Radio Havana Cuba-04 May 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 04 May 2001 . *WASHINGTON LOSES ITS SEAT ON THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION *KENT STATE ANTI-WAR PROTESTORS KILLED 31 YEARS AGO TODAY *CUBA CREATES NEW MINISTRY TO COMBAT CORRUPTION AND IMPROVE EFFICIENCY *UPROAR CONTINUES OVER FRENCH WARCRIMES IN ALGERIA *CUBA AND FRANCE SIGN EDUCATIONAL AGREEMENTS *INNOVATIVE WORK AT CUBAN BIOMATERIALS CENTER *AWARDS GRANTED AT HEALTH FOR ALL FAIR *Viewpoint: A STUNNING DEFEAT, AND AN IMPORTANT LESSON, FOR THE US . *WASHINGTON LOSES ITS SEAT ON THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION Havana, May 4 (RHC)--The government of Cuba has asserted that the United States' exclusion from the United Nations Human Rights Commission is clearly the result of Washington's scandalous, arrogant and disgraceful conduct in Geneva and in the international scenario in general. Cuba's Granma news daily today front-paged an editorial asserting that Thursday's vote eliminating the U.S. from the Commission can be interpreted as a rejection of Washington's gunboat diplomacy, pressure tactics and highly controversial attitudes regarding key issues on the agenda of the international community. The editorial recalled Washington's highly criticized decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, its controversial plans to deploy a space-based anti-missile system, its unconditional support of Israel reflected in Washington's Security Council veto on a resolution to provide international protection for the Palestinian civilian population, and the new U.S. administration's Cold War mentality with respect to China, Russia and other nations. The Cuban government recalled that this year the United States was in opposition to 73% of the Human Rights Commission resolutions supported by the majority of the agency's members, including sensitive issues such as the right to food and the right of HIV-infected persons to have access to affordable medication. Finally, the editorial stated that what occurred in the vote of the UN Economic and Social Council, which has authority over the Human Rights Commission, denotes how countries vote when the balloting is secret and there is no fear of Washington's reprisals. Meanwhile, even those who defend Washington and its role in the UN Human Rights Commission have admitted that its defeat reflects growing frustration with the US Government's attitude toward international organizations and treaties. The New York Times wrote today that friends of the United States in Europe and elsewhere have grown increasingly impatient, disappointed and annoyed with actions by Washington. While deploring the U.S.'s exclusion from the UN agency, Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, told the New York Times that when it came to issues like children's rights and the outlawing of forced disappearances, the United States took an aggressively negative stand. William Vanden Heuvel, a former American deputy representative at the United Nations who is now chairman of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, stated that there are so many people in so many countries who are angry at the United States for not living up to its word and who are increasingly finding the United States to be an untrustworthy partner. The New York Times recognized that critics of the United Nations in Congress have neglected American involvement in world organizations generally, rejected a host of treaties and agreements, and built up a huge $580 million UN debt that is still tied up in the House of Representatives, despite an agreement worked out in December to lower American dues. The news daily reported that a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is now threatening that the U.S.'s exclusion from the Commission might force lawmakers to reconsider a carefully wrought agreement to pay those dues. The New York Times also noted that officials are interpreting the vote as a snub of Washington by the European Union. The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported today that the U.S. pressured Austria and Sweden to withdraw their candidates, but that the two nations, along with France, adamantly refused -- indicating the United States may be losing influence among its allies. The Washington Post also quoted a western diplomat who stated that, despite the U.S. government's promise to consult its allies on the issues of Star Wars, global warming and international conflicts, there is a perception that the Bush administration wants to do everything alone. *KENT STATE ANTI-WAR PROTESTORS KILLED 31 YEARS AGO TODAY Kent, Ohio, May 4 (RHC)--Today marks the 31st anniversary of the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University in the United States. On this date in 1970, a peaceful demonstration to protest the U.S. war of aggression against Vietnam was shattered by shots fired at students by the Ohio National Guard. Today on the campus of Kent State, a memorial ceremony was held to commemorate the four students who were killed when National Guard troops charged the retreating crowd. Eye-witnesses and some of those wounded 