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Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 23:33:26 -0400 (EDT)
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Subject: [CubaNews] NY Transfer's RHC News Update-08 June 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 08 June 2001
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*RICARDO ALARCON MEETS WITH US-CUBA BUSINESS SUMMIT PARTICIPANTS
*CUBA SIGNS CULTURAL AGREEMENTS WITH CONGO AND SAINT LUCIA
*PHARMACOPEIA OF MEDICINAL PLANTS COMPILED IN THE CUBAN MOUNTAINS
*U.S. ECONOMIST SAYS DESPITE US EFFORTS, THE CUBAN SOCIALIST MODEL SURVIVES
*GUATEMALAN ACTIVISTS CELEBRATE CONVICTIONS IN GERARDI MURDER CASE
*DE LA RUA FACES 5th GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST HIS ECONOMIC POLICIES
Viewpoint:
*BUSH'S BLOATED MILITARY BUDGET
.
*RICARDO ALARCON MEETS WITH US-CUBA BUSINESS SUMMIT PARTICIPANTS
Havana, June 8 (RHC)--Cuban Parliament president Ricardo Alarcon today met
with participants in Havana's 5th U.S.-Cuba Business Summit. Alarcon used
the opportunity to explain to nearly 50 U.S. business executives
participating the exact nature of Washington's economic blockade against
Cuba.
He said Cuba calls it a blockade, and not an embargo, because the U.S.
government doesn't merely refrain from trading with Cuba, but pursues others
worldwide who do or wish to. The Cuban Parliament president also took the
opportunity to clearly establish the fact that there has been no flexibility
in the blockade, despite media reports indicating the contrary when a
measure to allow the sale of food and medicine to Cuba was approved, but
with restrictions that didn't change a thing.
Alarcon said that, since restrictions against other countries have been
lifted and and U.S. congressional approval of a measure that does not allow
the White House to impose unilateral sanctions, Cuba is the only country in
the world subjected to such measures.
*CUBA SIGNS CULTURAL AGREEMENTS WITH CONGO AND SAINT LUCIA
Havana, June 8 (RHC)--In the framework of the Second International Congress
of Culture and Development, Cuba has signed several cooperation agreements
in the field of arts with the Republic of Congo and the island of Saint
Lucia in order to promote the national heritage of both countries.
The first of these agreements, signed by Congo's Minister of Culture, Mambou
Aimee Gnalli and her Cuban counterpart, Abel Prieto, opens new opportunities
in the development of the teaching of the arts. The agreement also provides
for the promotion of traditional arts and an artistic presence in festivals
and events carried out in both countries.
According to Prieto, the promotion of traditional arts is very important for
the people of the Caribbean, who employ contemporary versions of their
African culture and whose roots are closely linked to the region's cultural
identity.
Aimee Gnalli expressed her satisfaction for having the opportunity to
participate in the Congress and agreed with Abel Prieto's words defending
cultural diversity and bilateral exchange between the two nations.
The Cuban culture minister also stressed that there must be strong
communication ties between Cuba and the Caribbean island neighbor of Saint
Lucia.
Saint Lucia's Minister of Culture, Damian Greaves, expressed his confidence
in the project with Cuba to develop training programs in the arts. Both
Caribbean nations have played an important role in defense of their cultural
identities in the face of the dangers of globalization and neoliberalism.
*PHARMACOPEIA OF MEDICINAL PLANTS COMPILED IN THE CUBAN MOUNTAINS
Havana, June 8 (RHC)--Research carried out in the eastern province of
Guantanamo to compile a pharmacopeia of indigenous plants with medicinal
properties useful for family doctors working in the Cuban mountains. The
compendium includes plant species with therapeutic or chemical properties
that are often time-honored traditional medicines used by the local
communities. The compendium lists the main agricultural and technical
components of 75 types of medicinal plants.
It also includes some 20 species with curative properties, and a warning
that their existence is dramatically decreasing in the Nipe-Sagua Baracoa
Mountains -- considered to be the region with the most plentiful and diverse
flora on the island. Jesus Martin Perez, director of the Center of Mountain
Development in the Guantanamo municipality of El Salvador, said that
specialists from his institution have developed some biotechnology research
projects to help protect and reproduce the most threatened species.
*U.S. ECONOMIST SAYS DESPITE US EFFORTS, THE CUBAN SOCIALIST MODEL SURVIVES
Havana, June 8 (RHC)--Washington's policies toward Cuba have not worked and
should change, announced Philip Peters, the Vice President of the Lexington
Institute, during the Fifth Business Summit here in Havana.
Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to lift food and medicine
restrictions, he said, adding that these movements reflect not only a change
in feelings toward Cuba but also a rejection of the traditional Washington
hostile stand toward Cuba. Peters, a U.S. economist who studies the Cuban
economy, was an invited speaker at the summit.
