>From: "mart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Cuba SI" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>Forward from Comrade mart.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Communist Party of Canada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: February 26, 2000 9:17 PM
>Subject: Important Message from the Cuba Bureau of the CPC
>
>
>
>Dear comrades,
>
>As the Miami Herald report (see below) on the latest Gallup poll shows, the
>majority of Americans favour the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba. It is
>especially significant that U.S. public support for his return has grown, and
>become more firm, since December.
>
>This illustrates the abject failure of the Cuban American National Foundation,
>the main organizational vehicle of the reactionary, anti-Communist forces
>based in Miami, to continue to rally American public support behind their
>anti-Cuban positions. The CANF is still extremely powerful however, and
>capable of resorting to the most outrageous manoeuvres and provocations, as
>can be seen from the latest Granma International article (also appended
>below).
>
>That is why winning Elian's return to Cuba is not only in the child's best
>personal interests and legally and morally just. This victory will also have a
>significant impact on the future of Cuban-American relations as a whole.
>
>U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba -- especially its economic blockade, and its
>use of extra-territorial pressures on other countries which maintain normal
>political, economic, trade, and cultural relations with Cuba -- has been
>shunned and denounced by the international community.
>
>Within the United States itself, labour, religious and other mass social and
>democratic organizations have been stepping up the call for an end to the
>blockade.
>
>Some sections of U.S. finance capital are also becoming more vocal in
>demanding the Clinton administration abandon its punitive economic blockade
>against Cuba. These interests are also hostile to socialism in Cuba, but are
>concerned that they are missing out on important export markets, and are being
>supplanted by their main rivals, European capital (especially Spanish,
>Italian, and British).
>
>Opposing all of these forces, however, has been the extremely powerful and
>well-heeled Miami "lobby" of anti-communist Cuban exiles (the so-called
>"gouzanos" or worms). For almost 40 years, this powerful gang of
>anti-communists, thugs and terrorists has elected and/or bought off state and
>federal politicians to ensure that the blockade was kept in place and
>tightened. Jeb Bush, the current Florida governor, and his brother, GOP
>presidential front-runner George Bush, Jr., are prime examples. No U.S.
>administration -- even when tempted to consider altering its tactic [note--not
>its overall strategy] toward Cuba -- has been prepared to challenge the Miami
>lobby head on.
>
>So far, that is.
>
>In fact, the Elian case has become a watershed test of the power of the Miami
>anti-Cuban mafia, and so far, they're losing. If American and world public
>opinion prevail, and Elian is returned to his homeland, it will mark an
>unprecedented -- and perhaps fatal -- defeat for the Miami lobby, in terms of
>their predominant influence in steering U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba.
>
>Of course, if/when a changed balance of force brings about a reversal in
>U.S.-Cuba policy, including an end to the economic blockade, U.S. imperialism
>will continue its efforts to defeat socialism in Cub; but it will be forced to
>use other methods of subversion, rather than crude strangulation. Such a turn
>in U.S. policy would mark a tremendous victory for the Cuban Revolution, and
>for its friends around the world.
>
>That is why there is a great deal at stake in the Elian issue; and why we need
>to keep up the pressure to demand his return in any and every way we can!
>
>All clubs and members are therefore urged to:
>
>1) support initiatives taken by friendship and solidarity groups around the
>Elain case;
>
>2) introduce and pass Elian resolutions in local unions and labour councils,
>religious/church bodies, local and municipal councils, etc.
>
>3) to contact local MPs to demand they speak out in Parliament on the issue,
>and that the Canadian government be bring more pressure to bare on the U.S.
>government;
>
>4) write "letters to the editor" of local press outlet, and take other
>initiatives to build public awareness and support for Elian's return.
>
>Our efforts  -- around this issue in particular -- here in Canada and around
>the world can make the difference in breaking the 39-old long U.S. blockade
>against Cuba... please do all you can!
>
>Comradely yours,
>
>Cuba Bureau
>Central Committee,
>Communist Party of Canada
>
>
>*************************
>
>Miami Herald
>February 23, 2000
>
>
>National polls steadily support return of Elian
>
>
>
>By CAROL ROSENBERG
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Throughout the three months since Elian Gonzalez was saved from the
>sea, national polls have shown a majority of Americans consistently
>support Washington's decision to return the boy to Cuba.
>
>The most recent poll, released Tuesday, shows 67 percent of Americans
>approve of the federal government's decision to reunite the boy with
>his father in Cuba. Twenty-seven percent said they disagreed with the
>Immigration and Naturalization Service ruling to return him. The
>telephone poll was taken Feb. 14-15 by The Gallup Organization of
>Princeton, N.J., the latest of four polls Gallup has conducted on the
>topic since Elian was rescued at sea Nov. 25.