31 years ago recalled that the troops first fired tear-gas to disperse the protesters. Then, without warning, an order was given to fire, and shots rang out on the campus located in the U.S. State of Ohio. One participant at today's ceremony told reporters that even after more than 30 years, no one will ever forget those four innocent students, gunned down during protests of the U.S. war against the Vietnamese people. *CUBA CREATES NEW MINISTRY TO COMBAT CORRUPTION AND IMPROVE EFFICIENCY Havana, May 4 (RHC)--On Thursday, Cuba announced the creation of a new Ministry to combat corruption and improve efficiency in its economy. The new Ministry of Auditing and Control will oversee the administration of state funds as well as detect and prevent all forms of corruption. In 1995, President Fidel Castro warned that corruption played a major role in the fall of the Soviet Union and could pose a potential threat to Cuba's socialist system. The new ministry will oversee and improve company book-keeping, reduce black market activity and seek out those responsible for corruption, as well as maintain a strict ethical code for officials and state managers. Lina Pedraza Rodriguez, who is the director of the National Auditing Office, has been named as the new minister. While there have been examples of corruption among middle level managers in Cuba, as well as cases of petty theft, foreign companies doing business on the island frequently remark at the lack of corruption at higher levels, making Cuba almost unique in the region. Foreigners say they are astounded that the high-level contracts they sign with government agencies and employees do not require the automatic accompaniment of bribes. In fact, Fidel Castro has frequently challenged his critics to find any foreign bank account belonging to any Cuban leader. *UPROAR CONTINUES OVER FRENCH WAR CRIMES IN ALGERIA Paris, May 4 (RHC)--Uproar and controversy continue in France following revelations of crimes committed by French troops in Algeria in the 1950s. Amid ongoing expressions of shock and disgust at revelations by a retired French army general, who has admitted to death squad activity while attempting to put down Algeria's independence struggle, some sectors are calling for an investigation and for justice. Retired General Paul Aussaresses sent shockwaves through French and international public opinion this week with the publication of excerpts from a book he has written admitting to torture and assassinations of Algerian independence leaders. French President Jacques Chirac said Friday that he is horrified, members of France's co-governing Green Party have called for a special investigative commission, and an unidentified member of the French Supreme Court told the news daily L'Humanite that the retired general's revelations should be considered crimes against humanity. Experts consulted by the news daily Liberation, however, recalled that in July 1968, France passed amnesty laws benefiting all French soldiers who may have committed crimes during the effort to prevent Algerian independence -- which led France to deploy a total of 500,000 troops to that North African nation. *CUBA AND FRANCE SIGN EDUCATIONAL AGREEMENTS Havana, May 4 (RHC)-- Two agreements have been signed by Cuba with France relating to a project on technical education and professional training, as well as the expansion of French language courses on the island. The agreements were signed in a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation yesterday, attended by the French Ambassador Jean Levy and Deputy Minister Rodrigo Malmierca. The accords, valued at $1.5 million, follow the 1998 incorporation of Cuba into the French Zone of Cooperation and Solidarity and other talks formalized in high level meetings between both countries since then. Various Cuban educational institutions will benefit from the agreements, including universities across the island, polytechnical schools, archives and training centers. France will provide a series of grants as well as teaching personnel, technical support, language laboratory equipment and French literature. *INNOVATIVE WORK AT CUBAN BIOMATERIALS CENTER Havana, May 4 (RHC)--An article in the Cuban newspaper Granma International has praised the work of the Biomaterials Center at the University of Havana. The Center, known by its acronym BIOMAT, was founded in 1991 and was designed to provide the Cuban health care system with materials that could not be obtained elsewhere due to the U.S. blockade of the island. The products manufactured by BIOMAT include an adhesive which seals skin wounds, a powder used in bone reconstruction, and a product used in making dental prostheses. The adhesive, which is called Tisuacryl, avoids the need for changes of dressings after an operation and also minimizes scarring. Tisuacryl is sold on the world market in direct competition with the same product marketed by Johnson & Johnson of the US and the German firm Braun. The competition is stiff but the Cuban firms selling Tisuacryl always undercut the price of the transnationals. A significant amount of the product is also donated to international missions in countries