CUBA NEWS
Yahoo!

Cuban-Americans Hit Bush Policies

By John Pain, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI, 15 - For the first time since he became a U.S. citizen decades ago, 62-year-old Santiago Portal won't vote for a Republican for president.

The Cuban American says he's fed up with President Bush's policy on Cuba and is urging other exiles to choose someone else in next year's election.

"He can't ask Cubans for votes if he hasn't helped Cubans get freedom," said Portal, holding a sign saying "President Bush push freedom for Cuba now! Why only Irak?"

This kind of change of heart among Cuban-Americans - who overwhelmingly supported Bush in 2000 and helped ensure he won Florida's 25 electoral votes - has GOP officials in Florida concerned heading into an election year.

Some Florida Republicans are now telling Bush they don't think his administration is doing enough to help the Cuban people and opponents of Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s communist government. The president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, publicly questioned the administration's decision in July to return 12 alleged Cuban hijackers to face trial at home.

An increasing number of Florida's elected Republicans have urged the president to review or change his Cuba policy.

"If our concerns are ignored, there's a real possibility that the Cuban community could" stay away from the polls, said state Rep. David Rivera of Miami, one of 13 Hispanic GOP state lawmakers who warned the president that he could lose support in Florida if he fails to revamp his Cuba policy.

Bush took Florida from Al Gore by only 537 votes in the 2000 presidential election. He received about 80 percent of the state's estimated 444,000 Cuban-American votes, said Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University.

Any loss of votes in Florida could make the difference between re-election and becoming a one-term president, Moreno said. Florida now holds 27 electoral votes, fourth largest of all states and a tenth of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Some of Miami's Cuban-Americans are growing to distrust Republicans because of the lack of policy change, Moreno said. "They say, 'These guys come down, they make promises to the community, they don a guayabera, they make promises in bad Spanish and they don't deliver.'"

State Rep. Marco Rubio, R-Miami, said Cuban-Americans appreciate the president's steadfast support of maintaining the U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba, but fault the administration for not following through in other areas.

"There's growing sentiment by the rank-and-file voter that he's done little on the issue of Cuba," Rubio said.

The Florida Republicans have urged Bush to focus on several key issues: a review or change of the U.S. "wet foot, dry foot" migration policy for Cubans; an increase in aid to Cuban dissidents and more attempts to evade Cuban jamming of pro-democracy radio and TV broadcasts beamed to the island.

They say recent events require the president to deal with these issues urgently: Castro's crackdown on dissidents and the summary execution of three alleged hijackers who tried to bring a ferry to Florida. Castro's harsh actions also seem to have put off talk in Congress of ending the embargo.

In Miami's Little Havana, Portal questioned why Bush spent billions of dollars to send U.S. troops half way around the world to liberate Iraq while letting Castro remain in power just 90 miles from Florida.

"He should ask Iraqis for votes, not Cubans, because he freed them," Portal said.

Mario Duran, 65, stood by with a similar sentiment: "Castro has been a dictator for 44 years. What about a free Cuba?"

White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo rejected the notion that the president is ignoring Cuba.

"The administration is firmly dedicated to a proactive Cuba policy that will assist the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom," she said.

Mamo said the main policy tool Bush is using is the embargo, in place for more than 40 years. The president maintains that Cuba needs to have a rapid transition to a free-market democracy before that restriction is lifted, she said. Bush will oppose any action to weaken those barriers before Cuba takes those steps.

Bush made those points in a fiery, well-received May 2002 speech in Miami, when he demanded Castro release his "chokehold on the working people and on enterprise (news - web sites)" before the United States would push for closer relations.

As a presidential candidate, Bush promised to review the Clinton-era "wet foot, dry foot" policy, under which most Cuban migrants caught at sea are returned home and those who reach U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay.

Mamo refused to say if the president was considering any review or change of his Cuba policy.

"We've had the sympathy of every president since Kennedy to the current president," said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, powerful Cuban exile lobbying group. "We don't need any more sympathy. We need action."

On the Net:

Cuban American National Foundation: http://www.canf.org

DeLay: Happy Birthday to Who? Castro Celebrates as Cuba Suffers; Dictator Should Hold Free Elections

Wed Aug 13, 5:04 PM ET.

