Cubans responded with a protest march of 1.4 million people in Havana
on Jan. 24. They took the occasion to settle other scores with the
Bush administration, too.

Speaking on television two days before the march, Cuban President
Fidel Castro denounced the billboard as a provocation aimed at forcing
a final break in relations between the two countries. He called upon
the Cuban people to march in opposition to both the electronic display
and to U.S. plans to set terrorist Luis Posada Carilles free.

On the same day, a U.S. immigration court was hearing arguments
calling for Posadas release from detention. Washington has refused to
extradite Posada to Venezuela to face charges that he helped bring
down a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73.

Castro gave other reasons for marching. He denounced the U.S. war on
Cubas economy, its plans for a transition to capitalism in Cuba, and
the enormous political power wielded by right-wing Cuban Americans. He
noted U.S. disregard for refugee agreements, Bushs interference with
U.S.-Cuba agricultural sales, and U.S. restrictions on financial
support and visits to family members in Cuba.

Referring to Cubas determination to resist any U.S. attack, Castro
said, We will strike with all our moral force, and we are disposed to
spill our last drops of blood in the face of any bellicose aggression
of the mutinous and brutal empire that is threatening us. Observers
likened the combative tone of the presidents message to the build-up
preceding the march for repatriation of Elian Gonzalez in 2000.

At 8 a.m. on Jan. 24, Castro greeted the first line of Cubans marching
on the Malecon, Havanas seaside highway. Pointing to the billboard, he
said, They have turned on their little electronic ticker. How brave
the cockroaches are! Protesters marched by the U.S. Interests Section
for the next seven hours.

Castro marched at the head of the last contingent, a group of several
thousand young people. He told them: Never had I witnessed anything
like this. Our people have turned the lies by the crooks and torturers
of the U.S. empire into gunpowder. They are defeated; injustice is on
its knees. Nobody believes in the empire, it has been exposed with its
insolence and its lies.

The next day, Castro visited over 100 workmen working on a
construction project in front of the Interests Section. Speculation
has it that a counter-display is in the works, although the president
would not divulge any plans. Answering reporters questions, he accused
Washington of using the Interests Section as a smuggling operation,
bringing in tons of electronic equipment in its diplomatic pouch for
subversive activity.

Cuba will resist through peaceful means, he said. We sow ideas and
consciousness. We have means for helping the world; our human capital
is growing and is not running out, because it is not gold or oil or
nickel.

Earlier that day a U.S. immigration spokesperson took pains to
announce that officials were moving forward to carry out Mr. Posadas
removal from the United States, suggesting that he may not be settling
down in Miami after all.

Critics of the billboard note that many of the electronic messages
have been taken out of context. Dr. King, for example, is revered in
Cuba as a fighter for equality and justice, but his dream never
included inciting counterrevolution in Cuba. Cubans point to the FBIs
hounding of King, continuing racial oppression in the United States,
and torture carried out at Guantanamo and in Iraq as evidence of the
hypocrisy of Bush administration officials who invoke his name.

W. T. Whitney Jr.