CUBANEWS FROM RADIO HAVANA CUBA January 1, 1998 E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org http://www.radiohc.org CUBA: TEN TOP NEWS STORIES OF 1997 1997 was a significant year for the island's contemporary history. The definitive return home of the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara and the Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party are examples of the historic importance of some of the events occurring in Cuba over the past twelve months. Twelve months of intense struggle in a nation ever more pressured and attacked by the United States. A nation that is trying to overcome an economic crisis that has lasted 7 years now, and that is defending its right to build the society that the majority of Cubans desire. In this program, we will sum up the ten top Cuban news stories of 1997--a vital period in the life of the nation. FUNERAL OF LEGENDARY HERO ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA ON THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH IN COMBAT The poet had already predicted it: "not even though they hide you, or bury you, will they prevent us from finding you. And we found him. On June 28th the remains of heroic guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara and six of his comrades in arms were found in a secret grave underneath the old runway of the Valle Grande airport, in Bolivia. In June of 1996 the remains of another Cuban combatant, Carlos Coello, had been discovered. A team of Cuban and Argentinean experts found and identified the remains and are now continuing to search for the remains of the rest of Che's guerrilla group. The remains of Che and his comrades in arms arrived in Cuba on July 12th. The solemn ceremony at San Antonio de los Banos air base was attended by the country's top leadership and families of the freedom fighters. Che's daughter Aleida Guevara Marsh. In a short address on behalf of the families of the fallen heroes, she said: "More than 30 years ago our fathers said good bye to us, left us to continue the struggle of Bolivar, Marti and a united and independent continent. But they couldn't see the triumph. They were aware that great dreams only come true with immense sacrifice. We never saw them again. At that time most of us were very young; now we are men and women. We are perhaps living for the first time moments of great pain, of great sorrow, we know how it all happened and we suffered for it. Today their remains come to us. But they do not come defeated; they come eternally young, brave, strong, audacious heroes. Nobody can take that away from us; they will now live with their children and with their people forever." October was the month chosen for the homage, the month that marked the 30th anniversary of Che Guevara's death in combat in Bolivia. Santa Clara, the small city he liberated in 1958, is the site where his remains are definitively resting. October was also the month in which all humanity paid tribute to the legendary hero. Che moved people deeply and his ideas are more present today than ever. Speaking at the main rally in Santa Clara on October 17th, Cuban President Fidel Castro said that Che and his comrades had come back home alive, a reinforcement contingent to support the Cuban people's struggle for the preservation of independence. "Welcome heroic comrades of the reinforcement contingent; the trenches of ideas and justice that you'll be defending together with our people will never be surrendered. We will continue struggling for a better world. Ever Onward to Victory!" FIFTH CONGRESS OF THE CUBAN COMMUNIST PARTY With a more than 6 hour speech, the First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, President Fidel Castro, inaugurated the Fifth Congress of that organization on October 8th, the same day that 30 years ago the island learned of Che Guevara's death in Bolivia. This event, which took place following a process of national debate on its central document, reflected the island's political stability despite a tense economic situation and the US's pressures and blockade against the island. In his closing address, Fidel Castro said: "We are doing everything we can in the areas of tourism, hotels and all that, we're taking experience from everywhere, and the enemy knows it. That's why the enemy wants to scare the tourists off from here. We've talked about our problems very honestly, nobody can question the honesty with which we've expressed things here, and we see that there are many possibilities. I'm coming out of this congress with that conviction, I say it more convinced than ever, and we had strong convictions when we decided to save our homeland, the revolution and socialism, and struggle ahead without a socialist camp and without the Soviet Union and defend our ideas when everywhere people ran away and where communists swore they had given up their ideas, there are many people who gave up their ideas, but we reaffirm our ideals, and life and history are proving we're right. "The economic resolution passed by the Fifth Congress that wound up on October 10th reaffirmed the principal guidelines to ensure the continuity of the island's recovery, stressing that socialism is social justice and that socialism is also economic efficiency." The Cuban Communist Party Congress ratified President Fidel Castro and Vice President Raul Castro as the First and Second Secretaries and agreed to reduce and renovate its Central Committee and Political Bureau. And a group of young party leaders were promoted to that entity during the political gathering. US'S MORE THAN 35 YEAR BLOCKADE AGAINST CUBA IS AGAIN CONDEMNED AT THE UNITED NATIONS For the sixth time in a row with a vote that illustrates growing world support for the Caribbean island, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution on November 4th condemning Washington's blockade against Cuba. 143 countries voted in favor of the resolution, only three voted against, including the US, Israel and Uzbekistan, and 17 countries abstained. Upon presenting the resolution, Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon demonstrated the legal irregularities of US arguments to maintain the blockade and detailed the effects that the measure has inflicted on the Cuban economy. "Since it enacted the Helms-Burton Law, the United States is practicing a grotesque farce, trying to apply an irrational and unjustifiable law rejected internationally, holds talks and assumes commitments that it doesn't try to comply with. With a lack of leadership, US rulers admit that they are serving the mean interests of a minority group and want everybody to imitate them. Where will a policy that attacks all end up? For how long will we be able to stand it? My delegation relies on the world's capacity to face it." "The Cuban people will continue resisting and will never bow down to the barbarians who want to annihilate them. Our challenge is great but greater still is -- and will be -- our willingness to preserve the independence and justice we've conquered during long years of struggle and countless sacrifices of successive Cuban generations. Cuba is not and will never be a colonial possession of the United States. It's now time for those in Washington who have imperial dreams to wake up." THE UNITED STATES TIGHTENS ITS ANTI-CUBA POLICY If we were to briefly characterize 1997 concerning Cuban-US relations, it would be sufficient to say that 1997 was a year of US pressures and aggressions against the island. US legislative maneuvers were reported this year to strengthen the anti-Cuba Helms-Burton Law while differences between Washington and the European Union over the law's extraterritorial nature are still simmering. Just before year's end, the US congress also approved the so-called Graham Amendment, which orders the US Defense Department to periodically report to Congress on the island's military potential, absurdly claiming that Cuba is a threat to the national security of the United States. In 1997, Cuba also denounced the introduction in Cuba by the United States of the Tryps Palmi insect, which ruined a number of the country's crops. That denunciation is being analyzed by the Organization on Biological Weapons, despite US attempts to prevent an investigation into the matter. Also on September 4th, 1997, Salvadoran mercenary Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon was detained in connection with six terrorist bomb attacks on several Havana tour facilities. The detainee admitted his links with terrorists related to the Miami-based Cuban-American National Foundation. The US newspaper "The Miami Herald" ratified in November the participation of right-wing Cuban-American sectors in such bomb attacks aimed at affecting the island's principal source of hard currency: tourism. The Cuban justice system also tried and sentenced US citizen Walter Van Der Veer for promoting armed actions against Cuba and other acts against the government's security. CUBAN PRESIDENT FIDEL CASTRO PARTICIPATES IN THE 7TH IBEROAMERICAN SUMMIT The 7th Iberoamerican Summit was held on Margarita Island, Venezuela on November 8th and 9th of this year with the participation of Cuban President Fidel Castro. At the encounter, which dealt with the issue of the ethical values of democracy, President Fidel Castro reiterated the island's concepts of democracy and human rights and harshly condemned US maneuvers to isolate Cuba. "If we want to discuss the issue, let's discuss it. And let each one of us face the unquestionable figures and realities that show the accelerated speculation, the growing vulnerability of economies and the destruction of nature, the uncertain future and the bottomless abyss toward which blind and uncontrolled neoliberalism is leading us, to which smashing and brutal globalization controlled by the most powerful and selfish power in history is leading us. We don't have to wait for currencies to lose their value or for the stock exchange to plunge." Cuban President Fidel Castro's participation in the Iberoamerican Summit in Margarita was the Cuban leader's second trip abroad in 1997. Previously, he had traveled to Jamaica on March 16th to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Michael Manley. 14TH FESTIVAL OF YOUTH AND STUDENTS After eight years of interruption following the collapse of socialism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Cuba took up the idea of once again holding the world youth festival in Cuba. Nearly 12 thousand delegates from 136 countries met on the Caribbean island for nine days, during which they had the chance to share experiences and take a first-hand look at Cuba's reality. The festival was characterized by the fact that visitors didn't live in hotels or facilities for international visitors, but in Cuban homes. In that way, youth who came from all over the world -- rather than being passive guests or foreigners -- became members of the island's families, experiencing the same limitations of the Cuban people and sharing their happiness. THE CUBAN ECONOMY RECUPERATES; UPS AND DOWNS IN KEY ECONOMIC AREAS When addressing the meeting of presidents and executives of Latin American and Caribbean Central Banks in November, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said that the Cuban economy has not only started its recuperation but has also laid the groundwork for a sustainable economic growth in the years to come. After a 35 percent reduction of its GNP between 1990 and 1993, Cuba registered stable growth