Bush reaches out to Cuban dissidents
Posted on Wed, May. 07, 2008
Associated Press
WA****NGTON --
President Bush has reached out to Cuban dissidents, speaking by
videoconference with activists still on the communist Caribbean island
and struggling for change there, the White House said Wednesday.
The conversation between Bush and three dissidents took place on
Tuesday. On Wednesday, Bush also was using a speech at the State
Department to call on Cuba's leaders to begin a process of democratic
change.
Those remarks were being made at the State Department, before the
Council of the Americas, an international business organization
committed to economic and social development, open markets, the rule of
law, and democracy.
The developments are part of a stepped-up effort by Bush to talk about
Cuba and press for political change since Fidel Castro officially
stepped down in February after decades ruling the island. Fidel's
brother, Raúl, took over as president in the ailing leader's place. He
had been provisional president since his brother, who led the nation for
nearly a half-century, underwent emergency surgery in July 2006.
But Bush has stressed that a new Castro does not mean a new Cuba.
In the teleconference, Bush spoke with Martha Beatriz Roque, one of the
75 pro-democracy activists arrested in a 2003 crackdown for offenses
against the Castro regime; Berta Soler, the wife of a still-jailed
activist; and Jorge Luis García Pérez, who was released last year after
17 years in prison. They were at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana
while they talked to Bush.
''This was an op****tunity for the president to hear directly from those
in Cuba who are struggling on behalf of human rights,'' White House
spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
It follows a meeting in March at the White House between Bush and a
former Cuban prisoner and his wife.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/524463.html
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