>
>The current poll's approval rate mirrored a Jan. 25-26 Gallup poll,
>which also found 67 percent of adults supported the U.S. government,
>up from a 56 percent in a Jan. 7-10 Gallup poll.
>
>Interviewers did not ask the question in the first poll, taken Dec.
>9-12, before the INS had ruled in the case. Instead Gallup asked
>Americans what they thought was in the boy's best interests.
>Public opinion was tied then -- with 45 percent favoring returning the
>child to Cuba and 45 percent favoring letting him stay in the United
>States.
>
>OPINION SOLIDIFIED
>
>Since then, however, public opinion has solidified. In the Jan. 25-26
>poll, taken during the highly publicized controversy over his
>grandmothers' efforts to meet with Elian in Miami, 60 percent of
>Americans polled said that a return to Cuba was in the child's best
>interest. On the other side, 45 percent thought he would be better off
>staying in the United States.
>
>Since then, support for his return to his father had slipped, from 60
>to 55 percent -- but so did support for him staying here, from 45 to
>36 percent.
>
>The remaining 9 percent said they had no opinion on what would be best
>for the boy or advocated another, unspecified arrangement.
>Poll editor-in-chief Frank Newport dismissed the slight dip in an
>interview Tuesday, saying it fell within the poll's margin of error of
>plus or minus 3 percentage points.
>
>By studying all four polls combined, Newport said, ``The No. 1
>conclusion is that Americans think that Elian Gonzalez should go back
>to Cuba. It started out in December being a little bit more even. But
>in January and in our February poll the majority said he should return
>to live with his father in Cuba.''
>
>Average Americans, he said, ``get snippets of information from
>broadcasts and local newspapers. And from what they know about it,
>they clearly seem to feel that he should go back.''
>
>NATION FASCINATED
>
>The polls also show that the case is a source of fascination for the
>nation, not just South Florida.
>
>Asked to rate the story in December, Americans found it of less
>interest than the 1997 death of Princess Diana. But their interest in
>the case rivaled that of the 1997 death of Mother Teresa, the 1993
>NAFTA trade issue and the 1996 shoot-down by Cuba of the Brothers to
>the Rescue aircraft.
>
>The firm has no firm plans to conduct a fifth poll.
>
>***********************************
>
>GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
> Havana, Cuba
>February 22, 2000
>
>
>The latest huge fabrication from the mafia
>and its hirelings in the heart of the empire
>
>
>As it was widely known, the hearing in southern Florida’s federal court to
>decide on the future of kidnapped child Elián González was due to start on
>February 22, in accordance with the laws, procedures and flaws of the U.S.
>legal system. The first federal judge, Mr. King, coincidentally the worst of
>the lot, "selected by computer" from a total of 12, was challenged and finally
>exposed for his scandalous links with the mafia he was unable to conceal. The
>newly appointed judge, Mr. Hoeveler, turned out to be a person with a
>different reputation. He was known to be an independent, meticulous and
>methodical man who took all the time needed to read and study files and papers
>before making a decision. Although too slow for such an urgent case, he was
>also famous for not being susceptible to bribery.
>
>It wasn’t long before information emerged on the criminal record and moral
>background of the nuclear family assigned by the mafia and U.S. justice with
>the child’s custody: two great-uncles found guilty of alcohol-related crimes,
>two cousins tried and sentenced to stiff prison terms for armed assault, the
>son of the main householder tried and found guilty of prostitution. Not to
>mention other aspects yet to see the light of day in the background of the
>already infamous and discredited character who received custody of the child
>as if he were a lottery prize!
>
>Over and above this, U.S. public opinion was for the most part in favor of the
>child’s return.
>
>The mafia were desperate. It had been responsible for other repugnant actions:
>the cruel scenario for Elián’s meeting with his grandmothers Mariela and
>Raquel, with the house and neighborhood virtually taken over by the mafia;
>acts as cruel as cutting off the telephone communication between father and
>son; oppressive and offensive messages for Raquel; the total absence of
>privacy; the dramatic reduction of the time agreed and the meeting’s abrupt
>end; deceit, betrayal: a gross swindle, deliberately merciless. And to crown
>it all, a diabolically perfidious nun, who betrayed the most humane ethical
>principles of her own religion to become the mafia’s new main spokesperson and
>who, in such a saintly and pious manner, had offered her luxury mansion to the
>attorney general for the meeting.
