President stirs raw emotions with a tough Miami speech

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

  Decrying Fidel Castro as a dictator who hijacked Havana's democracy, President Bush pledged Monday to hold fast to a hard-line anti-Castro policy in a
  White House announcement and again in a visit here with Cuban Americans to celebrate the island's 100th independence day.

  ''We are here today to declare loudly to the whole world -- todos -- that the Cuban people's love of liberty cannot be denied,'' the president said at the
  downtown James L. Knight Center, bringing virtually all 4,000 people to their their feet at least a dozen times during the 31-minute speech.

  ''Libertad!, Libertad!'' the crowd chanted in reply, using the Spanish for Freedom, Freedom.

  Later came the mantra of exile: "Cuba sí, Castro no.''

  Part pep rally, part foreign policy speech that taunted Castro, Bush delivered the address at a carefully choreographed celebration hours after he
  unveiled the latest U.S. Cuba policy in Washington.

  The president promised no end to economic sanctions before Cuba moves toward democracy and demanded that Cuba free its political prisoners and
  permit labor groups to organize. He also said he would not lift restrictions on U.S. citizen travel to Cuba until after far-reaching changes on the island.

  But mostly, Bush appealed to the raw emotions of Cuban exiles 43 years after Castro came to power.

  ''Nearly a half-century ago, Cuba's independence and the hopes for democracy were hijacked by a brutal dictator who cares everything for his own power
  and nada for the Cuban people,'' told the crowd.

  All they have now, he said, is ``isolation and misery.''

  Introduced to the crowd by his brother, the event also had the air of a reelection campaign rally for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Huge Cuban and U.S. flags
  hung over the stage, filled with older exile activists and young children who have become pen pals and sent aid to the kids of island dissidents.

  CELEBRITIES

  But it also had an air of celebrity.

  Singers Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada opened the event with the Cuban and American national anthems. Among those reaching out to shake the
  president's hand at the end was Marisleysis González, whose cousin Elián became the focus of a Cuba-U.S. custody battle.

  Both Florida Democratic senators were there, as were the Republican Cuban-American Congress members from Miami, Lincoln Díaz-Balart and Ileana
  Ros-Lehtinen, and the first-ever Cuban member of a Cabinet, Housing Secretary Mel Martinez.

  The Cuban politicians accompanied the president on Air Force One, which landed at Miami International Airport at 2:23 p.m.

  The president departed nearly six hours later, after being the featured guest at a closed-door Republican Party fundraiser expected to raise $2 million in
  soft money contributions.

  In between, thousands of people lined the streets -- Le Jeune Road, Brickell Avenue, even the Dolphin Expressway -- to watch the 24-car, 45-motorcycle
  presidential motorcade whiz past.

  A few waved U.S. and Cuban flags. In Gables Estates, a woman stood by the side of a villa holding a sign declaring, ``We Love You W.''

  SIGNS OF OPPOSITION

  The only signs of opposition were a knot of people holding placards in support of Democrat Janet Reno's run for governor, against the president's kid
  brother, and about 100 people protesting a U.S. policy that holds Haitian asylum seekers in detention.

  But, from start to finish, it was an all-Cuba day marking 100 years since the island's independence.

  At the Knight Center, the president pointedly targeted Castro several times, calling on the Cuban leader to hold free and competitive elections in 2003
  and to allow free enterprise and prosperity for his island people.

  ''Eventually, despite all of his tools of oppression, Castro will need to answer to his people,'' the president said, bringing first Díaz-Balart, then much of
  the audience to their feet.

  Before the president arrived, the event evoked pre-Castro Cuba with broadcast black-and-white images on huge video screens. Two warm-up bands also
  played decades-old popular Cuban songs.

  The visit even brought passing mention Monday in Havana, where the official Communist Party daily Granma reported:

  ``Bush meets today with his friends in the anti-Cuban terrorist mafia to announce new measures against Cuba and to celebrate the centenary of the
  pseudo-republic imposed by Yankee neocolonialism in our homeland.''

  Bush's visit, his ninth to Florida as president, came 19 years to the day after Ronald Reagan spoke at the Dade County Auditorium and lunched at a Little
  Havana restaurant -- a visit that older Cuban Americans fondly remember.

  Unlike Reagan's approach, which sought to topple unfriendly Latin American regimes, Bush called on Castro to change, declaring ``This county has no
  designs on Cuba's sovereignty.''

  Bush closed with a reference to a José Martí poem, The White Rose: ``Every day we cultivate una rosa blanca for Cuba's freedom. Viva Cuba Libre!''

  Miriam de la Peña, whose son Mario was killed by Cuban MiGs during the ill-fated 1996 Brothers to the Rescue mission, called the speech "inspiring --
  not because he said anything new, but because he knew what he was talking about. He called the beast by its name.''

  Carlos Barreiro, another Cuban exile, also applauded Bush. But he was a bit skeptical, remembering past presidential visits that were long on rhetoric
  and short on action.

  ''I hope he complies with his words,'' said Barreiro, who was one of the 35,000 who heard President John Kennedy promise a free Cuba at the Orange
  Bowl in 1962. "I'm tired of words. I want action.''

  CROWD CHARMED

  Mostly, though, Bush charmed the crowd, even in attempts to speak Spanish that tortured the language.

  On the sidelines, Cuban American National Foundation chairman Jorge Mas Santos watched the speech from a spot near the national media. He arrived
  late, having returned from the president's announcement in Washington on his own executive jet.

  But on the stage sat Dr. Alberto Hernandez of CANF's rival Cuban Liberty Council, which invited the president to the Centennial celebration in a White
  House meeting on Feb. 4.

  ''We are delighted that the president is coming on a day like today -- a century after Cuban freedom,'' said Hernandez, who greeted Bush at the airport.

  Herald staff writers Tyler Bridges, Elaine De Valle and Jacqueline Charles and staff translator Renato Perez contributed to this report.