Brazilian President Lula da Silva calls for free elections in Cuba

[RB TexLa]

Castro's friend says the Cuban people should choose his successor, wonder what Raul thinks of that?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060802/ts_nm/cuba_dc_9

[Xipe Totec]

1. That's a mis-characterization of Lula's statement

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a long-time friend of Castro, said in Brasilia Cubans alone should decide on a possible presidential successor.

"The succession process is a decision the Cuban people will have to make," Lula told reporters, adding Castro may recover and "the situation may not be as bad as it appears."

That's not a call for free elections, that's a warning to the US not to interfere with Cuba's internal affairs.

[malaise]

2. Sometime its best to laugh

at the vulgarity of the spin.

[Ghost Dog]

8. Yes. This (while wishing Fidel speedy recovery) is the Spanish Gov's line

That the future of Cuba will (eventually) be for Cubans to decide. I see that the message has since been refined to state that the future of Cuba will (eventually) be for Cuban Residents (ie. not exiles) to decide.

[Minstrel Boy]

10. Thank you, and of course. This is a broadside against the vultures

in Washington planning Cuba's "transition."

[Bridget Burke]

3. He meant that Cubans should plan their OWN future....

Not accept something forced upon them by Bush & the Cuban "exiles" who helped him grab power in the first place.

[SensibleAmerican]

6. Unless America invades Cuba, which I don't believe will happen,

America is not intervening in Cuban affairs. I have no problem with politicians, Republican or Democrat, saying they want a democratic Cuba, because that is the only way Cubans can have a say in planning their own future. However, any administration planning an invasion will find that is the wrong course of action.

[shadowknows69]

4. The fuking guy isn't dead yet

people jumping the gun a bit?

[SensibleAmerican]

5. Because dictatorships are OK so long as Fidel Castro is alive

:eyes:

[Xipe Totec]

9. That's a very hypocritical statement

A 1954 US backed coup in Guatemala overthrew the democratically elected administration of Jacob Arbenz. The coup ended democracy in Guatemala and inaugurated forty years of US-backed dictatorships that presided over the murder of over one hundred thousand civilians. The UN concluded that the murder of civilians by the Guatemalan state reached genocidal proportions during the 1980s with full US support.7 The record is similar in Chile.

President Salvador Allende was elected in Chile in 1970. Allende was overthrown in 1973, and a US-backed dictatorship was installed under General Augusto Pinochet.

Leftist Nicaraguan Sandinistas sought to maintain good relations with the US after their revolution overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

In Venezuela the US backed a military coup against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez that almost succeeded in removing him from power.


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3375

And let's not forget Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.

Or Saddam Hussein, when he was "our boy"

[shadowknows69]

11. I didn't say anything about dictators being "ok"

but have we completely lost our friggin humanity on this planet we have to pray for people's deaths?

[cyclezealot]

7. One aspect of Cuba not having relations with the US

There are no American NGO's in Havanna, that can be used by Bush to meddle in Cuban affairs, the way he did in Venezuela with the coup against Chavez.