From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 20:53:04 -0400
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Direct from Cuba-Special July 26th Edition
Direct from Cuba-Special July 26th Edition
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
DIRECT FROM CUBA
Special Moncada Edition - July 26, 2001
.
*"Battle of Ideas" Now Central to Cuban Life
*Weapons that Cause Half the World's Civilian Deaths
*El Salvador: Where Does The Humanitarian Aid Go?
*Costa Rica: Child Prostitution - A Grown Up Problem
*OAU Summit: A Way to African Unity
.
*"Battle of Ideas" Now Central to Cuban Life
Havana, July 26 (PL)--Totally involved in what is called here, "The Battle
of Ideas," Cubans will celebrate the 48th anniversary of the attacks on
Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes garrisons on July 26th, commemorating
the country's national Day of Rebellion.
On July 26, 1953, more than 100 Cuban young people, led by present Cuban
President Fidel Castro, assaulted both garrisons in the eastern provinces of
Santiago de Cuba and Granma.
Although it was a military defeat, this deed marked the start of the armed
struggle against Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which would be overthrown
5 years, 5 months and 5 days later, with the triumph of the 1959 Revolution.
Since then, the July 26th celebration constitutes the most important
political act for Cubans, because that is when a summary of all things done
that year and goals for future months are made.
Generally, President Fidel Castro delivers the central speech and outlines
what the nation needs to do.
This year, Cubans mark the date absorbed in their "Battle of Ideas," an
ideological confrontation with the US, which since the triumph of the Cuban
Revolution, has not stopped trying to destroy the social process on the
island.
Besides the ferocious economic, trade and financial blockade imposed on
Havana since 1962, Washington has backed terrorist actions by the extreme
right wing based in Miami, whose unrealized goal is to overthrow the
Revolution.
The Cuban government has organized the "Battle of Ideas" against those
terrorist actions, because in the field of ideas, the Cuban revolutionary
process is invincible.
This struggle began in December, 1999, with the effort to bring the
shipwrecked Cuban boy back home from the Miami-based distant relatives who
tried to kidnap him, after he survived an illegal emigration attempt in
which his mother perished.
For seven months, millions of Cubans turned streets and plazas into one
large forum of justice to support Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in
his demand for his child -- something he finally achieved on June 28, 2000
when he returned from the US with him.
This struggle has now been transformed into the battle for the liberation
and return of five Cuban citizens arrested 33 months ago in Miami, accused
of endangering US security.
For over a month, Cubans have engaged in the battle for freedom of Ramon
Labanino, Rene Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando
Gonzalez, whom they consider innocent and victims of a trial manipulated for
political ends.
The "Battle of Ideas" is also aimed at the Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives
preferential treatment to Cuban citizens who emigrate illegally to US
territory.
Recently, the US Congress even approved greater benefits for Cuban illegal
emigrants, when they included those who arrive by air -- even if they use
methods like false visas or passports.
Havana condemns this legislation, and holds it responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of Cubans who have died trying to cross the Florida Strait to reach
US soil. TAC/CCS
.
*Weapons that Cause Half the World's Civilian Deaths
by Hector Igarza
Havana, July 26 (PL)--Short-range, small and lightweight weapons, a subject
to which the United Nations dedicated a special session this month, are
responsible for half the deaths of civilians in armed conflicts around the
world.
The United States, which leads the world in accidents with these weapons in
the hands of young people, especially in the schools, was headquarters of
this important meeting called by the UN Disarmament Committee. Between July
9 and 20, the Conference on Illegal Trade of Small and Light Weaponry was
held in UN headquarters in New York. The purpose of the meeting was to find
ways to eradicate or reduce the unnecessary suffering of thousands of
relatives of the dead, survivors and others affected each year through their
use. Although the task seems enormous, organizers hoped the effort might
help to save the lives of hundreds of thousand of persons.
The conference did not achieve, of course, the end of the proliferation of
small and light weapons nor will it control the destruction they cause.
It is, however, one of the most important steps taken so far in the effort
produce real results in the interest of the millions of people trapped in
conflicts. For the first time, as organizers stated, governments of the
world had the chance to adopt measures to stop this immoral and dangerous
business.
The millions of dollars gleaned by businesses in Hollywood, producers of
video games, music and television programs, together with the strong lobby
of the US National Rifle Association (NRA), play a determining role in sale
of such weapons. The NRA, which contributes millions to the Republican
Party and the George Bush presidential campaign, defends the Constitutional
right of all US citizens to own at least one weapon to defend their homes
and families.