>
>Later came the extraordinary success of the noble and humble grandmothers in
>their meetings with a large number of influential U.S. Congress members and
>the U.S. press, thus delivering a hefty blow to the mafioso Cuban American
>National Foundation (CANF). That organization responded with a vicious
>campaign against Mariela who, during a roundtable and with the candor of a
>humble Cuban grandmother, informed the public of the details of what she did
>in desperation to draw the totally changed child out of his timidity and
>apathy. The Miami mafia picked it up and circulated it with an insane fury,
>insinuating despicable imputations against her.
>
>The Miami dregs ran about in all directions, moving influences and campaigning
>to salvage their lost bill to grant U.S. citizenship to the kidnapped little
>boy. They resuscitated the two surviving adults from the disastrous boat
>crossing to tour the Capitol’s corridors and offices together with the nun and
>childless cousin Georgina who is currently playing the role of Elián’s mother,
>in order to persuade representatives and senators of the justice and goodness
>of the infamous cause of the Miami terrorists and annexationists.
>
>An extremely strange nun, a pimp and a prostitute (the two survivors), were
>accompanied by a gentleman who, by a further coincidence, goes by the name of
>Mas Santos (head of CANF) were CANF’s key witnesses in the U.S. Congress. It
>seemed as if there was nothing left to do apart from to hire other lawyers,
>contracting new firms as costly as they are accredited in the market, and
>presenting fresh delaying appeals.
>
>Just a few days prior to the court hearing, at a psychological moment
>calculated to be the most exact and convenient, they turned to a final, most
>perverse and cynical resort. During the night of Thursday February 17, FBI
>agents from the Miami bureau ostentatiously surrounded the house of a senior
>official from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and made a
>spectacular arrest. It resembled action against a shady emery just prior to an
>outbreak of nuclear war. Why so much ostentation and scandal?
>
>Numerous and interminable cables explained it all on February 18 and 19.
>Almost all of them were on the same subject, with varying nuances and styles.
>Below is a brief synthesis of what was circulated:
>
>"A high-ranking official in the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
>in charge of Cuban dissidents’ petitions for political asylum, was charged by
>the U.S. justice today with spying for the Cuban government after being
>detained by the FBI." "The U.S. authorities have accused Mariano Faget of
>supplying national defense information to non-authorized persons and perjured
>evidence to government agents. "The first charge carries a sentence of up to
>10 years’ imprisonment, and the second, some five years more. ‘We expect to
>hold him in the Federal Detention Center, without right to bail,’ stated FBI
>special agent Carlos Saldívar. "Paul Mallet, regional director of the Federal
>Investigation Bureau, confirmed that Faget had been under investigation for
>almost one year, but refused to disclose the suspect’s motives for working in
>favor of the Communist government of Cuba, of which it was thought he was an
>enemy. "Faget, born in Cuba and a naturalized U.S. citizen, has a 34-year
>service record in the INS and, according to the authorities, ‘lent many
>services to the United States.’ "Faget was a ‘false-blue.’ That’s what we call
>those who betray the United States." "There didn’t seem to be any exchange of
>money during the one-year-plus investigation, according to Mallet, who
>abstained from commenting on the possible motives of the alleged spy, who was
>about to retire." "The Justice Department alleges that the suspect presented
>Cuba with reports on U.S. national defense." "Fagetwho emigrated in 1960is the
>son of Mariano Faget, who was director of the Bureau for the Repression of
>Communist Activities (BRAC) during Fulgencio Batista’s government in the ‘50s,
>according to El Nuevo Herald."
>
>As can be seen, what has been published to this point seems to insinuate the
>emergence of a new Karl Marx who, in the most altruistic form, is lending
>voluntary services free of charge to the Communist government of Cuba, and is
>none other than the son of a man who was for many years director in Cuba of
>the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities, and excellently trained
>by the FBI during the McCarthy era.
>
>But the story continues: "It was revealed that, on February 11, as part of a
>plan to set a trap, INS and FBI officials met with Faget to ask for his help
>with the desertion of a Cuban official, forewarning him that the information
>was secret.
>
>"Paul Mallet, the FBI special agent, explained that Faget called a New York
>entrepreneur on his cellular phone after the meeting in the Miami Hilton hotel
>had ended.
>
>El Nuevo Herald identified Peter Font as "New York’s man for Cuban-U.S., and
>the owner of Tellahassee, a Florida-registered company of which Faget was vice
>president and secretary.
>
>Immediately, as was to be expected, a February 18 cable noted: "The Cuban
>American National Foundation today called on the U.S. government to undertake
>a complete investigation into the role in the case of the shipwrecked child
>Elián González played by a senior immigration official accused of spying for
>the government of Cuba.
>
>"Lawyers representing Lázaro González, the great-uncle of Cuban child Elián
>González, asked U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to review the decision made
>by the Immigration and Naturalization Service allowing the boy’s return to
>Cuba, after the detention of a senior INS official accused of being a spy for
>the Cuban government."
