Radio Havana Cuba-02 October 2001 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 02 October 2001 . *CUBA'S UN AMBASSADOR SAYS WAR AGAINST TERRORISM CANNOT BE SELECTIVE *PARLIAMENT TO RENDER HOMAGE TO VICTIMS OF 1976 TERRORIST ATTACK *CUBAN DELEGATION VISITS SPANISH AUTONOMOUS REGIONS *MAJOR CUBAN TRADE EXHIBITION UNDERWAY IN VENEZUELA *INTERNATIONAL SPACE WEEK TO BE CELEBRATED IN CUBA *MASSIVE PRO-TALIBAN, ANTI-US DEMONSTRATION IN PAKISTAN *WASHINGTON DENIES HAVING EXCLUDED ARAB NATIONS FROM MILITARY ATTACKS *BERLUSCONI CLAIMS "LEFTISTS DISTORTED" HIS REMARKS ON ISLAMIC CULTURE *Viewpoint: NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE UN TO TAKE THE INITIATIVE . *CUBA'S UN AMBASSADOR SAYS WAR AGAINST TERRORISM CANNOT BE SELECTIVE New York, October 2 (RHC)--The war against terrorism cannot be selective or respond to the interests of any particular government, asserted Cuba's Permanent United Nations representative Bruno Rodriguez on Monday. Addressing the special UN session on terrorism, Rodriguez stated that while the UN Security Council has made specific efforts and adopted several resolutions in the past, terrorism has been an area in which prudence has prevailed. In the few cases where specific acts of terrorism have been addressed, it has been in the direct interest of some of its permanent members, he said. The Cuban diplomat recalled that Cuba asked the Security Council to act in 1976, when a Cuban civilian airplane was blown up in flight after taking off from Barbados, killing all 73 people aboard. He said resolution S/23990 submitted by Cuba was not even considered. Rodriguez said that in comparing the draft resolution to that adopted by the Security Council last Friday, he found that though Cuba's was more moderate, it proposed some of the concepts and measures contained in the recently adopted resolution. Cuba's text, said Rodriguez, took note that one permanent member of the Security Council -- in reference to Washington's representative -- had evidence in its possession relating to that act. It also took into account, he continued, the fact that the mastermind of the terrorist act, Orlando Bosch, resided in the territory of that same State - where he still lives - and that the other mastermind, Luis Posada Carriles, had been doubly employed, after the appalling crime, by the government of that State. The Cuban diplomat said the resolution did not request the use of force or sanctions, but simply asked the Council to condemn the bombing, to indicate the obligation to clarify the crime and to punish the guilty parties. It asked the State concerned, he continued, to provide all the information and evidence in its possession relating to the past and current information and current residence of the terrorists who were in its territory, and to adopt effective measures to prevent its territory from being used to prepare, organize and carry out terrorist acts against Cuba. And, said Bruno, it asked the Council to keep the matter under consideration. After Cuba, recalled the Cuban diplomat, the permanent member concerned took the floor for five minutes only to state that he frankly could not help but wonder why they were there, that they were losing time -- and that was the end of the meeting. Rodriguez noted that Cuba has expressed support for a return to the United Nations Organization of the prerogatives that it has been deprived of and let the General Assembly, its most universal and representative body, be the center of that fight for peace -- regardless of its limitations due to the arbitrary veto right of the Security Council permanent members, most of them also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- and for the eradication of terrorism with total and unanimous support from world opinion. Terrorism, said Cuba's permanent UN representative, cannot be eliminated if some terrorist acts are condemned while others are ignored or justified. Rodriguez said he was speaking in the name of 3,478 Cubans who have died as a result of aggression and terrorist acts, and the claim for justice of 2,099 who were disabled as a result of those acts, noting that as late as the 1990s a total of 68 terrorist attacks were perpetrated against Cuba, 33 during the last five years. *PARLIAMENT TO RENDER HOMAGE TO VICTIMS OF 1976 TERRORIST ATTACK Havana, October 2 (RHC)--The Cuban Parliament has convened an extraordinary session next Thursday to pay homage to the 73 victims of the 1976 terrorist bomb attack against a Cuban civilian airplane that had just taken off from Barbados. On Saturday, the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack, there will be a mass rally at Havana's Revolution Square during which President Fidel Castro is expected to speak. On October 6, 1976, a DC-8 Cubana airplane that had arrived in Barbados from Guyana, after stopping over in Trinidad and Tobago, blew up after taking off from Barbados, killing all aboard, including Cuba's junior fencing team, 11 Guyanese students and 5 government officials from North Korea. An investigation determined that Venezuelans Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo placed the