Oct 24, 2007 12:30 am US/Eastern
Bush Urges Allies To Help Cuba Be Free
President To Propose Pro-Democracy Measures
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
President Bush on Wednesday blistered Cuba's regime and challenged the international community to help the people of the communist island shed Fidel Castro's rule and become a free society.
"Now is the time to support the democratic movement growing on the island," Bush said in an address at the State Department.
"Now is the time to stand with the Cuban people as they stand up for their liberty. And now is the time for the world to put aside its differences and prepare for Cubans' transition to a future of freedom and progress and promise."
"The dissidents of today will be the nation's leaders," Bush added. "And when freedom finally comes, they will surely remember who stood with them."
In his first major address on Cuban policy in four years, Bush sought to refocus world attention on Cuba's repressive life. He spoke of citizens there who have no freedom of employment or expression, who live in dire circumstances, and who fear beatings for pursuing the lives they want.
"As with all totalitarian systems, Cuba's regime no doubt has other horrors still unknown to the rest of the world," Bush said. "Once revealed, they will shock the conscience of humanity, and they will shame the regime's defenders and all those democracies that had been silent."
Beyond his immediate audience of diplomats and analysts, Bush sought to reach out to directly to Cuba's people -- part of a clear drive to rally pro-democracy elements. To ordinary Cubans, he said: "You have the power to shape your own destiny. You can bring about a future where your leaders answers to you."
Bush even appealed to the Cuban military, saying: "You may have once believed in the revolution. Now you can see its failure."
To the school children of Cuba, Bush said, "Do not believe the tired lies you are told about America. We want nothing from you except to welcome you to the hope and joy of freedom. Do not fear the future."
In total, Bush's address amounted to no shift in U.S. policy, and only modest proposals that were sure to be rejected by the Castro regime. Those included the offer of expanded Internet access to Cuban students, and an invitation to Cuban youth to join a scholarship program.
He also called on the creation of the international fund, built on foreign donations, to help Cuba built a free-market society one day.
The broader mission for Bush -- as it has been for years -- was to hasten the day when Castro is gone. The ailing leader, 81, who has ruled over Cuba's one-party government for nearly a half-century, has not been since in public since ceding power to his 76-year-old brother, Raul, in July 2006.
White House aides insisted there was no specific reason for the timing of Bush's speech. But it comes less than a week before the United Nations General Assembly takes up Cuba's annual resolution to eliminate the U.S. embargo against the island. For the past 15 years, the world body has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for the U.S. economic and commercial embargo against Cuba to be repealed "as soon as possible."
Fidel Castro wrote in Cuban news media Tuesday that President Bush is threatening the world with nuclear war and famine. The White House brushed off Castro's comments - particularly his assertion that Bush was pursuing a forceful conquest of Cuba.
Cuba staged municipal elections on Sunday, the first step in a process that will determine whether Fidel Castro is re-elected or replaced next year. The Communist Party is the only one allowed, and while candidates do not have to be members, critics claim they are the only ones who ever win.
Bush, increasingly, is speaking of a Castro-free Cuba. As he put it earlier this month: "In Havana, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing an end."
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