Radio Havana Cuba-19 January 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 19 January 2001 . *A MILLION CUBANS MARCH TO PROTEST WASHINGTON'S CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT *SOUTHERN CROSS BRIGADE DEMANDS END TO THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT *JAPANESE PARLIAMENTARIANS MAKE A DONATION TO THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA *US STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS BEGIN EXCHANGE PROGRAM WITH CUBAN STUDENTS *CUBAN LEADER CONGRATULATES WORK OF OSPAAAL *CUBA'S INTEGRAL EMERGENCY SYSTEM HAS SAVED MANY LIVES: HEALTH MINISTER *A CALM KINSHASA PREPARES FOR FUNERAL OF LAURENT KABILA *NEW BOOK ON LATIN AMERICA'S "MACHIAVELLIAN LEADERS" *Viewpoint: STRUGGLE CONTINUES AGAINST CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT . *A MILLION CUBANS MARCH TO PROTEST WASHINGTON'S CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT Havana, January 19 (RHC) -- More than one million Cubans today marched before the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to protest Washington's Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants exclusive privileges to illegal Cuban immigrants. Called by Cuba's Federation of University Students, the Federation of High School Students and the Jose Marti Pioneers Organization, demonstrators flocked en mass to the capital city's Malecon seaside drive to express their indignation over the death of another two Cuban youths while trying to illegally reach the United States. Fifteen year old Alberto Esteban Vazquez and 16 year old Maikel Fonseca died in the landing gear of an airplane after responding to an incitement by family members of one of the deceased who reside in the U.S. Cuban President Fidel Castro, who personally led the protest march, said that Cubans are the only people in the world encouraged to travel to the U.S. by any means necessary. Protesters also denounced the increasing trafficking of illegal Cuban immigrants picked up by speed boats leaving Florida. This type of contraband has become a lucrative and dangerous business operation in which an undetermined number of Cubans have perished as a result of overloaded boats that capsize. The Cuban Adjustment Act has also led some Cubans to engage in acts of piracy, using violence, in which innocent people have been killed. Perpetrators of this type of illegal activity also obtain privileged refuge in the United States. *SOUTHERN CROSS BRIGADE DEMANDS END TO THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT Havana, January 19 (RHC)-The South Cross Solidarity Brigade made up of over 50 people from Australia and New Zealand, participated in the rally Friday morning passing in front of the US Interests Section alongside Havana's Malecón Seaside drive. They were among the more than one million protesters demanding a repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act which stimulates illegal and dangerous departures from the island. In a declaration issued on Friday in Havana the Southern Cross Brigade condemned the Cuban Adjustment Act which has inflicted death upon countless Cubans. As an independent group, says the declaration, we share the frustration and pain of the Cuban people for the loss of young lives provoked by an unjust and illegal law. It adds that the law as well as Washington's blockade against the island is a violation of basic human rights. *JAPANESE PARLIAMENTARIANS MAKE A DONATION TO THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA Havana, January 19 (RHC)-The Japanese parliamentary delegation currently visiting the island have donated language laboratory equipment to the College of Languages of the University of Havana. During their stay in Cuba, the Japanese legislators met with Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, the President of the island's Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon and other deputies. In statements to the press, the Japanese delegation expressed the need to increase bilateral relations and stressed that this visit represents an important step towards improving those ties. *US STUDENTS AND PROFESSORS BEGIN EXCHANGE PROGRAM WITH CUBAN STUDENTS Havana, January 19 (RHC)-Close to 800 US students and professors began an intense exchange program on Thursday in Havana visiting places of educational, economic, cultural and historic interest. The US group arrived on Wednesday in Havana on board a cruise ship as part of a University of Pittsburgh project called Semester at Sea. With this project, the US students and professors obtain a first hand look at different countries. In their first contact with Cuban students they received broad information on the advances and perspectives of the island's higher education system. *CUBAN LEADER CONGRATULATES WORK OF OSPAAAL Havana, January 19 (RHC)-Anti-imperialist unity continues to be an important strategy for the exploited countries in the world, said Cuban President Fidel Castro in a letter sent to the Organization in Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, OSPAAAL on the occasion of its 35th anniversary. In the document the Cuban leader recalled that 35 years ago revolutionary leaders from the Third World met in Havana in the historical Tricontinental Conference where they unanimously agreed to create OSPAAAL. In the face of the inevitable internationalization of the free market, the Cuban leader concluded, we are forced to globalize solidarity in the struggle against imperialism. Meanwhile, the main activity celebrating the 35th anniversary of OSPAAAL was held on Thursday in Havana with the participation of delegates from three continents. The solemn ceremony was held at the Habana Libre Hotel where renowned figures received the Mehdi Ben Barka solidarity order. Delegations from 12 Third World countries will also participate in a special meeting of OSPAAAL's Executive Secretariat. *CUBA'S INTEGRAL EMERGENCY SYSTEM HAS SAVED MANY LIVES: HEALTH MINISTER Havana, January 19 (RHC)-Cuba's Health Minister, Carlos Dotres said on Thursday in Havana that up to 50 per cent of the heart attack patients have survived through the island's Integral Emergency System. The Cuban health official outlined the work of some 2,185 health workers offering their services free of charge in other countries, as part of the integral health program created by Cuban President Fidel Castro. *A CALM KINSHASA PREPARES FOR FUNERAL OF LAURENT KABILA Havana, Januaary 19,2001(RHC)--The Democratic Republic of Congo is