Odds and ends

• The Boston Globe calls for a “new diplomatic agenda with Cuba” beginning with ending “the silly claim, reinstated by the Obama administration last summer, that Cuba remains a ‘state sponsor of terrorism.’”

• Reuters on the search for a partner to expand the Cienfuegos refinery, a project where the Chinese showed interest but have not bought in.

• Diario las Americas gets the first interview with Pedro Alvarez, the former Alimport chief who defected in 2010 and now lives in Tampa.

• “People who don’t believe strongly in immigration, they’ve lost confidence in the greatness of America,” says former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American trying to show his party the light on immigration.  He is profiled in the Washington Post.

• AP’s Andrea Rodriguez on how Venezuela’s Telesur, now on Cuban television 12 hours a day, has changed Cuban’s media mix for the better.

• Tracey Eaton has a redacted version of the classified annex of the Bush Administration’s Cuba transition commission report from July 2006, much of which has been declassified.  You can’t make a full judgment since parts of it are blacked out, but it’s not as interesting as one might expect.  

• In the Herald, from the guy who ran the USAID program that sent Alan Gross to Cuba: Gross’ predicament is all Castro’s fault, if you question the program you are aligned with the Cuban government, and the program has a “measure of tolerance for losses and failed initiatives” in places such as Cuba.  So suck it up, Alan. 

Sec. Rice on Cuba

Some May 26 remarks by former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice are being quoted widely in Cuba blogs as an example of … I don’t know what.

“I do think that particularly in Cuba when Fidel Castro dies, and he will eventually, that his brother is going to find that he is not just going to be able to appropriate Fidel Castro’s authority to himself. And I would hope that by then the international community would have said to Cuba, you need a way to a transition to democracy. Rather than hoping that Raul Castro somehow is going to be a reformer, state the principals, start to put into place a transition for a democratic transition. It may take a while, because there are no institutions in Cuba, but particularly the Organization of American States, where Cuba is the only country that cannot take up its seat at the Organization of American States, because it doesn’t have an elected president. And the European Union needs to be speaking out for the right for the Cubans for that transition.”

These Cuba comments were brief and extemporaneous, so she deserves some slack for the unconnected reference to the OAS and the bizarre statement that there are “no institutions in Cuba.” But there’s not a lot here, to say the least. She left out the idea of naming a “Cuba Transition Coordinator” in the U.S. government, as the Bush Administration did.

I did like her anecdote about Iraq’s Supreme Court defending an Iraqi citizen’s right to travel to any country of his choice:

“And I’ll just tell you one little vignette that says something about what happens when political institutions are in place. An Iraqi legislator visited Israel, and when he came back the Iraqi Parliament tried to strip him of his citizenship, but the Iraqi Supreme Court said, ―Iraqi citizens have the right to travel. You see, institutions, constitutions, documents that establish the relationship between the governed and those who would govern, are not always immediately effective, but they are there and people appeal to them.”

New scholarship program

In 2002, President Bush announced an Initative for a New Cuba, which included a scholarship program. “Our government will offer scholarships in the United States,” the President said, “for Cuban students and professionals who try to build independent civil institutions in Cuba, and scholarships for family members of political prisoners.”

The program didn’t get very far. Last time I checked, a $400,000 USAID grant to Georgetown University resulted in only two Cuban students coming to the United States.

From the Administration’s point of view, this was another case of the Cuban regime denying opportunity to its citizens. From the Cuban government’s point of view, one can surmise that there was little inclination to cooperate, by granting travel permits to students, with what it viewed as a program to train a new generation of political opposition.

Hence the U.S. goal of regime change (“hastening the end of the dictatorship”) and the tactic of engagement through academic exchange didn’t mix. (I always wondered why the Administration would not have been happy to include young Cuban Communist Party members, since they presumably need the education.)

At any rate, it turns out that the Bush Administration made a very constructive change last year. On the website of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana are announcements of two scholarship programs; one is a five-week program, the second is for one year. The programs have no apparent political criteria for applicants, and are offered to students from many other Latin American countries. Since it appears that they are not funded by the USAID program, maybe these programs will actually work.

A good move. If it’s not too late to praise the Bush Administration, I’ll do so now.

Exit Bush

As President Bush leaves office, I’ll say his Cuba policy was strategic, comprehensive, and coherent.

It just didn’t fit Cuba, the real Cuba that turned out to be different than the one on which he based his policy.

