Bush Rejects Calls To Ease Up On Cuba

Published: May 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday that Cuba's post-Fidel Castro leadership has made only "empty gestures at reform" and rejected calls for the easing of U.S. restrictions on the communist island.

"Until there is a change of heart and a change of compassion and a change of how the Cuban government treats its people, there's no change at all," Bush said at the State Department to the Council of Americas, a business group that advocates for democracy and open markets in the Western Hemisphere.

"Cuba will not be a land of liberty so long as free expression is punished and free speech can take place only in hushed whispers and silent prayers," Bush said. "And Cuba will not become a place of prosperity just by easing restrictions on the sale of products that the average Cuban cannot afford."

The White House also said Wednesday that the president spoke by videoconference this week with democratic activists in Cuba. In Tuesday's teleconference, Bush spoke with Martha Beatriz Roque, one of the 75 pro-democracy activists arrested in a 2003 crackdown for offenses against the Castro regime; Berta Soler, the wife of an activist still jailed for treason, and Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who was released last year after 17 years in prison.

Some of what Bush heard echoed the challenges to his Cuba policy that he hears from some at home. Roque asked Bush to make it easier for Cuban-Americans in the United States to visit family members on the island and send money to their relatives here.