Radio Havana Cuba-05 April 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 05 April 2002 . *NEW REVELATIONS ON USA'S DESPERATE MANEUVERING IN GENEVA *CUBA CALLS ON INTER PARLIAMENTARY UNION TO STOP ISRAELI AGGRESSION *FIDEL TELLS YOUTH LEADERS HE HAS CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE *NORWEGIAN NOBEL PEACE PRIZE COMMITTEE REGRETS AWARD TO SHIMON PERES *ISRAELI TROOPS ACCUSED OF BLOCKING AID TO SICK AND WOUNDED *US GOVERNMENT, OIL FIRM ATTACK SCIENTIST WHO WARNED OF GLOBAL WARMING *ARGENTINE GOVERNORS WARN OF SOCIAL COST OF IMF DEMANDS *CHILD TRAFFICKING, PROSTITUTION AND PORNOGRAPHY NETWORKS ON THE RISE *Viewpoint: ISRAEL'S WALL OF SHAME . *NEW REVELATIONS ON USA'S DESPERATE MANEUVERING IN GENEVA Havana, April 5 (RHC)-- Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque has provided national and international media outlets with further revelations concerning Washington's desperate attempt to find a sponsor for an anti-Cuba resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission. At a press conference Friday in Havana, the Cuban foreign minister distributed a US State Department document containing a condemnation attributed to the government of Peru. He said, however, that Peru has adamantly denied any role in drawing up the document, and has also expressed to the State Department its displeasure over not having been informed of the maneuver. Perez Roque called the document a "colossal fraud." The Cuban foreign minister affirmed that Washington has yet to find a sponsor for its new anti-Cuba crusade in Geneva, and is therefore desperate. He went on to say that neither could he imagine the government of Mexico lending itself to such a maneuver, and that Cuba has always respected Mexico's tradition of abstaining. The Cuban foreign minister recalled that in last year's vote, of the eleven UN Human Rights Commission member-countries from the region, only four voted against Cuba in a resolution sponsored by the Czech Republic: Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Uruguay. *CUBA CALLS ON INTER PARLIAMENTARY UNION TO STOP ISRAELI AGGRESSION Havana, April 5 (RHC)-- Cuba has called on the Inter Parliamentary Union to urgently do everything in its power to immediately end Israel's acts of aggression against the Palestinian territories and promote "effective solidarity" with the Palestinian people. In a letter published Friday in Granma newspaper addressed to the president of the Inter Parliamentary Union, Najma Heptulla, Cuban Parliament president, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, noted that is shameful for humanity that a genocide such as this can occur in the Twentieth Century and nothing is done. The letter points out that not even the United Nations, the organization created to stop such crimes, is capable of imposing its authority, trapped as it is under the control of the superpower, which uses the organization for the benefit of is own hegemonic interests. Ricardo Alarcon's letter to the Inter Parliamentary Union stresses that those who impassively contemplate the horrors committed against the Palestinian people, a people that only aspires to live freely in an independent country, lack the moral authority to speak of human or democratic rights. The Cuban parliamentarian called for the international organization to demand an end to the harassment and continued threat of death against Yasser Arafat and to denounce the complicity of the US government which supports the Israeli aggressors both politically and materially. Finally the letter urges parliamentarians around the world to take strong action now and demand the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli occupation troops from the Palestinian territories. Last weekend, the Cuban Foreign Ministry called for stronger actions from the international community and especially the United Nations Security Council to "stop the massacre and genocidal actions of the Israeli army in Palestine". *FIDEL TELLS YOUTH LEADERS HE HAS CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE Havana, April 5 (RHC)-- Cuban president, Fidel Castro, told the nation's youth last night that each day he is more confident and optimistic about Cuba's future, whose young people, students and children are in the forefront of the great project being carried out by the country. The Cuban leader was speaking during the national ceremony for the 40th anniversary of the Young Communists Organization, UJC, in which 32 young workers, soldiers and students were decorated with the Julio Antonio Mella Order and other honors. 15 work places also received awards. Fidel Castro gave a brief history of the birth of the youth organization on April 4, l962, during a period of fierce anti-communism and an agressive US campaign directed against the Cuban Revolution. He noted that the UJC was created just three years and three months after the triumph of the Revolution in l959 and some of the radical measures that the organization adopted included the punishment of killers and torturers and the recuperation of goods illegally appropriated by the corrupt Batista regime. Among the measures, said Fidel, that sparked fierce opposition from the Cuban upper classes and the United States, was the drastic reduction in rents and the Agrarian Reform Law, which ended the big landlords control over the county and the hopelessness of small farmers and agricultural workers. The Cuban leader explained that in response, Washington immediately unleashed a policy of hostility and aggression which continues today, including acts of sabotage and terrorism and the mercenary attack at the Bay of Pigs, organized and financed by the United States. He said that