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Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 12:23:35 -0500
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Subject: Radio Havana Cuba-28 December 2001
Radio Havana Cuba-28 December 2001
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 28 December 2001
.
*ANTONIO GUERRERO SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON BY MIAMI JUDGE
*CUBA'S SOCIAL ACHIEVEMENTS IMMUNE TO WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS
*HOUSING CONSTRUCTION IN MATANZAS: 100 NEW HOUSES BY JANUARY 1st
*THE ISLAND DRESSES UP FOR A BIG PARTY
*NEW INTERIM AFGHAN GOVERNMENT CALLS ON WASHINGTON TO STOP BOMBING
*INDIA, PAKISTAN SHELL EACH OTHER AS THOUSANDS EVACUATE BORDER AREA
*USA: LONG HISTORY OF VIOLENT THEFT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN-OWNED LAND
*FORMER ARGENTINE OFFICIAL ARRESTED AT REQUEST OF SWEDISH AUTHORITIES
*ARGENTINA BRACES FOR DEVALUATION, CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
*NORDIC BRIGADE CELEBRATES 43rd ANNIVERSARY OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
Viewpoint:
*GLOBALIZATION, CUBAN STYLE
*US INJUSTICE SYSTEM ADDS FIVE NEW POLITICAL PRISONERS TO ITS JAILS
.
*ANTONIO GUERRERO SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON BY MIAMI JUDGE
Miami, Havana, December 28 (RHC)-- A fifth Cuban political prisoner
has been sentenced in Miami after having been wrongly convicted of
spying against the United States. The third of five to be sentenced
to life, Antonio Guerrero stated before Federal Judge Joan Lenard
that his country has the inalienable right - as does every other
country - to defend itself from terrorist attacks.
Guerrero said that given the chance he would repeat his actions with
honor. He called the verdict a sacrilege from a jury incapable of
handing down justice. In similar speeches before their sentencing
hearings, the other four Cubans proudly admitted and defended their
right to spy on organizations in Miami that promote terrorism against
Cuba.
Ramon Labanino, who received a life sentence last December 13, said
that if preventing the deaths of innocent human beings, defending
both the United States and Cuba against terrorism, and preventing a
senseless invasion of Cuba are the reasons he was being sentenced,
then he welcomed that sentence.
Antonio Guerrero's defense attorney, Jack Blumfeld, stated that their
is something wrong in punishing a person for doing something for
which an American in Afghanistan would be considered a hero. Blumfeld
charged that the district attorneys in the case were more interested
in obtaining the political approval of the reactionary Cuban-American
community than in serving justice and the truth.
*CUBA'S SOCIAL ACHIEVEMENTS IMMUNE TO WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS
Havana, December 28 (RHC)-- Cuba's social achievements are immune to
the current world economic crisis, according to the island's economic
experts.
The production of food and medicine -- as well as guaranteeing social
security levels, the development of social and cultural programs and
recovery from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Michelle -- make up
the economic and social priorities of the island for the coming year.
Despite high oil prices and a fall in the price of sugar and nickel
on the international market -- two of the island's major export
products -- Cuba will earmark 65 percent of its annual budget to
public health, education and social security.
In his recent presentation of the island's budget for the year 2002,
Finance Minister Manuel Millares said that the current year's budget
was met with a fiscal deficit of 2.7 percent, in relation to the
country's Gross Domestic Product -- which rose by three percent this
year.
The Cuban official explained that retirees would receive their full
pension under the new, proposed budget. Pensions were recently
increased in order to raise monthly incomes.
Meanwhile, community services and housing will also receive an
important portion of the budget for the coming year, while cultural
and educational programs currently being disseminated across the
island through television broadcasts and computer programs are fully
covered by the new budget.
Cuba's public health sector is marked by the island's low infant
mortality rate, which decreased to 6.3 deaths for every 1000 live
births during the year 2001. The Cuban finance minister said that
next year's budget will cover all expenses related to the improvement
of services at some 272 hospitals and 442 health care centers, an
increase in the number of medicines available, and the funds needed
to provide jobs for more than 3770 new medical professionals who
graduated this year.
The Cuban finance minister also explained that the new budget would
cover all expenses related to the development of scientific and
technological programs that have a direct impact on important
economic sectors such as the food industry, sugar and biotechnology.
*HOUSING CONSTRUCTION IN MATANZAS: 100 NEW HOUSES BY JANUARY 1st
Matanzas, December 28 (RHC)-- Construction workers are hurrying to
finish 100 new houses in Matanzas by Tuesday, January 1st -- to
commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban
Revolution.
