From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 17:52:14 -0500
Subject: Fidel Castro on Cuban Adj.Act, Havana-27 Nov 2001
Fidel Castro on Cuban Adj.Act, Havana-27 Nov 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
PERMANENT MISSION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA TO THE UNITED NATIONS
315 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-689-7215 * Fax: 212-689-9073
ADDRESS BY DR. FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA,
AT A MASS RALLY IN THE "JOS� MART�" ANTI-IMPERIALIST SQUARE, HAVANA
NOVEMBER 27, 2001
Compatriots:
It was through the American TV networks and press agencies that we
first learned that 30 Cubans, 13 of them children, had perished in a
human traffic operation on a fast boat registered in the United
States, coming from that country and funded by people living there.
It was not the first time, since similar events have occurred a
thousand times before as a sinister consequence of the murderous
Cuban Adjustment Act.
Whenever something like this happens, the U.S. authorities fail to
provide us with information on the names, places of residence, age,
sex or any other data on the victims they identify through
information offered by survivors or by other means. The Cuban
authorities are thus forced to look for a needle in a hay stack, that
is, going through lengthy and complicated procedures to find the
relevant data to inform families, schools, health and social security
centers and other institutions on the situation of people who
suddenly vanished without previous notice.
It is through close contacts made easier by personal and family
visits, to and from the United States authorized by our country, that
unscrupulous merchants arrange costly and risky illegal journeys for
groups of people from different towns who endanger the lives of many
children by irresponsibly taking them along.
This time, our own authorities have already identified almost half of
the 13 children mentioned in the press dispatches, who were taken
from their classrooms and schools where they were studying,
completely unaware of the horrible death they would encounter out in
the sea where their remains could not even be found.
For many years we have been advising the U.S. Administrations that
the Cuban Adjustment Act, in force since November 2, 1966, and the
incentives to illegal migration are the cause of great hazards and
take a high toll in human lives.
>From day one of the revolutionary victory our country has never set
obstacles to the legal emigration of Cuban citizens to the United
States or to any other country. At the time of the triumph of the
Revolution many people in Cuba, like in the rest of the Caribbean and
Latin America, who endured poverty and underdevelopment, wanted to
migrate to seek for better paid jobs and better living conditions
than they could find in their countries subjected to centuries of
exploitation and plundering. Until 1959, an extremely limited number
of visas were issued to Cubans. After that, for obvious reasons, the
gates were wide opened and that is how an important number of Cubans
began settling in the United States.
The overwhelming majority of those made the necessary arrangements
and traveled legally. Despite the increasing conflicts, on several
occasions the two countries have signed agreements, which for over
four decades have made possible the safe and orderly transportation
of hundreds of thousands of Cubans to the United States without any
loss of life of either children or adults.
Actually, thanks to the Revolution's programs the Cuban emigrants are
generally people with a high technical or professional training.
In compliance with the latest agreements signed on September 1994 and
May 1995, a total of 132,586 Cubans had traveled to the United States
until November 9, 2001, with the corresponding visas and through
absolutely safe means.
The politicization of the migratory issue by the United States,
particularly as it relates to Cuba, is at the source of this and many
other similar tragedies. It is in their Interests Section that they
choose the prospective travelers, demanding health and education
certificates and personal life records, as well as other documents,
which are often used to select highly trained professionals or people
particularly relevant in their communities thus depriving our country
of medical doctors, engineers, architects and other university
graduates who have been educated here, absolutely free of charge.
This way, the United States does not need to invest the tens and
hundreds of thousands that it would take to train any of them over
there while Cuba has been forced to set a number of restrictions as
to the time of departure of people in some technical categories in
order to avoid the damage caused to important services.
It is a tradition with Cuba to abide by the agreements it signs, but
the same cannot be said of our counterpart. It is a known fact that
due to pressures and issues associated with domestic politics, the
United States repeatedly and systematically fails to meet its
obligations --or meets them only half-way-- regarding the measures it
should take with those who break the law to emigrate to that country
or are intercepted at sea, or they reduce to a minimum the efforts
made to accomplish that interception.
To make things worse, those who set foot on their coasts are
automatically welcomed and not asked to meet any requirements.
Individuals with tainted personal records, who would never receive a
visa if they applied, then get the right to immediately start working
and living in that country. Thus, the spirit and letter of the
Migratory Agreements are breached and the assets and safety of
Americans are placed in jeopardy.
Many of these rough individuals with the worst criminal records, who
are admitted into the United States when they travel illegally, later
show up as part of drug and human traffic networks.
The U.S. authorities possess information on those involved in human
traffic. In the last four years we have seized in our country more
than 110 of those smugglers who live in the United States. They
travel by sea on fast boats to fetch their human cargo, but the U.S.
authorities do not accept to receive them to take them to court since
it is from there that they come, where they live, where they have
their boats, and it is also from there that they make the
arrangements and get paid for their operations.
Our country makes great efforts to fight this grave international
crime; in the United States they do nothing about it.
If it were all the way around, if American children were dying almost
constantly due to human traffic on boats coming from Cuba, registered
in Cuba, with crews made up by people living in Cuba, if this were
the case, the American people would react with deep and legitimate
indignation. Why, then, can this be done to Cuba?
Due to pressures by the Cuban terrorist Mafia in Miami, and the
erratic behavior and arbitrary interpretations of U.S. officials and
authorities, every year, every month, every week, almost every day
during four decades, ever since that ill-fated and insane Cuban
Adjustment Act was passed in 1966, that is, 35 years ago, it has
never been restricted or abrogated but rather more and more
privileges are granted to those who submit to it.
