HAVANA (AP) - Cuba's Communist Party on Monday harshly criticized the U.S. government for creating a post to oversee a transition on the Caribbean island, accusing American officials of intruding in the country's domestic business. U.S. President George W. Bush "once again meddles in a rude manner in the internal affairs of Cuba by naming one of his men to publicly coordinate subversive actions against the island," the Granma newspaper said in a signed editorial.
Caleb McCarry, a veteran congressional staff expert on Latin America, was appointed last week to the new post aimed at preparing for a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The move was criticized by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque on Friday and by Cuban Parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon on Saturday. The post of "transition coordinator" that is being filled by McCarry grew out of a 2004 report on Cuba prepared by a commission headed by then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The report outlined the steps that the United States was prepared to take to assist a democratic Cuba and to bring pressure to bear on Fidel Castro's government in the meantime.
"In Iraq, a U.S. coordinator was also named ... but for that they had to wait to invade and militarily occupy the nation," the editorial said. | I like that we're planning ahead. I can't see any military action unless the "transition" got really bloody and threatened to spill over or if the flood of refugees got out of hand. |
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