bomb on the orders of two Cuban-American terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Bosch was freed from a Venezuelan prison in 1988 due to humanitarian considerations. Thirty countries refused to grant him asylum, but he was accepted in the United States, despite opposition from US judicial authorities and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Bosch now lives free in Miami. Posada Carriles escaped, under circumstances that were never clarified, from a maximum security prison in Caracas, by walking out the front door. Posada Carriles is currently in a Panamanian jail for plotting to assassinate President Fidel Castro last year. Thousands of Cubans are expected to congregate at the Plaza of the Revolucion Saturday in memory of those killed. Over a million gathered in the Plaza the day after the bombing took place in 1976. The commemoration is seen by the Cuban people as especially significant given the terrorist events of September 11, which were immediately and strongly condemned by Cuba. *CUBAN DELEGATION VISITS SPANISH AUTONOMOUS REGIONS Habana, October 2 (RHC)--The Vice-President of the Cuban Council of Ministers, José Ramón Fernández, arrived in Madrid Tuesday at the head of a Cuban delegation which will visit the autonomous Spanish regions of Murcia, Andalucía, Pais Vasco Valencia, and Aragón. The object of the visit is to further improve the already close cultural and commercial relations with the peoples of these communities. The Cuban delegation will be received in each region by their presidents. Meetings with the Spanish Communist Party and the Spanish Social Party have also been scheduled. The trip will run through October 12. *MAJOR CUBAN TRADE EXHIBITION UNDERWAY IN VENEZUELA Caracas, October 2 (RHC)--In the largest exhibition of its kind outside Cuba for the last few years, Expocuba was inaugurated Tuesday in Caracas, Venezuela. The exhibition gives foreign businesses a look at Cuba's manufacturing industries and services. Representatives from 135 Cuban companies have stands at the trade show, including those from the agricultural, sugar, science, environmental, construction, sports and education sectors. Others representing information technology, light industry, fishing, health, communications, transport and tourism are also present. Conferences are to be held on the Cuban steel and sugar industries, which have been undergoing major overhauls. Presentations on Cuban advances in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, including vaccines, are also on the agenda. Expocuba is being organized by the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, headed by Antonio Carricarte. Venezuela continues to be Cuba's principal trading partner due to a trade agreement signed by both nations a year ago. *INTERNATIONAL SPACE WEEK TO BE CELEBRATED IN CUBA Havana, October 2 (RHC)--On Sunday, October 7, aficionados of astronomy will gather here in Havana for the beginning of a week's celebration of the sky in what is being called here a Fiesta of the Stars. People of all ages are expected to gravitate toward the open area in front of the Royal Castillo de la Fuerza in Old Havana in an evening of star gazing through the numerous telescopes set up along the Avenida del Puerto. Academics from the University of Havana, the Cuban "Cosmos Group" and the Institute of Geophysics and Astronomy will be on hand to explain details of our constellation and others. The occasion is sponsored by the International Union of Astronomy, which calls for a Space Week across the world every year in an effort to educate and maintain interest in our universe. In Havana, the one-week festival will include photographic exhibitions, historical displays, research themes centered in the University's Faculty of Mathematics and Cybernetics. It will run from October 4 through 10. *MASSIVE PRO-TALIBAN, ANTI-US DEMONSTRATION IN PAKISTAN Islamabad, October 2 (RHC)--In Pakistan, some 50,000 people took to the streets of the western city Quetta in a pro-Taliban, anti-US demonstration. Many were carrying swords and clubs in this important Pakistani city, capital of Beluchistan Province. Authorities had prohibited the protest and ordered foreign journalists to remain in their hotels. Islamic leaders reiterated the threat of a civil war if Islamabad cooperates in any eventual US attack against Afghanistan. Observers are calling the massive protest a glimpse of what can be expected throughout the country if Afghanistan comes under attack. It's believed that approximately 10 percent of the Islamic republic's 140 million inhabitants openly support Kabul's Taliban regime. *WASHINGTON DENIES HAVING EXCLUDED ARAB NATIONS FROM MILITARY ATTACKS Washington, October 2 (RHC)--Washington has affirmed that President George Bush has never promised to not attack Arab nations in the war against terrorism. Following a visit to the White House, Jordanian King Abdalla II Monday announced that Bush had promised him that neither Iraq nor any other Arab nation would be targeted, but White House spokesman Ari Fleischer later stated that Bush did not say that and that the information is incorrect. Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, has insinuated that the anti-terrorism war could reach Iraq. Late on Monday, during an interview on the CBS network, Powell responded to a question concerning the possible bombardment of Iraq affirming that for the moment Washington is concentrating on the first phase of the operation against Osama Bin Laden and his organization al-Qaida, but that Bush has not discarded any military option in the second, third or fourth phases of the campaign. The statements from authorities in Washington led Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa to warn Tuesday that an attack against an Arab country would be detrimental to the formation of an international anti-terrorist coalition. *BERLUSCONI CLAIMS LEFTISTS "DISTORTED" HIS REMARKS ON ISLAMIC CULTURE Rome, October 2 (RHC)--Still on the defensive, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has asserted that his comments about the inferiority of Islamic culture were distorted by leftists. In statements to the Arab news daily in London, "Asharq Al-Awsat," Berlusconi claimed that he never said anything against Islamic civilization, blaming statements to the contrary on what he called the "leftist Italian press" interested in tarnishing his image and destroying his long-standing relations with Arabs and Muslims. Today the Italian Prime Minister was scheduled to receive the Saudi ambassador in Rome, Mohammed ben Nawaf ben Abdulaziz Al Saud, along with a diplomatic delegation from other Muslim nations in another effort to tone down the avalanche of criticism against statements widely considered racist. The Arab League has called "insufficient" Berlusconi's recent statements before the Italian Senate that his words were misunderstood and taken out of context. But the Italian Prime Minister told the "Asharq Al-Awsat" news daily that he had no intention of apologizing for words he insists that he did not utter. *Viewpoint: NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE UN TO TAKE THE INITIATIVE So the world continues to wait. People in the US put their names on waiting lists for gas masks and have their bodies tattooed with images of the World Trade Center, while a man in the UK does swift business selling spaces in his nuclear attack-proof bunker for 30,000 pounds a head. The rest of the world once again consents to US dominance, going on with their lives, thinking there won't be a major conflict, at least not one where lots of white, First World people get killed. We recall former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's comment to CBS in 1996 in which she said the deaths of half a million Iraqi children was worth her government's continued economic blockade against Baghdad. We also note the fact that the deaths of over 500 Latino janitorial workers in the World Trade Center has been barely reported. So what's a few thousand more Afghani lives? We have the United Nations, of course. That august body that has such an excellent record of settling world conflicts. The Security Council won't allow a world war to break out, surely -= just a local conflict confined to those Afghanis, whose history is one of violence, the world is being told, so they're used to it anyway. But the UN remains relatively inactive and has anyway been bypassed once more by the US and NATO -- just as it was with Yugoslavia. England's Tony Blair has put his full support -- politically and militarily -- behind George W Bush, and NATO's general secretary Lord Robertson has invoked Article 5 of its charter which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all. Thus the scene is set. The world waits with morbid interest for a new round of exciting television images to herald a new holy war by Washington. A holy war that has the potential to provoke another one. The Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, Bruno Rodriguez, said Monday that the United Nations Organization is precisely the universal coalition we need to fight terrorism. He added that no amorphous and unpredictable coalition, NATO or any other military organization or group of States could replace the United Nations in a global and legitimate action against terrorism. The United Nations should not give up its functions or prerogatives to the impositions from any country. Rodriguez said that the United Nations alone can address in a deep, calm, resolute and strong way, the issues of terrorism currently faced by the world. To allow a powerful nation to railroad the rest of us into another world conflict to appease its notion of justice with vengeance is tantamount to an approval of another form of terrorism -- that of the State. Cuba knows what it is talking about -- it has been the target of terrorism for four decades. In the words of Cuban President Fidel Castro last week: "Terror has always been an instrument of the worst enemies of humankind bent on suppressing and crushing the peoples' struggle for freedom. It can never be the instrument of a truly noble and just cause." And the world sits by and waits... (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-15987 2001-Oct-03 04:02:51