WASHINGTON - President Bush announced Wednesday that Americans soon will be allowed to send cell phones to Cubans a move that he hopes will push the communist regime to increase freedom of expression for Cuban citizens.
Addressing recent changes in Cuba, Bush said, "Cubans are now allowed to purchase mobile phones, DVD players and computers and they have been told that they will be able to purchase toasters and other basic appliances in 2010."
"If the Cuban regime is serious about improving life for the Cuban people, it will take steps necessary to make these changes meaningful," Bush said at the White House as he marked Cuba's 106th anniversary of independence this week.
If the Cuban people can be trusted with mobile phones, "they should be trusted to speak freely in public," he said.
Dan Fisk, National Security Council senior director for Western hemisphere affairs, emphasized that the new policy, which is to take effect in a few weeks, is not a loosening of the US economic embargo against Cuba, but a change in US regulations that will allow cell phones to be in gift parcels that Americans can send to Cubans.
Fisk said cell phones from the United States do work in Cuba, and that Americans also can pay for the US cell service attached to the phones they send.
William Muir, executive director of the Bay of Pigs Museum & Library in Miami, said the phones wouldn't be helpful if Cubans have to go through the government of Cuba to get them activated.
"The first thing that comes to mind is if I (send) a phone to Havana, is there service?" Muir asked. "Are there companies like AT&T and Verizon to get service from, or do I have to go to the government of Cuba? If I have to go to the government of Cuba, I don't think I've accomplished a heck of a lot."
Joe Garcia, former head of the Cuban American National Foundation who is running to unseat Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, called the new cell phone rule a cosmetic policy change.
"If George Bush were serious about effectuating change in Cuba he would immediately grant Cuban-Americans unrestricted family visitation and remittances rights," Garcia said.
He said Bush's move is designed to help the GOP win votes from Cuban-Americans in the upcoming presidential election.
"This is nothing more than political gamesmanship in an election year with the emotions of the Cuban people, which have already suffered through 50 years of a brutal regime and eight years of an incompetent administration," Garcia said.
At the White House, Bush repeated his offer to license US non-governmental organizations and faith-based groups to provide computers and Internet to the Cuban people.
"If Cuban rulers will end their restrictions on Internet access, and since Raul is allowing Cubans to own mobile phones for the first time, we're going to change our regulations to allow Americans to send mobile phones to family members in Cuba," Bush said. "If Raul is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people."
Since becoming Cuba's first new president in 49 years, Raul Castro has done away with bans that prohibited Cubans from owning cell phones in their own names, staying in tourist hotels and buying DVD players, computers and coveted kitchen appliances. He also has acknowledged that state salaries are too small to live on, and pledged steady improvements.
"It is the height of hypocrisy to claim credit for permitting Cubans to own products that virtually none of them can afford," Bush told about 200 guests in the East Room, including former Cuban political prisoners, Cuban-American community leaders and representatives from leading national and international non-governmental organizations.
"For the regime's actions to have any impact, they must be accompanied by major economic reforms that open up Cuba's inefficient state-run markets, to give families real choices about what they buy, and institute a free enterprise system that allows ordinary people to benefit from their talents and their hard work."
Fidel Castro, 81, has not been seen in public since July 2006, when he underwent emergency intestinal surgery and relinquished power to Raul Castro. Fidel Castro formally stepped down as president in February, but keeps a presence through essays published in state media.
"The world is watching the Cuban regime," Bush said. "If it follows its recent public gestures by opening up access to information, implementing meaningful economic reforms, respecting political freedom and human rights then it can credibly say it has delivered the beginnings of change.
"But experience tells us this regime has no intention of taking these steps. Instead its recent gestures appear to be nothing more than a cruel joke perpetuated on a long-suffering people."
Bush reiterated his call for the release of more than 200 political prisoners he said continue to be "harassed, detained and beaten." - AP