"The Paul Bremer For Cuba"

Last week US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named Caleb McCarry the US "Cuba Transition Coordinator, a new position which will function, according to AFP, to help bring about the collapse of the Castro government.

The post of "transition coordinator" that is being filled by McCarry grew out of a 2004 report on Cuba prepared by a commission headed by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. The report outlined the steps that the United States was prepared to take to assist a "democratic Cuba" and to bring pressure to bear on the Cuban government in the meantime. The report said the United States should try to subvert the planned succession in Cuba under which power would pass from President Castro, 78, to his younger brother, Raul.

The appointment met with a cynical reply from Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, "Surely he will receive a juicy salary in his new job, but Caleb McCarry -- I assure you -- will retire without setting foot in Cuba." Roque said that McCarry had been picked to be "the Paul Bremer for Cuba," referring to the former top U.S. administrator in Iraq. "He would be the U.S. governor, to head up the process of annexing Cuba," Perez Roque said.

Such a reaction from the Cuban government can not come as any surprise.

Also, not surprisingly again, the Cuban American National Foundation, which speaks for many of Miami's more fervent exiles, lauded the appointment, saying McCarry has "a sense of personal commitment to the cause of freedom for the Cuban people."

However, what may surprise you is that the Cuban government is joined in its duniciation of the announcement by opposition leaders on the Island itself.

"Any transition in Cuba is for Cubans to define, lead, organize and coordinate," said Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement and promoter of a petition seeking democracy in Cuba.

Other opposition groups that opposed the appointment on the same grounds were the Progressive Arch and the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission.

"This appointment ... constitutes an attack on our national sovereignty," said Manuel Cuesta Morua, spokesman for the Progressive Arch.

Another leading dissident Elizardo Sanchez said he considered it, "a decision that is counterproductive and difficult to accept" that will worsen already bad relations between Washington and Havana.

Does it seem like it takes a lot of gall to even announce such a government position? Sources: AFP, Net For Cuba, Miami Herald, Cuba Solidarity Campaign, BBC