Radio Havana Cuba-15 November 2001 (delayed) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 15 November 2001 (Delayed) . *PEREZ ROQUE ADDRESSES NON-ALIGNED MINISTERS IN NEW YORK *UNIQUE CUBAN ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECT FOR DISABLED CHILDREN *SECOND ANNUAL "SEE CUBA" FESTIVAL UNDERWAY IN SCOTLAND *SUSPECTS IN THE US COULD FACE MILITARY COURTS *LONDON FOLLOWS WASHINGTON IN ADOPTING CONTROVERSIAL ANTI-TERRORISM LAWS *NORTHERN ALLIANCE SAYS NO UN PEACEKEEPERS, SPARKING SKEPTICISM OVER FUTURE *BRITISH DAILY: AFGHAN EX-PRESIDENT CONSOLIDATING A POWER BASE IN KABUL *NOAM CHOMSKY AT WORK ON BOOK ABOUT SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS *ARGENTINE PRESIDENT GETS RESPITE, BUT ECONOMIC FORECASTS STILL GLOOMY Viewpoint: *PEOPLE OF THIS HEMISPHERE WILL REJECT A COLONIAL PACT NEGOTIATED SECRETLY . *PEREZ ROQUE ADDRESSES NON-ALIGNED MINISTERS IN NEW YORK New York, November 15 (RHC)-- Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque spoke before a ministerial meeting of the Movement of Non-Aligned Nations yesterday in New York, held in conjunction with the current session of the United Nations General Assembly. The island's top diplomat affirmed that Cuba believes it is necessary to confront terrorism in all of its forms, recalling that the Non-Aligned Movement warned of the threat of terrorism over a decade ago. Calling for international cooperation based on the principles of the United Nations, Cuba's foreign minister strongly condemned Washington's war against Afghanistan -- emphasizing that terrorism cannot be eliminated by waging war against a defenseless nation. And he said that terrorism should not be confused with a people's legitimate right to struggle for their self-determination. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque urged the Non-Aligned Movement to make sure that the United Nations does not deal solely with the question of terrorism, but also with the issues of underdevelopment and growing inequalities. Havana's top diplomat said that if the fight against terrorism is important, even more important is the struggle against poverty, hunger, disease, AIDS, illiteracy and finding a solution to the foreign debt. Perez Roque referred to the present international situation, provoked by the failure of neo-liberal economic policies and made worse by Washington's war against Afghanistan -- calling on all industrialized nations to fulfill their moral and historic responsibility and contribute to the development of poor countries. During his address before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Cuba's foreign minister said that Havana is willing to join an international coalition in favor of sustainable development, in favor of the preservation of the environment and against the destruction of the planet. He said that the world must come together to save the hundreds of thousands of poor women who die every year at childbirth; to save 12 million children who die of preventable diseases every year in the Third World before the age of five; to supply AIDS medications to the 25 million Africans who are hopelessly awaiting death; and come together to invest in development at least a portion of the billions already spent to carpet-bomb a country where almost nothing has been left standing. According to Prensa Latina News Agency, the ministerial meeting of the Movement of Non-Aligned Nations plans to issue a declaration concerning the world's most urgent problems -- in light of the 40th anniversary of the organization's founding in 1961 in Belgrade. *UNIQUE CUBAN ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECT FOR DISABLED CHILDREN Santa Clara, November 15 (RHC)-- An environmental project for disabled children has been operating for more than a year in central Villa Clara province. According to Domingo Ballate, a forestry expert who works with environmental protection programs, the project for visually and hearing-impaired children is unique in all the world. Ballate said that the objective is to arouse interest in environmental issues by using video and audio presentations designed for young people. Sessions include field trips into the countryside where the children can experience animal life as well as flora and fauna. Hearing-impaired children have also developed a number of new sign language symbols for different and unusual birds. The new hand gestures have been officially recognized by the Cuban National Association of the Deaf and included in school curriculums. Specialists have confirmed that disabled children taking part in the project have shown remarkable progress in self-confidence -- losing fear of their surroundings and getting along better with other children. *SECOND ANNUAL "SEE CUBA" FESTIVAL UNDERWAY IN SCOTLAND Glasgow, November 15 (RHC)-- The Second Glasgow "See Cuba" Festival is in full swing for a 10-day celebration of Cuban art, music and culture. The Buena Vista Social Club performed last weekend and