12.5.99 Fidel: Seattle Police "Worse Than Pinochet" Castro sounds off after hearing first-hand accounts of events in Seattle from Cuba's returning World Trade delegates; pointing out that if tactics like those employed by the government against demonstrators in Seattle had been used in Cuba, the island nation would have likely been the target of a NATO-led attack to "restore human rights" (kind of like how the U.S. "restored" "DEMOCRACY" in Haiti! [see yesterday's article "Mind Control On Demand Takes Flight"]). Again, though we are most decidely NOT fans of Castro or many aspects of his regime, we have to say his call on this is a dead-on bulls-eye. Catro makes some other quite pertinent points in his remarks quoted below. Additionally Castro says he bailed out of attending the WTO talks after getting word U.S. government gangsters planned to arrest him while in Seattle--a very serious charge which, given the ongoing torrent of lawless and atrocious actions on the part of the federal government, is certainly believable. NewsHawk� Inc. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- WIRE:12/05/1999 12:40:00 ET Castro Says Seattle Police 'Worse Than Pinochet' HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro on Sunday branded U.S. police action against protesters at a trade meeting in Seattle as worse than repression by Chile's former military ruler Augusto Pinochet. The fiery 73-year-old communist leader, often accused of repression at home, suggested that had such scenes been seen in Cuba, there would likely have been a NATO-led invasion of the island on grounds of human rights abuses. And he contrasted the absence of U.S. political leaders on the streets of Seattle to calm protesters with his own personal intervention during a rare outbreak of public disorder in Cuba five years ago. Thousands of protesters disrupted last week's opening of the World Trade Organization talks, bringing chaos to the streets of downtown Seattle, where running battles with police led to the arrests of more than 500 people. In comments broadcast on state television on Sunday, Castro said the Cuban people, like the world, had been astonished at the U.S. police's "brutal methods". "They are images that not were even not seen in the era of repression in Chile, in the era of Pinochet," Castro said at Havana's Jose Marti international airport where he received late on Saturday Cuba's returning WTO delegation. Pinochet, 84, is currently under house arrest near London at the request of Spain, which wants to try him for torture charges dating from the latter part of his rule in Chile. More than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared in the years after Pinochet ousted elected socialist President Salvador Allende in a bloody coup in 1973. "DESIGNED TO FRIGHTEN PEOPLE" In the "peaceful and cultured city of Seattle," Castro said, the world saw "a mass of masked men who looked like Martians or travelers to an unknown planet, with blood- curdling uniforms designed to frighten the people, and with aparati to hurl gas, bullets and blows." He added: "What would happen if such images came out of Cuba? ... They would say that it is a flagrant, massive violation of human rights, and therefore NATO would have to be used for a humanitarian intervention." Since his 1959 Cuban Revolution, Castro has faced one failed U.S.-backed invasion attempt at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and has constantly maintained the specter of another possible armed "imperialist" intervention since then. He noted that neither President Clinton, nor the governor of Washington state, appeared in the streets to "persuade the demonstrators" as he says he did during a riot on Havana's sea-front Malecon on Aug. 5, 1994. "I remember that day, when those disorders took place, provoked by them (the United States), and finished without a shot, in a minute" after his personal arrival on the scene, Castro said. The Cuban leader had wanted to attend the WTO meeting, but decided not to at the last minute, alleging a "plot" hatched by Cuban exiles and backed by U.S. authorities to have him arrested Pinochet-style. His comments on Seattle followed high-profile coverage in Cuba's state media of the protests which Havana claims show the brutality of its northern neighbor and expose the hypocrisy of human rights' criticism against Castro's government. Foreign critics and local dissidents accuse Castro of subtler but no less effective forms of repression in a society where such open and noisy protests as those seen in Seattle would never have been allowed in the first place. Copyright 1999 ABC News
