Radio Havana Cuba-25 May 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 25 May 2001 . *FIDEL CASTRO PRAISES WORK OF UN DECOLONIZATION COMMITTEE *ROUNDTABLE REPORT: "PUERTO RICO WILL ONE DAY BE FREE" *CENTRAL AMERICAN RIGHTS GROUP TO DETAIL ACTIVITIES OF POSADA CARRILES *BRAZIL, CUBA STRENGTHEN AGRICULTURAL RELATIONS *US SENATOR'S DEFECTION CELEBRATED BY ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS *CUBAN AMBASSADOR DENOUNCES XENOPHOBIA OF REACTIONARY VENEZUELANS *EXCESSIVE SENTENCES FOR VIEQUES ACTIVISTS IN US FEDERAL COURT *Viewpoint: TROUBLE IN PARADISE . *FIDEL CASTRO PRAISES WORK OF UN DECOLONIZATION COMMITTEE Havana, May 25 (RHC)--Cuban President Fidel Castro has praised the United Nations Decolonization Committee, which works for the independence of colonial territories. The Cuban leader spoke with reporters Thursday night following a reception for participants of the Regional Session of the Committee, which wrapped up its three-day meeting in Havana on Friday. Fidel Castro said that while he was unable to attend sessions of the meeting due to time constraints and prior commitments, he was aware that everyone has been pleased with the session in Havana. The leader of the Cuban Revolution said that he was particularly interested in the fact that the independence of Puerto Rico was on the agenda. He recalled that many years ago, as a university student, he was active in solidarity with efforts toward Puerto Rican independence as well as the independence of the Malvinas Islands. And Fidel Castro said that the Cuban Revolution is, by nature, anti-imperialist -- and promotes the independence of all colonial territories. Speaking with reporters following his meeting with members of the UN committee, the Cuban leader said he greatly admired the bravery of the demonstrators who protest against the U.S. Navy on Vieques. And he noted that the Puerto Rican people have resisted U.S. attempts to destroy their language, culture and national identity during more than 100 years of Washington's domination. Fidel said that he spoke with Puerto Rican delegates to the Havana meeting -- assuring them that they are perhaps closer to independence for their country, given the upcoming onslaught of the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas. He said the U.S.-promoted regional free trade zone is nothing more than an annexationist plan to absorb the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. All of the Americas are being threatened by Washington's annexationist designs, he said, adding that he is increasingly convinced that the economic order imposed on the rest of the world by the United States is unsustainable. The 11th Regional Session of the United Nations Decolonization Committee met in the Cuban capital on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Experts from the 24 member-nations of the UN agency examined the issues of self-determination and sovereignty. On Wednesday, during the opening session held at the Hotel Nacional, Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon called for the total and definitive independence of Puerto Rico. The Cuban parliament leader said that the struggle for Puerto Rican independence has more significance than ever, given the battle to prevent the absorption of the continent by the United States through the implementation of the FTAA. Among the participants at the regional meeting of the UN Decolonization Committee was Juan Mari Bras, a veteran fighter for Puerto Rican independence. Speaking with reporters during a break in the closed-door meeting on Thursday, Mari Bras pointed to the growing movement to throw the U.S. Navy out of Vieques -- and called for a renewed commitment to work for the total liberation of all colonial territories under foreign rule. On December 14, 1960, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 1514 -- calling for the independence of all colonial countries. The Decolonization Committee, formed one year later in 1961, was designed to help monitor the independence process. Of the 72 territories under colonial rule when the Committee was created 40 years ago, 17 have not been granted independence and are still directly ruled by a colonial power. *ROUNDTABLE REPORT: "PUERTO RICO WILL ONE DAY BE FREE" Havana, May 25 (RHC)--A special roundtable discussion was aired live on Cuban radio and television Thursday evening -- examining the question of Puerto Rico's status as a colony of the United States and the growing movement to get the U.S. Navy out of Vieques. With Cuban President Fidel Castro in the audience, panelists noted that despite Washington's efforts to wipe out the island's cultural and national identity, the Puerto Rican people continue to resist. One of the panelists, an attorney for protesters recently arrested on Vieques -- Wilma Reveron -- told the radio and TV audience that the United States has violated the civil and human rights of Vieques residents as well as those imprisoned for peacefully demonstrating against the island's use as a bombing and target range. Another panelist on the roundtable was Juan Mari Bras, a veteran fighter for Puerto Rican independence. Mari Bras thanked the Cuban government and people for their long history of solidarity with the cause of independence for his homeland. And he added that he is convinced that Puerto Rico will one