Doomsday101
10-24-2007, 12:16 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, seizing on Fidel Castro's fading health as a chance for rare change, will ask other nations Wednesday to help Cuba become a free society one day by committing money and political capital to the cause.
In a speech at the U.S. State Department -- his first standalone address on Cuba in four years -- Bush will look to the day when Castro is gone.
Bush will describe a nation in which Cuban people choose a representative government and enjoy basic freedoms, with support from a broad international coalition.
Bush is expected to tout peaceful, pro-democracy movements in Cuba and call on other countries to get behind them. In a direct appeal to ordinary citizens in Cuba, he will tell them they have the power to change their country, but the White House said that is not meant to be a call for armed rebellion.
Bush will propose at least three initiatives: the creation of an international "freedom fund" to help Cuba's potential rebuilding of its country one day; a U.S. licensing of private groups to provide Internet access to Cuban students; and an invitation to Cuban youth to join a scholarship program.
In a brief essay published Tuesday, Castro pre-empted Bush's address, saying that the U.S. leader is threatening the world with nuclear war and widespread famine.
"The danger of a massive world famine is aggravated by Mr. Bush's recent initiative to transform foods into fuel," the 81-year-old wrote, referring to U.S. support for alternative energy initiatives using corn and other food crops to produce biofuels.
Castro went on to write that by "calling on strategic security principles, [Bush] threatens humanity with World War III, this time using atomic weapons."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/24/bush.cuba.ap/index.html
In a speech at the U.S. State Department -- his first standalone address on Cuba in four years -- Bush will look to the day when Castro is gone.
Bush will describe a nation in which Cuban people choose a representative government and enjoy basic freedoms, with support from a broad international coalition.
Bush is expected to tout peaceful, pro-democracy movements in Cuba and call on other countries to get behind them. In a direct appeal to ordinary citizens in Cuba, he will tell them they have the power to change their country, but the White House said that is not meant to be a call for armed rebellion.
Bush will propose at least three initiatives: the creation of an international "freedom fund" to help Cuba's potential rebuilding of its country one day; a U.S. licensing of private groups to provide Internet access to Cuban students; and an invitation to Cuban youth to join a scholarship program.
In a brief essay published Tuesday, Castro pre-empted Bush's address, saying that the U.S. leader is threatening the world with nuclear war and widespread famine.
"The danger of a massive world famine is aggravated by Mr. Bush's recent initiative to transform foods into fuel," the 81-year-old wrote, referring to U.S. support for alternative energy initiatives using corn and other food crops to produce biofuels.
Castro went on to write that by "calling on strategic security principles, [Bush] threatens humanity with World War III, this time using atomic weapons."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/24/bush.cuba.ap/index.html