Cubans call President Bush's charge that the island nation has a booming sex business a lie, saying crackdowns have ended the trade.

BY TRACEY EATON
The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA -- Cubans blasted President Bush on Saturday after he accused Fidel Castro of turning the island into a major spot for sex tourism and child prostitution.

''I've never heard anything as pig-filthy as that,'' said Marta Rojas, a celebrated Cuban author. ''The nose of Pinocchio'' -- as some Cubans call Bush -- ``is so long it can't get any longer.''

Cuba was a bustling sex tourism destination in the early 1990s after its economy collapsed, travel writers say, but police crackdowns have turned that around.

''There was a significant falloff in sex tourism throughout the country,'' said Christopher Baker, author of Moon Handbooks: Cuba.

Before the 1959 revolution, the flesh trade thrived. Sex shows and porn palaces flourished, and as many as 100,000 prostitutes may have roamed the streets.

On Friday, Bush told a Tampa crowd that Cuba's sex business was again booming, helping prop up Castro's ``corrupt government.''

''The dictator welcomes sex tourism,'' Bush said. According to a recent study, he said, Cuba has ``replaced Southeast Asia as a destination for pedophiles and sex tourists.''

Some Cubans wonder what country Bush is talking about.

''We don't exploit children for sex,'' said Johana Brito, 18, a computer sciences student. ``It's a lie.''

To back up his claim, Bush cited the Protection Project, a human rights research institute at Johns Hopkins University. In a three-page report posted on its Internet site, the group said that while ''little information is available,'' Cuba is ''increasingly reported to be a major destination for sex tourists.'' That finding was based mostly on newspaper clippings, most from the 1990s, one going back to 1994.

No one disputes that prostitution in Cuba soared after the fall of the country's chief sponsor, the former Soviet Union. And on Friday nights, thousands of prostitutes lined the Malecón, Havana's seaside highway. Word got around.

In 1996, authorities cracked down, breaking up a crime ring that controlled some 7,000 prostitutes in the resort of Varadero.

That same year, they sentenced Jerome Fitere, 41, of France, to 12 years in prison for allegedly taking photos of nude girls aged 12 to 15, Cuba's official media said.

Internet sites continued to tout Cuba as good for sex tourism.

''Cuba is the place,'' one satisfied visitor reported to a site called Travel and the Single Male. ``Thank you, Lord, for my Viagra.''

In October 1998, Cuban authorities clamped down again, netting 6,714 prostitutes and 190 pimps.

The fight against prostitution in the late 1990s was ''very tough,'' Castro conceded in 2001. ``Some people were coming here with ideas of sexual tourism. . . . We began taking adequate measures to combat these outbreaks. And we are still perfecting our methods.''

Longtime visitors say they've seen the results of the Cuban government's campaign. But U.S. officials continue to criticize the situation.