US News
Bush says Cubans people ought to decide their own future (Roundup)
By DPA
Aug 7, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington/Havana - US President George W Bush said Monday that the Cuban people should determine their own future and cautioned against Cuban-Americans returning to the country before a democratic path has been chosen.

'Our desire is for the Cuban people to be able to choose their own form of government,' Bush told reporters at his personal ranch in Crawford, Texas.

'We would hope that - and we'll make this very clear - that as Cuba has the possibility of transforming itself from a tyrannical situation to a different type of society, the Cuban people ought to decide.'

Bush had urged Cuba to begin taking steps toward democracy, following news last week that long-time leader Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished power to his brother, Raul, after undergoing surgery to halt intestinal bleeding.

News that Castro had fallen ill prompted hopes in the exiled Cuban community in Miami that his regime was vulnerable or that the 79- year-old communist leader had died.

Havana has said that Castro is recovering well from the surgery. Bush said he has no specific information about Castro's condition.

'The only thing I know is what has been speculated,' Bush said.

Many Cuban-Americans maintain that they have a right to retake possession of property confiscated by Castro's government after the 1959 revolution, but Bush said that issue cannot be settled until a democratic government is in place.

'Once the people of Cuba decide to form a government, then Cuban- Americans can take an interest in that country and redress the issues of property confiscation,' Bush said.

More than 400 international figures including eight Nobel Prize winners have urged the United States to 'respect Cuba's sovereignty,' according to a petition read Monday in Havana by poet Roberto Fernandez Retamar.

'Given the growing threat against the integrity of a nation, and the peace and security in Latin America and the world, the undersigned demand that the government of the United States respects Cuba's sovereignty,' the document said.