Radio Havana Cuba-29 May 2000 22:10 Via NY Transfer News - All the News thjat Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 29 May 2000 22:00 *MONDAY NIGHT ROUNDTABLE FEATURES ALICE WALKER AND MICHAEL RATNER *CUBAN PRESIDENT MEETS MAYOR-ELECT OF BUENOS AIRES *U.S. LEGISLATORS AND RICE FARMERS ARRIVE IN HAVANA *CALL FOR 2nd INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ENCOUNTER WITH CUBA *U.S. DELEGATIONS TOUR CENTRAL CUBAN REGION *CHINESE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND INFORMATION VISITS CUBA *PANAMANIAN DELEGATION WRAPS UP VISIT TO CUBA *DESCENDANTS OF INDIGENOUS CHILEANS TO STUDY MEDICINE IN CUBA *Viewpoint: NEW! 6-MONTH COURSE IN BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN MIAMI! "BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU," OR "HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ISOLATE PEOPLE" *MONDAY NIGHT ROUNDTABLE FEATURES ALICE WALKER AND MICHAEL RATNER In Cuban TV's ongoing series of roundtables which are designed to update the population on the latest events concerning the retention of Elián González in the USA and related issues in Cuba's 41 year-old conflict with Washington, two US citizens offered their opinions on Monday's edition. Alice Walker, the African American writer made famous by her book The Color Purple, told the Cuban audience that the 6 year old child should be returned to Cuba with his immediate family and that she was one of a majority of Americans that feel that way. People in the US don't quite understand how important children are to Cuba's culture, she added. They don't appreciate the level of love and commitment they have for their youth. If Elián stays in the USA he will lack this important support network from a society so dedicated to the wellbeing of its children. Michael Ratner, the US Yale University professor of Constitutional Law who also works at the New York based Center for Constitutional Rights, followed by saying that the US had violated the constitutional rights of both father and son in not allowing the child to return to Cuba once he had been taken from the Miami relatives who had kidnapped him. There is no precedent for such an act and if any country other than Cuba had been involved this would never have happened, he said. In talking about the influence of the right wing elements of the Cuban American community represented by the Cuban American National Foundation, Ratner stressed that he had never seen anything worse than their treatment of the 6 year old, taking him to Disneyland five days after his mother's death, adorning him in gold, and wrapping him in the US flag. The Miami relatives of Elián González clearly violated the child's rights, he added. Now that the boy is happy with his father instead of spending his days in front of the TV and playing videos, the law clearly stipulates the boy should return home to Cuba with his father. The roundtable involves a nightly two-hour discussion which Radio Havana Cuba monitors and analyses for our listeners and website visitors. *CUBAN PRESIDENT MEETS MAYOR-ELECT OF BUENOS AIRES Havana, May 29 (RHC)-- Cuban President Fidel Castro met over the weekend with the newly-elected mayor of Buenos Aires, Anibal Ibarra. The meeting took place at Havana's Revolution Palace, where both leaders discussed various issues of common interest. During his electoral campaign, Ibarra, the candidate of the ruling alliance between the Radical Civic Union and the left-center coalition known by its Spanish acronym FREPASO, expressed his interest in visiting Cuba to see first-hand the revolutionary process underway on the Caribbean island. *U.S. LEGISLATORS AND RICE FARMERS ARRIVE IN HAVANA Havana, May 29 (RHC)-- A delegation made up of lawmakers and rice farmers from the U.S. state of Arkansas has arrived in Havana to hold talks with their Cuban counterparts. Upon their arrival at Jose Marti International Airport Sunday evening, U.S. Democratic Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln told reporters that the aim of their visit is to find ways to provide products and open up trade with Cuba. The visit of the 16-member delegation comes as the House of Representatives examines legislation that would allow food and medicine to be sold to Cuba. The proposed legislation would also prohibit the U.S. president from including food and medicine in future unilateral measures against other countries without congressional approval. Another delegation member, David Hillman, president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, said that the group's 216,000 members are anxious to sell their products to Cuba. During their stay in Cuba, the visitors will meet with a number of high-ranking officials, including Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon. They will also tour agricultural cooperatives, poultry farms and a farmer's market. *FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATIONS ISSUE CALL FOR 2nd INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ENCOUNTER WITH CUBA Bogota, May 29 (RHC)-- Friendship with Cuba groups and associations in Colombia have issued a call for the Second International Encounter of Solidarity with Cuba. The call was made during a mass demonstration in Bogota, the Colombian capital, to demand the immediate return to Cuba of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez and the lifting of Washington's 40-year blockade against the island. Prensa Latina News Agency reported that hundreds of friends of Cuba gathered at the Leo Tolstoy Theatre in the Colombian capital's downtown neighborhood of La Candelaria over the weekend. Demonstrators expressed their commitment to attend the Second International Encounter of Solidarity with Cuba, set for November here in Havana. Those addressing the crowd on Sunday also called on all Colombians to maintain pressure on the U.S. government to allow Elian Gonzalez to return home to Cuba. In related news, the struggle for Elian's return to Cuba constitutes the main goal of Nicaraguans making up the Committee of Solidarity with Cuba in the Nicaraguan city of Masaya. The new group was created just a few days ago and gathers together members of Christian communities based in that