During the 1990s, about five million people died in wars throughout the
world. According to the International Red Cross, close to 50% of the
victims were civilians caught in the crossfire. The illegal sale and
traffic of weapons contribute to the needless suffering of women, the aged
and children in the affected regions.
No one knows the exact number of small and light weapons in the world today.
Some estimate there are half a billion, representing one weapon for every
twelve persons on the planet.
The UN Disarmament Office reports that an AK47 can be bought in the market
of Sudan for the same price as a chicken. In Kenya, the exchange rate for
this gun has gone down from twelve cows to two. In the Philippines, machine
guns cost $275, and a pistol as little $15.
Proliferation of small and light weapons has changed the nature of conflicts
in many parts of the developing world. Wars that once were fought with bows
and arrows are now conflicts of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. The
consequences of this for civilian residents in the areas of conflict are
terrible, and mostly uncontrolled.
The Ottowa Treaty on Anti-Personnel Mines demonstrates that some simple
actions taken by ordinary people around the world can be effective.
The UN conference could become a launching pad for future work to control
the trade of short-range weapons. The meeting dealt with several programs
that include the treatment of these weapons as a very important human
affair.
One objective is to halt sales to those who would violate human rights and
humanitarian laws, or inflame or maintain conflicts and undermine the
economic and social development of the people.
A great responsibility after the conference is to demand control of these
articles of death and to propose concrete measures to accomplish this goal.
The UN is requesting agreement of all states on the text of the convention
adopted and favors introduction of the appropriate means to control and
monitor the final recipients of these weapons. GCP/HIC/AVP/CCS
.
*El Salvador: Where Does The Humanitarian Aid Go?
by Sunia Santisteban
Havana, July 26 (PL)--With all the aid sent to El Salvador from different
international organizations after the recent earthquakes, it is valid to ask
if these funds will follow the same route as donations sent after the
devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Analysts have confirmed that the
support for the victims of the hurricane ended up in the treasuries of
different political parties, business people and other corrupt persons
linked to the government.
Last March the Consultation Group of donors approved an aid plan for El
Salvador of $1.3 billion to help repair the damage caused by the earthquakes
of January 13 and February 13, and the 8,000 aftershocks.
The quakes left 1,259 dead and almost 8,000 injured; in all 1.5 million
people were affected. The material loss totalled $1.6 billion.
According to European experts, of the initial amount Europe approved to
alleviate damages in that Central American country, only a small part
actually went to San Salvador and of this, only a very small part went to
victims.
Although exact estimates are difficult, these analysists that that
bureaucracy, corruption and greed have eaten away so much of the aid that
only a tiny proportion has actually been spent on relief and reconstruction.
Numerous social sectors in El Salvador, including the Catholic Church, have
criticized the official project of national reconstruction because of its
exclusive concern with the business sector, not the nation's individual
victims.
San Salvador's Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez considers this plan
"unacceptable" and advised the country to show the world a united front.
The bishop called upon the government of President Francisco Flores to
change its approach and invite a broader representation to design a new
program.
The main opposition party, the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti para la
Liberacion Nacional) called for a joint taskforce to include municipal
authorities and representatives of all civilian society.
The FMLN proposed four points for recovery: national solidarity, use of
public funds, private investment and foreign cooperation. It also suggested
creation of a Reconstruction Fund to be under the control of the
administration, the victims, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and
guilds of small and medium-sized businesses.
The FMLN pointed out the need for a strategy to prevent the impact of
natural disasters on the deteriorated Salvadoran infrastructure and the
creation of a new road network to expedite the reconstruction program.
The party, which evolved from the former guerrilla armed forces, suggests
that it would be fair to use large, unused lands for provisional
resettlement of the earthquake victims and to tax the large capital holdings
and incomes of the wealthiest in El Salvador. This idea caused panic in the
Salvadorian oligarchy, and according to the local press, the rightwing
political parties called the idea "preposterous."
The FMLN also recommended using $20 million of the Inter-American
Development Bank's loan to El Salvador for construction of housing and
attending to other needs in the municipalities in high-risk zones. They
called for a halt to the privatization plans proposed by the neo-liberal
government and recommended that priority be given to setting aside funds for
emergencies.
Confronted by a failure of economic aid, the victims of the earthquakes have
organized a Committee for Defense of the Victims of El Salvador and
demonstrated several times to make their demands known. The government's
reconstruction plan was the main target of protest by the demonstrators, who
marched along the main streets of San Salvador and met in front of Congress.
The President of the Committee, Etel Guerrero, declared that safer homes
were needed, subsidies as well as equipment to work the land and to ensure
survival of those who have been left so defenseless.
