US President George W. Bush called on the world to steer Cuba out of its "tropical Gulag" toward democracy, drawing charges from Havana that he is inciting violence.
In his first address since 2003 to focus solely on Cuba, Bush on Wednesday also said he would create a "freedom fund" to promote democratic reforms in Cuba, taking advantage of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro's fading grip on power.
But he adamantly refused to lift the decades-old US sanctions on the communist island.
"Viva Cuba libre" -- long live a free Cuba -- Bush said in a speech at the US State Department.
Cuba immediately fired back, with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque accusing Bush of making "a plea for violence, a call for the use of force to topple the revolution and impose his ideas on Cuba."
The influential Cuban American National Foundation welcomed Bush's call for democratic reforms, but said his administration lacked a clear strategy to bring about a change in Cuba. It called for direct an substantial assistance to Cuba's democratic opposition.
Bush called on the international community to invest economic and political capital in Cuba's democracy movements and said countries that do business with Havana were enriching a brutal elite with an iron grip on power.
"The socialist paradise is a tropical Gulag," the president, who shared the stage with relatives of jailed opponents of Castro's regime, said in a reference to former Soviet prison camps for political dissidents.
Castro, 81, continues to be sidelined from power since he underwent gastrointestinal surgery in July last year. Raul Castro, 76, is serving as interim president of Cuba, while his elder brother recovers.
Bush flatly rejected widespread calls for lifting the nearly half-century US economic sanctions imposed after Cuba's 1959 revolution, including possible pending action at the UN.
"As long as the regime maintains its monopoly over the political and economic life of the Cuban people, the United States will keep the embargo in place," he said, to applause from the crowd.
But Bush said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Cuba-born US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez would seek contributions for a billion-dollar "freedom fund" tied to future democratic reforms in Havana.
"Now is the time to stand with the Cuban people as they stand up for their liberty. 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," he said.
The fund would provide grants and loans and debt relief to Cubans -- but only once their government has fully embraced core liberties like freedom of speech and of the press and periodic, free and fair multi-party elections.
Bush also called on other countries to make more public shows of support for democracy activists in Cuba, and warned that there may be a price to pay for countries that fail to help.
"The dissidents of today will be the nation's leaders tomorrow. When freedom finally comes, they will surely remember who stood with them," the president said.
He also had a message for Cuba's security apparatus, saying "When Cubans rise up to demand their liberty, the liberty they deserve, you've got to make a choice."
"Will you defend a disgraced and dying order by using force against your own people or will you embrace your people's desire for change?" Bush said.
A senior aide had said on Tuesday that this was not a call for "armed rebellion."
Bush, who never named either Castro, ruled out a softening of US policies if Raul were to take over permanently and enact what some Cubans expect to be piecemeal economic reforms.
"We will not support the old way with new faces, the old system held together by new chains. The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not stability; the operative word is freedom," he said.
But he said that he was prepared to allow non-governmental organizations and religious groups to provide computers and Internet access, as long as Havana lifts restrictions on using the World Wide Web.
And he invited young Cubans to take part in a scholarship program.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS