Bush speech preview #2

The following is an excerpt from a White House briefing given this evening by a senior Administration official regarding the President’s speech tomorrow:

And he will then say that now is the time to stand with the democratic movements and the people of Cuba; now is the time to put aside the differences that have existed amongst the international community, and we need to be focused on how we're prepared -- we, the international community are prepared for Cuba's transition. He will acknowledge and thank three countries specifically for their efforts to stand with Cuban pro-democracy forces -- the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. He will call on other countries to follow suit and to make tangible efforts to show public support for pro-democracy activists on the island -- such things as interacting with pro-democracy leaders, inviting them to embassy events, encouraging their country's NGOs to reach out directly to Cuba's independent civil society.

Turning back to the U.S. support for pro-democracy activists on the island, he will note that the U.S. Congress has approved his -- the President's request for additional funding to support Cuban democracy efforts. He will thank the members of Congress for this bipartisan support and urge them to get the law -- or the bill to him that they approved -- get the bill to him so that he can sign it. They will also urge members of Congress to show our support and solidarity for fundamental change in Cuba by maintaining our embargo until there is fundamental change in Cuba.

He will note that the regime does use the embargo as a scapegoat, but that Presidents of both countries have understood that Cuba's suffering is a result of the system imposed on the Cuban people. It is not a function or result of U.S. policy, that the only thing that trade will do is further enrich and strengthen the regime and their grip on the political and economic life of the island.

He will note then that the United States over the years has taken a series of steps to try to help the Cuban people overcome the suffering; that we have done things such as opened up as a place of refuge the United States; that we've tried to rally other countries; that we have authorized private citizens and NGOs to provide humanitarian aid to the island. And it's to the point that the United States is one of the, if not the largest, providers of humanitarian aid to the Cuban people in the world.

He will note that for us the objective has been -- the objective is to get aid directly into the hands of the Cuban people, and that the heart of our policy, the essence of our policy is to break the absolute control the regime holds over the material resources that Cubans need to live and prosper.

He will then announce some initiatives that the U.S. is prepared to take now to help the Cuban people directly if the Cuban regime will allow it to happen, if the regime will get out of the way. One initiative will be to -- one initiative he will announce is that the United States government is prepared to license NGOs and faith-based groups to provide computers and Internet access to Cuban students, and here we would like to be able to provide this to a Cuba in which there are no restrictions on Cubans on Internet access -- so that we would look at expanding this category of getting more computers with Internet access capability to the island, if Cuba's rulers end their restrictions on Internet access for all Cubans.

Excuse me, I apologize, a little tired here.

The next initiative is that we are prepared to invite Cuban young people into the scholarship program, Partnership for Latin American Youth. This is an initiative the President originally announced in March that was hemisphere-wide. He is going to extend a specific invitation to have Cuban youth participate in this, and again call upon the Cuba's rulers to allow Cuban youth to freely participate.

The President will then make the point that life will not improve for Cubans under the current system. It will not improve by exchanging one dictator for another, and it will not improve in any way by seeking accommodation with a new tyranny for the sake of stability. He will note that our policy is based on freedom for Cuba; our policy is not stability for Cuba, it is freedom, and that the way to get to a stable Cuba is through the Cuban people being given their freedom and fundamental rights.

To help bring about that reality, the President will ask Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez to pursue an effort to develop an international freedom fund for Cuba. They will be asked to go work with international partners and to look at how we can -- how we, the international community, can work together to be prepared to assist Cubans as they transition to democracy. But a key to this is going to be at a point at which there is a transitional government in place that respects fundamental freedoms -- freedom of speech, press, freedom to form political parties, the freedom to change their government through periodic multiparty elections. And also key to this is going to be the government that releases political prisoners, and which no longer imprisons or represses individuals who exercise their conscience freely, and frankly, where the shackles of dictatorship are removed.

The President then will note that the speech is being carried by a number of media outlets, some of which are reaching the island. And he will, for a moment, deliver a message to members of the Cuban regime, especially members of the Cuban military and the security apparatus. He will note that they are going to face a choice, and the choice is, which side are they on, the side of Cubans who are demanding freedom, or are they going to face the choice of having to use force against a dying -- force against their own -- their fellow citizens against a dying regime. And he expresses the hope that they will make the choice for freedom, and that -- and note that they will have a place in a democratic Cuba for those who support Cuba's democratic evolution.

He will then address a comment to the ordinary Cubans who are listening. He will say to them that they have the power to change, and/or to shape their destiny; that they are the ones who will bring about a future where Cuban leaders are chosen by them, where their children can grow up in peace and prosperity. He will remind them that over the years there have been many so-called experts that have said that change would never come to certain spots in the world, that there would always be totalitarian in Central and Eastern Europe, or there would always be authoritarianism in Spain or Chile, and that has not been the case; that there you had a case in which the people understood that they could shape their own destiny. Cubans can do the same. And at that point he will pretty much end the speech.