As a result, the President’s assumptions – that the Cuban government was “on its last legs;” that Fidel Castro’s absence would prompt systemic change; that U.S. economic sanctions would change Cuba; that it is more important to regulate the flow of hard currency than to allow unregulated contact between Americans and Cubans; that it is against American interests for Cuba to be prosperous; that U.S. government funding is the best way to make Cuban civil society grow; that American policy somehow isolates Cuba, even as our closest allies and the rest of the world have normal relations with Havana – didn’t pan out, and the policy didn’t produce the new political order he wanted in Cuba.

In other words: Right policy, wrong country.

A landmark of the Bush policy was the 2004 transition report, a document that was of political benefit to both Bush and Castro. That report offered future aid to Cuba, but generated perceptions among many Cubans that Washington had a very heavy-handed role in mind. The reaction reminded me of President Reagan’s quip that the scariest phrase in the English language is, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

The report was fodder for several campaigns created by Cuban propagandists; one was a series of billboards (example above) that are still on display, but presumably coming down soon, as the agitation and propaganda guys go back to the drawing board.

Odds and ends

• The International Republican Institute has published a new survey of public opinion in Cuba (press release here, slides and graphs describing the results are here). Respondents identified economic issues as their top concern. What surprised me was that nearly nine in ten Cubans say they were not affected by the recent hurricanes. They must have been thinking that “affected” meant damage to their home; surely, far more than ten percent had their food supply affected.

• The electronic sign at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, once used for brief political messages that sometimes seemed to taunt the Cuban people, now delivers brief news headlines.

• As he departs, President Bush issues a message on Cuba. In Cuba, among dissidents, his “message of hope” and his policy in general fell flat among some dissidents, AFP reports.

"Transition" advice

Here’s an excerpt, with emphasis added, from the Bush Administration’s 2004 Cuba transition report. It’s a recommendation that Cuba “Establish a Secondary Mortgage Market System:”

“A secondary mortgage market affords two principal advantages. First, it lowers the cost of mortgage finance by allowing credit risk and interest rate risk to be separated and borne by those best able to bear it. Second, it levels the cost of finance by connecting local housing markets to international capital markets so that borrowers have access to the lowest cost funds, not just those available locally. As mentioned above, a credit enhancement for lenders in a secondary mortgage market would provide them a liquid source of funding by permitting lenders and investors to easily sell and buy bundles of mortgage loans without regard for the underlying credit risk. Establishing a secondary mortgage market would require a governmental entity, similar to Ginnie Mae, to underwrite a security instrument backed by mortgage loans and guarantied against loss from credit risk that could trade in international capital markets.

Bush in Coral Gables

President Bush met leaders of the Cuban American community at Havana Harry’s in Coral Gables last Friday. His brief remarks, sort of a wistful farewell, are here.

[White House photo.]

Showtime

Cuban television ran a story about the Bush-dissidents teleconference and reportedly included video that was portrayed as showing a U.S. diplomat delivering a package to the home of one of the Damas de Blanco. I don’t know that the video is available on the web, but Gramna ran its own story and cranked up the rhetoric (the opposition is “congenitally servile” to the United States, the videoconference was “a show to wake up a corpse that cannot be revived,” etc.).

Martha Beatriz Roque, interviewed by Radio Marti, says there’s always a reason for attacks like this and is waiting for the other shoe to drop (story here with link to two minutes of audio from her). AP coverage here, AFP in Spanish here.

President Bush on Cuba

President Bush gave a speech on Latin America yesterday and began with a discussion of Cuba.

In contrast to his last speech where he said we are seeing “the dying gasps of a failed regime” in Havana, the President was not triumphalist and did not even hint that the Cuban government’s hold on power is at risk.

Also in contrast to his last speech where he valued freedom over stability and seemed indifferent to the possibility of violent confrontation, yesterday he called on the Cuban government to “begin a process of peaceful democratic change.”

He dismissed recent changes in Cuba: “Cuba will not become a place of prosperity just by easing restrictions on the sale of products that the average Cuban cannot afford.” Fair enough.

And this: “Until there's a change of heart and a change of compassion, and a change of how the Cuban government treats its people, there’s no change at all.”

“No change at all?” I could understand “limited change.” Or “changes that are irrelevant to most Cubans.” Or “changes that do not affect the fundamental human rights situation.”

But this seems to be an effort to dismiss reality. Improved public transit, an end to “tourism apartheid,” sales of DVD players and computers, an end to cell phone restrictions, and especially the distribution of additional land to private farmers, are real changes, with real political impact inside Cuba.

