Summary

NAME: CUB MARCH2 140504N TAPE: EF04/0509 IN_TIME: 10:40:32:07 DURATION: 00:02:59:21 SOURCES: Cubavision DATELINE: Havana - 14 March 2004 RESTRICTIONS: SHOTLIST: 1. Wide shot of crowd moving along the Malecon (coastal road in Havana) 2. Cuban President Fidel Castro arriving 3. Crowd 4. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Fidel Castro, President of Cuba "You (US President George W Bush) cannot talk about democracy, for several reasons, among them the fact that your accession to the presidency of the United States was fraudulent, as everyone knows. You cannot talk of freedom." 5. Crowd 6. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Fidel Castro, President of Cuba "The unbelievable tortures carried out on the Iraqi prisoners has stunned the world." 7. Crowd 8. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Fidel Castro, President of Cuba "My only regret is that I wouldn't be able to look you in the face when that moment comes. You would be thousands of miles away while I would be on the front line ready to die for the defence of my country!" 8. Crowd 9. Castro waves flag 10. Top shot march 11. Front of crowd marching 12. Various of march 13. People carrying anti-Bush placards with swastikas 14. Soldiers walk by with flags 15. Wide shot of people with flags 16. Wide shot of crowds from air STORYLINE: President Fidel Castro led a sea of Cuban demonstrators past the U.S. diplomatic mission on Friday to protest new U.S. measures aimed at squeezing the island's economy and pushing out Castro. Tens of thousands of protesters, many of them wearing red shirts and waving small Cuban flags made of paper, marched on the oceanfront Malecon boulevard in the government organised protest. Castro denounced and ridiculed U.S. President George W. Bush, saying he was a fraudulently elected leader trying to impose "world tyranny" but Cuba would never become a "neo-colony" of the United States. Posters portrayed Bush wearing a Hitler moustache and accompanied by a Nazi swastika. Some posters showed photos of Iraqi prisoners allegedly abused by U.S. soldiers, saying: "This would never happen in Cuba." Fervent announcers led the crowd in chants of "Free Cuba! Fascist Bush!" Castro said the march was "an act of indignant protest and a denunciation of the brutal, merciless and cruel measures" that Bush announced last week to tighten the 44-year U.S. embargo of the island. The measures 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 transaction from socialism to capitalism.