>
>Where did that material come from and on the basis of what facts did the Miami
>FBI director concoct this ridiculous saga?
>
>We will explain it in a very succinct form.
>
>In view of the diverse needs and exigencies of its normal working functions,
>the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, and in particular the consul and
>two vice consuls, have contact every year with more than 100,000 citizens of
>Cuban origin living in the United States, many of whom annually visit our
>country on a Cuban or U.S. passport. They also maintain numerous contacts with
>political figures, academics, religious leaders, solidarity groups and an
>increasing number of businesspersons hoping for an end to the blockade and
>who, with the same or greater enthusiasm currently displayed by certain U.S.
>citizens for acquiring lots on the surface of the moon or Mars, talk about
>their ideas of investing in and doing business with Cuba in the future.
>
>Recruiting persons for espionage activities is inconceivable and has never
>been undertaken by officials at our Interests Section in Washington. Right at
>the opening of that office over 22 years ago under the Carter administration,
>the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Cuban
>intelligence and counterintelligence agencies received categorical
>instructions not to engage in intelligence work through that office, nor to
>utilize typical methods related to that activity in their relations with
>institutions, citizens and residents of that country. The president of the
>Cuban Council of State was directly responsible for strict compliance with
>that policy drawn up by himself.
>
>He invariably controlled even the appointments of those working in the
>section, many of whom had experience in that field, an essential factor for
>the delicate diplomatic and political task which they had to carry out in an
>area as hostile as Washington. Without a single exception, the established
>policy was fulfilled. We were absolutely sure that the United States would do
>exactly the opposite in its Interests Section and we wished in advance to
>preserve the maximum of ethics to confront such activities.
>
>For that reason, although we did not have the remotest doubt concerning the
>false nature of the accusations against our Interests Section, as soon as the
>unwonted news was known, the Cuban authorities made their own inquiries, both
>in our interests office and within the intelligence and counterintelligence
>agencies as to what was known about the INS official charged, if they knew the
>character or had had contact with him and, in that case, when and under what
>circumstances.
>
>Below are the results that, in a necessarily succinct form, we are stating
>with all the transparency that has characterized the activities of our
>Interests Section in that country.
>
>Completely by chance, in December 1998, as part of a intensive program of
>activities in the state of Connecticut, Fernando Remírez, head of our section,
>and vice consul Molina, met with a group of Cuban-American entrepreneurs and
>one of Colombian origin organized by wealthy entrepreneur Peter Font,
>president of the New York-based company Global Media Distribution Inc. As we
>have seen, this entrepreneur was mentioned in the news agency cables. Mr.
>Faget had been invited along with that group, and made no secret of his
>position as an INS official, to which neither of the Cuban diplomats conceded
>any importance; his character as an official was not at odds with his presence
>in a business-sector meeting.
>
>Being a businessman and an official is highly common in the United States. In
>February and May 1999, vice consul Molina met with Faget again in Miami, after
>calling him at his home. The meetings took place in the lobbies of the Hilton
>and Sofitel hotels in that city. For the first time Faget told Molina that he
>was the son of a notorious character called Mariano Faget, an important figure
>in Batista’s government.
>
>The three meetings between Cuban vice consuls and Faget in Miami took place
>publicly in the framework of visits to Florida, where they were seen with a
>large number of persons, on every occasion in an open and public form and at
>absolutely no moment in a covert way or within a conspiratorial framework. The
>vice consuls were not doing anything illegal and neither had they any idea
>that what Faget was doing constituted an indiscipline or something out of the
>ordinary in his functions. They never asked him for any confidential
>information about his agency, whose functions have nothing to do with the
>defense and security of the United States, but rather with the daily problems
>of immigration, and Cubans’ illegal entries and exits. More than 10,000 U.S.
>citizens travel to Cuba every month and return to that country. In virtue of
>the migratory agreements, no less than 20,000 Cubans receive residence visas
>in the United States every year.
>
>The topics discussed were all related to travel, migratory agreements,
>problems related to illegal entries or others of a similar nature. One vice
>consul recalls that Faget once commented that his office in Miami had
>instructions to act with care so as not to prejudice the migratory agreements.
>Furthermore: on one occasion, he stated in the form of a warning that the
>United States was fully prepared to confront any mass exodus of Cubans.
>Incidentally he touched on aspects of a personal nature like the
>above-mentioned one on his family origins. Another vice consul recalls that he
>once talked of his desire to visit Cuba, but was worried about his official
>status and would refer to the idea of retiring within a matter of months.
>
>


__________________________________

KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki - Finland
+358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kominf.pp.fi

___________________________________

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Subscribe/unsubscribe messages
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
___________________________________

Reply via email to