Posted on 05/22/2004 7:13:46 PM PDT by freedom44
Cuba has restored citizenship to seven exiles involved in the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of the island in 1961. The government acted Friday during a migration conference in Havana attended by 450 Cubans who live abroad.
Officials handed Cuban passports to six of the seven men who took part in the unsuccessful effort to overthrow President Fidel Castro's government. The seventh person was not present.
The Reuters news agency says the government called the move an act of reconciliation toward the exile community. More than one million Cubans live overseas, many of them in the United States.
The migration conference comes amid new U.S. policies aimed at tightening the four-decade-old U.S. embargo against Cuba in a bid to hasten the end of President Castro's rule.
A plan announced recently by President Bush calls for aircraft to broadcast U.S. government-sponsored radio and television programs into Cuba, in an attempt to avoid electronic jamming by the Castro government. It also includes restrictions on cash remittances and family visits by Cuban-Americans to relatives on the island.
President Bush said in a statement Thursday that the United States is working for the day when a free Cuba will rejoin the community of democracies in the Americas.
He made his remarks on the 102nd anniversary of Cuban independence from Spain.
"government called the move an act of reconciliation toward the exile community"
Sheesh.......little late
Now that's funny. Considering that thousands risk their lives trying to get out of that hell hole.
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