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subject: Radio Havana Feb 14. CIA renews cold war on Cuba
Radio Havana Cuba-14 February 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 14 February 2001
.
*CUBAN PRESIDENT OPENS NEW ANTI-DOPING CENTER
*FRENCH AND ARGENTINEANS LARGEST NUMBER TO VISIT CHE MEMORIAL
*CUBAN EXPERTS SEEK RARE BIRD ON THE ISLAND
*LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN'S SEMINAR TO TAKE PLACE IN HAVANA
*COLOMBIAN PEACE TALKS RESUME AFTER THREE-MONTH SUSPENSION
*VIOLENCE INTENSIFIES IN OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
*DEATH TOLL CONTINES TO RISE AFTER SECOND SALVADOR EARTHQUAKE
Viewpoint:
*CIA RENEWS COLD WAR TACTICS AGAINST CUBA WITH ACCUSATION OF CYBER
ATTACK
.
*CUBAN PRESIDENT OPENS NEW ANTI-DOPING CENTER
Havana, February 14 (RHC)-- Following what most informed observers
qualified as an injustice perpetrated on Cuba in the 1999 Pan-
American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, Cuban President Fidel Castro
pledged to open the island's own anti-doping laboratory to combat the
politically motivated tests carried out on Cuban athletes. On
Tuesday, the completed laboratory was opened in Havana by the Cuban
leader.
Built at the cost of $2.6 million, Cuba's first anti-doping
laboratory will take some 18 months to be accredited by the
International Olympic Committee -- in time for the 2002 Pan-American
Games in the Dominican Republic. In his speech given at the
inauguration, Fidel Castro recounted the battle that Cuba joined over
the positive testing for banned substances of the
island's internationally-known high-jumper Javier Sotomayor and three
Cuban weight-lifters. Firmly supporting its athletes, Cuba had repeat
tests done anonymously in an independent laboratory in Spain which
returned them negative.
The lab will carry out tests at costs ranging from $16 to $21 -- far
below the $150 that Cuba is currently being billed by outside anti-
doping labs. The savings will thus be considerable, said the Cuban
president, who offered the lab for the use of nations taking part in
international games. The laboratory will pay for itself within eight
years and will grant special pricing to poor countries - sometimes
providing testing services for free.
Fidel Castro took the occasion to announce the construction of a
special clinic for athletes which is expected to be finished in 2003
and which will also be available for use by other nations.
*FRENCH AND ARGENTINEANS LARGEST NUMBER TO VISIT CHE MEMORIAL
Santa Clara, February 14 (RHC)-- Visitors to Cuba from France and
Argentina are those that visit the memorial dedicated to Che Guevara
the most, according to its director, Mercedes Piñon. The memorial,
along with a museum dedicated to the Argentinean-born doctor who was
one of the leaders of the island's Revolution before his death in
1967, is situated in the central city of Santa Clara.
Since the remains of Che Guevara were discovered in Bolivia and
brought back for interment in Santa Clara in 1997, almost 700,000
people have visited the memorial of whom 205,000 were foreigners.
The site was chosen because Santa Clara was pivotal in turning the
tide against the Batista regime after a government troop train was
derailed there by a column under the command of Che Guevara.
Thereafter the victory of the Revolution was only a matter of time.
The museum contains many letters, juvenilia, photographs and personal
items of the Argentine revolutionary. He is buried along with the
remains of most of his companions who fell with him in the Bolivian
campaign. Some of the niches designed to hold the remains of others
have yet to be filled, with Cuban and Bolivian researchers still
seeking them in the Bolivian jungle.
*CUBAN EXPERTS SEEK RARE BIRD ON THE ISLAND
Havana, February 14 (RHC)-- A group of Cuban scientists have begun a
search for the island's Royal Carpenter which is one of Cuba's rarest
birds.
The search will take place in the Carpenter's habitat in the eastern
Sierra Maestra Mountains in the hope of spying the bird which has not
been seen for a number of years and which experts fear may already be
extinct.
The team is led by Gabriel Brull from the Cuban Institution for
the Preservation of Flora and Fauna. Brull explained that they will
not only be seeking the Royal Carpenter but also checking its food
source to determine why it may already be extinct. They do not hold
much hope of discovering the bird.
The Royal Carpenter was similar with species in both the United
States and Mexico, both of which report the bird extinct.
*LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN'S SEMINAR TO TAKE PLACE IN HAVANA
Havana, February 14 (RHC)-- The Eighth Seminar on Latin American &
Caribbean Women will begin next week at the Casa de las Americas in
Havana. The inaugural session on the 19th February will honor the
memory of legendary writer Renee Mendez Capote who was born 100 years
ago.
Eleven countries - including the United States - will be represented
with some 50 themes debated, ranging from myths associated with
feminism to the process of rethinking the future of women in the
region.
Participation from the region is usually high due to the fact that
this forum is one of the few in the region dedicated to a
concentrated focus on women's issues. Writers, artists, film-makers,
intellectuals and poets will all be present.
*COLOMBIAN PEACE TALKS RESUME AFTER THREE-MONTH SUSPENSION
Bogotá, February 14 (RHC)-- Government and rebel negotiators in
Colombia have renewed peace talks following a three-month suspension.
Top on the agenda is a 13-point accord reached last week in a face-
to-face gathering of President Andres Pastrana and rebel leader
Manuel Marulanda.
It includes the setting up of three commissions comprised of local
political personalities. One commission will be charged with drawing
up suggestions on how the government can improve its fight against
right-wing paramilitary death squads.
The Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces unilaterally suspended the
peace process in mid-November after accusing authorities of being too
complacent with the paramilitaries. A second commission will suggest
mechanisms to avoid another suspension in the peace process, while a
third will periodically travel to demilitarized territory to insure
that the rebels are not using this zone for anything other than the
peace process.
The two sides will eventually also discuss a cease-fire, though this
issue is considered the most complex. In the past the guerrilla
organization has asserted that a cease-fire can come only when the
Colombian government ceases its economic and social aggression
against the Colombian people.
Shortly before talks began, government negotiators expressed
optimism, while at the same time warning that Colombians should not
expect immediate results -- particularly regarding a cease-fire.
In other Colombia news, human rights activists and legal experts
have criticized what they call the partial and limited prison
sentence for a Colombian army general convicted of collusion with
right-wing paramilitaries. In a first conviction ever of a high-
ranking member of the Colombian military, General Jaime Uscategui
Monday was sentenced by a military court to three years and four
months in prison for not having intervened in the 1997 Mapiripan
Massacre in which some 30 people were butchered and an undetermined
number disappeared by death squads.
The non-governmental Colombian Commission of Jurists said the
sentence constitutes a refusal to investigate the close ties of
Uscategui and his subordinates with paramilitaries who carried out
one of the most horrendous massacres in the country's history. In
July of 1997, nearly 200 paramilitaries arrived in Mapiripan, where
during more than days,days they butchered campesinos suspected of
collaborating with leftist guerrillas, beheading and incinerating the
bodies of their victims.
Colombian army Colonel Hernan Orozco, who was sentenced to three
years and two months in the same case, testified that Uscategui
ordered him to modify a message from local judicial authorities
warning of the pending massacre. The organization Human Rights Watch
said the prison sentences represent a little more than one month for
each victim, recalling that President Andres Pastrana had promised
that human rights cases would not be tried in military courts.
*VIOLENCE INTENSIFIES IN OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
Tel Aviv, February 14 (RHC)-- Violence has intensified in
occupied Palestinian territories following the election of ultra-
right wing leader Ariel Sharon as Israel's new Prime Minister. On
Wednesday, Israel implementeda total air, sea and land blockade of
Gaza and the West Bank following an attack that claimed the lives of
eight Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Israeli military authorities also stated that Palestinian leaders
will no longer be allowed to freely circulate. Palestinian
authorities, meanwhile, have accused Israeli occupation forces of
using nerve gas against the civilian population. And thousands of
Palestinians participated in the funeral services for an official of
Yasser Arafat's security team who was selectively assassinated on
Tuesday. The official is one of nearly 20 Palestinian leaders
targeted and ambushed by Israeli assassination teams.
*DEATH TOLL CONTINES TO RISE AFTER SECOND SALVADOR EARTHQUAKE
San Salvador, February 14 (RHC)-- The death toll in El Salvador's
second devastating earthquake has risen to 274 and is expected to
continue rising. More than 2200 people were injured and some 80,000
were left homeless -- joining the one million 100,000 left homeless
last month and constituting almost one-fifth of the Salvadoran
population.
Numerous communities in at least five of the country's 14 departments
are isolated, with no phone service and no way to reach those
communities by land. Landslides and huge cracks in roads and highways
cover virtually the entire country.
Having barely overcome the trauma of the previous tremor, panic has
spread -- and more than 150 aftershocks have been felt between since
yesterday's major quake. Hundreds of homes, schools, churches and
public hospitals were converted into debris, including elementary
schools that came crashing down on children and their teachers in the
middle of classes.
.
Viewpoint:
*CIA RENEWS COLD WAR TACTICS AGAINST CUBA WITH ACCUSATION OF CYBER
ATTACK
A few days ago, we commented about the declarations made by CIA
boss Admiral Thomas Wilson concerning his fears that Cuba could
launch a so-called cyber attack against the U.S. In years past,
Washington engendered fears about Cuba as a military threat, but that
sounds so ludicrous today that they have changed tactics and are
trying to portray Cuba as an electronic menace that could cause
serious problems to the U.S.'s military apparatus.
This is what Admiral Wilson is saying. Surely no sensible person
could think that Cuba, a small country which has been criminally
blockaded for more than forty years by the very power that has
developed the most sophisticated technology -- the most powerful
cybernetic force in the world -- can be a serious danger in this
area. In fact, they are the ones who can, and do, try to send viruses
into our computer systems, which could destroy the few computer
networks that Cuba has.
However, Admiral Wilson's declarations have been quickly taken up by
the press, which has begun to speak of Washington's serious concern
about such a probability. They are already referring to the so-called
"Cuban information terrorism" in the same fantastical language as the
old space comics.
But we need to look behind these outrageous accusations, which come
in an atmosphere of a renewed offensive against Cuba. It is part of
the propaganda to justify a foreign policy based on a renewed Cold
War attitude toward Cuba.
When the former Soviet Union existed, they tried to say that Cuba was
a Soviet satellite and they invented the most incredible lies to
justify their belief that Cuba could be turned into an aggressive
base against the United States. But CIA intelligence (now there's an
oxymoron if there ever was one) was not capable of uncovering
anything and, in fact, they secretly acknowledged that the Soviet
Union never had any intention to use Cuba to launch a Third World War
However, we cannot take this lightly. And although the accusations
of Admiral Wilson and his CIA bosses may sound ludicrous, they could
be the preamble to new aggressive measures, whether they are
cybernetic or not.
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
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rhc-eng-3825 2001-Feb-15 09:26:39 " JC
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