Cuba Blames Exiles for Election Woes
By Anita Snow
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, Nov. 9, 2000; 11:37 p.m. EST
HAVANA –– Cuba blamed election uncertainty in Florida on foes of Fidel Castro, charging that Cuban exiles there are desperately trying to regain the political power they lost with Elian Gonzalez's return to the communist island.
"A dark cloud today darkens the political scene in the United States," the Communist Party daily Granma declared Thursday in a front-page editorial.
"Once again this nation pays the price for its leaders' criminal and genocidal policies toward our nation," it said.
For Cuba, the recount of presidential votes across Florida, complaints of voter confusion over ballots in Palm Beach County and a smattering of reports of alleged irregularities in other areas was proof of efforts by Cuban exiles to hold on to power.
"This time the mafia is going all out," said the editorial, using a term commonly employed by Cuba's leadership to describe anti-Castro exiles in Florida.
The exiles are "thirsty for revenge, desirous of recuperating lost ground" after losing the battle earlier this year to block 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez's return to Cuba, the editorial said. The boy, who survived a boat wreck during a journey to the United States, returned with his father in late June after a seven-month tug-of-war between the Cuban government and exiles in Florida.
"Once the decisive day of the presidential elections arrived, they thought themselves capable of deciding who will be the president of the United States," Granma said of the exiles. The editorial accused the exile community of "electoral fraud as was carried out by their predecessors in Cuba before the revolution."
Meanwhile, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Roque Perez, in New York on Thursday for a U.N. visit, drew a link between the election's outcome and frequent U.S. advice to other nations.
"I believe that those in the United States who have always tried to become judges of elections that take place elsewhere must be receiving a lesson of modesty and humbleness," Perez Roque said at a news conference.
He added that Cuba would gladly send monitors for a new election if asked by U.S. officials.
(Heh heh heh...too funny.)
On Wednesday night, Cuban state television showed Castro mocking the American electoral process with a visit to the beach. The bearded Castro walked in the sand at the beach in his typical olive green uniform and chatted with bathing suit-clad tourists from the United States and Europe.
One American man was shown giving a thumbs-down both to Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
Regardless of who becomes American president, Castro has promised to continue resisting U.S. pressure and has said he does not believe the four-decade trade embargo against Cuba can last forever.
U.S. lawmakers have made numerous proposals to ease the trade sanctions over the past year, only to have them narrowly defeated or watered down amid concerns about the Cuban-American vote in the months leading up to the presidential election.
Cuban officials complain the only legislative proposal that became law – the agricultural appropriation bill, which permits the export of food and medicine to Cuba – makes the import of U.S. food too difficult to be practical.
© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press |