"Eighty percent of the victims have received no aid, because it is
politicized," Guerrero stressed, and added that "the mayors and government
only give food to the members of their political parties".
William Pleitez, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) official,
declared recently that the social impact of the earthquakes is greater than
the economic impact because the index of poverty increased five percent.
"Many of those who were poor before the earthquakes are, today, poorer", he
pointed out. Pleitez is also working as coordinator of the UNDP's 2001 Index
of Human Development project for El Salvador.
The economist noted that there does not seem to be the social capital
required to rebuild what was destroyed, in his opinion "because all the
national energy has not been focused on solving this situation".
To top it all off, experts point out that the Salvadoran currency, the
colon, is scheduled to disappear January first as a result of the
dollarization of the economy.
NGOs in this country have noted the need for urgent measures to solve the
present crisis in order to avoid an "uncontrollable social confrontation".
These organizations asked the Cabinet to define its priorities and direct
them in four areas: housing, jobs, rebuilding production and alleviating
human misfortune in the face of natural disasters.
The target of all these charges is the power controlled by the rightwing
government party, Alianza Republican Nacionalista (ARENA), which the
disillusioned population accuses of political favoritism. GCP/SUN/AVP/CCS
.
*Costa Rica: Child Prostitution - A Grown-Up Problem
by Sunia Santisteban
Havana, July 26 (PL)--Anguish and impotence are written in the eyes of
Juana, a 14-year-old Costa Rican child, who nine months ago began in the
prostitution business. She sells her body for $15 to buy crack and a ration
of food.
Child prostitution in that Central American nation, studied and published in
a study entitled "Sex Exploitation in Costa Rica" is an old and serious
social tumor. The country has become a pedophiliac paradise, but Costa
Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez has attempted recently to strengthen
punishements for those who commit violations against minors (under 18 years
old) and against pimps.
Psychologists believe that the marketing of children and adolescents not
only affects them physically, but morally damages them and interferes with
their complete development.
The investigation revealed that among 3,500,000 Costa Ricans, more than
140,000 children are street workers, a very alarming figure.
Most children who sell their bodies are abused at home and live in poverty,
research by humanitarian organizations shows.
Almost 55% of children interviewed said they wanted to die, 60% have
abandoned their studies, 50% do not know their biological father, 60% suffer
from family violence and 80% were victims of sexual abuse before the age of
12.
The obvious conclusions of the study are that this serious social problem is
due to corrupt, violent, exploitative adults, and a concomitant lack of
severe legal penalties for offenders, as well as poverty, inequality and
defenselessness accented by Neoliberal Globalization.
Bruce Harris, director of Alliance House, a non-profit organization that
tracks child development in Central America, cited International Labor
Organization statistics to the effect that of 250 million children working
in the world, 30 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean. He
indicated that child exploitation can considered a "contemporary form of
slavery" and exhorted the United States to strengthen monitoring,
prosecution and punishment of those who, protected by their positions, are
accomplices to child smuggling and prostitution.
Harris explained that the recent restrictions and operations against sex
tourism in Thailand, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries has caused an
increasing exodus of pedophiles to Latin America. "The Washington Post"
says that in Costa Rica, child prostitution is increasing overwhelmingly and
it is likely the regional country where the problem is most poignant.
Costa Rica's Institute of Tourism (ICT) has announced a strong, new campaign
against this kind of tourism in Costa Rica, because it has become a target
for pedophiles and pederasts. Guillermo Castro, of ICT, told La Nacion
daily that travel agencies and web pages are openly promoting the former
"Switzerland of the Americas" as a sex destination. Some hotels in the
capital and at the major beaches have become centers of operations for
youngsters looking contacts with tourists, he said.
Ruben Pacheco, president of the National Chamber of Tourism pointed out that
meetings are planned with government officials and deputies to strengthen
laws against this kind of crime.
The Convention on the Rights of Children, signed in 1989, obliges
governments to protect children from economic exploitation and from "doing
any dangerous work that might interfere with the child's education or be
pernicious to his/her physical or mental health as well as his/her social
development."
The World Congress against Sex Trade and Exploitation of Children, held in
Stockholm, Sweden has forcefully deplored the sexual use of minors. "To
encourage, deceive or force them to pose for photos or participate in
pornographic videos is degradable; it implies an insult to his/her dignity
and self esteem," the meeting's final declaration reads.
The American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual of mental disorders
(DSM-IV) defines pedophilia as a category of paraphilia, part of the
category of "sex disorders and disorders of sexual identity." This category
is defined as recurrent fantasies and highly exciting impulses or behaviors
connected to sexual activity with minors. The manual indicates that such
ideas cause a person's social, work and moral deterioration.
