Martinez Upset by Bush's Neglect of Cuban Democracy

WASHINGTON — A Florida senator and former member of President Bush's cabinet is proclaiming his "profound disappointment" with Mr. Bush's neglect of Cuban democracy in his State of the Union address.

Senator Martinez, Republican of Florida, sent a letter late last week to Secretary of State Rice and the president's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, faulting the White House for skirting oppression in the Western Hemisphere during Mr. Bush's most visible annual speech.

In his remarks before both houses of Congress late last month, Mr. Bush spoke of the urgent need to spread freedom and democracy, reaching out to the people of several oppressed nations. "At the start of 2006, more than half the people in the world live in democratic nations," Mr. Bush said. "And we do not forget the other half — in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran — because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world,require their freedom as well."

The omission of Cuba, which has been under the control of Communist dictator Fidel Castro for 47 years, irked Cuban Americans who argue that American expressions of support for the Cuban people struggling to secure their liberty are essential.

One is Mr. Martinez, who wrote in his dispatch: "As the President discussed areas of the world that must not be forgotten in their quest for freedom … I must confess my profound disappointment that the longest lasting tyranny remaining in the world today — communist Cuba — was overlooked.

"As a matter of fact," the freshman senator, who was also Mr. Bush's first-term secretary of Housing and Urban Development, continued,"there was no mention of the Western Hemisphere at all — an increasingly challenging area of the world that happens to be in our own backyard." Leftist anti-American regimes — most notably that of Venezuelan dictator and Castro ally

Hugo Chávez — have recently gained ground in Latin America, and Mr. Chávez has grown increasingly menacing in his gestures toward Washington.

Requests for comment from the State Department yesterday were unreturned.

Mr. Martinez's letter comes as Mr. Bush finds himself already under fire from segments of the Cuban American community. Last month, the administration reversed its decision to preclude the Castro regime's participation in Major League Baseball's World Baseball Classic, a move denounced by critics as too accommodating of Havana's strongman and international pressure.

Also last month, the administration sparked a furor by deporting 15 Cubans who had come within yards of securing asylum in America — prompting a backlash against Mr. Bush for perpetuating the wet-foot/dry-foot Cuban immigration pact struck between Mr. Castro and President Clinton a decade ago.