such as Haiti, Honduras and Guatemala, where Cuban doctors are helping to set up comprehensive health care systems. BIOMAT also offers a number of other products used in dentistry, orthopedics and tissue studies. *AWARDS GRANTED AT HEALTH FOR ALL FAIR Havana, May 4 (RHC)--At the end of last week's International Medical Equipment Fair, also known as Health For All, Cuba was among a number of countries granted awards. Germany received seven awards, including advanced diagnostic technology developed by Siemens for the study of the heart. Spain received five awards, one of which was for a diagnostic kit for prostate cancer detection. Cuba received recognition for a portable digital electrocardiograph machine manufactured by the Central Institute of Digital Research, and the RALCA external fixator for fractured hips, created by the Frank Pais Orthopedic Hospital in Havana. The island's National Center for Scientific Investigation also introduced the Micro Diramic, a urinalysis device that is capable of producing results in four hours and is said to be ideal for diagnosing urinary tract infections of pregnant women.The devices will soon be installed in neighborhood clinics across the country. *Viewpoint: A STUNNING DEFEAT, AND AN IMPORTANT LESSON, FOR THE US The United States government suffered a crushing defeat yesterday. Since 1947, the United States had been a member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. This year however, in the wake of Washington's scandalous, arrogant and humiliating conduct in Geneva, it was excluded from the Human Rights Commission in a secret-ballot vote by the UN Economic and Social Council. U.S. diplomats in New York were astonished by the results of the vote which elected three out of four candidates from the group of Western countries to vacant seats for 3-year terms on the Commission. The United States received only 29 votes out of a possible 53, well behind France with 52 votes, Austria with 41 and Switzerland with 32 votes, a humiliating defeat for the imperialist superpower. Upon learning of the results, which left U.S. diplomats dumbfounded, an avalanche of diplomatic representatives from all over the world approached the Cuban diplomats to congratulate them for what they described as the price that Washington paid for its dirty maneuvers against Cuba, imposing its own dictates by means of blackmail and threats against sovereign countries. The reaction in Washington was bitter disappointment, expressed by both the US State Department through its spokesperson and by the chief of Washington's delegation to the UN Economic and Social Council. Furious over the defeat, Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who performs as the representative of the Miami-based anti-Cuba mafia, accused the Human Rights Commission of being "a club of tyrannies," among other reasons because Cuba is systematically re-elected as a member nation. Diaz-Balart threatened that "the U.S. Congress "would take note of what is unfortunately happening in the United Nations." A close friend of Diaz-Balart and representative of the anti-Cuba mafia in the U.S. Congress, Representative Ileana Ros Lethinen, a close friend of Diaz Balart who also serves the anti-Cuba lobby in the US Congress, described the US loss of membership on the Commission as "intolerable." What the muddled, arrogant henchmen of the US government cannot understand is that the outcome expresses the international community's disapproval of Washington's gunboat diplomacy and its coercive practices at international forums, as well as their constant manipulation and discriminatory practices in the Geneva Commission. This year alone, Washington voted against 73% of the measures proposed to deal with such highly sensitive issues as the right to food and the access of AIDS patients to medication. The vote also expresses the international community's strong rejection of the US withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, its absurd and dangerous decision to build a anti-missile shield, the cold war mentality of the new U.S. administration, as well as Washington's unconditional support of Israel, among many other U.S. actions. What happened in the UN Economic and Social Council is a demonstration of the genuine wishes of nations when they are able to vote in secret, protected from Washington's fury. The result is also a blow to the hegemonic aspirations of the United States in its attempts to use the issue of human rights in its crusade against Cuba and the rest of the Third World. Cuba was re-elected as a member of the Human Rights Commission last year by a consensus of the Latin American group. The Caribbean island will continue to defend in Geneva the right of peoples to a dignified life based on justice and peace. Cuba will continue to stand against US maneuvers, as it has done over the years, using as its best weapons -- the island's moral authority and honor, and the support of an ever-increasing number of nations. For the United States, however, it is another lesson that the world is changing. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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