Radio Havana Cuba-11 June 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 11 June 2001 . *CONFERENCE ON HISTORY OF U.S.-CUBA RELATIONS GETS UNDERWAY *PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER BEGINS OFFICIAL VISIT TO HAVANA *ARGENTINA: NATIONAL MEETING IN SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA WINDS UP *CUBA CONTINUES TO PROVIDE EDUCATION SCHOLARSHIPS TO THIRD WORLD *CUBAN LIGHT INDUSTRY MINISTER ON OFFICIAL VISIT TO CHINA *VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT LAUNCHES COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AGAINST CRITICS Viewpoint: *BUSH TRIES AGAIN TO PEDDLE HIS STAR-WARS PLAN . *CONFERENCE ON HISTORY OF U.S.-CUBA RELATIONS GETS UNDERWAY Havana, June 11 (RHC)--An International Scientific Conference on "The Platt Amendment and the History of U.S.-Cuba Bilateral Relations in the 20th Century" opened Monday in Havana. Sponsored by Cuba's History Institute, the University of Havana, the Havana Historian's Office and Cuba's Foreign Relations Institute, the conference gathers together academics and experts from the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Following the U.S. intervention in Cuba's independence struggle against Spanish colonialism in 1898 and the subsequent military occupation of the island, on March 2nd, 1901, the U.S. Congress added the Platt Amendment to an Army Appropriations Bill. The amendment stipulated that Cuba had only limited right to conduct its own foreign policy and debt policy. Under the amendment, the United States also reserved the right to intervene militarily in Cuba at any time. Other provisions of the Platt Amendment include that the island would sell or lease to the U.S. lands necessary for coaling or naval stations and the Isle of Pines, today's Isle of Youth, was omitted from the boundaries of Cuba. Since the U.S. government made it clear that that its military occupation of the island would not end until the amendment became part of Cuban law, on June 12th -- just three months after its approval by Washington -- the interventionist Platt Amendment was incorporated into Cuba's 1901 Constitution. Participants in the Havana scientific conference on the Platt Amendment are examining the U.S. imperialistic goals ever since the late nineteenth century and how those goals have shaped relations with Latin America, particularly Cuba. For U.S. historian and writer Jane Franklin, the Platt Amendment was a consistent application of the Monroe Doctrine. Franklin said, "As soon as the United States became a country, it has always wanted to control Cuba. Its aim has been to control Cuba and this has been a very consistent policy. I call it amazingly consistent and consistently amazing, because the intervention in 1898 was meant to turn Cuba into a possession of the United States and the policy of the United States, ever since the Revolution in 1959 has been to restore that control. The United States talks about restoring democracy in Cuba. But there was no democracy in Cuba ever until the triumph of the Revolution." *PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER BEGINS OFFICIAL VISIT TO HAVANA Havana, June 11 (RHC)--The Palestinian Foreign Minister, Farouk Khadoumi, began on Monday a round of official talks with his Cuban counterpart, Felipe Perez Roque. On Tuesday, both countries' foreign ministers will participate in a UN sponsored meeting with Latin American nations to analyze Palestine's current situation. During his stay in Havana, the Palestinian foreign minister will meet with the President of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, and the head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Cuban Communist Party, José Ramón Balaguer. The Cuban Foreign Ministry recently condemned the Israeli government's aggressive acts against the Palestinian people and demanded the immediate end of violence, which, said the ministry, has turned the Occupied Territories into a nightmare of truly biblical proportions. In an official declaration, the Cuban government demanded strong international action to put an end to the crimes against humanity that Israel is now perpetrating against the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories. In addition, Cuba condemns Washington for rejecting a project promoted by Non-Aligned nations in the UN Security Council aimed at sending UN observer forces to Occupied Territories to prevent further violence against the Palestinian people. The Cuban Foreign Ministry stated that the Israeli government's disregard for the most elementary rights of the Palestinian people needed firm action by the international community to put an end to the daily atrocities committed by Israel and the United States against Palestine. *ARGENTINA: NATIONAL MEETING IN SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA WINDS UP Buenos Aires, June 11 (RHC)--Nearly 300 members of Argentinean organizations in friendship with Cuba reiterated on Sunday their solidarity with the Cuban people and highlighted the human rights the island defends. The participants adopted the position after a two-day National Encounter in Solidarity with Cuba held in the city of Cordoba. The document calls for increasing efforts to reverse the anti-Cuban vote cast last April by the Argentinean government in the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission. The vote did not take into account the will of the majority the people of Argentina, say the Argentinean organizations. The text also considers that the Free Trade Area of the Americas, along with U.S. military intervention threats in Latin America, constitute an attempt by Washington to strengthen its dominance over, and exploitation of, the region. In this regard, said the Argentinean document, the need to reinforce and broaden solidarity with the Cuban people against a brutal strategy of US aggression has become essential. It advocates the elimination of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Laws as well as what it terms the