RHC Weekend-06/07 April 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - Weekend News Update - 06/07 April 2002 . *PEREZ ROQUE WARNS US INTERESTS SECTION TO CEASE SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES *PERUVIAN FOREIGN MINISTER DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN ANTI-CUBA RESOLUTION *MEXICAN PARLIAMENT MEMBERS AND POLITICAL LEADERS TRAVEL TO CUBA *PRESIDENT OF SPAIN'S BASQUE REGION ARRIVES IN CUBA *EMIR OF QATAR DONATES $1 MILLION TO CUBAN HOSPITAL *CUBA-ZAMBIA JOINT COMMISSION BEGINS SESSIONS *INTERNATIONAL CONSTRUCTION FAIR WINDS UP IN HAVANA *BELGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS ISRAEL HAS HUMILIATED EUROPEAN UNION *ISRAELI ARMY DESTROYING INTERNATIONALLY FUNDED INFRASTRUCTURE IN PALESTINE *BILL CLINTON SAYS EX-PRESIDENT BUSH SHOULD EXPLAIN PARDON OF TERRORIST . *PEREZ ROQUE WARNS US INTERESTS SECTION TO CEASE SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES Havana, April 6 (RHC)-- Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque has warned the US Interests Section in Havana to cease its subversive activities against the Cuban government, adding that Cuba's patience has a limit. Speaking at a political rally on the outskirts of Havana, the Cuban foreign minister said the Cuban government reserves the right to respond to the conspiratorial statements and activities on the part of US diplomats that violate the norms of the 1961 Vienna Convention on diplomatic activities. During a televised round table discussion Friday evening on Cuban national TV, journalists and government officials revealed that the US Interests Section is using its diplomatic pouch to bring into the country pamphlets and articles attacking the Cuban government and its socialist system, as well as hundreds of short wave radios pre-tuned to the frequencies of anti-Cuba broadcasts financed by Washington. The US diplomats were also accused of taking advantage of their freedom to visit Cuban rafters returned to the island by the US Coast Guard to foment and organize meetings with small groups of so-called dissidents. Round table participants termed as particularly insulting the US Interests Section's distribution of a pamphlet in which the words of Cuban national hero Jose Marti are distorted and taken out of context - recalling that it was Marti, an anti-imperialist, who first warned the Cuban nation to be aware of US colonial designs on the island and on the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America. *PERUVIAN FOREIGN MINISTER DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN ANTI-CUBA RESOLUTION Lima, April 6 (RHC)-- Peruvian Foreign Minister Diego Garcia Sayan has denied that his country is the author of an anti-Cuba resolution to be presented at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, as implied by a document being circulated by the US State Department. Though the Peruvian foreign minister said his government has expressed its annoyance to Washington, he added that a formal diplomatic protest has not been issued due to what he said was the importance of Peru's relations with the United States. At a press conference in Havana on Friday, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque distributed copies of the resolution to attending news correspondents, while at the same time announcing that the Peruvian government had assured Cuban authorities that it had nothing to do with the document. Diego Sayan said Peru is against a condemnation of Cuba in Geneva because previous condemnations have had a politicized origin and content. *MEXICAN PARLIAMENT MEMBERS AND POLITICAL LEADERS TRAVEL TO CUBA Havana, April 6 (RHC)-- A delegation of leaders and parliament members of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) arrived in Cuba Friday night to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro and express their support of Cuba in the face of diplomatic tensions between the two countries. The group includes the PRI's Coordinator of International Affairs, Javier Sánchez, the President of the Mexican Parliament's Foreign Affairs Commission, Gustavo Carvajal, and the Coordinator of Social Affairs, Omar Bazán, among others. Last Tuesday, legislators of another Mexican political party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), met with Cuba's Ambassador in Mexico, Jorge Bolańos, to whom they expressed their support and sent a message of solidarity to the Cuban people and President Fidel Castro. *PRESIDENT OF SPAIN'S BASQUE REGION ARRIVES IN CUBA Havana, April 6 (RHC)-- The president of the Basque Provinces, Juan José Ibarretxe, arrived in Cuba Friday night for an official visit heading a delegation of government officials and business people from that Spanish autonomous region. Upon his arrival at Havana's José Martí International Airport, where he was welcomed by Cuban vice president José Ramón Fernández and Spain's Ambassador to Cuba, Jesús Manuel Gracia, Ibarretxe said that the aim of his visit is to strengthen long-standing political and economic bilateral ties and to improve relations and cooperation in sectors such as health and biotechnology. During their visit, the delegation, which includes the president of the Basque Entrepreneurs Association and a representative of the chambers of commerce of that region, will visit places of economic and social interest and will meet with several Cuban officials, such as the Minister of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, Marta Lomas, the Minister of the Sugar Industry, Ulises Rosales del Toro, and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque. Juan José Ibarretxe is also expected to meet with Cuban President Fidel Castro. *EMIR OF QATAR DONATES $1 MILLION TO CUBAN HOSPITAL Havana, April 6 (RHC)-- Cuban President Fidel Castro attended Friday a ceremony in which Qatar's Ambassador to Cuba, Ali Saad Al-Kharji, donated one-million-dollars on behalf of that country's Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in the Cuban capital. The director of the public health facility, Andrés Piloto Varona, received the donation, expressing his appreciation and saying that the money will be used to alleviate the damages caused to the facility by hurricane Michelle when it hit Cuba last year. Specifically, the donation will serve for the acquisition of medical equipment for computerized axial tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance. *CUBA-ZAMBIA JOINT COMMISSION BEGINS SESSIONS Havana, April 6 (RHC)-- The 8th Cuba-Zambia joint commission for scientific, technical and economic cooperation began its sessions today in Havana to strengthen and expand bilateral relations. Cuba's Minister of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, Marta Lomas, and Zambian Vice Minister of Finance