RHC Weekend-01 April 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba Weekend - News Update - 01 April 2001
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*FIDEL CASTRO ADDRESSES RALLY OF 200,000 IN HAVANA
*RICARDO ALARCON ON NOMINATION OF OTTO REICH TO INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS POST
*PRESIDENT OF INTER-PARLAMENTARY UNION PRAISES CUBAN ADVANCES
*SOUTH AFRICA AND CUBA SIGN COOPERATIVE HEALTH PROTOCOL
*PRESIDENT JIANG ZEMIN'S VISIT WILL STRENGTHEN CHINESE-CUBAN RELATIONS
*OLD HAVANA'S HABAGUANEX COMPANY EXPECTS INCREASED GROWTH IN 2001
*Viewpoint: ARGENTINES NOT PREPARED TO FORGET THE PAST
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*FIDEL CASTRO ADDRESSES RALLY OF 200,000 IN HAVANA
Habana, March 31 (RHC)--Cuba's president, Fidel Castro, on Saturday spoke to
some 200,000 Cubans who gathered in the capital's neighborhood of Playa at a
rally to call for the elimination of the U.S.'s Cuban Adjustment Act and its
economic blockade against the island.
The Cuban leader said that it was a great privilege for him to have declared
the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution in April of l961, just
before the attack at the Bay of Pigs, or Playa Giron, which was aimed at
installing a foreign government on the island to open the way to a bloody
intervention.
President Castro stressed that the Cuban people will never give up their
struggle to end exploitation through their socialist system, which is the
only way to create a just and humane society. He recalled that the Cuban
people shed their blood for that just cause in Playa Giron, as well as
fighting against colonialism and apartheid in Africa.
During his speech on Saturday in Havana, President Castro noted that 15
months ago, mass rallies were begun in Havana against the kidnapping in
Miami of little Elian Gonzalez which, he said, was a spark lighting a battle
of ideas which will not end until there is no more blockade, or economic war
waged against Cuba, and no brutal anti-Cuba legislation like the Torricelli
and Helms-Burton laws and the Cuban Adjustment Act and until there is an end
to constant U.S. aggressions against the island.
"These are the enslaved people" Fidel Castro ironically remarked, indicating
the thousands attending the rally "whose human rights are being questioned
in Geneva by the United States." He mentioned that the campaign against Cuba
in the U.N. Human Rights Commission is being launched with more fervor than
ever after what he termed the "fraudulent" U.S. elections and the
"scandalous theft of the presidency which brought to power the current
president, George W. Bush."
The Cuban leader also made reference to Bush's decision to pull the United
States out of the Kyoto Protocol for the elimination of toxic gases, noting
that the U.S. consumes 75% of the world's energy.
Castro said that unilateral decision, preceded by others including some
making a new arms race inevitable, comes at a most inopportune moment, at
the beginning of a new century, the most difficult and crucial for
humankind.
*RICARDO ALARCON ON NOMINATION OF OTTO REICH TO INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS POST
Havana, March 31 (RHC)--The President of Cuba's Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon
said on Friday in Havana that the naming of Otto Reich as the Under
Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs indicates that Washington's
anti-Cuba policy will be tightened even further.
Alarcon added that Otto Reich is not only a member of the ultra-rightwing
mafia in Miami but also was involved in the illegal Iran-Contra operation.
The Cuban official told journalists in Havana that U.S. President George W.
Bush's selection of Otto Reich shows a lack of respect for Latin America.
Alarcon said that President Bush's nomination of Otto Reich as Under
Secretary for Inter-American Affairs is an insult, while he purports to look
for the region's integration at the Summit of the Americas.
*PRESIDENT OF INTER-PARLAMENTARY UNION PRAISES CUBAN ADVANCES
Havana, March 31 (RHC)--The president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,
Najma Aknarali Jeptula, said in Havana on Friday that she has no doubts
about Cuba's democratic system and mentioned the island's social and
economic achievements. In the Cuban capital for the 105th
Inter-Parliamentary Union Meeting, Jeptula said that participants can learn
much from Cuba's advances in education and culture.
Speaking at a press conference prior to the opening of the meeting on
Sunday, the IPU president said that the main topics up for discussion are
education, culture and guarantees for the observance of the principles of
international law. More than 1,400 delegates from some 120 parliaments
worldwide are participating in the event. Another topic up for analysis will
be parliamentary contributions to the fight against terrorism, a topic
raised by Cuba.