it was during that tense era that the Young Communist Organization was born. Though in the midst of a difficult time now, Fidel expressed his satisfaction at having been able to witness some of the political and social achievements of which human beings are capable. This 40th anniversary of the UJC comes at a time in which our people are engaged in a great battle of ideas he said, which will be decisive for the country and for humanity. The Cuban leader stressed that the battle of ideas is more than principals, theory, knowledge, culture, arguments, destroying lies, and sowing truths; it means concrete actions. Still the object of a blockade and the hostility of the United States, Cubans continue to build a more just and humane society. Praising the nation's youth, he said he envied them the future. National UJC leader, Otto Rivera, attended the event which was held in Havana's Karl Marx theater. Also present were Elian Gonzalez and his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the mothers and wives of the five Cuban political prisoners held in the United States, and representatives of 37 youth organizations from 26 countries. *NORWEGIAN NOBEL PEACE PRIZE COMMITTEE REGRETS AWARD TO SHIMON PERES Oslo, April 5 (RHC)-- Members of the Norwegian committee that awards the annual Nobel Peace Prize have expressed regret that the distinction was given to Israeli Foreign Minister Simon Peres in 1994. In what is being called an unprecedented verbal assault on the Israeli Foreign Minister, committee member Hanna Kvanmo said they regretted that Peres' prize could not be recalled - charging that by not acting to prevent the re-occupation of Palestinian territory Peres did not live up the ideals he expressed when he accepted the award. Kvanmo told a Norwegian newspaper that "what is happening today in Palestine is "grotesque and unbelievable." By not withdrawing from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government, affirmed the committee, Peres is involved in human rights abuses and is threatening to bring the Nobel Peace Prize into disrepute. Committee chairman Geir Lundestad voiced the concern of several members that if Arafat were to be killed as a result of Israeli actions, one Nobel laureate might in effect be said to have killed the other. *ISRAELI TROOPS ACCUSED OF BLOCKING AID TO SICK AND WOUNDED Geneva, Ramallah, West Bank, April 5 (RHC)-- Palestinians, the International Red Cross, the World Health Organization and the World Food Program have charged that Israeli soldiers blockading the West Bank are allowing the sick and wounded to die. Ambulances and other vehicles transporting food and medicine are not allowed to circulate. News agencies and dailies around the world are highlighting stories of wounded Palestinian resistance fighters who died after being taken in by a family unable to remove the body from their home due to the lack of ambulances, of people having to watch relatives shot by Israeli troops bleed to death because ambulances are prevented from reaching their homes. Associated Press Friday described an Israeli raid of a maternity clinic outside Ramallah during which obstetricians were handcuffed, mothers and babies turned out of their rooms and an ambulance arriving with a woman in labor was waved off. The raid was called only the latest incident of Palestinian medical personnel being harassed, detained and prevented from tending to the sick and injured. Palestinian health specialists have charged that the medical situation in Palestinian cities and towns is rapidly deteriorating, pointing to one case of a 39-year-old paraplegic woman who suffered from acute asthma dieing in her home last Wednesday. In the city of Qalqulya Israeli troops closed a clinic to patients and began using it as an interrogation center, while at a Red Crescent-run maternity clinic in El Bireh, doctors late Thursday still did not know the fate of two other doctors, two male nurses and a laundry worker who were taken away by Israeli soldiers. *US GOVERNMENT, OIL FIRM ATTACK SCIENTIST WHO WARNED OF GLOBAL WARMING Washington, April 5 (RHC)-- Washington and the world's biggest oil company are trying to oust from an international organization a British scientist who has advised the world about the dangers of global warming, according to a document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. In a memo to the White House, ExxonMobil demanded that the George W. Bush administration replace scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, who have - in its words - "aggressive agendas". IPCC chairman, British scientist Robert Watson, may have to step down when the agency's 19th plenary session is held two weeks from now in Geneva due to US proposals for alternative candidates for the post he holds. The British news daily The Guardian wrote Friday that the Bush decision to take the oil giant's advice is the latest in a long and successful push by ExxonMobil to undermine climate science and stop Washington from taking any action that might damage sales. ExxonMobil reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars financing the Climate Change Convention, a group of oil, motor and heavy industries opposed to any action against global warming. The oil giant, which generously funded Bush's election campaign, was also widely blamed for Washington's repudiation last year of the Kyoto protocol on global warming. Among new appointments suggested by the White House and ExxonMobil are Doctor Richard Lindzen, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an internationally known skeptic of global warming, and John Christy, from the University of Alabama-Huntsville, who told the US Senate that the world is