Radio Havana Cuba-19 June 2000 22:00 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 19 June 2000 21:10 *CUBAN TV ROUNTABLE SPOTLIGHTS MUMIA ABU JAMAL AND SHAKA SANKOFA *ROSENBERGS REMEMBERED BY CUBANS AND AMERICANS IN HABANA *INTERNATIONAL TRADE FAIR EXPOCARIBE 2000 UNDERWAY IN EASTERN SANTIAGO DE CUBA *CUBA HOLDS THE HIGHEST LIFE EXPECTANCY RATE IN ALL OF LATIN AMERICA *ARAGON ORCHESTRA WARMS UP TO PERFORM AT NEW YORK'S CARNEGIE HALL *WHALES SPOTTED ON CUBA'S SOUTHERN COAST *Viewpoint: THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM--A TOOL TO OPPRESS AND KILL *CUBAN TV ROUNTABLE SPOTLIGHTS MUMIA ABU JAMAL AND SHAKA SANKOFA Monday night's round table on Cuban TV extensively covered the case of African American writer, journalist and activist Mumia Abu Jamal, who is currently on death row in Pennsylvania in the US for a crime that most informed people insist he did not commit. A delegation of US activists that included Mumia's attorney Leonard Weinglass, long time African American activists Pam Africa and Lennox Hines, and Gloria de la Riva, a California labour leader who was responsible for mainstreaming the subject of Mumia to the Cuban people in a speech in Havana on Mayday. US African American actor Danny Glover and the National Co-ordinator for the Defence of Mumia, Jeff Mackler, were also interviewed by phone. The case of Shaka Sankofa who is due to be executed this Thursday was also discussed. The speakers all spoke on how oppression in the United States has consistently taken a racist turn as proven by the excessive difference in the percentage of blacks to whites on US death rows throughout the country. Sankofa is African American. Citing statistics on rape Lennox Hines said that no white man has er been put to death in the history of the US for the rape of a black woman. But in excess of 400 black men had been executed for the rape of a white woman in.Repeating the fact that the US incarcerates more of its citizens that any other nation in the world, the speakers all agreed that the US system has become one of extreme repression with a lock-em-up mentality. Over 50% of black youth are unemployed, 5 million African Americans are homeless. Twenty million are below the poverty line and of the two million prisoners in the US half are black. Gloria de la Riva said that where she comes from in San Francisco it is impossible for most people to rent let alone buy a house on the income they earn. More and more people are forced into economic crime to simply survive. Many of these end up in prison under the infamous three-strikes-and-you're-out system of locking someone up for life if they commit three felonies -- however minor or non-violent. African Americans are 13 times more likely to receive longer sentences than white criminals convicted for the same drug related offence, said one of the panelists. The roundtable ended with a recorded statement from Mumia Abu Jamal himself addressing the Cuban audience in Spanish. He explained that he was a political prisoner and that it was in effect a crime to be black in White America. *ROSENBERGS REMEMBERED BY CUBANS AND AMERICANS IN HABANA Forty seven years ago on this day June 19th 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed in the United States for supposed treason at the height of the anti-communist hysteria generated by then Senator Joseph McCarthy.Cuba has the only memorial to the Jewish couple who were denied a fair trial and put to death for what most analysts say were strictly political reasons. The island's Jewish Community along with some 100 US visitors and Cuban officials commemorated the Rosenbergs in a ceremony today at the base of the memorial.A wreath was laid and children sang in Yiddish in the pouring rain and US citizens who were active in the defence of the Rosenbergs at the time recounted their memories of what they termed the terrible oppression they all lived under for their social and political beliefs. *INTERNATIONAL TRADE FAIR EXPOCARIBE 2000 UNDERWAY IN EASTERN SANTIAGO DE CUBA Santiago de Cuba, June 19 (RHC)-- The 9th Edition of the International Trade Fair Expo-Caribe 2000 is into its first day of sessions in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba with a conference on business opportunities on the island.Representatives of over 900 Cuban and foreign companies will get a first-hand look at foreign investment and the creation of joint ventures and other types of economic associations.An exhibition of national and foreign products will also take place during the fair and a round of business negotiations is scheduled for Wednesday.Commercial exchanges with the island continue on the rise, surpassing the figure of 5 billion dollars. The island has concluded business negotiations with over 3000 firms from some 150 countries.In addition, over 400 economic associations with foreign capital were created during the 1989-99 period, half of which were approved after the Helms-Burton Law and there are currently 150 projects under negotiation. *CUBA HOLDS THE HIGHEST LIFE EXPECTANCY RATE IN ALL OF LATIN AMERICA Havana, June 19 (RHC)-- Cuba holds the highest life expectancy rate in all in all of Latin America, according to a report by the World Health Organization, released simultaneously in Geneva, Washington and London.The report, by the WHO Health Policy Program Director, Dr. Christopher Murray, also revealed that Cuba is in 24th place among 191 countries studied regarding healthy life expectancy.According to the study, the life expectancy of healthy life in Cuba is 68.4 years, very close to that of the United States. Cuba is followed in Latin America by Uruguay, at 67 years; Argentina and Costa Rica, both at 66.7 years and Brazil, whose healthy life expectancy is a little over 59 years of age. *ARAGON ORCHESTRA WARMS UP TO PERFORM AT NEW YORK'S CARNEGIE HALL Havana, June 19 (RHC)-- The renowned Cuban musical group Aragon will perform on Tuesday in New York's Carnegie Hall.The group's