Cuba bristles at Bush "transition" plan
Mon Aug 1, 2005 2:39
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Cuba's communist government is bristling over U.S. President George W. Bush's efforts to hasten its downfall by appointing a "transition coordinator" to prepare for a post-Castro Cuba.
"Once again Bush is rudely meddling in Cuba's internal affairs by appointing one of his men to publicly coordinate subversive actions against the island," the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma said on Monday.
The Bush administration named Caleb McCarry on Thursday to the State Department post of Cuba transition coordinator, a position created last year as part of a strategy to prepare for what it hopes will be a move from communism to democracy.
The announcement added to tensions in Havana where economic hardship and prolonged power outages fueled rare street protests and graffiti against President Fidel Castro this summer.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, announcing the appointment, said the White House's policy was to "accelerate the demise of Castro's tyranny."
She said McCarry, a staff member of the House International Relations Committee for the past eight years, will "direct our government's actions in support of a free Cuba."
"Viva Cuba libre," McCarry said in Spanish.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque confidently responded on Sunday that McCarry would retire before ever setting foot in Cuba.
But Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's legislature, said McCarry's appointment was a bad sign for Cuba.
"This is proof that they are really following the plan. ... (McCarry) will coordinate everything the United States does to overthrow the revolution," said Alarcon on Saturday.
Castro, who will turn 79 next week, has been in power since a 1959 revolution that ousted U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. His government is facing discontent over shortages that have persisted since the collapse of Soviet communism deprived Cuba of billions of dollars in subsidies more than a decade ago.
The Cuban leader last week blasted the Bush administration's "exceptional degree of hostility," citing U.S. financing of his opponents and increasing radio and television broadcasts from a military plane used previously in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Cuban leader warned dissidents who have taken their small protests to the streets of Havana that they will be met with counter demonstrations.
A veteran dissident said the appointment of a transition coordinator in Washington was a mistake.
"It's counter-productive. This will deepen tensions between Washington and Havana and allow Cuba's totalitarian government to raise the specter of foreign interference in Cuban affairs," said human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez.
(Additional reporting by Saul Hudson in Washington)
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