According to Nilo Diaz, president of the Provincial Government in
Matanzas, the campaign is in response to the devastation caused by
Hurricane Michelle. He told reporters that a total of 7454 houses
will be completed in the coming months as part of the recovery
efforts and that 5600 houses are in various stages of construction.
Matanzas was one of the areas hardest-hit by hurricane-strength winds
on November 4th. Some 53,000 houses were partially damaged or totally
destroyed and the Cuban government has promised that building
materials will be provided for the repair or reconstruction of all
housing.
The local government official praised the efforts of construction
workers who have selflessly given their time and energies to recovery
efforts.
*THE ISLAND DRESSES UP FOR A BIG PARTY
Havana, December 28 (RHC)-- Over the next few days, Cubans will
celebrate the New Year and another anniversary of the Triumph of the
Cuban Revolution with parties and cultural events across the island.
Many activities will begin over the weekend, culminating on
Wednesday, January 2nd. But the main festivities will take place on
January 1st and 2nd.
On New Year's Day -- celebrating the 43rd anniversary of the Cuban
Revolution -- 14 outdoor stages will present popular dance bands.
Tuesday's activities will be designed for families and young adults,
with theatrical presentations, concerts and other special events.
On Wednesday, the 2nd, celebrations and parties will be presented for
children across the island.
*NEW INTERIM AFGHAN GOVERNMENT CALLS ON WASHINGTON TO STOP BOMBING
Kabul, December 28 (RHC) -- The new interim government of
Afghanistan Friday called on Washington to stop its bombardment of
the country. In what is being called the clearest sign yet that
Afghan authorities want the war on terrorism to move elsewhere, the
country's Defense Ministry reiterated that Osama Bin Laden had
escaped to Pakistan with nearly all his Al Qaida fighters, rendering
further US bombing pointless.
Observers are noting that Washington also faces the risk of fading
resolve from its crucial ally Pakistan, whose attention has turned to
the worsening crisis with India over the disputed Kashmir province.
The plea came after Thursday's US air strike that according to Afghan
tribal leaders killed sleeping villagers, though Washington insists
that its planes had destroyed a compound used by the Taliban
southwest of Kabul. The Defense Ministry stated that it should only
take a maximum of three days to destroy the few remaining Taliban and
Al Qaida forces and bases.
*INDIA, PAKISTAN SHELL EACH OTHER AS THOUSANDS EVACUATE BORDER AREA
New Delhi, December 28 (RHC) -- Indian and Pakistani troops shelled
each other in disputed Kashmir Thursday evening as the threat of war
continued on the rise. The Indian army has ordered the evacuation of
dozens of border villages, as Pakistan warned that India's build-up
of troops on the border could make a confrontation between the two
nuclear-armed nations inevitable.
The two neighbors Thursday exchanged diplomatic and economic
sanctions that have been called the toughest since they fought their
last war in 1971. Some 5,000 villagers in 17 villages in Indian-ruled
Kashmir fled their homes with cots and clothes, fearing a fourth war
between the two nations since they became independent from British
colonial rule and were artificially separated in 1947.
The army had already ordered the evacuation of some 10,000 people in
24 villages near the Pakistani border. Meanwhile, Friday India
appealed for international support for its own war against terrorism.
Indian Home, or Interior, Minister Lal Krishna Advani said the fight
against terrorism did not end with Osama Bin Laden.
India has accused Pakistan of waging a proxy war by sponsoring
Pakistan-based Islamic militants fighting its rule in Kashmir,
mainly-Hindu India's only Muslim-majority state. The United States
has reportedly resorted to intense telephone diplomacy to reconcile
the two countries, fearing that a standoff would complicate its hunt
for Osama Bin Laden.
*USA: LONG HISTORY OF VIOLENT THEFT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN-OWNED LAND
Washington, December 28 (RHC) -- In the United States, more evidence
has surfaced regarding the long history of theft with violence of
African-American owned land. The Associated Press news agency has
published an extensive investigative report on how, throughout
history, land was taken from African-Americans through trickery and
murder.
Recently published on their web site, AP writers Todd Lewman and
Dolores Barclay wrote a three-part report following an 18-month
investigation which documented a pattern in which black Americans
were cheated out of their land or driven from it. According to the
report, in some cases government officials approved of the land
takings. In others, they took part in them.
The earliest occurred before the Civil War, while others are being
litigated today. Lewman and Barclay wrote that some of the land taken
from black families has become a country club in Virginia, oil fields
in Mississippi, a major-league baseball spring training facility in
Florida - calling this abuse an overlooked part of the history of
bitter, often violent land disputes that also involved gold miners,
range wars in the old West, broken treaties with American Indians,
and the cheating of poor white landowners.
The AP investigation included interviews with more than 1,000 people
and the examination of tens of thousands of public records in county
courthouses and state and federal archives, documenting 107 land
takings in 13 Southern and border states. In those cases alone, 406
black landowners lost more than 24,000 acres of farm and timber land
plus 85 smaller properties, including stores and city lots.
AP found that today, virtually all of this property, valued at tens
of millions of dollars, is owned by whites or by corporations. The
investigation affirmed that no one knows exactly how many
African-American families have been illegally stripped of their land,
but that there are indications of extensive loss.
Besides the 107 cases the AP documented, reporters who contributed to
the investigation found evidence of scores of other land takings that
could not be fully verified because of gaps or inconsistencies in the
public record. Thousands of additional reports of land takings from
black families remain uninvestigated.
Two thousand have been collected in recent years by the Penn Center
on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, an educational institution
established for freed slaves during the Civil War. The Land Loss
Prevention Project, a group of lawyers in Durham, North Carolina, who
represent blacks in land disputes, said it receives new reports
daily.
And Heather Gray of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives in
Atlanta said her organization has ''file cabinets full of
complaints.'' Ray Winbush, director of the Fisk University's
Institute of Race Relations, told the AP that the finds are just the
tip of the iceberg of one of the biggest crimes in United States
history.
*FORMER ARGENTINE OFFICIAL ARRESTED AT REQUEST OF SWEDISH AUTHORITIES
Buenos Aires, December 28 (RHC) -- Former Argentinean dictatorship
official Alfredo Astiz has been arrested at the request of judicial
authorities in Sweden. Astiz, one of the most emblematic symbols of
repression during the 1976 to 1983 military regime, has been charged
by Swedish authorities in the forced disappearance of 17-year-old
Swedish citizen Dagmar Hagelin.
The Swedish government will have 40 days to draw up an official
extradition request with details of the charges and evidence against
the former Argentinean navy captain who worked at one of the largest
secret detention and torture centers during the dictatorship. The
case is the first that will put to test the new interim Argentine
government's announced willingness to - for the first time - either
respect extradition requests or bring to trial the accused.
The announcement came this week from President Adolfo Rodriguez and
Justice Minister Alberto Zuppi, though discrepancies surfaced almost
immediately. Foreign Minister Jose Maria Vernet refused to confirm
this willingness, stating that the issue is being discussed and that
the opinion of the military will be important. Astiz has also been
convicted in absentia and sentenced to life by French courts in the
forced disappearances of two French nuns, and the Italian judiciary
is in the process of requesting his extradition for similar crimes
against Italian citizens.
*ARGENTINA BRACES FOR DEVALUATION, CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
Buenos Aires, December 28 (RHC) -- Argentina has called on other
governments to help resolve its financial crisis, as the nation
braces for a currency devaluation. Foreign Minister Jose Maria Vernet
said that once his country has the support of other governments,
Argentina will sit down to start rescheduling the foreign debt.
Meanwhile, an eventual currency devaluation will not only be
disastrous for people with bank loans who would see their debts
spiral, but also for banks and big Spanish firms that are leading
investors in Argentina. Desperate to prop up the economy and put a
little cash in the hands of the swelling ranks of the poor in what
used to be one of the world's 10 richest nations, the government is
rushing to introduce a new currency, the Argentino, in January.
It will circulate alongside the peso and the US dollar, though unlike
the peso it will not be backed by a one-to-one parity with the
dollar. And despite suspension of foreign debt payments and efforts
to restore social peace with a public works program to create one
million jobs, many fear that an uncontrolled printing of the new
money could plunge them back into hyperinflationary chaos that lashed
the economy in the 1980s.
While observers are noting that new Argentine President Adolfo
Rodriguez must offer an angry country easier money, the remedy is
being compared to throwing salt in a wound - it will heal, but it
hurts.
*NORDIC BRIGADE CELEBRATES 43rd ANNIVERSARY OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
Havana, December 28 (RHC)-- The 37th Contingent of the Nordic
Brigade celebrated another anniversary of the Cuban Revolution with a
giant Bonfire of Friendship Friday night in Lenin Park.
