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US UNVEILS BLUEPRINT FOR REGIME CHANGE IN CUBA; REGIONAL WAR IS AN OPTION.

Article Excerpt
The US's campaign for regime change in Cuba has taken a step forward with the publication of a report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (CAFC), an organization co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. The report's orientation clearly supports the overthrow of the current regime and creating an externally imposed post-Castro succession plan, in place of Cuba's sovereign plan, now in place." It comes with a toolkit that includes a US$80 million budget to be spent during the next two years and a classified attachment with a secret plan of execution.

The document drew Cuban condemnation even before its publication. On July 2, president of the Cuban parliament Ricardo Alarcon described it as an act of war. "What's most important is that they admit to a secret plan to overthrow another government. What on earth could the secret part say when the public part violates all kinds of international laws?" he asked reporters.

From its first words, the report, beginning with Chapter 1: Hastening the End of the Castro Dictatorship: Transition Not Succession, leaves no room for doubt about the intent and aim of US policy. A July 10 State Department Briefing hammers home the point that the US plans to intervene, "provided," said Secretary Gutierrez, "we are asked by a Cuban transition government that is committed to dismantling all instruments of state repression and implementing internationally respected human rights and fundamental freedoms, including organizing free and fair elections for a democratically elected new Cuban government within a period of no more than 18 months."

Cuba has its own, clearly articulated and documented and institutionally legitimized plan for succession, making it difficult for analysts to imagine how it would come about that a transition government that followed Cuba's sovereign blueprint would ask the US to come dismantle it. The report hedges here, but becomes explicit after enumerating the ways in which Cuba fails to meet US standards for other nation's behavior, declaring, "This state of affairs highlights the urgency of working...

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