art exhibits have included works by the world famous Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, among many others. The annual event -- which is well attended -- is an extraordinary show of solidarity with Cuba in this Scottish city, which is the first British city to twin with a Cuban city. Following the visit of the mayor or Lord Provost of Glasgow to Havana recently, the two agreed to become sister cities. Steve Wilkinson from the London-based Cuba Solidarity Campaign attended the event to give a talk on Cuban detective fiction in which he specializes. He said that it was remarkable to see posters all over Glasgow with "See Cuba" written on them. Wilkinson added that the success of the festival comes in part from the support of Cuba in Westminster by the British Minister for Energy, Brian Wilson, who has traveled to Cuba on numerous occasions and is himself of Scottish background. *SUSPECTS IN THE US COULD FACE MILITARY COURTS Washington, November 15 (RHC)-- In what political analysts are saying is an extraordinary move, the United States has cleared the way to order military trials for suspected terrorists and their collaborators. The presidential directive, signed by President George W. Bush as commander in chief of the armed forces, by-passes the criminal justice system, its rules of evidence and its constitutional guarantees. According to reports from Washington, the order applies to non-U.S. citizens arrested in the United States or abroad. The president himself will decide which defendants will be tried by military tribunals -- without judicial review. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will appoint each panel and set its rules and procedures, including the level of proof needed for a conviction. Legal experts said the measure is highly unusual, but not surprising given recent moves by the Bush administration and legislation passed by Congress. Last week, the Justice Department authorized the wiretapping of conversations between jailed suspects and their lawyers. Congress has also passed legislation making it easier to conduct searches, detain and deport suspects, wiretap multiple telephones and obtain electronic records on individuals. While the U.S. president's order promises "a full and fair trial" and access to lawyers, there is no provision for an appeal to U.S. civil courts or international tribunals. Only Bush or the secretary of defense, if the president so chooses, will have the authority to overturn a decision. Laura Murphy, director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Bush needs to explain why the criminal justice system could not deliver "the timely prosecution" of terrorism suspects. She said that without such compelling justification the "order is deeply disturbing and further evidence that the administration is totally unwilling to abide by checks and balances." Some legal scholars such as John Norton Moore, director of the Center for National Security Law, had favored the creation of an international tribunal by the United Nations Security Council to deal with the September 11th attacks and their aftermath. But observers say that the White House is intent on going it alone -- ignoring calls for observing the UN Charter and other international obligations. The presidential order, signed late Tuesday, says those taken before military courts could include past or present members of so-called "terrorist" organizations or anyone involved in actions intended to have "adverse effects on the United States, its citizens, national security or economy." Bush's order states that a two-thirds vote is needed to convict and impose sentence, which could include execution. But it does not say how many judges are to sit on a military tribunal nor does it define their qualifications. One political observer stated: "The next step will be to hand out hoods to the judges to protect their identities." *LONDON FOLLOWS WASHINGTON IN ADOPTING CONTROVERSIAL ANTI-TERRORISM LAWS London, November 15 (RHC)-- A similar repressive trend is occurring in Great Britain, where according to Thursday's edition of the British news daily "The Guardian", Home Secretary David Blunkett will soon decide who is to be detained without trial. One of the news daily's leading editorials quotes Blunkett as saying that politicians not judges are the true defenders of liberty, asserting that the home secretary holds liberty and judges in contempt. "The Guardian" noted that last Sunday, his contempt for the legal profession reached an unheard of level when Blunkett attacked what he called "airy-fairy civil liberties" and the people who defend them. The editorial pointed to the European Union's Terrorism Act 2000, which it said would already be enough to criminalize any mass demonstration for a cause the government did not agree with, with tough clauses on suspected terrorists. But it wasn't tough enough, according to the editorial, noting that Blunkett's new anti-terrorism, crime and security