preparing funeral ceremonies for the late President Laurent Kabila, following Thursday evening's official confirmation of his death. Government representatives in Kinshasa, the capital, announced that Kabila had died in a hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe -- where he was taken after apparently being shot by one of his bodyguards in the presidential palace. The motive behind the assassination remains unclear, though in media outlets it's rumored that Uganda is implicated. Uganda and Rwanda are supporting rebel factions that have taken control of half of the Congo's vast territory in a war that has been raging for two and a half years. Kabila's son, Joseph Kabila, is to be officially sworn in as president sometime in the near future -- as indicated in a will left by his late father. To the astonishment of observers, Kinshasa is calm and the Congolese army seems to have accepted the leadership of Kabila's son -- who was already chief army commander. Kabila's body will be taken to his home town, Lubumbashi, for a funeral service on Saturday, and will be buried Tuesday in Kinshasa. Meanwhile, though there is calm in the Congolese capital, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has announced preparations to receive more displaced persons in neighboring Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. The UN agency stated that it has detected several movements of population amid an intensification of inter-ethnic clashes and battles between government forces and the rebels of the organization the Congolese Democracy Movement. Uganda is already home to eight thousand Congolese refugees, while Zambia has 38,000 and Tanzania 110,000. Tens of thousands of Congolese have died in the two and half year civil war, while some two million have been displaced. *NEW BOOK ON LATIN AMERICA'S "MACHIAVELLIAN LEADERS" Havana, January 19, 2001(RHC)--Argentinean writer Federico Andahazi has asserted that current and former political leaders in Latin America are far more Machiavellian that Machiavelli himself could have imagined. Referring to the Machiavellian theory that any means - however unscrupulous, immoral or cunning - can justifiably be used to achieve and maintain political power, Andahazi presented his new book Friday in Spain, entitled "The Prince" - the same title as Machiavelli's classic. Inspired by the magic realism of famed Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Andahazi said his book is about the excesses of political power in Latin America and the political manipulation of the will of the people. He took as example the former Argentinean administration of Carlos Menem, who, he said, left his country devastated. The Argentinean writer said that following the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983, there was an illusion of democracy that only became a short-lived party. He said Latin American countries find themselves in a terrible situation that is increasingly worsening, expressing his agreement with Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti, who called the region's political reality "the globalization of hypocrisy". Andahazi termed as inconceivable the fact that in the dawn of the 21st century people in some regions of Latin America are dying of hunger. He called this reality a Kafkaesque nightmare, in which the voice of the people has no form, but is converted into a voice of complicity by the region's political leaders. *Viewpoint: STRUGGLE CONTINUES AGAINST CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT Cuba, a tiny Caribbean nation, is the only country in the world that has been subjected for more than 40 years to a systematic policy of aggression by the greatest economic and military power in history. Ten successive U.S. governments have attempted to topple the Cuban Revolution; a revolution that was won and is being maintained at great sacrifice by the Cuban people themselves. Over the years Cuba has become an international power in ideals and political ethics. Its principal weapons are the just ideas and principals that must prevail in a humane society. Many countries, institutions and individuals have supported Cuba in its struggle to build a just society, including even those who do not share the island's political ideas. It was a battle of ideas that won the return to the island of the six-year-old boy who was kidnapped in November of l999 by right-wing Cuban-American sectors in Miami to be used as a political hostage against Cuba. The story of Elián González is well known. To win his return, Cubans launched a program of national struggle against the repressive measures imposed upon them by the United States - measures which are aimed at destroying the Revolution. Among these measures is the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act, which was passed in l966 with the aim of attracting illegal Cuban emigration to the United States as a form of negative propaganda. Washington grants privileges to illegal Cuban immigrants, which it gives to no other group of immigrants. Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, undocumented Cubans are guaranteed permanent residency in the United States, free schooling, medical care, jobs, home loans and other benefits. Many Cubans - most of them motivated by economic or family concerns - are thus tempted to try to make the dangerous crossing over the Florida Straits, an adventure during which many have lost their lives. This is why the Cuban people call the notorious legislation, the "killer law". Among the most recent tragedies is the case of two teenage Cuban boys who tried to illegally emigrate to the United States hidden in the landing gear of a British airliner, which they thought was going to the U.S.A. Both died horrible deaths due to lack of oxygen and the freezing temperatures of high altitudes. Their bodies fell from the plane in England, as the airliner was preparing to land. This tragedy has caused much pain and indignation in Cuba, where on Friday more than one million Cubans gathered in front of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to express their anger - just as they did many times before in their battle to gain the release of Elián Gonzalez, whose mother was yet another victim of the Cuban Adjustment Act. The entire island is once again demanding that this inhuman law against Cuba be repealed once and for all before more young lives are lost. (c) 2001 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-19015 2001-Jan-20 04:53:16