President Bush placed Cuba outside “the community of civilized nations,” which is another step outside reality. It is simply ridiculous to suggest, as Cubans will surely take this statement, that the Cuban nation is not civilized. If the President meant that Cuba is isolated in international affairs, he is wrong on that too.

Without fanfare, the Raul Castro government is renovating its international relationships with nations large and small, whether we like it or not. The latest example involves the relationship with Mexico, which Fidel Castro blew up during the Vicente Fox presidency. The two governments normalized relations in March and are reportedly making progress toward a new migration agreement. This week, there was a meeting of Cuban and Mexican businesses in Havana, and Mexico opened a $21 million line of credit to jump-start trade.

Most intriguing was the President’s statement about his videoconference with dissidents the day before: “It reminded me about how much work the United States has to do to help the people in Cuba realize the blessings of liberty.”

In that conversation, President Bush was asked to ease restrictions on family visits and remittances. Which leads me to wonder – beyond moral and material support for the dissidents, does the “work the United States has to do” include listening to them?

Martha Beatriz, off the reservation? [Updated]

In an item below, I cited a Reuters story from Havana that covered the Bush-dissidents videoconference based on statements of dissidents who participated. In that story, Martha Beatriz Roque was said to have urged President Bush to make it easier for Cuban Americans to send remittances.

An AP story, including reporting from Havana, includes this:

Some of what Bush heard echoed the challenges to his Cuba policy that he hears from some at home. Roque asked Bush to make it easier for Cuban Americans in the United States to visit family members on the island and send money to their relatives here.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana, where the activists went to participate in the conference, did not say what, if anything, Bush said in response to Roque's request.

For Roque, this is a new position. In general she has been in favor of American sanctions against Cuba, and when it comes to travel, she has called for easing restrictions only for those who carry aid to dissidents.

If this is Roque’s position, it is fair to ask: Can there be a single Cuban in Cuba who is in favor of the Bush family sanctions?

A sign of the trouble that Roque’s statement is already causing was reported by Alejandro Armengol on his Cuaderno de Cuba blog. He says that the videoconference received scant mention on Radio Mambi, and that Roque is barely mentioned on that station since April, when she joined other dissidents in a call for a Cuban transition that takes place in “an atmosphere of national reconciliation.”

Armengol says Roque now suffers “double censorship” – from the Havana government and the “extreme right in Miami that until recently exalted” her.

Update: The dissidents’ press release about the videoconference said nothing about U.S. policy toward travel and remittances. But as a reader pointed out, NPR’s Tom Gjelten, in Havana, interviewed Martha Beatriz Roque and confirms that she asked for a change in U.S. policy regarding remittances and family visits.

Here, from AP, is how Berta Soler (one of the participants in the videoconference) described it:

“Ella (Roque) le pidió que fuera flexible sobre las visitas (de cubanoamericanos) a Cuba y el envío de las remesas en lo que representó un cambio a su anterior apoyo al endurecimiento de las sanciones contra la isla”, comentó Soler.

My translation:

“She [Roque] asked him to be flexible regarding visits [of Cuban Americans] to Cuba and the sending of remittances, in what represented a change in her earlier support for the strengthening of sanctions against the island,” Soler commented.

Odds and ends

• In 2005, amid a retrenchment in several areas of economic policy, Cuba’s state enterprises were required to get the approval of a Central Bank committee to spend more than $5,000 in hard currency. El Nuevo Herald covers a decision to double that amount (to 10,000 convertible pesos, about $10,800), and links to the April 14 Central Bank resolution that made it official. It’s a small step that would take on greater importance if it means that more steps to decentralize decisionmaking are on the way.

• Blogger Yoani Sanchez won the prestigious Ortega y Gasset prize; the ceremony in Madrid is today, but the Cuban government won’t let her go pick it up.

• Another report on changes in the USAID Cuba program, this one from the Los Angeles Times: there will be a new emphasis on competitive bidding and grants to Eastern European and Latin American groups. Also a hint that there may be a positive response to the Cuban American National Foundation’s call for prohibition on cash assistance to be dropped.

• “It won’t be easy” for the Democratic challengers to Miami’s three GOP incumbents, reporter David Adams concludes in his St. Petersburg Times coverage. But it will be an interesting spectator sport.

• President Bush spoke with three Cuban dissidents yesterday via a videoconference link to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. In this Reuters Spanish story based on dissidents’ account of the conversation, Martha Beatriz Roque is said to have asked for a change in regulations governing remittances from the United States. White House photo here.

