Radio Havana Cuba-25 March 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 25 March 2002 . *THE PRESIDENTS OF CUBA AND BOTSWANA MEET IN HAVANA *CUBANA AIRLINES BEGINS NEW HAVANA-LONDON FLIGHT *CUBAN RESIDENTS IN PERU CALL ON LIMA TO REJECT WASHINGTON'S ANTI-CUBA CAMPAIGN IN UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION IN GENEVA *AFRICAN AMERICAN REPARATIONS MOVEMENT TO BRING LAWSUIT AGAINST 3 US FIRMS THAT BENEFITED FROM SLAVERY *TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ARGENTINES REPUDIATE LAST MILITARY COUP 26 YEARS AGO *FORMER NICARAGUAN PRESIDENT ARNOLDO ALEMAN ABOUT TO LOOSE CONGRESSIONAL IMMUNITY IN CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION *PAKISTANI TRIBAL LEADERS ON AFGHAN BORDER WARN US FORCES NOT TO ENTER THEIR TERRITORY SEARCHING FOR TALIBAN AND AL QAIDA FIGHTERS *CHARITIES AND INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES SOUND ALARM OVER UNEXPLODED AMMUNITION IN AFGHANISTAN AND KOSOVO *BRAZILIAN LANDLESS MOVEMENT TARGETS FOR TAKEOVER ESTATES OF PRESIDENT FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO AND ASSOCIATES *Viewpoint: MONTERREY - AN UGLY PRICE TO PAY FOR A SUMMIT . *THE PRESIDENTS OF CUBA AND BOTSWANA MEET IN HAVANA Havana, March 25(RHC)-Cuban president Fidel Castro met in Havana today with his counterpart from Botswana, Festus Mogae. The Cuban leader received Mogae in the capital's Revolution Palace. The Botswana president is traveling with his wife, Barbara Mogae, the Foreign Minister, Mompati Merafhe, Permanent Presidential Secretary, Modise Modise and other high-ranking officials. The Cuban side is composed of Foreign Minister, Felipe Perez Roque, Public Health Minister, Carlos Dotres; the president of Cuba's Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon and Vice President, Carlos Lage. Mogae, who is visiting the island for the first time, plans to visit schools, scientific centers, and places of cultural and historic interest in western Cuba. Cuba and Botswana have signed various bilateral cooperation agreements in trade and other areas. Some 50 Cuban health and sports professionals are currently volunteering their services in the former British colony of Botswana. *CUBANA AIRLINES BEGINS NEW HAVANA-LONDON FLIGHT Havana, March 25(RHC)--Residents of England and nearby nations can now fly directly to the cities of Havana and Holguin. This weekend Cubana Airlines inaugurated the new Havana-London route. The island's Cubanacan Group and Cubana de Aviacion on Saturday began the weekly DC-10 flights, which will stopover in the eastern province of Holguin. The flight, which has the capacity to carry 310 passengers, is aimed at accommodating more visitors from Britain. Cubanacan's president, Joel Quesada, told the press that the English market is very important to Cuba, since it is stable at the height of summer when other foreign tourism is at its lowest point. He also noted that the eastern province of Holguin has proven to be a great favorite with English visitors. Quesada stressed that other such deals are in the workings for other markets and announcements can be expected after the next Tourism Convention, which will be held in Cuba's Varadero Beach in May. The new flights arrive each Friday from London and return on Saturdays. *CUBAN RESIDENTS IN PERU CALL ON LIMA TO REJECT WASHINGTON'S ANTI-CUBA CAMPAIGN IN UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION IN GENEVA Lima, March 25(RHC)--The Association of Cuban Residents in Peru has sent a letter to that country's president calling on him to reject Washington's anti-Cuba maneuvers in Geneva. The letter, dated March 6, is addressed to Peru's President, Alejandro Toledo. It notes that for more than 20 years, while different U.S. administrations have promoted anti-Cuba resolutions in the UN Human Right Commission in Geneva, Peru has always resisted pressures and has acted in a dignified and independent manner, refusing to support such measures. The letter from the Association of Cuban Residents in Peru, goes on that the Cuban community hopes that President Toledo will continue in that tradition and will once again refuse to be blackmailed into supporting Washington's anti-Cuba campaign. They point out that for several decades, the majority of Latin American countries were submitted to military dictatorships which carried out murders, assassinations, disappearances and torture. These dictatorships, says the letter, were supported, maintained and in some cases imposed by the United States. Cuba, on the other hand notes the document, always supported the defenders of democracy and human rights. What is more, despite being a small, underdeveloped country, Cuba has given support to other Latin American nations in the areas of education, health and sports. The Cubans living in Peru stress that Cuba should not be condemned when it is one of the few countries in the region where there has not been a single disappearance, extra-judicial execution or political assassination and where health care, education and culture are fully accessible to all. The Letter goes on that Peru has always shown that it does not share Washington's hostility against the island. Finally the Association of Cuban Residents in Peru calls on Lima to refrain from supporting this year's US campaign to condemn Cuba in the Geneva Human Rights Commission. *AFRICAN AMERICAN REPARATIONS MOVEMENT TO BRING LAWSUIT AGAINST 3 US FIRMS THAT BENEFITED FROM SLAVERY New York, March 25(RHC)-- African-Americans in the US's growing reparations movement are poised to filed lawsuits against three corporations that profited from slavery, according to the USA Today newspaper. In what is being called the first of an anticipated barrage of lawsuits by Blacks seeking compensation for abuses suffered by