The work brigade -- made up of 100 solidarity activists from Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain and Belgium -- is carrying
out agricultural work just outside of Havana. The Nordic Brigade is
staying at the Julio Antonio Mella Camp, located near the
municipality of Caimito.
During their stay, the brigadistas will also visit places of
historical and socio-political interest in the provinces of Havana
and Pinar del Rio.
Viewpoint:
*GLOBALIZATION, CUBAN STYLE
Globalization is a reality. The issue is to not allow certain
aspects of it to swallow up the poorer and weaker nations of the
planet. This mostly involves First World nations headed by the United
States that seek to absorb the economies of the Third World to
enhance and enrich their own.
Since the advent of globalization, Cuba has been warning of the
dangers inherent in a worldwide unrestricted market system that
blatantly caters to the self-aggrandizement interests of ruthless
trans-national corporations. The island has frequently made reference
to the need to carry out a REAL globalization of our planet - one
that is applied with justice, that seeks the well-being of the entire
human race and that involves the solidarity of peoples helping each
other across national boundaries against the ravages of capitalist
extremism.
As this year ends, many more people across the world have joined the
ranks of those who strongly oppose the type of globalization that is
being rammed down their throats: a globalization that is
consolidating the riches of a powerful few at the tremendous misery
of millions of poor. Rather than improving their lot, the average
person living beneath the poverty line today is worse off than they
were two decades ago - and there are also many more of them. The
environmental integrity of the planet is also suffering tremendously.
We are regressing rather than advancing.
This year saw massive protests against the policies of international
financial institutions and the countries and corporations that
support them. Economic forums in Switzerland, Italy and Canada
attracted thousands of demonstrators from all walks of life vocally
condemning the further impoverishment of the mass of humanity. Rather
than take note of this growing voice against their rape and pillage
of the Third World, the representatives of the powerful sent out
their troops to attack and kill instead. The television images of the
violence that was their only response to the global crisis they have
created - Argentina being the latest victim - are engraved on all our
memories.
Activists from all over the globe have responded by holding their own
forums to discuss how to go about opposing this callousness of the
world's market forces that send so many people into misery and death.
An International Conference on the Challenges of Globalization was
held in Spain, a Social Forum in Brazil, the Third Meeting of
Economists on Globalization and Development here in Havana as well as
the recently ended Sao Paolo Forum.
The participants in these gatherings warn of the attempt of the First
World powers to pull the wool over our eyes by selling their form of
globalization as cultural diversity when it is in fact a clear
violation of international human rights conventions, including those
of the United Nations.
The economist Eric Tousaant, speaking at the economists conference in
Havana earlier this year, warned that the situation is so grave that
there will be no international meeting of the world's powers without
some sort of protest against what they are doing to the planet's
economies and the environment.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, announced
this year that for the world to really take on a global character it
must include everyone on the planet. He added that one cannot speak
of globalization when so many people are paralyzed by hunger,
sickness, ignorance and isolation.
Even the Pope has warned that globalization cannot be allowed to turn
into another form of colonialism and that no single socio-economic,
political or value system or culture should be allowed to dominate
others.
This attempt to impose one's own system upon others - as evidenced in
Washington's Free Trade Area of the Americas - is one that Cuba will
continue to resist along with the many activists that work for the
poor, the dispossessed and the workers of our world.
The United States government - and the trans-national corporations it
represents - continue to control the economies of Latin America and
seek to turn the continent into one huge discount store where they
can go on a shopping spree at cut-rate prices. Cuba has learned at
its cost to what extent the United States will go to punish those
countries that oppose its global domination. In spite of this,
however, the island is proud of the fact that it retains its
self-determination and independence - one of the few to do so in the
hemisphere.
Globalization is here to stay. But it should not be the globalization
of the corporate boardroom boys. Rather, Cuba seeks a truly
democratic manner in which to resolve the world's problems globally
by creating jobs to enable people to live with dignity.
Privatizations of important national domains such as water,
electricity, health, transport, communications and the banking system
should be halted. Effective health care systems should be established
in all countries - including those of the First World that fail to
respond to the needs of their poor. Education equals employment
opportunity and is one of the most important means to pull people out
of poverty - thus more teachers and classrooms need to be provided
across the Third World.
