US beefs up efforts to 'hasten' dawn of democratic Cuba
by Matthew Lee and Olivier Knox
Friday, May 7, 2004
WASHINGTON, USA (AFP): US military planes
will broadcast pro-democracy messages into communist Cuba as part of a nearly
60-million-dollar plan US President George W. Bush endorsed Thursday to
"hasten" Cuban leader Fidel Castro's ouster.
Washington will also tighten restrictions on Cuban-Americans' cash remittances
to family members on the island and limit back-and-forth visits families may
make between the United States and Cuba to one every three years, officials
said. The goal are to: "undermine" the ageing
Castro's that his brother, Raul, succeed him; speed up Cuba's transition to
democracy; and put in place US programs and policies in anticipation of what
Washington sees as the eventual defeat of Cuban communism, they said.
This "is a strategy that says we're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom,
we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," Bush said after meeting with
the panel, which he created six months ago to recommend a tougher line on
Havana. The Commission for Assistance to a
Free Cuba, headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, aimed "to hasten the day
that Cuba will be a free country," he said.
Just days after receiving the commission's 500-page report this week, the
president called for improving US-funded television and radio broadcasts into
Cuba, which Havana jams, and tightening restrictions on tourism revenue,
remittances and family visits. "This strategy
is a strategy that encourages the spending of money to help organizations to
protect dissidents and to promote human rights," Bush said. "It is a strategy
that encourages a clear voice of the truth being spoken to the Cuban people
through Radio and TV Marti." Among dozens of
commission recommendations is spending up to 18 million dollars between now
and 2006 to deploy "Commando Solo," a specially outfitted C-130 transport
plane that has beamed US messages into Afghanistan and Iraq over the past
three years.
That money would eventually purchase and refit a dedicated "airborne platform"
for Radio and TV Marti, which Cubans often miss because Havana jams them, the
panel's report said. Over the next two years,
up to 36 million dollars will support democracy-building activities in Cuba,
including assistance to dissidents and their families, hit hard by last year's
arrests and lengthy prison sentences to 75 leading Castro opponents.
An additional five million dollars is to be used to spread information
worldwide about the US position on Cuba and educate foreign audiences about
Washington's accusations that Havana harbors terrorists and foments subversion
in Latin America -- all of which pose a threat to the US national interests,
according to the report. US officials said
remittances, worth between 800 million and one billion dollars a year to Cuba,
would be further tightened so that money from the United States would only be
transferred to immediate family members on the island and none would be able
to go to certain Cuban officials or members of the communist party.
Washington believes much of the foreign currency entering Cuba is siphoned
directly to Castro and his cronies. Bush also accepted a recommendation
reducing the amount of US cash families visiting relatives on the island can
spend per day, from 164 dollars to 50 dollars, to encourage visitors to stay
with relatives instead of resorts under government contract, officials said.
"Sunbathers are not going to liberate Cuba," said Roger Noriega, the assistant
secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
The United States embargoed Cuba in 1962, but in 2000 the US Congress approved
the cash sale of food and medicine, as long as the items were not transported
by Cuban ships. Some US lawmakers view the
embargo as a failure. Several decried the new steps as misguided when the
United States is at war in Iraq and against terrorism.
"At a time when the United States faces very real terrorist threats in the
Middle East and elsewhere, the administrations absurd and increasingly bizarre
obsession with Cuba is more than just a shame, it's a dangerous diversion from
reality," said Democratic Senator Max Baucus.
Baucus was one of five senators who co-signed a letter to Bush urging the
president to reject the commission's finding and remove trade and travel
restrictions on Cuba.
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