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CNN Saturday Morning News
Castro: U.S. Leads Conspiracy Against Cuba
Aired April 26, 2003 - 08:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Cuban President Fidel Castro went on state TV last night and blamed the United States for leading what he called "a conspiracy against Cuba." CNN's Havana bureau chief Lucia Newman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): For the past 43 years, President Fidel Castro has been blaming the United States for almost everything that goes wrong in Cuba. Friday night was no exception.
"They look for the inevitable mass exodus of Cubans as occurred in August of '94," he said, "in order to have a pretext for U.S. military aggression against Cuba."
Cubans and the world were shocked when the Castro government summarily executed three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry to Florida two weeks ago.
In a four-hour presentation on state television, Castro called it "self-defense." He accused anti-Castro hard-liners in the U.S. of inciting a wave of recent sky jackings and hijackings in order to provoke an illegal migration crisis that would in turn justify a U.S. invasion on national security grounds.
U.S. officials say the notion is preposterous. Still, the U.S. military action in Iraq has helped rekindle, at least rhetorically, the old threat of a U.S. invasion of Cuba, an idea some anti-Castro hard-liners in the U.S. say should be entertained.
Castro warned an invasion would be a nightmare for Washington. "Generation after generation of Cubans would fight the occupation troops," he said. "In other words, when our country is occupied, that won't be the end, but, rather, the beginning of the war."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWMAN: It's an argument, though, that many, many diplomats and analysts here don't buy. They say, in fact, that it's precisely the mass arrests of scores of dissidents this month and the executions, which is provoking even more hostility toward Cuba from Washington and from many other countries, in fact, Anderson.
COOPER: Lucia, in Castro's speech, which was a marathon four hours, I guess a lot of his speeches are like this, but it's just hard to imagine anyone watching something like this for four hours. But he's calling these guise mercenaries, and these are dissidents. I mean, many of them are just independent journalists whose only crime apparently was meeting with U.S. officials.
NEWMAN: Well, that's nothing new. The Cuban government of President Fidel Castro particularly have been calling its opponents mercenaries at the pay of the USA, people that are following the orders of the United States. Of course, around the world, most people see them now as prisoners of conscience.
Now, it's very interesting that when 75 of these government opponents were put on trial earlier this month, a great deal of them turned out to be government agents, in other words, spies. So a lot of these organizations are very much infiltrated by the government and they're what they do and their whereabouts and their plans are very much known by the government, Anderson. But as I say, a great deal of them also are opposition journalists and activists and human rights activists and people who are trying to change the political system in this country.
COOPER: And their lives are not only shattered, but the lives of their family as well. In the last hour, we aired your piece in which some of the wives of some of these dissidents who are now in jail in very remote areas were just trying to even get to the prison to visit them, to bring them some food and they couldn't even buy bus tickets at the state-run bus agency.
NEWMAN: Transportation in this country is very, very difficult. Just getting around even here in Havana can be a nightmare. But it is common practice for dissidents to be treated this way, for them to be sent to other parts of the island as far away from their relatives as possible. This has become very, very common here, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Lucia Newman, from Havana, thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 26, 2003 - 08:36 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Cuban President Fidel Castro went on state TV last night and blamed the United States for leading what he called "a conspiracy against Cuba." CNN's Havana bureau chief Lucia Newman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): For the past 43 years, President Fidel Castro has been blaming the United States for almost everything that goes wrong in Cuba. Friday night was no exception.
"They look for the inevitable mass exodus of Cubans as occurred in August of '94," he said, "in order to have a pretext for U.S. military aggression against Cuba."
Cubans and the world were shocked when the Castro government summarily executed three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry to Florida two weeks ago.
In a four-hour presentation on state television, Castro called it "self-defense." He accused anti-Castro hard-liners in the U.S. of inciting a wave of recent sky jackings and hijackings in order to provoke an illegal migration crisis that would in turn justify a U.S. invasion on national security grounds.
U.S. officials say the notion is preposterous. Still, the U.S. military action in Iraq has helped rekindle, at least rhetorically, the old threat of a U.S. invasion of Cuba, an idea some anti-Castro hard-liners in the U.S. say should be entertained.
Castro warned an invasion would be a nightmare for Washington. "Generation after generation of Cubans would fight the occupation troops," he said. "In other words, when our country is occupied, that won't be the end, but, rather, the beginning of the war."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWMAN: It's an argument, though, that many, many diplomats and analysts here don't buy. They say, in fact, that it's precisely the mass arrests of scores of dissidents this month and the executions, which is provoking even more hostility toward Cuba from Washington and from many other countries, in fact, Anderson.
COOPER: Lucia, in Castro's speech, which was a marathon four hours, I guess a lot of his speeches are like this, but it's just hard to imagine anyone watching something like this for four hours. But he's calling these guise mercenaries, and these are dissidents. I mean, many of them are just independent journalists whose only crime apparently was meeting with U.S. officials.
NEWMAN: Well, that's nothing new. The Cuban government of President Fidel Castro particularly have been calling its opponents mercenaries at the pay of the USA, people that are following the orders of the United States. Of course, around the world, most people see them now as prisoners of conscience.
Now, it's very interesting that when 75 of these government opponents were put on trial earlier this month, a great deal of them turned out to be government agents, in other words, spies. So a lot of these organizations are very much infiltrated by the government and they're what they do and their whereabouts and their plans are very much known by the government, Anderson. But as I say, a great deal of them also are opposition journalists and activists and human rights activists and people who are trying to change the political system in this country.
COOPER: And their lives are not only shattered, but the lives of their family as well. In the last hour, we aired your piece in which some of the wives of some of these dissidents who are now in jail in very remote areas were just trying to even get to the prison to visit them, to bring them some food and they couldn't even buy bus tickets at the state-run bus agency.
NEWMAN: Transportation in this country is very, very difficult. Just getting around even here in Havana can be a nightmare. But it is common practice for dissidents to be treated this way, for them to be sent to other parts of the island as far away from their relatives as possible. This has become very, very common here, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Lucia Newman, from Havana, thanks very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