genocidal Cuban Adjustment Act. Participants in the meeting agreed to hold next year's meeting in Jupuy, and to develop a national session in solidarity with Cuba in Buenos Aires in April 2002. *CUBA CONTINUES TO PROVIDE EDUCATION SCHOLARSHIPS TO THIRD WORLD Havana, June 11 (RHC)--Cuba has offered a total of 1,489 new scholarships for the 2001-2002 academic year to students from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. The program of granting scholarships to Third World students is an ongoing effort by Havana to contribute to the advance and development of under-developed nations. In the last 40 years 39,283 students from 120 countries have studied on the island, with by far the majority emanating from sub-Saharan Africa. Today, of the 11,689 foreign students being educated in various Cuban universities and polytechnics, the majority of them are from Latin America and the Caribbean. This year 626 students from 48 countries will graduate in more than 30 fields of expertise. The well-known Latin American School of Medicine is home to 5,028 of all those studying on the island. All the students have been offered a 6-year course to become doctors on the one condition that they practice medicine for the first 10 years of their careers among the poor and disadvantaged communities of their nations. *CUBAN LIGHT INDUSTRY MINISTER ON OFFICIAL VISIT TO CHINA Beijing, June 11 (RHC)--The Cuban Minister of Light Industry, Jesús Pérez Othón, has arrived in Beijing, China, at the head of a delegation that will seek further manufacturing contacts between both nations. The majority of the parts and raw materials used in Cuba's light industry come from China, especially in the fields of textile, ceramics, footwear and graphics, said the Cuban minister in comments to the press. Cuba would like to expand these areas and seek to manufacture new products as well as diversify and modernize industrial plants on the island. Such expansion would create more jobs -- especially in the eastern part of the country, said Pérez Othón. The Cuban light industry mission will complete a very full and extensive 10-day visit to a number of areas in China, meeting with some of the nation's most important directors in their fields and visiting some 15 different factories. *VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT LAUNCHES COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AGAINST CRITICS Buenos Aires, June 11 (RHC)--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has launched a counteroffensive against the critics of his government, calling for the establishment of neighborhood and work center groups to defend the country's revolution. In his weekly, Sunday radio and TV transmission, Chavez urged his followers to establish what he called Patriotic Bolivarian Circles -- named after Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar. He also reiterated his promise to struggle against the tax evasion of large companies, accusing this business sector of launching a war against his government. Chavez revealed that he has ordered an investigation of the finances of one of Venezuela's major media outlets, a bank and a telecommunications firm. He said these companies have reported losses and have declared that they are unable to pay their taxes. The Venezuelan president said that he doesn't believe them, adding that his rich opponents are mafia organizations attempting to poison public opinion. In recent weeks, a media campaign in Venezuela and the United States has attempted to discredit the Chavez administration. Viewpoint: *BUSH TRIES AGAIN TO PEDDLE HIS STAR-WARS PLAN Several days ago, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell failed in his attempt to convince NATO foreign ministers of the advantages of Bush's space-based anti-missile system. During the NATO meeting held last week in Budapest, Hungary, Powell offered to include some of those countries in his "Star Wars" plan, including France, Great Britain and Germany -- but no one took the bait. In fact, France is the country that is most skeptical of the U.S. idea. French President Jacques Chirac has called for a European anti-ballistic missile initiative while strongly warning against abandoning the current ABM Treaty. He has announced that he plans to re-launch efforts towards a non-proliferation agreement in the upcoming Gothenburg Community Summit. The other U.S. allies have not been so clear, but it is obvious that they oppose Bush's plan to militarize space. Though the most common argument against the anti-missile shield is the necessity to avoid a new arms race, the truth is that the star wars plan is just one manifestation of the frightening direction U.S. foreign policy is taking. Another controversial plan is Washington's attempts to swallow up all of Latin America into the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the FTAA. The project, which includes all of Latin America except Cuba, has set off violent reactions across the continent. Europeans see that the United States is trying to completely corner the Latin American market. Although the famous "anti-missile umbrella" seems to have little, direct relation to the FTAA, in realty the only missiles the United States has to fear are in Europe. If those European missiles were not aimed directly at the United States, as an astute cautionary measure, they will be shortly when it becomes clear to the world what Washington is attempting to achieve with its strange policy of protecting itself against a weapon that its adversaries do not possess. It just doesn't make sense to create a defensive system of such magnitude and cost to protect against the ten or twelve missiles that could reach the United States from the Third World. Perhaps the real reason can be found by considering what is to be earned by the military-industrial complex, with Europe helping to finance the ridiculous but dangerous scheme. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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