The latest of such privileges is travelling to American territory, on
any airline, with false documents. They only need to identify
themselves as Cubans upon arrival and they are accepted with impunity
and granted the benefit of residence in the United States. How can
anyone speak of protecting the security of the United States and then
accept such violations and practices which break their own laws and
foster chaos, anarchy and disorder? How can a battle be waged against
organized crime, terrorism, drug and human traffic, and other forms
of international crime?
Why is it that the Cuban children, whose infant mortality rate in the
first year of life has been reduced to less than 7 per one thousand
live-births --which is even lower than that of the United States--
must suffer that horrible death due to that Law? Why must the deep
sea swallow the Cuban children, none of whom dies due to hurricanes
or natural disasters that take the lives of thousands elsewhere for
lack protection?
If the Cuban children -everyone of them-- receive prenatal care, are
born in hospitals, are provided intensive postnatal care and free
medical services all throughout their lives, are given vaccines for
13 preventable diseases and adequate nutrition, have access to
day-care centers, kindergarten and grammar schools --even special
education schools for those who might need it-- junior high schools
from which almost one hundred percent graduate, senior-high and
technical schools for those who apply and scores of universities and
colleges; if the most prestigious international institutions concede
that health services, education, physical and sports training
accorded to our children rank among the best in the world, and are
provided free of charge; if the highest share of the country's net
revenues and national budget are allocated to children's programs; if
it is for the children, teenagers and youth that over half a million
of mostly highly trained workers labor strenuously; if the Cuban
children end up among the first in international knowledge
competitions; if the Cuban children are not familiar with drug-abuse
and do not die in schools victims of firearms and violence; if it is
for them that we are involved in an irrepressible movement towards a
comprehensive general culture that is called to place our people
among the best cultivated worldwide; then, why must they be devoured
by sharks off the coasts of Florida?
Why is Cuba the only country on Earth whose children and people must
expect such fate due to a law that fails to have any ethical
justification, explanation or excuse?
Whatever the number, be it thirteen, six or only one who dies in the
dramatic wreckage of a fast boat during a human traffic operation
with thirty or more Cubans on board, it is a discredit to the United
States in the eyes of the world.
This is not the first or the only group victim of such a tragedy. An
incalculable number of people have had a similar fate, but that has
not led the U.S. authorities to fight the hateful and repugnant human
traffic. We have offered our sincere cooperation in the struggle
against drug traffic, human traffic and any other form of
international crime. It is simply due to political arrogance that
such cooperation has been either refused or limited to a minimum.
Cuba was the first country to voice its support for the American
people after the atrocious crime of September 11, advancing the idea
of building a universal awareness against terrorism and carrying
forward an active international policy of struggle to efficiently and
adequately end with the scourge of terrorism, which has caused so
much damage to our country throughout more than 40 years.
Cuba was also the first country that, in response to an appeal by the
United Nations' Secretary General to all member states of that world
organization, adhered to the twelve international agreements on
terrorism.
Now, it is Cuba that is dealt a hard blow with the death of a number
of children swallowed by the sea in the fatal wreckage of the early
hours of November 17, the result of a repugnant human traffic
operation with Cuban emigrants.
For the dead adults, some of them at fault for having for having been
lured to the adventure that took their children's lives, we feel
grief and sorrow, and to their relatives we express our sympathy. For
the innocent children dragged to such an unfair and unwarranted
death, we are truly in mourning. These were creatures snatched from
the Homeland that gives them all so much love and care.
We are not blaming the present government for a phenomenon that is
the result of scores of years of aggression, hostility and crimes
against Cuba, perpetrated by successive U.S. administrations
throughout many years. However, we have every right to claim that an
end be put to a barbarian and uncivilized policy.
Events like this affect the credibility and morale of the United
States as well as its interests while it is involved in a complex and
difficult struggle against terrorism in which, one way or another,
the whole international community is involved after the tragic and
painful events of September 11. No one would understand why that
immoral and unfair law stands which cruelly and unjustifiably takes
the lives of so many innocent Cuban children.
Millions of people from the Caribbean nations, from Mexico and from
the rest of Latin America have every right to ask why they are
persecuted and expelled when they travel to the United States
illegally while the Cubans receive incentives to do the same thing
and are later rewarded. The same question could also be asked by
hundreds of millions of Asians, Africans and people from other
regions of the world.
The extensive economic crisis and poverty will make the migratory
pressures on the United States mount and for those determined to
emigrate the Cuban Adjustment Act will become a major irrefutable
moral argument.
There will always be people everywhere willing to risk their lives to
emigrate illegally, but there will never be any justification to
encourage them to do it. That is a crime against humanity and an
expression of hateful contempt for human life.
We would not propose an Adjustment Act for the rest of the countries,
for it is a murderous law, but we would certainly propose to
undertake the development of the Third World in order to prevent that
the region's exceeding population overwhelm the wealthy societies at
the expense of the lives of those emigrants who will try to get there
by every possible means.
We would propose justice for the world and some light for the blind
politicians who are today the leaders of the most developed and rich
nations on Earth.
The Cuban Adjustment Act is not only a murderous law but it is also a
terrorist law, one that fosters the worst kind of terrorism since it
deliberately and remorselessly kills innocent children.
Homeland or Death!
We shall overcome!
Official Translation,
New York, 27 November 2001
_________________________________________________
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]
__________________________________________________
=================================================================
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]
=================================================================
nytcari-11.28.01-17:51:49-4333
