From: John Clancy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Radio Havana Cuba-19 January 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 19 January 2001
.
*A MILLION CUBANS MARCH TO PROTEST WASHINGTON'S CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT
*SOUTHERN CROSS BRIGADE DEMANDS END TO THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT
*JAPANESE PARLIAMENTARIANS MAKE A DONATION TO THE UNIVERSITY OF
HAVANA
*US STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS BEGIN EXCHANGE PROGRAM WITH CUBAN
STUDENTS
*CUBAN LEADER CONGRATULATES WORK OF OSPAAAL
*CUBA'S INTEGRAL EMERGENCY SYSTEM HAS SAVED MANY LIVES: HEALTH
MINISTER
*A CALM KINSHASA PREPARES FOR FUNERAL OF LAURENT KABILA
*NEW BOOK ON LATIN AMERICA'S "MACHIAVELLIAN LEADERS"
*Viewpoint: STRUGGLE CONTINUES AGAINST CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT
.
*A MILLION CUBANS MARCH TO PROTEST WASHINGTON'S CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT
Havana, January 19 (RHC) -- More than one million Cubans today
marched before the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to protest
Washington's Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants exclusive privileges
to illegal Cuban immigrants. Called by Cuba's Federation of
University Students, the Federation of High School Students and the
Jose Marti Pioneers Organization, demonstrators flocked en mass to
the capital city's Malecon seaside drive to express their indignation
over the death of another two Cuban youths while trying to illegally
reach the United States.
Fifteen year old Alberto Esteban Vazquez and 16 year old Maikel
Fonseca died in the landing gear of an airplane after responding to
an incitement by family members of one of the deceased who reside in
the U.S. Cuban President Fidel Castro, who personally led the protest
march, said that Cubans are the only people in the world encouraged
to travel to the U.S. by any means necessary.
Protesters also denounced the increasing trafficking of illegal
Cuban immigrants picked up by speed boats leaving Florida. This type
of contraband has become a lucrative and dangerous business operation
in which an undetermined number of Cubans have perished as a result
of overloaded boats that capsize.
The Cuban Adjustment Act has also led some Cubans to engage in acts
of piracy, using violence, in which innocent people have been
killed. Perpetrators of this type of illegal activity also obtain
privileged refuge in the United States.
*SOUTHERN CROSS BRIGADE DEMANDS END TO THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT
Havana, January 19 (RHC)-The South Cross Solidarity Brigade made up
of over 50 people from Australia and New Zealand, participated in the
rally Friday morning passing in front of the US Interests Section
alongside Havana's Malecón Seaside drive. They were among the more
than one million protesters demanding a repeal of the Cuban
Adjustment Act which stimulates illegal and dangerous departures from
the island.
In a declaration issued on Friday in Havana the Southern Cross
Brigade condemned the Cuban Adjustment Act which has inflicted death
upon countless Cubans.
As an independent group, says the declaration, we share the
frustration and pain of the Cuban people for the loss of young lives
provoked by an unjust and illegal law. It adds that the law as well
as Washington's blockade against the island is a violation of basic
human rights.
*JAPANESE PARLIAMENTARIANS MAKE A DONATION TO THE UNIVERSITY OF
HAVANA
Havana, January 19 (RHC)-The Japanese parliamentary delegation
currently visiting the island have donated language laboratory
equipment to the College of Languages of the University of Havana.
During their stay in Cuba, the Japanese legislators met with Cuban
Vice President Carlos Lage, the President of the island's Parliament,
Ricardo Alarcon and other deputies.
In statements to the press, the Japanese delegation expressed the
need to increase bilateral relations and stressed that this visit
represents an important step towards improving those ties.
*US STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS BEGIN EXCHANGE PROGRAM WITH CUBAN
STUDENTS
Havana, January 19 (RHC)-Close to 800 US students and professors
began an intense exchange program on Thursday in Havana visiting
places of educational, economic, cultural and historic interest.
The US group arrived on Wednesday in Havana on board a cruise ship as
part of a University of Pittsburgh project called Semester at Sea.
With this project, the US students and professors obtain a first hand
look at different countries. In their first contact with Cuban
students they received broad information on the advances and
perspectives of the island's higher education system.
*CUBAN LEADER CONGRATULATES WORK OF OSPAAAL
Havana, January 19 (RHC)-Anti-imperialist unity continues to be an
important strategy for the exploited countries in the world, said
Cuban President Fidel Castro in a letter sent to the Organization in
Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America,
OSPAAAL on the occasion of its 35th anniversary.
In the document the Cuban leader recalled that 35 years ago
revolutionary leaders from the Third World met in Havana in the
historical Tricontinental Conference where they unanimously agreed to
create OSPAAAL.
In the face of the inevitable internationalization of the free
market, the Cuban leader concluded, we are forced to globalize
solidarity in the struggle against imperialism.
Meanwhile, the main activity celebrating the 35th anniversary of
OSPAAAL was held on Thursday in Havana with the participation of
delegates from three continents.
The solemn ceremony was held at the Habana Libre Hotel where
renowned figures received the Mehdi Ben Barka solidarity order.
Delegations from 12 Third World countries will also participate in a
special meeting of OSPAAAL's Executive Secretariat.
*CUBA'S INTEGRAL EMERGENCY SYSTEM HAS SAVED MANY LIVES: HEALTH
MINISTER
Havana, January 19 (RHC)-Cuba's Health Minister, Carlos Dotres said
on Thursday in Havana that up to 50 per cent of the heart attack
patients have survived through the island's Integral Emergency
System.