Peters says that the Cuban economy is still very much a socialist one, in
spite of the dramatic changes that have occurred in the past decade since
Havana opened the island up to tourism and investment. And, he said, he sees
no reason to believe that the socialist model will not survive in Cuba.
*GUATEMALAN ACTIVISTS CELEBRATE CONVICTIONS IN GERARDI MURDER CASE
Guatemala City, June 8 (RHC)--Human rights activists in Guatemala are
celebrating the prison sentences handed down to three members of the
military convicted for the assassination of Catholic Bishop and human rights
activist Juan Gerardi.
Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, his son, Captain Byron Lima Oliva, and Sargeant
Jose Obdulio Villanueva were sentenced to 30 years in prison. Catholic
priest Mario Orantes was sentenced to 20 years as an accomplice, while
Gerardi's domestic employee, Margarita Lopez, was acquitted.
Several hundred human rights activists and members of the clergy present in
the courtroom on Friday when the sentences were announced cheered and wept
with joy, including renowned Guatemalan activist Helen Mack, who said a part
of the wall of impunity had been torn down.
The court determined that Gerardi's murder was of a political nature, noting
that according to eyewitness testimony Guatemalan military intelligence had
been watching and following the Catholic Bishop. The court also ordered the
district attorney's office to continue investigating other members of the
military who may have been involved in some fashion.
Bishop Gerardi was murdered in front of his parish residence in April 1998,
just two days after he presented the Catholic Church's report on human
rights abuse during Guatemala's 36-year civil war. The report blamed the
Guatemalan military and security forces of the overwhelming majority of the
55,000 cases that were studied.
The testimony of Ruben Chanax Sontay, a homeless man who slept on the porch
of the parish residence, was key in the conviction. Chanax Sontay testified
that he had been hired to watch Gerardi's daily movements, and that under
threat of death, the convicted military officers forced him to move
Gerardi's body after he was murdered. The crime generated an international
clamor for truth and justice in the case.
*DE LA RUA FACES 5th GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST HIS ECONOMIC POLICIES
Buenos Aires, June 8 (RHC)--Argentina today awoke virtually paralyzed in the
fifth general strike protesting the Fernando de la Rua administration's
social and economic policies. Called a week ago by the Argentinean Workers
Movement, comprised of the dissident labor activists who broke away from the
more moderate General Labor Confederation, the strike was also endorsed by
the radical Argentinean Workers Central.
Public transportation is almost non-existent throughout the country and
schools, the judiciary and public services are shut down. The Association of
Public Workers totally adhered to the strike movement, which has also been
joined by grassroots organizations like the Association of Pensioners and
the Unemployed. The banking and business sectors have partially joined the
labor action as well.
The strike was preceded by an entire day of protest demonstrations around
the offices of Spanish firms. Labor leaders called a boycott against those
firms following the virtual bankruptcy of the privatized Argentine Airlines
controlled by authorities in Madrid. Argentine Workers Movement leader Hugo
Moyano, who convened the strike on May 31st in a speech before thousands of
labor activists, said the action is to protest the country's socio-economic
model of hunger and unemployment.
Argentina has been suffering a severe economic recession for nearly three
years, with unemployment hovering near 15 percent and virtually non-stop
protests and road blockages in Buenos Aires and throughout the provinces.
*Viewpoint: BUSH'S BLOATED MILITARY BUDGET
Since the beginning of this month, U.S. President George W. Bush has been
talking about adding some $5.6 billion to already-bloated US military
budget. The latest addition appears to have nothing to do with Bush's famous
"anti-missile umbrella". The proposal will be sent to the Congress this
weekend.
Bush's multi-billion dollar anti-missile program has encountered opposition
or reticence even from allies whom U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, was
unable to convince when he met with them recently in Hungary during the NATO
foreign ministers summit.
>From the beginning, experts have warned that the anti-missile system project
would set off a new arms race in which the principal beneficiary would be
the United States. There would also be juicy defense contracts to help to
revitalize the U.S.'s sagging economy.
After Colin Powell's unsuccessful NATO meeting in Budapest and the shift of
power from the Republicans to the Democrats in the US Senate, there has been
a certain silence from the White House.
The Bush administration will certainly prepare a plan to get the
"anti-missile umbrella" approved while opening the way for a much larger
project -- the massive entrance of Latin America (without Cuba, of course)
into the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
According to The Washington Post, the military budget should be passed in
September; the Bush Administration is pressing the issue now to give
lawmakers time to study the proposal and make suggestions. This will give
the president a couple of months to add on other expenses and to define
exactly what he plans to do with the anti-missile program.
The consequences of both the program to militarize space and the Free Trade
Area of the Americas will be drastic. In the case of the FTAA, Latin
American governments cannot say that they haven't been warned and must
carefully study any obligations they incur, which could well make the
situation even worse.
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
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