bill brings in a further raft of measures, including more government eavesdropping and detention for up to a year of any non-citizen whom the home secretary suspects of being a terrorist. "The Guardian" affirmed that the home secretary alone will strike the balance between security and liberty, will be privy to the evidence that justifies imprisonment without trial, and will decide whether the terrorist claims of the security services are right. The editorial winds up asking: "Who will hold him to account." *NORTHERN ALLIANCE SAYS NO UN PEACEKEEPERS, SPARKING SKEPTICISM OVER FUTURE Kabul, November 15 (RHC)-- The Northern Alliance Wednesday provided a foretaste of further chaos and violence in Afghanistan by insisting that it would take care of the country's security and that an international peacekeeping force was unnecessary. Added to the Northern Alliance's defiance of western powers by capturing Kabul, and the re-emergence of feudal warlords in the south of the country, celebrations were dampened in Washington and London over the ease with which Kabul fell on Tuesday. Northern Alliance foreign affairs spokesman Abdullah Abdullah said he saw the future role of the United Nations mainly as observers. He claimed that after getting rid of the Taliban there won't be war and there won't be a need for an international peacekeeping force, though made no reference to the descent into chaos that followed the overthrow of the Soviet-backed government a decade ago - when the Taliban still hadn't entered the country from Pakistan. There are already reports that several tribal groupings were fighting for control over the Afghan city Jalalabad. The UN wants to hold a meeting of all Afghan factions within the next week, which the United Arab Emirates Wednesday offered to host. But the Northern Alliance is instead inviting prospective members of a doubtful coalition government to Kabul. At the same time, Amnesty International Wednesday wrote a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair accusing London of being complacent about the Northern Alliance's human rights record, stating that by failing to appreciate the past abuse of tribal warlords, the British government is at best perpetuating a culture of impunity for past crimes, and at worst risking being complicit in future human rights violations. *BRITISH DAILY: AFGHAN EX-PRESIDENT CONSOLIDATING A POWER BASE IN KABUL London, November 15 (RHC)-- The British news daily "The Independent" Thursday reported that former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani is consolidating his power base in Kabul. Rabbani, still recognized by the international community as president of Afghanistan -- with representation in the United Nations -- has yet to arrive in the capital, perhaps, reported "The Independent", due to U.S. pressure. President George W. Bush's newly-appointed ambassador to Afghanistan, James Dobbins, was scheduled to reach Kabul on Thursday to negotiate terms of a broad-based coalition government, but the British news daily reported that Dobbins will find that Rabbani's Jamiat Islami Party is rapidly filling the power vacuum left by the abrupt Taliban withdraw. Rabbani's organization has already claimed and occupied the three key ministries of interior, defense and foreign affairs. Posters of Rabbani are reportedly beginning to appear in the streets in preparation for his triumphal return to Kabul. The 3000 Northern Alliance troops patrolling the capital, according to the article, are Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley who revere the memory of the recently assassinated warlord Ahmed Shah Massod, Rabbani's former military commander. And as other warlords reclaim their former fiefdoms, "The Independent" recalled that historically the Northern Alliance has been a marriage of convenience among mutually mistrustful commanders whose suspicion of each other has been kept in check only by the need to remain united against the southern ethnic group of the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest. *NOAM CHOMSKY AT WORK ON BOOK ABOUT SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS Paris, November 15 (RHC)-- The US scholar and social activist Noam Chomsky will be publishing a book on the September 11th terrorist attacks. The announcement was made in Paris by representatives of the Le Serpent A Plumes publishing house, in charge of the book's publication. Entitled "September 11th: An Autopsy of Terrorism," it will contain interviews with Noam Chomsky by journalists from Italy, the United States, Yugoslavia, Switzerland and France, among other nations. The book will be simultaneously launched in 12 countries on November 21st. Noam Chomsky argues that the September 11 attacks are not a consequence of U.S policy in a direct sense, but indirectly they definitely are. The scholar says it is possible that the perpetrators were members of terrorist networks connected with mercenary armies organized, trained and