President Bush to JW’s Cuban American Clients: "We Will Not Abandon You."
JW Sets Historic Meeting with President Bush

Employing rhetoric reminiscent of the months leading up to the war against Iraq, President Bush issued a strong and clear message to Cuban dissidents in a closed door meeting JW helped produce: Cuba will be liberated and will be free. If the President is true to his word, as he was in Afghanistan and in Iraq, this would mark a serious change in policy towards the Cuban dictator.

"The President spoke plainly and clearly," said JW Chairman Larry Klayman. "It’s time for Castro to go." Mr. Bush appears to now be heeding the advise.

Judicial Watch has for years tried to convince both the Clinton and Bush Administrations to take a harder stance against Castro, who has murdered and tortured more people than Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined. Thus far, this request has fallen on deaf ears, forcing Judicial Watch to take matters into its own hands. Judicial Watch has filed lawsuits in both the United States and Belgium on behalf of Castro’s victims and their families in order to finally hold him accountable. JW is pleased that President Bush is listening to its concerns about the communist dictator Castro.

Among those Cuban dissidents and victims who pled their case to President Bush:

* Blanca Gonzalez, a dissident who fled the island prison less than one year ago, and who has an independent journalist son who was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for writing about life under Castro’s rule.

* Isabel Roque, whose sister, Maria Beatriz Roque, is currently serving a two-decade long sentence for opposing Castro’s crimes against humanity.

* Ramon Colas, a youth psychologist who was beaten and imprisoned for starting an independent library in a neighborhood home.

Also attending the meeting were National Presidential Envoy for the Western Hemisphere, Otto Reich and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez.