WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush on Wednesday announced a change in US policy to allow Americans to send cellphones to relatives in Cuba after an easing of restrictions on phone ownership there.
The administration was quick to note the move was not an easing of a decades-old US embargo against the island nation, as Bush slammed the "personal despotism of Fidel and Raul Casto" and reiterated calls for more substantial reform.
"Since Raul is allowing Cubans to own mobile phones for the first time, we are going to change our regulations to allow Americans to send mobile phones to family members in Cuba," Bush told a White House gathering which included US lawmakers and relatives of Cuban political prisoners.
"If Raul is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people," Bush said, referring to Cuban leader Raul Castro, brother of revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, 81, who relinquished power in February after almost 50 years as president.
Raul Castro, 76, in one of a series of reforms, last month eased restrictions on mobile phone ownership in Cuba.
State telecoms company Etecsa in April predicted 1.4 million new mobile service contracts in the next five years on the island of some 11 million people.
Bush's announcement at a White House ceremony came on the 106th anniversary of the Caribbean island's independence from the United States, where he called on Havana to release some 200 political prisoners in Cuba's "tropical gulag."
"Cuba's society is crumbling after decades of neglect under the Castros," he said.
"If the Cuban regime is serious about improving life for the Cuban people, it will take steps necessary to make these changes meaningful."
The president said he was launching the inaugural "day of solidarity with the Cuban people," and hoped Washington would continue to mark the day each year "until Cuba's freedom."
US officials stressed that with the cellphones announcement Bush was not abandoning the decades-old trade embargo against Havana, but modifying a regulation that allows Americans to send certain gifts to residents of the island nation.
"This is not a loosening of the embargo," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said. "This is a change in the already established policy that allows people to send gift parcels to their family, and we are allowing now cell phones to be a part of that gift parcel."
Washington's embargo on Havana is under pressure from US business leaders and lawmakers who say sanctions and diplomatic isolation have failed to pry open the socialist state.
National Security Council official Dan Fisk said he believed cellphones subscribed to US networks work on the island.
"Americans will be allowed to send a phone and support an account" by paying the bill in the United States, Fisk said, adding that the policy would be ready in "a couple of weeks."
Fisk acknowledged it was unclear if the phones would actually get to the intended recipients, but he defended the policy as providing much-needed communications service to Cubans.
"This is not a case in which we're enriching the regime," he said, adding that that cellphones in Cuba cost about 120 dollars, plus a 120-dollar activation fee -- exorbitant for most Cubans.
Some activists felt Bush should be engaging Havana more rather than circumventing the country's policies.
"The president can do a lot more than sending cell phones to Cuba," Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, said in a statement.
"He can send Americans to Cuba by wiping out restrictions on family travel, and more broadly support change through engagement and by encouraging the Cuban people to determine their future for themselves."
US sanctions policy against Cuba is comprised of a patchwork of travel, trade and diplomatic restrictions, and US law allows an easing of sanctions only if Cuba first meets several conditions such as organizing free and fair elections without either Fidel or Raul Castro.
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