area of the Central American country. The group's leader, Lucia Sabaleta, said that her group would not stop their activities until Elian is finally returned to his hometown of Cardenas in the Cuban province of Matanzas. *U.S. DELEGATIONS TOUR CENTRAL CUBAN REGION Matanzas, May 29 (RHC)-- A visiting delegation from the U.S. city of Pittsburgh has made a four-day tour of central Matanzas province, including the world famous Varadero beach resort and the city of Cardenas. The group's leader, Lisa Valenti, told reporters that the vast majority of people in the United States favor Elian's return with his father and immediate family to Cuba. Valenti, who is the President of the Sister City Project between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Matanzas, noted that Philadelphia -- another city in Pennsylvania -- is also hoping to establish this type of sister city relationship with the central Cuban city of Cardenas. She stated that far from simply establishing sister city relations between cities in Pennsylvania and Matanzas, the aim of the program is to extend these links to all Cuban and U.S. cities and provinces. The ultimate goal, she added, is to promote friendship as well as mutual knowledge and understanding between the peoples of Cuba and the United States. *CHINESE MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND INFORMATION VISITS CUBA Havana, May 29 (RHC)-- The Chinese Minister of Industry and Information, Wu Jinchuan, arrived in Havana over the weekend heading a large delegation from the sister Asian nation. Upon arriving in the Cuban capital, Jinchuan told reporters that his visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral relations with Cuba in areas such as informatics, communications and radio broadcasting. During their stay on the island, the Chinese minister of industry and information and the delegation accompanying him are scheduled to meet with high-ranking Cuban government officials, including Vice President Carlos Lage and Minister of Communications, Ignacio Gomez Planas. The delegation's agenda also includes visits to centers of historic and economic interest. *PANAMANIAN DELEGATION WRAPS UP VISIT TO CUBA Havana, May 29 (RHC)-- A delegation from Panama wrapped up a four-day working visit to Cuba on Monday. Headed by Enrique Garrido, President of the Panamanian Parliament, the legislative delegation was made up of the highest authorities in the indigenous town of Kuna Yala. Members of the delegation visited Havana's Latin American School of Medicine, where 23 young Panamanians from that indigenous ethnic group are currently studying on scholarships granted by Cuban authorities to Latin Americans who wish to study medicine in Cuba. During their visit to Cuba, the Panamanian legislators met with high-ranking Cuban government officials, including the President of the Cuban National Assembly or Parliament Ricardo Alarcon, First Deputy Foreign Minister Jorge Bolanos and Cuban Communist Party's Political Bureau member Jose Ramon Balaguer. *DESCENDANTS OF INDIGENOUS CHILEANS TO STUDY MEDICINE IN CUBA Havana, May 29 (RHC)-- Thirty young Chileans, half of them descendants of the Mapuche indigenous community, have arrived in Cuba to begin studies at Havana's Latin American School of Medicine. Shortly before departing for Havana, the future medical specialists thanked Cuban authorities for offering them the possibility to make their dreams come true. They also expressed their commitment to return after graduation -- offering their services in their home communities. The arrival of this latest group brings the number of Chilean students at the Latin American School of Medicine to 136. Gladys Marin, General Secretary of Chile's Communist Party, stated that the granting of these medical scholarships to Chilean students, free-of-charge, constitutes a new gesture of solidarity by the Cuban government. Viewpoint: NEW! 6-MONTH COURSE IN BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN MIAMI! "BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU," OR,,, "HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ISOLATE PEOPLE" Since the very beginning of the kidnapping of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez for political purposes, any person with common sense was able to see that reactionary Cuban-American groups in Miami were committing a terrible mistake. This illegal and immoral action has revealed the true intentions of the worst enemies of Cuba, for whom lies and slander have been their principal weapons in attempts to maintain Washington's hostile policy against the island. They have inhumanely tried to use the case of the six-year-old boy as a political banner, but have only garnered the repudiation of the vast majority of the American people, as recent surveys reflect. More than 70% of the U.S. people are in favor of Elian's return to Cuba. Elian's father -- Juan Miguel Gonzalez -- along with Juan Miguel's wife, Elian's little brother and some of his Cuban classmates have been in Washington for several weeks now, awaiting the decision of the Atlanta Court of Appeals. World public opinion is decisively on their side and millions in the United States hope that this bizarre affair soon comes to a happy ending. Meanwhile, here in Cuba, the entire nation has been mobilized to demand the boy's immediate return to the island. For forty years, counterrevolutionary Cuban-American groups in Miami have been able to deceive the majority of those in the United States. Those groups have served as the instruments of an anti-Cuba policy, carried out by nine consecutive U.S. administrations and the ultra-right wing in that country. However, now they have turned against that same government -- biting the hand that has always fed them -- because their irrational behavior has not been supported. Even more interesting, Washington is officially in favor of the child's return to Cuba. Although some could describe the view as overly optimistic, many people are now saying that after the Elian Gonzalez case, a change in U.S. policy towards Cuba could be on the horizon. (c) 2000 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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