This is not some crackpot pipe dream but a very real possibility that
Cuba - a Third World nation with severe economic problems of its own
- has been able to carry out. As the year ends and our infant
mortality drops to 6.3 per 1000 live births - better than many First
World nations; as more than 200 schools in Havana have been
refurbished in the past 6 months; as Cuba leads Latin America in
primary school education and the overall life expectancy of its
population; this island has shown that these things ARE achievable.
There are, indeed, poor in Cuba but no one goes hungry, no one lacks
access to health care and education. Cuba's globalization has been to
export its doctors to many other Third World nations where they
administer to impoverished populations free of charge. In an effort
to address the dearth of doctors in poor, rural areas of such
countries, Cuba also trains more than 5,000 medical students at its
Latin American Medical School in Havana.
This is the type of globalization we should all seek or there will be
many more Argentina's in the years to come.
*US INJUSTICE SYSTEM ADDS FIVE NEW POLITICAL PRISONERS TO ITS JAILS
With the Miami sentencing of the last of the five Cubans convicted
of conspiring to commit espionage, the US justice system has once
again shown how easily it can be manipulated by powerful groups to
serve their interests.
Antonio Guerrero, who on Thursday was given a life sentence without
parole, joins the more than two million prisoners incarcerated in US
prisons in a country that locks up more of its citizens than any
other in the world. One in every four people behind bars on this
planet are to be found in US jails - including Guerrero and his
companions Gerardo Hernandez with two life terms, Ramon Labañino,
also with life, Rene Gonzalez with 15 years and Fernando Gonzalez
with 19 years in prison.
As Antonio Guerrero, a civil engineer with two sons, was sentenced
for conspiracy to commit espionage and - ridiculously - not
registering as a foreign agent - he said that the jury in Miami was
incapable of handing down justice. His attorney, Jack Blumenfeld,
agreed, stating that his client was a patriot who served his people
to defend them from attacks originating in the US, and that having
the trial in Miami where there were so many rabid Cuba haters about,
meant that Guerrero did not receive a fair trial. Even hostile
reports by news agencies such as Reuters, gave grudging praise to a
man who was "poised, soft spoken and defiant" as he accused the
United States of promoting terrorism against Cuba.
"My country has the inalienable right, as does every other country,
to defend itself from terrorist acts," he said, and rightly called
the Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against Fidel Castro
and the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba, acts of terrorism.
In an incredible display of hypocrisy, given the current political
climate in the United States, U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard said
that perceived terrorist acts against the government of Cuba did not
legitimize Guerrero's actions in violation of US law. Yet her own
government in Washington has effectively repealed legislation barring
the targeting of world leaders for assassination if such actions
would further the security of the US or preempt terrorist strikes.
Her own government has passed many laws allowing for the internment
of suspects without charge - harkening back to the days of the Second
World War Japanese American internment camps - as well as the denial
of attorney-client privileges to supposedly protect the US against
perceived terrorist acts. Her own government has the most notorious
spy network in the world - the Central Intelligence Agency. Its
history includes the use of assassination, coup d'états and any other
means at its disposal to violently overthrow or destabilize
governments that do not march in step with Washington's demands.
At no time were any of the five - so brutally incarcerated - involved
in any terrorist act against the United States. Not even the Miami
District Attorney's office could "prove" this. The Cubans were
protecting their own country against just such acts, just as US
agents across the globe claim to be doing against Al Qaida.
Perhaps one of the most disgusting aspects of this entire charade
called "justice" was the presence in the courtroom of Cuban-Americans
identified, not only by Cuba but also by other nations, as
terrorists. One of them is José Basulto who sacrificed the lives of
his fellow Brothers to the Rescue pilots when he engineered their
shoot-down by Cuban jets defending the island's airspace in 1996. He
made sure he survived by escaping what he knew was coming after
putting his own men in the line of fire. Another, Orlando Bosch, a
man that was found guilty of scores of acts of terrorism in countries
across Latin America, who masterminded the bombing of a Cuban
airliner in 1976 with the loss of all on board, and who the US
District Attorney's office itself described as a terrorist, walks
free in Miami, having been pardoned by the father of the current US
president. A total of 30 countries refused this despicable man asylum
when even the US was trying to be rid of him.
It was under such circumstances that the five were tried or, rather,
railroaded. In such an atmosphere of hatred fired up by powerful
organizations such as the Cuban American National Foundation any sane
person would question the "justice" of such trials. Guerrero,
Hernandez, Labañino and the two Gonzalez' join the 100 or so
political prisoners in US prisons. They will not - by any stretch of
the imagination - be forgotten, nor will Cuba cease to demand their
freedom.
(c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
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