President's Message Cuban Independence Day [Full Text] Today, Cubans around the world celebrate May 20th, Cuban Independence Day. On behalf of the people of the United States, I send greetings to the Cuban community. My hope is for the Cuban people to soon enjoy the same freedoms and rights that we do.
Dictatorships have no place in the Americas. May God bless the Cuban people, who are struggling for freedom. Thank you. [End]
Fidel Castro - Cuba
Hugo Chavez - Venezuela
Nevada lawmaker: Keep the embargo [Full Text]A Republican congressman from Nevada, Sen. John Ensign, said Tuesday in a speech to the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami that the White House must maintain the embargo of Cuba.
''I look at Cuba today and see a lot of European and Canadian businesses that have been operating there for years -- making a tidy profit at the expense of the Cuban people -- yet Cuba has not been transformed, and Castro has not changed one iota,'' Ensign said.
The lawmaker said he would introduce a bill that would provide $30 million to finance a transition government for Cuba, and another $20 million for human rights activities through the Organization of American States and for dissidents, activists, relatives of prisoners and others seeking to build civil society.
Ensign said, in his prepared remarks, that a recent crackdown on dissidents in Cuba, in which scores of pro-democracy activists were rounded up and given jail terms of up to 28 years, was a sign of desperation by the Castro regime.
''This crackdown is not a sign of his strength. It is a sign of fear and weakness. It is a sign that the end is coming. Castro knows it -- and he is lashing out,'' Ensign told the foundation.
Ensign scoffed at the idea that softening the embargo of Cuba could help bring about political change.
''American investment cannot liberate Cuba. To the contrary, American investment would only help Castro prop up Cuba's teetering economy and perpetuate his dictatorship,'' Ensign said.
``The facts are so plain and simple, it's hard to believe that anyone with an education and a half-way open mind could not see it. Yet the anti-embargo crowd continues to press its case.''
Ensign compared those opposed to the embargo of Cuba to ``the French and Germans who argued throughout the 1990s that we should lift restrictions on trade with Saddam Hussein.''
December 29, 2000 -
Fidel, Saddam and Hugo --An improbable but growing friendship of three military revolutionaries ***The Castro-Hussein-Chávez connection is anti-American and anti-capitalistic, but not in an ideological way. What matters to the three is domestic power built upon a base of nationalism that they believe legitimizes their policies
In a way, this bizarre trio represents the rebirth, a half century later, of the kind of nationalist populism spawned by General Juan Perón in Argentina and Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. Mr. Castro and Mr. Saddam gained power through armed revolutions; Mr. Chávez, a paratroopers' lieutenant colonel, was democratically elected in 1998, after serving time for trying to overthrow the government in 1992.
Mr. Chávez is the most intriguing new leader to emerge in Latin America since Mr. Castro - and he is the lynchpin between Mr. Castro and Mr. Saddam. Although Cuba had been sending doctors and health workers to Iraq for years, there had not been any major contacts between the two countries until Mr. Chávez appeared on the scene. This fall, Mr. Chávez became the first democratically elected foreign head of state to visit Iraq since the Gulf War, ostensibly to invite Mr. Saddam to a summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But it also was an in-your face gesture toward the United States.
……………. The Iraqi link is one aspect of Mr. Chávez's international involvements that the United States must not underestimate, with Cuba playing a central role. Since he took office in February 1999, Mr. Chávez has proclaimed his "identification" with the Cuban revolution. He visited Havana and entertained Mr. Castro in Caracas for five days last October. Mr. Castro treated Mr. Chávez as a son, an attitude seldom displayed by the Cuban leader toward any young people. During that same visit, Mr. Chávez granted Cuba large crude-oil price discounts, as he has done selectively elsewhere in the Caribbean, and agreed to help complete building a Cuban oil refinery.
Mr. Castro is Mr. Chávez's guide in the art of gently and gradually introducing authoritarian government to Venezuela. Mr. Chávez abolished the Senate and established a unicameral Parliament whose members support him. He has a new constitution, approved by a simple majority of voters in a referendum, that grants him considerable power.
To complicate matters and his relations with the United States, Mr. Chávez has been openly supporting leftist guerrilla movements in neighboring Colombia. The (FARC) rebels control big swaths of Colombian territory, along with numerous coca plantations. Washington has already committed $1.3 billion, mainly in military aid, to the eradication of both guerrillas and coca plantations. This could foreshadow a big U.S. commitment in Colombia and an eventual conflict with Mr. Chávez that may interfere with the flow of oil north from Venezuela.****
President Bush doesn't make empty talk. And the Cubans in Congress should have been at this meeting supporting the freed dissidents and the president.
The photos of the meeting were icredible. I have such admiration for the Cubans who got out of that Communist hellhole and are fighting to free Cuba.