day be free. *CENTRAL AMERICAN RIGHTS GROUP TO DETAIL ACTIVITIES OF POSADA CARRILES Havana, 25th May (RHC)--The Central American Human Rights Defense Commission has charged that Central America has become famous as a refuge for terrorists, human rights violators and corrupt officials. The organization, known by its Spanish acronym CODEHUCA, has announced the upcoming publication of a 24-page document detailing the activities of the Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is currently under arrest in Panama in connection with an assassination plot against Cuban President Fidel Castro. CODEHUCA said the report reviews Posada Carriles' activities as advisor to governments in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, as well as his terrorism in the region. Among his activities in Nicaragua, where he was based in the city of Esteli, he planned to sabotage Aerosegovia Airlines, which has direct flights between Managua and Havana. The report also details his logistic operations in El Salvador with the support, among others, of former Salvadoran Security Minister Hugo Barrera and former Interior Minister Mario Acosta. The report also reports on efforts by fugitive Vladimiro Montesinos, the former Peruvian intelligence chief, to seek political asylum in Panama; and the presence in Nicaragua of former Mexican government official Alfredo Espinoza, accused of corruption in Mexico. In addition, CODEFUCA reviews the history of a former Argentine army lieutenant and torturer during that country's dictatorship who -- with the money he stole from those he forcibly disappeared -- established profitable business enterprises in El Salvador. The CODEHUCA does not include other cases, such as those of former Haitian dictator Raoul Cedras or Ecuador's ex-President Abdala Bucaram, accused of corruption, both of whom reside in Panama. *BRAZIL, CUBA STRENGTHEN AGRICULTURAL RELATIONS Rio de Janeiro, May 25 (RHC)--Cuban Minister of Agriculture Alfredo Jordan Morales is in Rio de Janeiro at the invitation of his Brazilian counterpart, Marcos Vinicius Pratini de Moraes. The Cuban official arrived earlier this week and has been visiting farms, cattle ranches and agricultural areas throughout the country. Shortly after his arrival, Alfredo Jordon toured the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso, where he visited the area's vast cotton plantations as well as local agro-industrial centers. Cuba's agriculture minister and his accompanying delegation are also studying technological and trade exchanges. On Friday, during the Cuban delegation's visit to Rio de Janeiro, it was announced that business representatives from Mato Grosso would soon travel to Cuba to explore commercial trade and business possibilities. Brazil has shown great interest in Cuba's biotechnological achievements and advanced genetic experiments with cattle. *SENATOR JEFFORDS' DEFECTION CELEBRATED BY US ENVIRONMENTALISTS Havana, 25th May (RHC)--Environmental activists in the United States are celebrating the new Democratic Senate majority following the defection of former Republican James Jeffords. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said that Senator Tom Daschle's new leadership as a result of the defection will be crucial in blocking the Bush administration's assault on the quality of air, water and land. The former Senate leader, Republican Trent Lott, staunchly opposed ecological conservation projects. Jeffords will probably preside over the Senate Environment Committee, while Democrat Tom Harkin is likely to head the Senate Agriculture Committee. Both legislators have long promoted environmental protection measures. This week Harkin presented a $4 billion draft bill to pay farmers to limit erosion and protect fauna and water sources. Fred Hoefner, of the Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture, said that Harkin will transform conservation into a priority issue. Jeffords has promoted programs for renewable energy sources, a reduction of dependence on fossil fuels, and the protection from oil drilling of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge -- which has come under assault from the Bush administration. Mark Helm, spokesperson for Friends of the Earth, said Jeffords' announcement of his defection should send a clear message to the president that he cannot impose an agenda that is contrary to a clean environment, sensible energy policies and an equitable tax policy. *CUBAN AMBASSADOR DENOUNCES ANTI-CUBAN CAMPAIGN OF VENEZUELAN REACTIONARIES Caracas, May 25 (RHC)--Cuba's ambassador to Venezuela, German Sanchez Otero, has denounced an anti-Cuba xenophobia campaign among reactionary Venezuelan sectors. In an interview Friday with the local news daily El Universal, Sanchez Otero said the campaign does not have its origin in Venezuela, but rather in Miami. In reference to a protest in front of the Cuban embassy in Caracas Saturday, called by former right-wing Venezuelan presidential candidate Alejandro Pena Esclusa, the Cuban ambassador said those denouncing the so-called "cubanization" of Venzuela are the same forces who spread the lie during the country's electoral campaign that 1,500 "Cuban intelligence agents" were working in Venezuela. Now, he said, they are attempting to "miami-ize" a sector of the reactionary opposition in Venezuela. Ambassador Sanchez