• 23 indicted for alien smuggling by a Key West grand jury, El Nuevo Herald reports.

"What needs to change is Cuba"

President Bush spoke about Cuba at the White House today after receiving former political prisoner Miguel Sigler Amaya and his wife Josefa. In addition to his defense of human rights and his reiteration of his policy intentions, he chided nations that fail to stand up for human rights in Cuba.

He praised Eastern European countries but said nothing about recent human rights statements by Great Britain, France, the Vatican, and the EU. He again spoke in the name of the Cuban people: “When a new day finally dawns for Cubans, they will remember the few brave nations that stood with them, and the many that did not.”

His full remarks are here.

Bush to speak on Cuba

From White House Press Secretary Dana Perino’s briefing today:

Q Yes, Cuba, tomorrow, on the President -- he's meeting with these families, and speaking afterward. A couple of weeks ago he called for the beginning of a democratic transition in Cuba. Has he seen any sign of anything like that?

MS. PERINO: No, in fact, the President continues to be disappointed that the people of Cuba aren't being given the chance for a free and prosperous life. And he will continue to meet with the families of political prisoners in Cuba. It affects him deeply. I think you saw, when he was here at the press conference last week, he feels very passionately about these people and it weighs on him that there's so much sadness, when that island, just 90 miles to the south of the United States, could be such a thriving place if just given a chance to have democracy.

Q And those who say that the beginning of a democratic transition might be encouraged by lifting the American embargo?

MS. PERINO: The President spoke to that last week, and he said that one of the things that he will not do is lift an embargo so that people who are the elites in Cuba, who are repressing everybody else, would benefit from that, and that the people who are the workers in the country would continue to be repressed. And the President just cannot accept that. Remember, this embargo, it's not the President's policy, it's longstanding United States policy that the President has continued.

"Now is not the time"

From President Bush’ press conference today:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to ask you about another issue that's kind of come up on the campaign trail, in terms of discussion, which is, this is a point of view that has been espoused, that we would be better off if we talked to our adversaries, in particular, Iran and Cuba, you know, without preconditions. And as President, you have obviously considered and rejected this approach. And I'm wondering if you can give us a little insight into your thinking about this, and just explain to the American people what is lost by talking with those when we disagree?

THE PRESIDENT: What's lost by embracing a tyrant who puts his people in prison because of their political beliefs? What's lost is it will send the wrong message. It will send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners. It will give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity.

I'm not suggesting there's never a time to talk, but I'm suggesting now is not the time -- not to talk with Raul Castro. He's nothing more than an extension of what his brother did, which was to ruin an island, and imprison people because of their beliefs.

I had these wives of these dissidents come and see me, and their stories are just unbelievably sad. And it just goes to show how repressive the Castro brothers have been, when you listen to the truth about what they say. And the idea of embracing a leader who's done this without any attempt on his part to release prisoners and free their society would be counterproductive and send the wrong signal.

[Photos of President Bush reviewing troops with the presidents of China, above, and Vietnam, below. The State Department's human rights report says there are "tens of thousands" of political prisoners in China and there are "no reliable estimates of the number of political prisoners" in Vietnam.]

Presidential brevity

From the President’s State of the Union address tonight:

“America is opposing genocide in Sudan and supporting freedom in countries from Cuba and Zimbabwe to Belarus and Burma.”

Odds and ends

• More reactions to the Bush speech on Cuba: four organizations from the “moderate opposition” give it a thumbs down; so does dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe; Carlos Alberto Montaner said it puts Bush on the “ethical” side of the issue, in English here and in Spanish here, with critical comments by Charlie Bravo.

• Speaking of the speech, here’s how the U.S. Interests Section’s electronic signboard described it: “In his speech addressing the Cuban people, President Bush said: If Cuba is to enter a new era, it must find a way to reconcile and pardon those who have been part of the system but do not have blood on their hands. The President reiterated tht Cubans have the future of their country in their hands.”

• An IPS report describes the religious and community charitable work of an evangelical church in Havana’s La Lisa neighborhood.

• From Miami New Times, an account of a recent exhibit of the art of Luis Posada Carriles and José Dionisio Suarez.

Odds and ends

• Fix your bookmarks: In a new format and with a new design, the indispensable Penultimos Dias re-launched yesterday. Url: http://www.penultimosdias.com/

• Cuban oil and gas production: growing, according to Carlos Lage, but still short of what’s needed for self-sufficiency.

