[Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . ----- Original Message ----- From: Walter Lippmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Change Links <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; CubaNews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 8:57 PM Subject: [CubaNews] Castro Mocks Americas' Trade Plan Tuesday May 1 3:28 PM ET Castro Mocks Americas' Trade Plan By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro led hundreds of thousands of Cuban workers in a noisy May Day march outside the U.S. mission Tuesday and lambasted a hemisphere-wide trade agreement he said would bring Latin America more Disneylands but impoverish its people. ``No to annexation! Yes to plebiscite!'' the marchers chanted as the 74-year-old Cuban president, wearing an olive drab uniform and white athletic shoes, trekked almost two miles from Havana's Plaza of the Revolution to the American government's mission. Castro has condemned the hemispheric free trade zone as a U.S. ``annexation'' of Latin America and proposed that the region's population be able to vote in a plebiscite on whether to join. Castro was the region's only head of state not invited to a Quebec summit last month that agreed to create the zone by 2005. Castro railed against the plan as he addressed the mass of flag-waving Cubans in the plaza before the march began. Under the plan, he said, the United States will grow richer and control commerce and culture across the hemisphere, while Latin American nations will grow poorer, relegated to providing raw materials and cheap labor. ``How marvelous! Surely two or three Disneylands will be built in Central and South America!'' Castro said. ``Commerce will pass into North American hands, from the great commercial chains to pizza sales and McDonald's.'' Castro also mocked the leaders of several countries that voted last month to censure Cuba for its human rights record. To the beat of Caribbean carnival music, Castro introduced the masses to a group of ``pygmy presidents'' - seven life-sized carnival style puppets with satirical heads fashioned to look like President Bush and the heads of state of Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Czech Republic. A Czech proposal to condemn Cuba, supported by the United States, was narrowly approved by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva on April 18. The final vote was 22-20 in favor, with another 10 nations abstaining. Castro was angered by the censure and galled at the participation of fellow Latin American nations. The Cuban president seemed almost as equally irritated with the Americas' free trade proposal, which he said ``would mean more neoliberalism, less protection for industry and national interests, and more unemployment and social problems.'' Under such a plan, national currencies would disappear to be replaced by the dollar, and all monetary policy across the region would be dictated by the U.S. Federal Reserve, he said. This was the second year in a row that Castro participated in the May Day march, rather than silently watch from a reviewing stand as workers march, as he did in the past. Castro deviated from traditional May Day celebrations last year, during Cuba's fight for the return of the castaway boy Elian Gonzalez. The celebrations last May Day ended in a call to Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who was then in the United States to retrieve his son. At this year's festivities, the elder Gonzalez stood at Castro's right. Elian and his father returned to Cuba on June 28, 2000, but the massive political gatherings that began during the fight for the boy have continued, with participants protesting U.S. policies toward the island.