The Cuban health official outlined the work of some 2,185 health
workers offering their services free of charge in other countries, as
part of the integral health program created by Cuban President Fidel
Castro.
*A CALM KINSHASA PREPARES FOR FUNERAL OF LAURENT KABILA
Havana, Januaary 19,2001(RHC)--The Democratic Republic of Congo is
preparing funeral ceremonies for the late President Laurent Kabila,
following Thursday evening's official confirmation of his death.
Government representatives in Kinshasa, the capital, announced that
Kabila had died in a hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe -- where he was
taken after apparently being shot by one of his bodyguards in the
presidential palace.
The motive behind the assassination remains unclear, though in media
outlets it's rumored that Uganda is implicated. Uganda and Rwanda are
supporting rebel factions that have taken control of half of the
Congo's vast territory in a war that has been raging for two and a
half years.
Kabila's son, Joseph Kabila, is to be officially sworn in as
president sometime in the near future -- as indicated in a will left
by his late father. To the astonishment of observers, Kinshasa is
calm and the Congolese army seems to have accepted the leadership of
Kabila's son -- who was already chief army commander. Kabila's body
will be taken to his home town, Lubumbashi, for a funeral service on
Saturday, and will be buried Tuesday in Kinshasa.
Meanwhile, though there is calm in the Congolese capital, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has announced preparations to
receive more displaced persons in neighboring Uganda, Tanzania and
Zambia. The UN agency stated that it has detected several movements
of population amid an intensification of inter-ethnic clashes and
battles between government forces and the rebels of the organization
the Congolese Democracy Movement.
Uganda is already home to eight thousand Congolese refugees, while
Zambia has 38,000 and Tanzania 110,000. Tens of thousands of
Congolese have died in the two and half year civil war, while some
two million have been displaced.
*NEW BOOK ON LATIN AMERICA'S "MACHIAVELLIAN LEADERS"
Havana, January 19, 2001(RHC)--Argentinean writer Federico Andahazi
has asserted that current and former political leaders in Latin
America are far more Machiavellian that Machiavelli himself could
have imagined. Referring to the Machiavellian theory that any means -
however unscrupulous, immoral or cunning - can justifiably be used to
achieve and maintain political power, Andahazi presented his new book
Friday in Spain, entitled "The Prince" - the same title as
Machiavelli's classic.
Inspired by the magic realism of famed Colombian writer Gabriel
Garcia Marquez, Andahazi said his book is about the excesses of
political power in Latin America and the political manipulation of
the will of the people. He took as example the former Argentinean
administration of Carlos Menem, who, he said, left his country
devastated.
The Argentinean writer said that following the military dictatorship
of 1976 to 1983, there was an illusion of democracy that only became
a short-lived party. He said Latin American countries find themselves
in a terrible situation that is increasingly worsening, expressing
his agreement with Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti, who called the
region's political reality "the globalization of hypocrisy".
Andahazi termed as inconceivable the fact that in the dawn of the
21st century people in some regions of Latin America are dying of
hunger. He called this reality a Kafkaesque nightmare, in which the
voice of the people has no form, but is converted into a voice of
complicity by the region's political leaders.
*Viewpoint: STRUGGLE CONTINUES AGAINST CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT
Cuba, a tiny Caribbean nation, is the only country in the world that
has been subjected for more than 40 years to a systematic policy of
aggression by the greatest economic and military power in history.
Ten successive U.S. governments have attempted to topple the Cuban
Revolution; a revolution that was won and is being maintained at
great sacrifice by the Cuban people themselves.
Over the years Cuba has become an international power in ideals
and political ethics. Its principal weapons are the just ideas and
principals that must prevail in a humane society. Many countries,
institutions and individuals have supported Cuba in its struggle to
build a just society, including even those who do not share the
island's political ideas.
It was a battle of ideas that won the return to the island of
the six-year-old boy who was kidnapped in November of l999 by right-
wing Cuban-American sectors in Miami to be used as a political
hostage against Cuba. The story of Elián González is well known. To
win his return, Cubans launched a program of national struggle
against the repressive measures imposed upon them by the United
States - measures which are aimed at destroying the Revolution. Among
these measures is the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act, which was
passed in l966 with the aim of attracting illegal Cuban emigration to
the United States as a form of negative propaganda.
Washington grants privileges to illegal Cuban immigrants, which it
gives to no other group of immigrants. Under the Cuban Adjustment
Act, undocumented Cubans are guaranteed permanent residency in the
United States, free schooling, medical care, jobs, home loans and
other benefits. Many Cubans - most of them motivated by economic or
family concerns - are thus tempted to try to make the dangerous
crossing over the Florida Straits, an adventure during which many
have lost their lives.
This is why the Cuban people call the notorious legislation, the
"killer law". Among the most recent tragedies is the case of two
teenage Cuban boys who tried to illegally emigrate to the United
States hidden in the landing gear of a British airliner, which they
thought was going to the U.S.A. Both died horrible deaths due to lack
of oxygen and the freezing temperatures of high altitudes. Their
bodies fell from the plane in England, as the airliner was preparing
to land.
This tragedy has caused much pain and indignation in Cuba, where on
Friday more than one million Cubans gathered in front of the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana to express their anger - just as they did
many times before in their battle to gain the release of Elián
Gonzalez, whose mother was yet another victim of the Cuban Adjustment
Act.
The entire island is once again demanding that this inhuman law
against Cuba be repealed once and for all before more young lives are
lost.
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
=================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=================================================== JC
Post comments to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send an email to subscribe:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from this CubaNews group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