director, violinist Rafael Lay Bravo, said the performance "will be an honor" and will expose the group to a new audience and markets.With 60 years of experience, Aragon is internationally- recognized with its Cuban rhythms, among them the danzon, cha-cha-cha and songs like El Bodeguero and Queen Isabel. *WHALES SPOTTED ON CUBA'S SOUTHERN COAST Cienfuegos, June 19 (RHC)-- The existence of a group of whales off the coasts of southern Cienfuegos province is unprecedented, according to local experts.In statements to Prensa Latina News Agency, Hector Ledesma, the director of the Environmental Office in Cienfuegos, said that it is unusual to find whales in the warm waters of the Caribbean.The existence of 12 whales was discovered by a group of French vacationers while they were scuba-diving, one mile away from the Guajimico tourist villa, located between the cities of Cienfuegos and Trinidad.The tourists and Cuban experts that saw the whales said that the mammals were longer than their 12-meter boat.Marine biologist Maria Araujo from the Environment Office believes that the probable causes of the whales in the region are the state of health of the leader of the group, some tremor or climatic changes.Although the photographs taken by the vacationers do not allow for an accurate identification of the whales, specialists from the National Aquarium said they could probably be hump-back whales.Experts say these whales could be related to a group of 22 whales that were saved earlier this month off the Mexican coast of Yucatan. *Viewpoint: THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM--A TOOL TO OPPRESS AND KILL The United States of America -- the country that holds itself up as "the great defender of human rights" -- has the largest per capita prison population in the world. U.S. jails and prisons are filled with the country's poor and ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, outside the prison walls, people of color and the poor are trapped in deteriorating public housing projects, drop out of school at alarming rates, lose their lives to drugs, gangs and violence.Studies abound in this 'great' country where human rights are so cherished, showing that the U.S. prison system is nothing more than a system used to punish those whose only crime is being Black, Latino or poor. The so-called 'legal system' in the United States is designed to keep those without economic resources 'in their place' - in other words - keeping them locked up or, in some cases, simply putting them to death.Many innocent people, condemned to death for crimes they did not commit, are regularly gassed, electrocuted or injected with poison. The statistics are overwhelming... so much so that there is a growing movement inside the U.S. to completely reexamine the capital punishment system. In the U.S. state of Illinois, Governor George Ryan -- a long time supporter of the death penalty -- was forced to impose a moratorium on executions in his state last January. His move came after the freeing of 13 wrongfully condemned inmates in Illinois over the past several years and a recent investigative report in the Chicago Tribune newspaper, exposing inequities in the state's capital punishment system. According to the Quixote Center, a non-governmental organization based in Maryland and a leader in the anti-death penalty movement, a number of elected-officials are beginning to question the legal process that leads to the execution of innocent people. At least 20 local governing bodies in eight death penalty states have passed resolutions calling for moratoriums. Despite the increasing debate, the pace of executions around the country has not slowed. In Texas -- where the son of former president George Bush is the state's governor and also has plans to reside in the White House -- 134 prisoners have been put to death since the younger Bush took office five years ago. In fact, just last week - on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday - three Texas death row inmates were injected with lethal solutions. And this Thursday, June 22nd, another innocent man is scheduled to 'meet his maker." Shaka Sankofa, also known as Gary Graham, is an African-American prisoner who has been on death row in Texas for 19 years, since 1981. Convicted of murder at the age of 17, Shaka has always insisted that he is innocent and the victim of a racist system. There are growing calls throughout the United States for a new trial for Shaka Sankofa. Shaka was convicted on the questionable testimony of a single eyewitness who claims to have seen him from 40 feet away. The testimony of six other witnesses, who place Shaka at another place, was not even admitted as evidence. They insist that Shaka was not at the scene of the murder and demand that their testimony be used in a new trial. During his brief trial nearly 20 years ago, his court-appointed lawyers, who had never tried a capital case, conducted no investigation of the evidence and even failed to cross-examine prosecution witnesses on crucial issues. Four alibi witnesses, who have all passed polygraph tests, affirm that Shaka was with them the night that the murder took place. Moreover, the police department's own ballistic tests determined that Shaka's gun, which allegedly linked him to the crime, was not used in the murder.Not a single shred of physical evidence has linked Shaka to the crime for which he has spent the last 19 years on death row. And with days left before his scheduled execution on Thursday, it appears that despite his innocence, Shaka Sankofi will be put to death in Texas with a lethal injection.But in the United States of America - that "great defender of human rights" - justice is unimportant. Like so many others before him, another innocent man has already been convicted of being Black and poor. (c) 2000 Radio Habana Cuba, 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: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= rhc-eng-10754 2000-Jun-19 22:41:15