being invigorated by extra carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by humans. *ARGENTINE GOVERNORS WARN OF SOCIAL COST OF IMF DEMANDS Buenos Aires, April 5 (RHC)-- Several provincial governors in Argentina have warned the International Monetary Fund of the social cost of the economic adjustment plan the credit institution is demanding. An IMF delegation returned to Buenos Aires earlier this week to again consider financial aid for Argentina's ailing economy, but Chaco Province Governor Angel Rozas stated that economic shock on top of economic shock will only bring recession on top of recession. Rozas and five other provincial governors invited the IMF delegation to visit their provinces and see first hand the situation of some of the country's poorest sectors, criticizing what they called IMF recipes written in Washington or from a luxury Buenos Aires hotel. The credit institution is demanding sharp reductions in federal and provincial public spending, which many believe will lead to more social unrest. It's still not certain if the IMF disapproved of a welfare plan for one million jobless Argentines that was launched this week by President Eduardo Duhalde, and that requires an expenditure of more than one billion dollars. *CHILD TRAFFICKING, PROSTITUTION AND PORNOGRAPHY NETWORKS ON THE RISE San Jose, Costa Rica, April 5 (RHC)-- Activists who infiltrated child trafficking, prostitution and pornography networks in Central America and Mexico have painted a sordid picture in a new report on the growing commercial sexual exploitation of children in the region. The Costa Rica-based Casa Alianza, the Latin American branch of the New York-based child advocacy group Covenant House, has reported an escalation of child abuse in the region and has charged that Mexico and Central America are doing far too little to combat the problem. Casa Alianza director Bruce Harris said it took a multi-disciplinary team of 56 experts 10 months to prepare the report in high-risk conditions, but that the report is qualitative, not quantitative, which means that they were unable to determined how many children are being sexually exploited. Harris, a British activist who in 2000 won the Conrad N. Hilton award - considered the Nobel Prize for human rights activists - said that also on the rise were websites promoting Central America and Mexico as child sex tourism destinations. The investigators compiled a list of 173 direct or indirect links to such websites. Psychologist Viviana Retana, another member of the team of investigators, said the rings of pedophiles and procurers are very well organized, operate with advanced technology and handle large amounts of money. *Viewpoint: ISRAEL'S WALL OF SHAME In Jerusalem there is a wall known throughout the world as the Wailing Wall. Religious Jews go there to symbolically cry over the destruction of the Temple by the Roman conquerors who also forced the Jews to disperse throughout the planet as a punishment for a succession of rebellions. This is history and tradition, but now the Tel Aviv government, led by terrorist Ariel Sharon, has decided to erect a new wall which he calls "a wall of defense," but in reality it will go down in history as a wall of shame. A name given to the military operation aimed at annihilating the Palestinians as a nation, but which in modern usage should be called genocide, the new wall attempts to conceal another version of the holocaust. This time the Jews play the role of executioners rather than victims. They also demonstrate that they learned the fascist lesson well and like good students, they are determined to surpass their nazi teachers. In the face of European passivity, the feeble initiatives in the Arab world, and Washington's enthusiastic approval, the horrifying images of women and children murdered by Israeli soldiers in a absurd claim of "self defense", have caused indignation and shame. The United States government has been erroneously criticized for staying out of the conflict, but the truth is that no nation is more involved than Washington in what is happening in the region. Keep in mind that despite the fact that Israel is a weapons producer, in recent years the Pentagon has shipped Tel Aviv missiles, helicopters, and other military equipment worth at least three billion dollars. Washington has also worked tirelessly to prevent the UN Security Council from condemning the Israeli invasion of the Palestinian territories. The resolutions passed so far barely ask for the withdrawal of Israel's army from the now doubly occupied cities. Only an Iranian initiative proposing that the Arab countries cut off the oil supply to Israel's allies has stirred American diplomacy, which apparently is in no hurry to enter the region. Next week the United States, represented by Colin Powell, will arrive in its usual manner; giving Tel Aviv enough time to finish the job, criticizing the victims, sheltering the guilty, and proposing initiatives insulting to Palestinian dignity and rights. What is necessary is that the Arab community truly imposes an oil embargo on the West, since that is apparently the only language that western countries understand. It will also be interesting to see if an International Court is created to try these crimes with the same enthusiasm and persistence as has been done in the case of Yugoslavian leaders. Faith in justice would begin to be restored if murderers like Ariel Sharon, the undeserving Nobel Peace Prizewinner Simon Perez, and the rest of Israel's ruling clique were duly accused of their crimes against humanity. Only then could world breath freely again. (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-29724 2002-Apr-06 13:18:11