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US: Cuba embargo to remain
19/02/2008 20:14 - (SA)
Washington - The United States said on Tuesday it had no plans to lift the decades-old embargo on Cuba "anytime soon" even after its longtime nemesis Fidel Castro resigned as president.
By quitting with little fanfare, the ailing 81-year-old Castro may have marked an anti-climactic end to an era that began in the Cold War, but he has left a deep thorn in Washington's side that may prove hard to remove.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte indicated as much when, asked by reporters if Washington planned to lift sanctions, he stated: "I don't imagine that happening anytime soon."
London-based Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Washington to end the embargo, complaining of practices that "impinge on the human rights" of Cubans, while critics dismissed it as an ineffective way to pressure for change.
Summing up a policy aimed at isolating Washington's southern neighbour, US President George W. Bush said during a trip to Africa on Tuesday that the change in leadership ought to begin "a democratic transition".
The US president said the "first step" was for Havana to release political prisoners, and urged the international community to help build democratic institutions in Cuba.
"And we're going to help," Bush said in Rwanda.
A commission on Cuba that Bush created in 2003 to help defeat the Castro regime has recommended a series of steps to speed up the emergence of democracy, including funding for dissidents and support for an eventual transition government committed to holding free elections.
"Eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections. And I mean free, and I mean fair - not these kinds of staged elections that the Castro brothers tried to foist off as being true democracy," Bush said.
But forcing change appeared to be a tall task.
White House hopeful Democrat Barack Obama said Castro's exit from power was long overdue but insufficient to bring democratic freedom to communist Cuba.
Republican front-runner John McCain called Castro's resignation "nearly half a century overdue," but said "freedom for the Cuban people is not yet at hand, and the Castro brothers clearly intend to maintain their grip on power".
Defiant of Washington since seizing power in 1959, Castro has not only survived assassination plots, a US-backed invasion bid, and a US trade embargo but has worked hard to ensure his Marxist legacy endures.
Castro did not say who he thought should be his successor as president, although most mentioned it his brother Raul Castro, 76, - who the US State Department has dismissed as "Fidel light".
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