Otero noted that Cuba has 2,300 health professionals providing health care for 12 million patients in 15 nations -- including Guatemala and Haiti -- and that Venezuela is the only country where the presence of Cuban doctors has led to charges of "cubanization." In related news, Venezuelan Defense Jose Vicente Rangel has asserted that an ad published this week in the U.S. news daily The Washington Times, calling for the resignation of President Hugo Chavez, was paid for by the Venezuelan bankers who gutted the country's financial system in 1994 and then fled to Miami. The ad was signed by the so-called "National Emergency Junta," an organization whose existence and membership is unknown in Venezuela. It accused Chavez of opening his country to a "communist invasion" of Cubans and Chinese. The Washington Times, which published the advertisement, is owned by the controversial and rabidly anti-communist South Korean millionaire Sun Myung Moon. *EXCESSIVE SENTENCES FOR VIEQUES ACTIVISTS IN US FEDERAL COURT San Jose, 25th May (RHC)--The New York Times has characterized as excessive the prison sentences imposed by a U.S. federal court in Puerto Rico against four New York activists and political leaders who participated in a recent civil disobedience campaign in Vieques. Civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton was sentenced to 90 days in prison, while three local political leaders of Puerto Rican origin in New York were sentenced to 40 days each. The New York Times editorial noted that the four simply penetrated a restricted military zone in Vieques and held a 20-minute protest against U.S. military target practice in the Puerto Rican island-municipality. The U.S. Federal Prisons Office has confirmed that the four detainees have been transferred from the U.S. Guaynabo Federal Prison in Puerto Rico to a prison in New York City, though declining to say exactly where they are now. Meanwhile, Puerto Rican religious leaders have announced a massive demonstration Monday in front of the Guaynabo Penitenciary in support of the dozens of other pro-Vieques activists incarcerated there. *Viewpoint: TROUBLE IN PARADISE Just four months after right-wing George W. Bush took over the White House, frustration and disagreement have surfaced in the Republican Party. Senator James Jeffords announced on Thursday that he is leaving the Party, a statement that sparked a veritable political earthquake in Washington, because it gives Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since l994. Jeffords, a Republican for 27 years, said that he believes Bush is leading the country in the wrong direction. In his resignation speech, the senator from Vermont insisted that he wasn't bothered by the criticism leveled against him by Republicans when he voted against Bush's fiscal packet; rather, his disagreement with the president was over government programs. Though he has declared himself to be an "independent," Jeffords said that he would affiliate himself with the Democrats, giving them 51 votes to the Republicans' 49. In case of a tie, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, would have a vote. Leaps from one party to another are not uncommon in US politics (Jeffords is the 18th senator to defect from his party), but this is the first time that such a move has shifted the balance of power in the upper house of Congress. According to experts, the turnaround endangers approval of Bush's conservative agenda and will complicate his plans in the area of energy, defense and foreign policy, since the Democrats will now be heading key Senate committees -- especially the Foreign Relations Committee, where ultra-conservative Jesse Helms will give way to liberal Joseph Biden. Bush has managed to push through the crown jewel of his legislative priorities -- a package of tax cuts -- but his education programs, healthcare "reform" and other projects opposed by Democrats are still making their way through the Congress. What's more, the nominations of dozens of judges and high-ranking federal officials are still at stake. Among them is Bush's controversial choice for Undersecretary of State for Interamerican Affairs, right-wing Cuban American Otto Reich, whose suitability for the job is highly questioned by many Democrats. Certainly, a Democratic Senate will resist increased use of oil and nuclear power plants and it may even obstruct the costly and dangerous plan to create a national anti-missile shield, which Bush claims is "the best option for peace," although the rest of the world regards it as the beginning of a new arms race. The United States Ambassador to Vietnam, Douglas Peterson, has announced his plan to resign in July to return to Florida, where he is expected to run for Governor of that state. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Peterson disagrees with the current administration's policy toward Hanoi. It is likely, therefore, that the administration nominally headed by George W. Bush will have to reconsider both the content of their legislative proposals, as well as their tactics to advance them in the Senate, which so far have been characterized as "unilateral." As an anonymous Republican senator recently commented to the Washington Post, "This White House is acting too macho." (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-21626 2001-May-26 12:28:23