Bush stands firm on Cuba embargo

President Bush yesterday responded to the overtures his predecessor Jimmy Carter made to Cuba last week by denouncing Fidel Castro as a tyrant, and making it clear that the American trade embargo would remain in place.

In a White House speech to mark the centenary of Cuba's independence, the president announced some minor concessions, including the resumption of a direct postal service between the two countries. But he said normal relations would be impossible until Havana introduced proper democratic reforms.

"Well-intentioned ideas about trade will merely prop up this dictator, enrich his cronies and enhance the totalitarian regime," he said.

In theory, the speech was a challenge to President Castro, but it was also partly a sideswipe at Mr Carter, whose visit to Cuba irritated the White House. In addition, it was aimed at the Cuban exile community, whose votes will be crucial to the president's brother, Jeb Bush, in his attempt to be re-elected as governor of Florida in the autumn.

The president praised the Cuban people's courage that won them independence in 1902, adding: "Today and every day for the past 43 years, that legacy of courage has been insulted by a tyrant who uses brutal methods to enforce a bankrupt vision."

Mr Bush said he was offering Cuba a way forward, provided the elections scheduled there for 2003 were genuinely free. He also said the government must respect property rights, accept free trade unions, stop telling private employers who to employ and allow foreign companies to pay their workers in hard currency.

During Mr Carter's visit, calls for the lifting of the trade embargo were made by 40 members of Congress from both parties, along with the pressure group Human Rights Watch, which said it "imposes indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban people and impedes democratic change".

The president, whose administration is sensitive to the accusations of causing hardship, also announced assistance to non-governmental organisations that help Cubans.

Later, he was due to fly to Florida to address Cuban-Americans and attend a fundraiser for his brother.