rates from 1994 on -- until it reached 7.8 in 1996. In 1997, the island's economy grew by 2.5 percent, mainly due to a lower sugar harvest. Tourism plays an important role in that growth. During 1997, by November, one million international tourists visited the island and one million 2 hundred thousand will have visited by year's end --with revenues amounting to 1.6 billion dollars. Another economic area that is registering sustained growth is nickel. With a record production of 53 thousand 657 tons as of mid November, authorities expect that production will rise to 60 thousand this year, 10 thousand more than in 1996. The area of cigar manufacturing also registered important economic results: 100 million cigars in 1997 compared to 71.8 million last year. However, things did not run so smoothly for one of the island's most important hard currency earners: sugar. In 1997, Cuba produced 4 million 200 thousand tons of sugar, nearly 245 thousand tons less than in 1996, despite important investments in the sector and credits obtained for it. Strategic, structural and organizational changes are currently being made to ensure the area's definitive recovery. MORE LEADERS FROM LATIN AMERICA AND THE WORLD VISIT THE ISLAND Two heads of state, two Presidents of Spanish autonomous regions, six Prime Ministers and eight high-ranking government officials, including first deputy ministers, foreign ministers and parliament presidents visited Cuba during 1997. Among them were the Presidents of Peru and Botswana, Alberto Fujimori and Quet Ketumil Masir, respectively and the Presidents of Andalucia and the Basque Autonomous Community, Manuel Chaves and Jose Antonio Ardanza. Others visited the island, including the Prime Minister of Laos, Kamtay Sifandon; Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell; the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Percival Patterson; the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, James Mitchell; the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Maxjatir Bin Mohamad and the Prime Minister of Barbados, Owen Arthur. Other international guests included top leaders of UNESCO, the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization and the Latin American Economic System, among others. All those visits proved how important it is for the world to have relations with Cuba, despite growing US attempts to isolate the island. It is worth noting that relations with the Caribbean region grew this year as well. THE CUBAN PEOPLE ENGAGE IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS, SCHEDULED TO FINISH IN JANUARY More evidence of the island's political stability is that the Cuban people are engaged in an electoral process to renovate the government at all levels. That process will culminate in January, when general elections will be held to elect provincial delegates and 601 deputies to the National Assembly of Peoples Power or National Parliament. Voter turnout during the October municipal elections stood at 97.59 percent of eligible voters, although voting is not compulsory in Cuba. The slates were drawn up taking into consideration the proposals and opinions of the people and their organization's direct representatives. On January 11th, as they did in October, the Cuban people will provide more evidence of their patriotic consciousness, their unity and willingness to defend and improve their political system, which guarantees the country's independence and the revolutionary gains we have been able to preserve in difficult times. The Cuban people will do so because they know that the system belongs to them, and our assemblies, with their good features and their imperfections. Our electoral system is as Cuban as palm trees, because they are not at the service of any foreign power or controlled by exploiters or corrupt cliques. The Cuban people know that no candidate has been proposed or elected as a result of money; they know that our elections are clean, without fraud, politicking or demagogy. Our elections are honorable and the institutions that truly represent the people come from the people themselves. CUBA RANKS THIRD IN THE WORLD TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIP In a year not precisely characterized by its international successes, Cuba won third place in the World Athletics Championships, which represented an unprecedented feat in that sports event. After a weak performance in the Atlanta Olympics, in which Cuban track and field athletes only won one silver medal and a bronze, in the World Track and Field Championship in Athens, Greece, the island's athletes took four gold medals, one silver and a bronze, with the island's smallest delegation in such world sports meets: only 20 members. In the World Indoor Championships in Paris, outstanding results were also obtained with only ten participants: three gold medals, one silver and one bronze. Cuban athletes who won gold medals in Athens '97 were 800 meter runner Ana Fidelia Quirot, high jumper Javier Sotomayor, long jumper Ivan Pedroso and triple jumper Yoelvis Quesada. [c] 1997. Radio Habana Cuba All rights reserved Articles cannot be reproduced, reprinted or published in any system without the consent of RHC. This prohibition includes the distribution of this material via Usenet News, "bulletin board" services, e-mail lists, print media, radio and television. For the complete RADIO HAVANA CUBA NEWSCAST and other features, please write for our daily broadcast schedule. We welcome your comments and suggestions. For further information, contact us at: Postal Address: Radio Havana Cuba P.O.Box 6240 Havana, Cuba Telephone: (53) (7) 791053 Fax: (53) (7) 795007 E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org WWW: http://www.radiohc.org