and National Planning, Patrick Kalasa Kalifungwa, head the delegations that will be meeting until April 13. The agreement for scientific, technical and economic cooperation between Cuba and Zambia was signed in 1984. A year later, the presidents of both countries agreed to create a joint commission. By December 2001, over 400 Cuban specialists - most of them in the health sector - had given their contribution in the African nation while hundreds of Zambian students graduated in Cuban educational centers. During his stay on the island, Kalifungwa will visit places of economic, social and cultural interest and will meet with Cuban officials, including the Government Minister, Ricardo Cabrisas, and Foreign Deputy Minister Antonio Guerra Menchero. *INTERNATIONAL CONSTRUCTION FAIR WINDS UP IN HAVANA Havana, April 6 (RHC)-- The Fifth International Construction Fair (FECONS) concluded with the awarding ceremony in Havana's Pabexpo Exhibition Hall. Most of the prizes were for Cuban entrepreneurs, who were followed by the Spanish and Italian participants. The organizers of the event also granted a special award to Spain's commercial delegation, which for the fifth consecutive year had the larger number of representatives. The island's Construction Minister, Rafael Soler, described the four-day event - attended by 335 firms from 16 countries - as very successful. This year, FECONS also included the Fifth Technical and Scientific Conference on Construction, the second Iberoamerican Workshop on Construction Materials and the First Meeting of the European Union's Investment Program Al-INVEST on construction, public facilities and infrastructure. *BELGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS ISRAEL HAS HUMILIATED EUROPEAN UNION Brussels, April 6 (RHC)-- Belgian Foreign Minister Luis Michel has admitted that Israel humiliated the European Union. Asserting that he decided to recover his freedom of speech, Michel - in reference to Israel's refusal to allow an EU delegation meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - stated that "one cannot receive a slap in the face and say it was good." Pointing to the hundreds of millions of dollars that cooperation with the Palestinian people has cost the European Union, as well as what he called the risk of importing the conflict towards Europe, the Belgian foreign minister insisted that the European Council debate the humiliation. The EU delegation that was denied an interview with Arafat was led by Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar, who refused to call the denial a humiliation - despite the fact that US mediator Anthony Zinni was allowed to visit the Palestinian leader the following day. Michel said he attributed a great deal of importance to European unity, but that if the EU doesn't have ambition he was not going to sacrifice his critical spirit in solidarity with a correct but ineffective policy. *ISRAELI ARMY DESTROYING INTERNATIONALLY FUNDED INFRASTRUCTURE IN PALESTINE Jerusalem, April 6 (RHC)-- A senior World Bank official has accused the Israeli army of destroying the internationally funded infrastructure in Palestinian territories. Nigel Roberts, World Bank director for the West Bank and Gaza, said the Israeli army has destroyed Palestinian water and electricity facilities, homes, schools and public buildings. He warned that if Israel dismantled the Palestinian National Authority's structures - as it has virtually done - the world donor community, due to provide 1.5 billion dollars this year, would lose the main conduit of aid to the Palestinian people. Roberts said the World Bank is impressed by the performance of the Palestinian Authority in delivering services under extremely difficult circumstances, and that if they are incapacitated, eliminated or delegitimized, the donor community will lose its channel to the Palestinians. He said the donor community's nine-year-old program to build up the institutions of an emerging state are assets that are now being needlessly damaged or destroyed. At the same time, Terje Larsen, the United Nations Middle East special envoy, slammed Israel's banning of international aid officials and diplomats from entering the West Bank, calling it a violation of international law in the midst of a growing humanitarian crisis in which the civilian population is trapped under curfew. He spoke hours after Israeli tanks invaded Nablus, which today has been described as a Palestinian city in which death and destruction rein. France's AFP news agency reported that between Friday evening and Saturday, Apache attack helicopters and F-16 jets bombarded the city for 12 straight hours, leaving it without running water or electricity and a shortage of food. *BILL CLINTON SAYS EX-PRESIDENT BUSH SHOULD EXPLAIN PARDON OF TERRORIST April 6 (RHC)-- As part of an exclusive interview in the April 8 edition of Newsweek magazine, former US President Bill Clinton criticized the mass media for making his pardon of Marc Rich a top story while virtually ignoring a similar scandal during the former George Bush administration involving a Cuban-American terrorist. Newsweek quoted Clinton as saying that he swore he wouldn't answer questions about Marc Rich until Bush answered about pardoning Orlando Bosch, who Newsweek called "an anti-Castro terrorist who blew up an airliner in 1976, killing 73, and was freed from jail in 1990 by the then President Bush under pressure from his son Jeb and Cuban exiles." The magazine called Clinton's remark a "cryptic reference" to an "obscure case", despite the fact that it was a scandal that had national and international impact. Thirty countries had refused Bosch asylum because of his criminal/terrorist record. An acting attorney general in Miami and the Immigration and Naturalization Service had refused to allow him to remain in the US. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh described Bosch as an unreformed terrorist who for 30 years has been resolute and unwavering in his advocacy of violence, and has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and death. In 1968, Bosch was arrested by US authorities for one of many terrorist actions in US territory, tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 1972 he was released and made his way without permission and against the provisions of his US parole to Venezuela, where he was arrested for the bombing of the Cubana airliner off the coast of Barbados. He was eventually freed and in 1988 returned to the US without papers, where he was arrested for parole violation and remanded to the custody of the INS with a deportation order until the Bush administration freed him and allowed him to remain in the country. (c) 2002 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-8420 2002-Apr-06 20:07:18