To: National Desk.

Contact: Stuart Roy or Jonathan Grella, 202-225-4000; both of the Office of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today called on Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to recognize basic human rights and grant his people free elections.

"After decades of tyranny and a year of intensified oppression, Fidel Castro deserves no birthday wishes today," DeLay said. "While Castro celebrates his birthday, his people live in fear, terror, and hunger because of his merciless oppression."

Castro, who turned 77 today, has ruled Cuba with an iron fist since 1959. Between 1959 and the late 1990s, more than 100,000 Cubans served time in Castro's prison camps and more than 15,000 were shot by his troops.

According to a recent Amnesty International report on Cuban human rights abuses, "Beginning on 18 March 2003 the Cuban authorities carried out an unprecedented crackdown on the dissident movement. 75 dissidents were detained, subjected to hasty and unfair trials, and, just weeks after being taken into custody, were given harsh prison terms of up to 28 years.

"Amnesty International believes that they are prisoners of conscience, detained for the non-violent and legitimate exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association." Today the total number of such prisoners in Cuba is unknown, but is estimated in the hundreds, if not the thousands.

DeLay is an adamant supporter of the United States' trade embargo on Cuba, designed to economically isolate the Western Hemisphere's only Communist state, and encouraged Castro to finally live up to his responsibilities.

"If Castro wants to give his people a real birthday present, he should embrace human rights, hold free elections and apologize for his regime's 40 years of theft, torture, and murder," DeLay said.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Cubana One Network: Bright House Networks of Tampa Insensitive to Cuban American Heritage

Thu Aug 14,10:55 PM ET

To: National Desk
Contact: Pedro E. Prado of the Cubana One Network, 239-595-1001

NEEDS DATELINE, Aug. 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Patrick Burkue, vice president of programming at Bright House Networks of Tampa, has ignored a number of requests for a meeting with Cubana One Network management -- a new network with the purpose of promoting Cuban culture and heritage through quality programming-which is seeking a channel for the enhancement of Cuban culture and heritage from Bright House Networks.

Kevin Adell and Pedro Prado, president and V.P. and general manager, respectively, of Cubana One Network, have tried repeatedly to contact Patrick Burkue without success.

Pedro Prado underscored the importance that the Tampa market has for the project.

"The Cuban presence in the Tampa Bay area goes back several centuries. Jose Marti, known as the Apostle of Cuba, established fund raising for the Island's independence movement among the tobacco workers in Ybor City," stated Prado. "Today, that presence is being felt in greater numbers. There are over one hundred thousand cable subscribers of Cuban or Latin descent in the Tampa Bay area. Bright House receives millions of dollars from the very subscribers they now deprive of the opportunity to view programs that respond to their taste and preference. This is insensitive to a community that would otherwise enjoy the Cuban culture and heritage programs that Cubana One Network would provide," he said.

Bright House currently broadcasts six pay per view pornography channels that do not adhere to Cuban family traditions and culture.

Hilda Luisa Diaz of the Jose Marti Educational Foundation Inc., a popular recording artist who has dedicated her adult life to the education and enhancement of Cuban culture and heritage in speaking engagements and Cuban musical reviews throughout the world, also takes strong issue with Bright House's insensitive position.

"Our community needs a conduit that will promote our traditional cultural core values", says Diaz, "If there is space for six porno channels there should be at least one channel available to disseminate educational, constructive and uplifting family entertainment. I cannot understand the indifferent and uncaring attitude assumed by Bright House."

The powerful Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) endorsed Cubana One Network's efforts to provide quality cultural programming at their recent annual congress in Florida. CANF Chairman Jorge Mas and Joe Garcia, executive director, expressed their support for Cubana One Network and commended Kevin Adell and Pedro Prado for their effort in this endeavor.

Pedro Prado affirms that Cubana One Network will take a message from concerned Cuban Americans to Bright House Networks. "If Mr. Burkue does not wish to meet with us, we will hold a meeting outside his office on Thursday, August 28 with a group of concerned Cuban Americans. We trust that Mr. Burkue is not representative of the whole of Bright House management and that we will soon hear of their interest in this important segment of their market."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

PRINTER FRIENDLY