country?

[skywalker]

So why has America not tried regime change in Cuba by force as was done in Iraq?

Mark

[Skunk]

Originally posted by khazadman: Cuba's democratic process is not perfect? You're kidding right? their democratic process is non-existent. When was the last time someone opposed the butcher Castro? And lived or didn't spend the rest of his life in one of their hell hole prisons that is? And their health care system is really that great huh? Then why is it that when high ranking communists need medical attention they go outside the country?

If you can't give examples, then this is merely rhetoric.

[johnny]

How's this for an example ?

Healthcare in Cuba is excellent..... IF you're not Cuban, and have a buck or two to spend. Cubans themselves have NOTHING, thanks to uncle Fidel.