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Saturday, May 15, 2004

Castro launched the demonstration with denunciations and ridicule of Bush, saying he was fraudulently elected and trying to impose "world tyranny."

He then led the crowd, dressed in red shirts and shouting "Long live free Cuba! Fascist Bush!" past the mission on the oceanfront Malecon Boulevard.

A broad stream of students, workers, parents toting children on their shoulders and elderly couples filed past the mission singing, chanting, and playing drums.

The government-organized demonstration lasted just over six hours; as it ended, officials announced 1.2 million people had taken part. The number could not be confirmed, but the turnout was well into the hundreds of thousands at least.

While past state-organized demonstrations have compared other world leaders to Adolf Hitler, Friday's march brought the level of hostility toward Bush to a new level.

Scores of printed posters -- apparently distributed by the march's organizers -- bore swastikas and portrayed Bush in a Nazi uniform with a mustache similar to Hitler's.

There were hand-lettered signs as well: A middle-aged man carried a handwritten sign saying, "Bush, you are crazy, find yourself a psychologist."

The 77-year-old Castro, dressed in his usual green military uniform and field cap, appeared to walk with some difficulty, favoring a leg, as he led the march for about 800 yards, sometimes waving a small Cuban flag made of paper before getting into a waiting car and leaving.

Castro said the march was "an act of indignant protest and a denunciation of the brutal, merciless and cruel measures" aimed at squeezing the island's economy and pushing out the Cuban leader.

The measures, announced last week by Bush, included restrictions on money transfers and family visits, increased efforts to transmit anti-Castro television to Cuba and appointment of a coordinator to plan a transition from socialism to capitalism.

"This country could be exterminated ... erased from the face of the earth," Castro told the crowd. But he said it would never fall into "the humiliating condition of a neo-colony of the United States."

He said that if conflict comes, "I will be in the first line of defense, ready to die in defense of my people."

Castro accused the United States of fighting "wars of conquest to seize the markets and resources of the world" while Cuba, he said, was sending thousands of doctors to other countries.

"Cuba fights for life in the world; you fight for death," he said.

Castro insisted that Bush had "no morality nor any right at all to speak of liberty, democracy and human rights" and he said of Bush's 2000 election victory, "all the world knows it was fraudulent."

In an example of the worldwide fallout of the Iraqi prisoner scandal, organizers distributed signs printed with photos of abused Iraqis and the words: "This would never happen in Cuba."

Castro referred briefly to the scandal, saying the tortures had "stupefied the world" and asserting that Cuba had never practiced such abuse.

Human rights groups accuse Cuba of imprisoning peaceful dissenters and the State Department's human rights report says some have been beaten, and held in filthy cells or in isolation. But there have been no recent allegations of the kind of abuse depicted in Iraq.

Cuba says U.S. laws that call for channeling money to dissidents with the expressed aim of subverting Cuba's government make the dissenters "mercenaries" for a foreign power.

The official count of marchers could not be confirmed but it appeared possible due to the thick river of Cubans that continued to pass the U.S. mission into the afternoon.

Some said they had arrived about six hours before the 8 a.m. march. Many were brought by a vast fleet of buses in an effort led by Communist Party activists at workplaces, schools and neighborhoods.

The Labor Ministry freed most state employees from work for the day.

The government held a somewhat smaller mass march last year to denounce the European Union. In 2002, it brought millions into the streets of cities across the island to support a measure declaring socialism permanent.

On Monday, the government suddenly halted sales of most goods in dollars, saying it was due to new U.S. measures aimed at reducing funding for Cuba.

Officials say prices will be raised when the dollar-only stores reopen.

Cuban officials have warned the measures could be a prelude to stronger U.S. attacks, possibly even an invasion.

The United States has restricted trade and travel to Cuba for most of the time since the early 1960s in an attempt to topple Castro's government.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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