Devastated by the Iraqi quagmire the Bush administration seeks diversion in the Caribbean, writes Faiza Rady Following a few weeks of bad press and some serious mishap over the torture of Iraqi prisoners, United States President George W Bush apparently decided it was time to redirect his focus elsewhere. Thus, last week the American president lashed out at the Cuban Revolution and at his nemesis Cuban leader Fidel Castro in an attempt to divert world opinion from Iraq. Basing his strategy on a 450-page document prepared by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, Bush proceeded to further limit travel to Cuba and redefine the terms of eligibility for remittances from Cuban-Americans to family members on the island. According to the Bush administration's new travel policies, Cuban- Americans will henceforth only be allowed to travel back home every three years, as opposed to the former yearly travel permissions -- courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security, an ominous post-9/11 creation. Last October, Bush had already clarified his position on travel to Cuba during a press conference on the picturesque lawn of White House's Rose Garden. "US law forbids Americans to travel to Cuba for pleasure. We allow travel for limited reasons, including visits to a family or to conduct research. Those exceptions are too often used as cover for illegal business travel and tourism. We're cracking down on this deception," warned the American president. In addition to his brand new version of travel restrictions, Bush declared a ban on remittances to relatives other than spouses, children and siblings. As if this was not enough, the US president promptly proceeded to pull more goodies out of his bag. He announced that a $59 million dollar fund will be used to destabilise the Cuban Revolution, prompt "regime change" and "undermine the Cuban government's succession strategy -- all under the guise of "freedom" and "democracy". "The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared," explained Bush. Although a bit more concise, his statement in Spanish went straight to the point. " Cuba sera pronto libre ", Cuba will soon be free, he asserted. All things considered "freedom" for Cuba comes at the relatively low price tag of $59 million over the next two years. Small change compared to the whopping annual $80 billion plus allocated to the Pentagon for the occupation of Iraq. For the sake of destabilising Cuba the American taxpayers' hard-earned dollars will go to increase support to Contra elements in Cuba, intensify subversive activities and spread misinformation. In addition the Bush administration will naturally initiate and lend support to international campaigns hostile to Cuba. The American right-wing propaganda efforts also include launching TV and radio Mart� broadcasts from a C-130 Commando Solo airborne platform at the cost of $18 million. But in Havana, and throughout the Caribbean island, the Cuban people begged to differ and rejected "freedom" Bush administration-style. Outraged at the latest US threats against their revolution and national independence, an estimated one million protesters marched along with their leader past the US Interest Section in Havana on Friday. In an open address to George W Bush, Fidel said: "The unbelievable torture applied to prisoners in Iraq has rendered the world speechless ... You have neither the morality nor the right to speak of freedom, democracy and human rights. No one is born equal in the US. In the black and Latino ghettos and on the reservations for the natives there is no other equality but that of being poor and excluded." Lilian Rodriguez, a 26-year-old sociologist, denounced the American president's "disturbing disregard" for the Cuban family. Referring to restrictions on family travel back to Cuba, Rodriguez fumed: "Who is Bush to decide who belongs to my family." At a press conference in Cairo, Cuban Ambassador Luis Marisy Figueredo put the Bush administration's most recent efforts at economic and political sabotage into perspective. "There is nothing new about the US government attempts to overthrow the Cuban government," explained Figueredo. "This of course dates back to the early days of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. But to be exact we can trace such attempts back to the Spanish-American War -- a war of imperial conquest -- and the Monroe Doctrine that called for US dominance in the Western Hemisphere." Against all odds Cuba has proven for over 45 years recalcitrant to American domination. Despite the United States' deployment of their formidable resources, including former President John Kennedy's military invasion in 1961, and the use of biological warfare against the island's crops in the 1970s and 1980s, Cuba remains fiercely and stubbornly independent. "The US president always talks about human rights abuses in Cuba, and he is right. But they happen in Guantanamo Bay, an occupied part of our island where 600 prisoners have been illegally detained without charges for more than 18 months," Ambassador Figueredo told Al-Ahram Weekly. The real problem with Cuba is its success story. "Although squeezed by the US embargo, which has cost an estimated $70 billion in trade over the years, Cuba has achieved much. We have no illiteracy, and Cuba has become the first so-called Third World country to wipe out hunger and malnutrition. Our infant mortality rate of six per 1000 births rivals those in the US, and the World Health Organisation has described the Cuban public health system with its comprehensive family doctor programme as a 'model for the world'," said Figueredo. Compared to the neighbouring US-backed dictatorship of Haiti -- ranked as one of the world's poorest countries with 50 per cent illiteracy levels, rampant diseases and infant mortality 10 times higher than Cuba's -- the Cuban model looks threatening indeed. "The very existence of the Castro regime is a successful defiance of US policies that go back 150 years," wrote distinguished linguist and writer Noam Chomsky quoting an intelligence analyst from the CIA's declassified records on Cuba. "The records go on to say that this is really dangerous as it offers a model that others might want to follow. So you have to destroy the virus." Hence the tightening stranglehold on Cuba and the wishful litany: Cuba sera libre.
