HAVANA, May 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As the current U.S. administration stood firm on its position regarding the trade embargo on Cuba, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter made a bold push for democratic opening in the communist country Tuesday, May 14, urging President Fidel Castro to let the U.N. human rights chief visit and calling attention to an unprecedented dissident bid for political change.

With Castro looking on and millions of Cubans likely tuned in, Carter said he had learned of the Varela Project - a defiant challenge by Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya's group, the Christian Liberation Movement, and others, presented to the National Assembly last week and backed by more than 11,000 signatures - which seeks broad political and economic reforms.

"When Cubans exercise this freedom to change laws peacefully by a direct vote, the world will see that Cubans and not foreigners will decide the future of this country," Carter said in a 20-minute “Address to the Cuban Nation” in Spanish. Few Cubans had previously heard of the initiative.

Minutes after Carter's speech, the official news agency Prensa Latina for the first time mentioned the initiative by name, noting that "Cuban officials have described the project as a product engineered from outside the country which is seeking a referendum on reforming the Constitution in effect since 1976."

Paya warmly welcomed Carter’s mention of his unprecedented political project on live Cuban television.

"We are pleased [Carter] has told the people of Cuba about our request to hold a referendum, ... but it is a shame that a former president of the United States has to come [to Cuba] for Cubans to find out about the initiative," Paya told reporters late Tuesday.

After the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva last month voted to encourage Cuba to make progress on human rights, Carter said the International Committee of the Red Cross should be allowed to visit Cuban prisons and U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson should be welcomed and permitted "to address such issues as prisoners of conscience and the treatment of inmates.

"These visits could help refute any unwarranted criticisms," Carter said in an address at the University of Havana.

The chance to talk directly to Cubans at length on television is particularly important in a country where alternatives to official media are challenging to come by for most, and where state-run television is usually the most accessible window on the world.

After 43 years of Castro's revolution, most of Cuba's population has no experience with any political activity outside the one-party system. Many appeared impressed by Carter but in no hurry to catch a dissident train, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"So far everything Carter has said has made a positive impression on me," said Guillermo Gonzalez, 49, a Havana security guard, who noted the speech was "critical and friendly at the same time." But for Gonzalez, as far as dissident campaigns go, "a dissident in Cuba is somebody who doesn't work, somebody who is abnormal."

Carter said his notion of democracy is not a "U.S. definition," but rather one Cuba signed in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, "based on some simple premises: all citizens are born with the right to choose their own leaders, to define their own destiny, to speak freely, to organize political parties, trade unions and non-governmental groups, and to have fair and open trials."

The former U.S. president noted: "Your constitution recognizes freedom of speech and association, but other laws deny those freedoms to those who disagree with the government."

University students peppered Carter with questions, saying Cuba's notion of democracy was not necessarily the same as that of the United States.

Carter, who sought rapprochement with Cuba during his 1976-1981 term in office, also underscored his well-known opposition to the full U.S. economic embargo that has been in effect since 1961.

"Our two nations have been trapped in a destructive state of belligerence for 42 years, and it is time for us to change our relationship and the way we think and talk about each other," Carter said. "Because the United States is the most powerful nation, we should take the first step."

"My hope is that the Congress will soon act to permit unrestricted travel between the United States and Cuba ... and repeal the embargo," Carter stated.

"I should add that these restraints are not the sources of Cuba's economic problems," said Carter. Castro routinely blames the embargo for the country's economic woes.

Striking a conciliatory note, Carter also praised Cuban achievements in health care and education, noting "my nation is hardly perfect in human rights," acknowledging "for more than a quarter century we have struggled unsuccessfully to guarantee the basic right of universal health care for all our people."

Meanwhile, the George W. Bush administration toughened its rhetoric on Cuba and asserted that there would be no change to the decades-long embargo.

Bush "believes that the trade embargo is a vital part of America's foreign policy and human rights policy toward Cuba," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

"In President Carter's remarks, he did talk about human rights in Cuba. He said some things that the Cuban people have not heard before about their rights, about freedom in Cuba, and that's helpful and positive," he added.

But "trade with Cuba does not benefit the people of Cuba. It's used to prop up a repressive regime," Fleischer said.

"Cuba is an old-fashioned totalitarian country that is not reforming, that is not engaging in economic progress where the people benefit from trade. It uses trade to prop itself up," Fleischer said.