• What Granma printed, and what it omitted from the Bush speech: the Herald did the comparison (pdf).

• Thinking of going to Cuba for medical care? I ran across this press release from this company in Canada; seems a lot less cheesy than this U.S. site, with the photo of the coco-taxis.

Odds and ends

• In today’s Herald’s story on Cuba’s decision to put the Bush speech in Granma and Cuban television, dissident Vladimiro Roca says, “In the past, they would summarize speeches or quote the parts they liked that suited their purposes…I’ll tell you this: Something is behind this. If I only knew what.”

• From former U.S. Interests Section chief Vicki Huddleston in the Washington Post on-line, “How Not to Promote Democracy in Cuba.”

• At Penultimos Dias, Ernesto checked out Radio Marti’s web coverage of the speech, found “stone age” technology, and wonders what the station does with its money.

• Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in calling for the President to give Oscar Elias Biscet the Medal of Freedom, compared Biscet to “Colonel” Antonio Maceo. Manuel Tellechea reacts to the demotion, and to the comparison.

• The Economist on prospects for economic reform in Cuba: an expectation that the government’s first moves will come in late December. El Pais says Cuba is “at a crossroads,” and notes that Cuban media have not covered the recent debate and the the ideas for change that came from it.

Faith, heaven, earth, and Cuba

If we were truly seeing “the dying gasps of a failed regime” in Havana, as President Bush said yesterday, then it might be possible to interpret his speech as something other than an expression of his deep personal faith that change is coming to Cuba.

But as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote after the President’s second inaugural where he stated the “ultimate goal of ending tyranny” worldwide, “this is not heaven, it’s earth.”

And in Cuba’s little corner of this earth, it’s hard to discern the gasping government and the teeming opposition that would be poised to bring the President’s vision of change into earthly reality any time soon.

To be sure, there are human rights violations and there is opposition in Cuba, and beyond the formal opposition there is a widespread desire among Cubans, extending even into the communist party and spoken out loud, for profound change. And there is something else that the President ignored: a government that has a tiger by the tail, saying it too wants change, taking the public’s pulse, feeding expectations, studying options, figuring out what to do. As a result, the big question in Cuba today is how Raul Castro will govern, and whether he will deliver on the expectations he himself has raised.

One can’t fault the President for giving a visionary speech or for attempting to put political reform front and center at a time when the possibilities of economic reform are more prominent in public discussion.

But contrary to the Secretary of State’s view last May that Cuba has a “very nascent and fragile democratic opposition that is beginning to arise,” President Bush seemed to place Cuba’s opposition on the ramparts and spoiling for a fight, so much so that he thought it was time to tell Cuban soldiers and police that they will face a decision about “using force against your own people.” If they decide not to use force, they have now been assured by the President – of the United States – that there is “a place” for them “in the free Cuba.”

The President certainly did not try to dissuade Cubans from taking to the streets; he made clear that what matters to him is the final result of freedom, and if that comes at the expense of stability, that’s not a problem.

The President directed himself to those in Cuba who might be listening “perhaps at great risk.” Cuban officials, smarter than the average bear, apparently took about two minutes to call the President’s bluff. They ran 1,800 words of the speech in today’s Granma (pdf), and 15 minutes of it on Cuban television last night.

Which means one of two things: that everyone who reads Granma in Cuba today will be arrested by sundown, or that officials calculated that it serves their political interest for Cubans to know what the American President says about their country.

Why would that be? Here are a few guesses: to discredit the President’s assertion that they are weak; to highlight the President’s vision of possible violence and his indifference toward instability; to amplify his assertions that Cubans have no sense of community, that they cannot legally gather in groups of more than three, or that they cannot change jobs or houses; and generally to allow the President’s words to increase Cubans’ fear of radical change.

Before the speech, I thought the President was looking for a way to turn the page and start a new discussion about Cuba with U.S. allies. (Indeed, he did call for “the world to put aside its differences,” which is easy for him to say, since the “differences” are generated by his own policy.) But rather than diplomacy, his real interest seemed to be to draw moral distinctions between a United States bathed in virtue and other democracies whose conduct will “shame” them in the future.

The President concluded by leaving Cubans with “a mission.” His message seemed to be, in sum, “I have done what I can, and what I have done will not change Cuba; it is time for you to act.” The dying, gasping, failed regime ensured that his message was heard from one end of the island to the other. Now it’s up to the Cuban people to decide what to do with the new mission assigned to them.

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.