Whether or not it is a biological disorder, it is an international crime,
and those who commit such a abasing activity must serve severe sentences.
Costa Rica entered a tourism boom at the beginning of the 1990's, and mainly
exploits its natural resources, national parks (covering 24% of its
territory or 51,100 square km), rain forests, volcanoes and beaches on the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Set amid this breathtaking beauty and endless ecological potential for legal
profits, the unscrupulous evil of ruining the mental and physical health,
and even the lives, of the country's new generations is particularly
offensive. GCP/SUN/CCS
.
*OAU Summit: A Way to African Unity
by Luis Manuel Saez
Luanda, July 26 (PL)--The 37th Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit,
concluded in Lusaka, Zambia this week, made headway toward the African Union
(AU) and it emerged with a guiding plan for continental unity.
After three days of deliberations, some 40 regional leaders adopted the
project "African Initiative", which will rule the destinu of this
long-suffering continent and provide a boost in overcoming the obstacles to
development caused by the legacy of colonialism.
The meeting was the latest of the Pan-African organization founded in May,
1963 when independence movements in Africa rose up against European
colonialism, discrimination and exploitation.
To undertake the huge task, the OAU appointed as general secretary, Amara
Essy, from the Ivory Coast. A diplomat with wide experience, Essy has worked
at in Ivory Coast Foreign Affairs Ministry and as an ambassador to the
United Nations. The new general secretary will replace Salim Ahmed Salim,
who was has led the OAU during for the last 12 years.
Essay was elected over two other candidates, Namibian Theo Ben-Gurirab and
Guinea's Lansana Kouyat and won with 42 votes of the 48 voting countries.
He has one year to make preparations for a sweeping new African
organizational structure, which will include an executive committee, a
Parliament, a continental court, a bank and a single currency.
The OAU's Unity Plan has been encouraged by Libyan leader Muamar el
Kadhaffi, and envisions a continental organization similar to the Europen
Union which the OAU hopes can eliminate conflicts, misery and diseases and
aid in development, topics discussed at the recent meeting.
At present, there are still at least a dozen wars raging in Africa over
territorial, ethnic and political conflicts. Among the most lethal are wars
in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and
Angola.
Angola's President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos did not attend the summit,
although the peace process provisions of the Lusaka Protocol were agreed to
and signed by parties to the conflict in 1994. The text, among other things,
calls for complete disarmament and the immediate end of attacks and
terrorist actions by Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola (UNITA).
The text of the Protocol also calls for and end to hostilities in the
Popular Republic of Congo (PDC) which, it notes, depends on the evacuation
of foreign troops, beginning with those from Rwanda and Uganda, where they
have been supporting rebel movements against the Kinshasa government. In
support of the DRC government, troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe are
present at the request of the Congo government
One of the main challenges of the new organization is to save One of the
major challenges facing the new organization is to end these conflicts,
which undermine African efforts to solve the problems of poverty, disease,
and the lack of social-economic development.
In ths regard, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who will serve as OAU
president until next year, "we made important decisions in this summit. Our
challenge is to implement them, and we must do so rapidly."
On the other hand, UN general secretary Kofi Annan, who attended the
meeting, cautioned that "African leaders must have value this process
sufficiently to meet this challenge, which is nothing less than the
reconstruction of the continent."
Mozambican Joaquim Chissano predicted that the African Unity project can
succeed, if it is understood internationally and if all cooperate with the
initiative, instead of "attempting to torpedo it for extra-continental
interests,"
This task of African Unity is indeed titanic. Africa has some 800 million
inhabitants, but more than half of the African people live on less that than
one dollar a day. The continent has the largest number of AIDS patients, 25
million people, in the entire world. In some regions, the epidemic has
caused outstanding a phenomenal decreases in the average life expectancy. In
Botswana, for example, the average life expectacy of 53 years decreased to
44 years in 2000.
Africa also has the lowest rate of human development, with 29 of its 36
countries among those with the most precarious living situation on the
planet.
At the OAU Summit where the African Unity was launched, the task is to
reconstruct Africa economically and to bring the project's proposals to
reality in order to save the continent from a gradual disappearnce.
In its 38 years of existence, the OAU has made efforts to create prosperity
and prevent war, but neocolonialism, and its consequent corruption and
incompetence, still exist. The continent's leaders analyzing the OAU's
experience admit that they face a daunting task, and that they have only
just begun. The OAU's next meeting is set for 2002 in South Africa.
(c) 2001 Prensa Latina, 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]
=================================================================
_________________________________________________
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]
__________________________________________________