Meanwhile, the president of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon
said that it is an honor for Cuba to host the meeting. He explained that
this is the second time the island has been the site of an
Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in the last 20 years.
"Let us hope," said Alarcon, "that the meeting will allow participants to
examine. in a respectful way, a wide range of problems affecting humanity."
He added that the Havana meeting will bring together parliamentarians from
all over the world representing a wide range of political ideas and parties.
*SOUTH AFRICA AND CUBA SIGN COOPERATIVE HEALTH PROTOCOL
Havana, March 31 (RHC)--In compliance with recent bilateral agreements
signed by the presidents of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, and Cuba, Fidel
Castro, a cooperation protocol in the field of health was signed in Petroria
on Friday.
The accord, ratified by South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala and
her Cuban countepart Carlos Dotres, provides for the training of medidcal
students and the upgrading of South African specialists in Cuba. The
document also stipulates the exchange of doctors and medical researchers, as
well as the transfer of technology in the fields of biotechnology, vaccines
and pharmaceutical development.
The cooperation protocol was signed within the framework of the 24th meeting
of Health Ministers from the Non-Aligned Countries held in South Africa this
week. Delegates signed a declaration of support for Third World nations in
their fight against pharmaceutical transnationals.
*PRESIDENT JIANG ZEMIN'S VISIT WILL STRENGTHEN CHINESE-CUBAN RELATIONS
Havana, March 31 (RHC)--Cuba's ambassador to Beijing, Alberto Rodriguez,
says that the visit of Chinese president Jiang Zemin to the island in April
will strengthen bilateral ties.
The Chinese president will visit Cuba April 12th to the 15th as part of a
Latin American tour that will also take him to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay,
Brazil and Venezuela. The visit, President Jiang Zemin's second to the
island since 1993, is in response to an invitation from his Cuban
counterpart Fidel Castro, who visited China in 1995.
Several cooperation protocols in education, sports and economic issues, are
expected to be signed during the Chinese leader's visit to Havana.
*OLD HAVANA'S HABAGUANEX COMPANY EXPECTS INCREASED GROWTH IN 2001
Havana, March 31 (RHC)--Old Havana's Habaguanex S.A company expects to end
the year with 400 hotel rooms in operation in its 13 hotels.
Founded in 1994, Habaguanex SA aims at increasing tourism potential of
Havana's colonial district. The company's revenues for 2001 should amount to
66 million dollars, 15% of which will be allocated to boosting tourist
facilities in the area, along with restoration efforts and improving the
living conditions of Old Havana residents.
The four-star 63-room Telegrafo Hotel, the 55-room Park View Hotel and the
O'Farril Palace Santander with 38 rooms, are among the projects expected to
be completed before year's end.
*Viewpoint: ARGENTINES NOT PREPARED TO FORGET THE PAST
In the last few days, the Argentineas have shown the world that they are not
prepared to forget the past.
Immersed in the turbulence of a deep-rooted crisis, they have not forgotten
to examine the past because to forget distorts the truth. Truth and memory
is one side of the coin; injustice is the other, to quote one of their more
lucid intellectuals.
And so, this March 24th the Argentine people arose in their thousands to say
NO to an imposed amnesia about the terrible events of 1976, when the
military crushed the people and for the following eight years crushed their
liberty with a horrendous efficiency. Applying the torturous tricks learned
at the U.S. School of the Americas, the National Guard declared a dirty war
on its own people. In the name of western civilization and Christianity,
they imposed the terrorism of the state on any its citizens who thought
differently about their imposed regime.
This national "purification" resulted in the disappearance of 30,000 people;
it elevated to an extreme the art of torture, and forced the exile of
thousands of Argentines.
In the name of national security and to close off the wounds of the past,
the dictatorship governments that followed approved laws of amnesty against
the perpetrators of these terrible acts.
As always the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were in the front line of the
struggle against the forgotten, because amnesia doesn't cure the heartbreak
which is always left by the emptiness of a child who will never return.
In the middle of uncertainty about a future that seems headed for the
continuation of neoliberal policies, the collective recollection of this
March has opened a road to optimism.
As Mempo Giardinelli says, "We are not in such a bad world if we exercise
our memory. In order to perfect democracy, we must weigh up its policies and
defects. We need to record that the so-called saviors of our country, who
came to power through a military coup, were the masters of corruption and
that corruption has gone unpunished. And we must continue to insist on
memory, justice and truth."
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
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