supplied by the CIA, the French secret service, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others. *ARGENTINE PRESIDENT GETS RESPITE, BUT ECONOMIC FORECASTS STILL GLOOMY Buenos Aires, November 15 (RHC) -- Argentina's stock indexes and investment risk factor Thursday continued registering negative records, despite a long-awaited and intensely negotiated agreement between the government and four powerful provinces. According to some reports, the agreement Wednesday between President Fernando de la Rua and opposition Peronist governors was needed to avoid defaulting on the country's huge foreign debt, get a three billion dollar International Monetary Fund to back its hopes for a debt swap and buy more time to repair the devastated economy. But the IMF postponed its mission to Argentina this week until it learns more about the agreement on how much money the federal government is going to channel to the provinces and whether there has been compliance with other IMF shock measures adopted by de la Rua. But besides the stock market, there are further signs of the depth of the country's economic woes. The Central Bank has revealed that Argentina's foreign currency reserves fell 2.6 percent in the four days to November 12, as anxious Argentineans rush to exchange their pesos for U.S. dollars. Reserves are also now lower than in March this year, when economy minister Domingo Cavallo -- blamed for many of the economy's woes -- took office. Viewpoint: *PEOPLE OF THIS HEMISPHERE WILL REJECT A COLONIAL PACT NEGOTIATED SECRETLY A war can take many forms; it can be fought openly, undercover, secretly; it can be of medium, low or high intensity and most recently, thanks to modern technology, we know that it can even be "virtual". But what is beyond doubt is that the most dangerous war is a war which is undeclared; one that is unknown to the world because its causalities are different and its damages advance insidiously, unseen until they are already catastrophic. The people of Latin America are now facing one of these conflicts, an aggression which each year, month, week and day, causes thousands of deaths, but rather than the impact of a bomb, or bullets, people are killed by malnutrition, hunger, cold, malaria, dengue or AIDS. The buildings in which the people live are not the targets of "intelligent" missiles launched by unseen soldiers; but worse yet, little by little, without realizing it, the social structures collapse and age-old traditions of community decision making disappear. Our very identification disappears along with our culture; entombed beneath propaganda and advertising, scientifically designed to quickly make us over. As surely as if they were caught in the sights of sharpshooters, our culinary traditions, our legends, even our imaginary heroes and enemies are lost to newly manufactured cardboard cut-outs. This new style of war began long ago under pleasant sounding names like " the Good Neighbor Policy", Alliance for Progress", "Caribbean Basin Initiative", the "Santa Fe Document", and the latest: the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the FTAA. And it is precisely to fight against this new type of war being waged by the United States against the peoples of our region, that more than 700 representatives of labor, political, social and student organizations from 34 countries, have gathered in Havana to discuss and debate its characteristics and consequences and to hammer out strategies to confront it. On the first day of the conference, Cuban President Fidel Castro noted that what is most needed is to awaken the conscience of the people, so that they realize that we are facing a true war which is threatening our destinies as peoples, identities and cultures. So that they will see that our nations are being turned over to the interests of huge commercial, industrial and financial consortia; that information and the truth is being hidden and that there is a real danger that our cultural wealth will be exchanged for Pizza Hut, McDonald's and Coca Cola. But it is important to realize that the war has already begun, that the FTAA is not something that will arrive, it is already here, working in conjunction with the North American Free Trade Agreement and with others to be established in the future like the Panama People's Plan. What is necessary now is to develop strategies, to win battles and not to allow new tragedies to occur in our nations like the foreign debt, that is sucking the life out of Latin American economies, or the sale of public enterprises and the application of World Bank and International Monetary Fund recipes. A new challenge stands before us and a call has been made in Havana for all regional nations to join together to face the challenge, because it is only in that way that we can win the battle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas. (c) 2001 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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