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'I have a dream' becomes
Castro's nightmare in cultural war with
US
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington.
The
Guardian, UK, January 24, 2006.
Strollers soaking up the sea spray along
Havana's famed Malecón waterfront
boulevard absorbed an impromptu lesson on
America's civil rights movement this week
when the US mission began flashing passages
from Martin Luther King's "I have a
Dream" speech on a giant screen.
In the latest exchange in the US-Cuban
cultural war, the electronic tickertape
mounted on the fifth floor of the US Interests
Section in Havana began beaming King's quotes
in 9ft-high red letters.
The passages were interspersed with sections
from the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, promising freedom from arbitrary
arrest or exile, and inspirational sayings
from anti-communist leaders such as Poland's
Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic's Vaclav
Havel.
The illuminations so outraged Cuba's president,
Fidel Castro, that he called for a mass
protest today in front of the mission, which
is housed in the Swiss embassy. In a three-hour
televised speech on Sunday night, Mr Castro
described the signs as a provocation intended
to break off what limited contact has survived
between the two countries, which do not
have diplomatic relations. "The US
government ... is deliberately trying to
force a rupture in the actual diplomatic
relations," he said. "The gross
provocation ... can have no other purpose."
After the scandals about the abuse of detainees
at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib prisons,
the US was in no position to deliver a lecture
about human rights, he added. "They
should put those signs inside, not outside."
The US said the messages were an attempt
to open a dialogue with the Cuban people.
Such cultural catfights have occurred before.
In 2004, the US office beamed up the figure
75 - the number of dissidents being held
in Cuban prisons. Cuba retaliated with billboards
depicting bounded and hooded Iraqis abused
by US troops at Abu Ghraib.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers
Limited 2006
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