FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                             FEBRUARY 25, 2008

FOR MORE INFORMATION                            CAMILA RUIZ-GALLARDO

                                                                            305-592-7768

A LOST OPPORTUNITY:

FORTY NINE YEARS LATER, MORE OF THE SAME

The selection of Raul Castro as successor to long-time dictator Fidel Castro by Cuba’s one-party Popular Assembly on Sunday February 24, demonstrates that power on the island nation is still tightly controlled by the Castro brothers and that prospects for any real change coming from the present leadership in Cuba are virtually none.

Despite its inherent illegitimacy, the Popular Assembly nevertheless had an opportunity Sunday to provide a preliminary signal of their disposition to embark on a course of change by designating a new leadership capable of a fresh and positive approach to the dire problems confronting the Cuban nation. Instead, they chose to go back to the bunker by naming, not only Raul, Fidel’s brother and clone, to the Presidency, but also naming as 1^st Vice-President, or second in command, the hardest and least inclined to any reform among the “historicals”, the co-founder and ideologue of the Cuban Communist Party, José Ramon Machado Ventura. It clearly demonstrates that the people of Cuba, in the near future, can expect, at the most, a set of cosmetic adjustments that will do little to solve the very real problems of their everyday lives.

The Cuban American National Foundation calls upon opposition groups, dissidents, and the general population of Cuba to continue their courageous struggle to reclaim their God-given rights to freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and   reject the blatant nepotism and total disregard for the will of the people that the Castro regime represents.

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