Bush Meets Cuban Dissidents’ Families

By BILLY HOUSE and KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO

WASHINGTON – With a Cuban mother and daughter who recently relocated to Tampa near his side, President Bush on Wednesday urged more support from the international community for what he described as the growing democratic movement in Cuba.

“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,” said Bush, appearing at the State Department in Washington.

“The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not stability,” Bush said. “The operative word is freedom.”

In his address, Bush offered no major changes in U.S. policy in anticipation of any transition in Cuba, and only minor initiatives that are likely to be rejected off-hand by the island country’s half-century-old communist leadership.

Rather, Bush’s speech seemed designed to rally an increasingly fractured international community into a more unified position on Cuba, with the view that the government of its longtime leader, Fidel Castro, 81, is in its twilight. Castro turned over power to his brother Raúl last year as he underwent intestinal surgery.

Bush’s speech also seemed, in part, to be a response to critics within the United States who say it is time for the country to amend its approach to Cuba.

The United States has had no diplomatic relations with the country for 45 years, seeking to isolate it with travel restrictions and a trade embargo.

Bush on Wednesday sought to draw more world attention to repression within Cuba, including talking about political prisoners there whom he said have been jailed for nothing more than their beliefs.

Among those Bush mentioned was Jorge Luis Gonzalez Tanquero, whose wife and daughter were among members of three families of Cuban dissidents who appeared onstage with Bush during the speech. Gonzalez Tanquero, 37, has been imprisoned in Las Mangas prison since March 19, 2003, sentenced to 20 years on a charge of crimes against national security.

His wife, Marlene Gonzalez, said in an interview that his only crime was presiding over the Carlos Manuel Cespedes Movement that challenged the regime’s policies. Marlene Gonzalez, 39, and the couple’s 11-year-old daughter, Melissa, left Cuba for political asylum and arrived in Tampa on Sept. 20 on the urging of her husband, who feared for their safety. They live with Marlene’s mother, María Conesa, who has been a Tampa resident for eight years.

They wept on the stage behind Bush as he related their story. “Jorge Luis Gonzalez Tanquero dared to defend the human rights of his countrymen,” Bush said. “For that, he was arrested for crimes against the state.

“Now he languishes in poor health inside a Cuban prison,” said Bush, who embraced Marlene Gonzalez and Melissa after his speech.

Gonzalez later told the Tribune: “I really don’t have words to express how I felt being in an event so important about bringing democracy to Cuba with President Bush. It really impacted me.”
Addressing Cubans

Bush spoke directly to the Cuban people in his speech, which was broadcast to Cuba through such avenues as Radio and TV Marti. “To the ordinary Cubans who are listening: You have the power to shape your own destiny,” Bush said. “You can bring about a future where your leaders answer to you, where you can freely express your beliefs and where your children can grow up in peace.”

He told military or police in Cuba that they will have to make a choice when their fellow countrymen “rise up and demand their liberty.”

“Will you defend a disgraced and dying order by using force against your own people?” Bush asked.

White House officials emphasized that the president was not urging insurrection.

But in a response broadcast live Wednesday afternoon over the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations Web site, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Bush’s declarations were a “an invocation to violence, a call, including by force, to bring down the Cuban revolution.”

“If his objective was to intimidate the people of Cuba … his threat was a complete failure. But we take note of the evolution of his aggression in his tone against Cuba,” Perez Roque said.
Embargoes Remain An Issue

Bush offered to provide computers to Cuban students through nongovernment organizations and faith-based groups if the country’s leaders ends its restrictions on Internet access, and he said he would invite Cuban youngsters to join a scholarship program. Neither is expected to be accepted by the Cuban government.

He also called for the establishment of an international “freedom fund” to be subsidized by foreign donations to help Cuba build its democracy when the time comes.

The speech comes less than a week before the U.N. General Assembly is expected to take up Cuba’s annual resolution to eliminate the U.S. embargoes against the island. It has passed such a resolution calling for the economic and trade embargoes to be lifted repeatedly for the past 15 years.

Florida’s Cuba-born Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, appearing afterward on the Senate floor, said the appearance of dissidents’ family members with Bush “put a face on the cruelty” of the Cuban regime toward its people.

But Larry Birns, director of the left-leaning Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, called Bush’s speech “an illusion of some action on Cuba without any action in itself.” Birns said it was another Bush effort to placate right-wing Cuban-American groups.

“In reality, the United States has nothing left in its holster; … it has already used all of its weapons previously, such as restrictions on travel and food,” Birns said. “Yet, tourism is up in Cuba; Cuba has signed important trade and other agreements with other countries, and it really has never been more connected all over the world than it is today. Venezuela alone is pumping more than $2 billion a year to Cuba.”

Despite a growing number of those in the United States who have called for a lifting of those restrictions, little has been done; Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that would ease sanctions.