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The Dream In Cuba
Tuesday, January 17, 2006   By: Juan Paxety

This nation will rise up

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up. The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are scrolling across a large electronic display on the front of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, along with words from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From the BBC:

It is the latest twist in the long running US-Cuban propaganda battle.

From the length of Havana's famed seafront promenade, the red letters can be seen scrolling in Spanish across the upper windows of the 1950s building

Forbes reports the reaction from Cubans - and, of course, quotes only one person.

"They are provoking us again," said neighbor Miguel Angel Fernandez, who said he first noticed the words from his bathroom window Monday night. "I don't know why they mess with us, we don't mess with them."

Reuters India reports the battle of signs has gone on for a couple of years.

A Christmas display at the U.S. mission in 2004 included a lit-up number 75, in reference to the pro-democracy activists jailed by Cuba in March 2003.

The Cuban government retaliated with huge billboards showing pictures of hooded and bloodied prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a swastika and the words "Fascists: made in USA."

The billboards are still up on Havana's Malecon sea-wall opposite the U.S. mission.

Here's more from a new blog, Nuestra Cuba Libre. And from the Conductor at Cuban American Pundits.

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