[A-List] Bush kindly invites Cuba to full democracy and free markets

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

05/20 13:39
Bush Says No Easing of Cuba Embargo Without Elections (Update1)
By Heidi Przybyla and Alex Canizares


Washington, May 20 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said
he'd work to ease the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba only when the
island has free elections and Fidel Castro loosens his
"stranglehold" on private businesses.

"Without major steps by Cuba to open up its political system and
its economic system, trade with Cuba will not help the Cuban
people, it will merely enrich Castro and his cronies and prop up
their dictatorship," Bush said in a White House speech before
leaving for Miami to rally Cuban-Americans on the 100th
anniversary of Cuba's independence from Spain.

Bush reaffirmed support for the 40-year-old embargo on Cuba a
week after former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, visited the
island and called for abandoning sanctions. Bush is addressing a
key constituency during his brother Jeb's Florida gubernatorial
reelection campaign and ahead of his own reelection bid in 2004.

Florida's registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 200,000,
and there are 350,000 Cuban-Americans, who historically vote
Republican. Their importance was highlighted in the 2000
presidential election when Bush carried the state by just several
hundred votes out of 6 million cast, thereby giving him the
decisive margin in the Electoral College to win the presidency.

"Without the Cuban vote, Florida would be a Democratic state,"
said Lance DeHaven-Smith, a political expert at Florida State
University.

Bush's Florida trip "solidifies Cuban support for Republicans
generally and will certainly help Jeb Bush," Dehaven- Smith said.

Pleased by Policy

Two Republican members of Congress from Miami, both of whom
emigrated from Cuba early in Castro's rule, said Bush's stance
will help galvanize Cuban-American supporters.

"Anybody who supports freedom for Cuba is pleased today,"
Representative Lincoln Diaz Balart said after Bush's speech.

"I think this type of policy will be very well received by the
constituents Lincoln and I represent," added Representative
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Bush's speech combined a restatement of existing demands --
political and economic reforms, free and fair elections next
year, an open economy, independent trade unions and respect for
human rights -- with a broadside against Castro.

"He is a dictator who jails and tortures and exiles his political
opponents," Bush said. He called Castro "a tyrant" who has made
"a career of oppression."

Conditions

Bush said he'd continue to bar U.S. financing for farm exports to
Cuba because "this would just be a foreign aid program in
disguise that would benefit the current regime."

"Full normalization of relations with Cuba, diplomatic
recognition, open trade and a robust aid program will only be
possible when Cuba has a new government that is fully democratic,
when the rule of law is respected, and when the human rights of
all Cubans are fully protected," Bush said.

Meantime, he said the U.S. would ease restrictions on
humanitarian aid to Cuba by American religious and other non-
governmental groups and establish scholarships in the U.S. for
Cuban students and professionals and family members of political
prisoners.

Some members of Congress say the embargo is a Cold War relic.
About 34 lawmakers of both parties wrote Bush last week urging
him to lift a ban on food and medicine sales and restrictions on
U.S. tourist travel.

Castro's Lifeline

One of those opposed to the embargo, Representative Jeff Flake,
an Arizona Republican, said efforts to oust Castro will fail
unless trade and travel between the U.S. and Cuba resume.

"The embargo has been Castro's lifeline," Flake said on ABC's
"This Week." "It's been his appeasement because he's been able to
blame the failures of socialism on us."

Florida Democrats say Bush's trip to Miami is designed chiefly to
raise money before new campaign finance laws come into effect.

"It gives them an opportunity to go to the ATM in Little Havana,"
Ryan Banfill, a Florida Democratic Party spokesman, said.

The fund-raiser for Jeb Bush will be an exclusive affair of
roughly 100 donors, he said.

The governor's leading Democratic opponent is former U.S.
attorney general Janet Reno, who drew criticism from Cuban
dissidents for her role in returning 6-year-old shipwreck
survivor Elian Gonzalez to the Communist country.

A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll March 22-28 showed Bush
leading Reno 54 to 37 percent. The poll's margin of error was 3.5
percentage points. A key to keeping that edge is turnout,
particularly among Cuban-Americans, as the election battle heats
up, DeHaven-Smith said.