their ancestors and whose effects African-Americans still suffer following more than a century of institutionalized racism, the lawsuit names the Aetna insurance company, the CSX railroad and the FleetBoston financial services firm as defendants. The complaint, to be filed Tuesday in federal District Court in New York, asks for unspecified damages, restitution for unpaid slave labor and a share of corporate profits derived from slavery. The plaintiff is Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a New York legal researcher and activist who has documented links between modern-day corporations and slavery. Her lawsuit asks the court to bring the case to a jury on behalf of all African-Americans who can claim slaves as forefathers, and reserves the right to add up to 100 more corporate defendants. The complaint blames slavery for present-day disparities between blacks and whites in income, education, literacy, health, life expectancy and crime. Paellmann's lawyers are sending letters to other companies and trade groups warning that they too will be sued unless they fund a historical commission examining slavery and give money to an interim humanitarian fund to improve health, education and child development among Blacks. Aetna has acknowledged issuing life insurance policies on an undetermined number of slaves, naming their owners as beneficiaries. Fleet's earliest predecessor bank was founded by a notorious Rhode Island slave trader, while CSX owns early rail lines built by slaves. African-American academics, researchers, lawyers and activists have been documenting how slavery formed the backbone of much of the wealth enjoyed by the United States today, as well as how the African-American population was systematically excluded from that wealth during the almost 140 years since slavery was abolished. *TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ARGENTINES REPUDIATE LAST MILITARY COUP 26 YEARS AGO Buenos Aires, March 25(RHC)-- Tens of thousands marched Sunday in Buenos Aires to repudiate Argentina last military coup 26 years ago. Massive protests took place in the capital's central square, in front of a former navy school used as a secret detention and torture center during the dictatorship and outside the homes of former military regime leaders. Thousands more gathered in the country's principle cities, including Cordoba, Rosario, Jujuy and Neuquen. In Buenos Aires, hundreds of demonstrators unfurled a huge, 150-meter-long banner with the photographs and names of thousands of dictatorship victims. Others carried signs saying "Never Again" and demanding punishment for those responsible for the dictatorship's dirty war against democracy activists. Speakers at the demonstrations called on President Eduardo Duhalde to annul amnesty laws granting pardons to dictatorship leaders and agents, many who were accused of dozens of cases of murder and torture, sentenced to life imprisonment, and then released. According to the local news daily Pagina 12, the massive nature of Sunday's protests amid an unprecedented social, economic and political crisis was fueled, for the first time, by a generalized sensation that Argentina's democracy is a sham. In response to that crisis, demonstrators also demanded the resignation of President Duhalde and the Supreme Court, the convening of a Constituent Assembly to draw up a new constitution and replace the country's current leaders, and the severing of ties with the International Monetary Fund. *FORMER NICARAGUAN PRESIDENT ARNOLDO ALEMAN ABOUT TO LOOSE CONGRESSIONAL IMMUNITY IN CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION Managua, March 25(RHC)-- Former Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman is on the verge of being stripped of his parliamentary immunity as a current member of Congress in a corruption investigation. Nicaragua's National Assembly has reportedly clinched the 47 necessary votes with the adherence of the 4 members of the Nicaraguan Christian Path Party, until recently an unconditional ally of Aleman's Liberal Party. Judge Gertrudis Arias ruled last Thursday that there were sufficient merits to bring charges against Aleman and others in a 1.3 million dollar theft of public funds. Legislators David Castillo and Martha McCoy, 5 former government officials - including former presidential spokesman Roberto Duhalde -, Mexico's former ambassador in Managua and three former executives of a state-owned TV channel are also involved in the scandal. Several of the accused have already implicated Aleman in a scandal that has rocked public opinion for the past several weeks. The former Nicaraguan president recently left the country, presumably to vacation with his family in Greece. The 5-year Aleman administration was at the center of numerous denunciations of corruption, as media outlets often recalled that from a personal patrimony of some 25 thousand dollars when he occupied his first public office as mayor of Managua, the former president is now a multi-millionaire. *PAKISTANI TRIBAL LEADERS ON AFGHAN BORDER WARN US FORCES NOT TO ENTER THEIR TERRITORY SEARCHING FOR TALIBAN AND AL QAIDA FIGHTERS Peshawar, Pakistan, March 25(RHC)-- Pakistani tribal leaders believed to be protecting Al Qaida fighters have warned the US military against entering the region. The New York Times reported Monday that tribal leaders told news correspondents in Peshawar, Pakistan, that they see America as the enemy and that their people would sacrifice their lives to keep American soldiers off their land. The report asserted that the warning must be taken serious, since ages ago Alexander the Great was turned back in the region, and until last December not even Pakistani soldiers had been allowed to enter for decades. Observers believe the war in Afghanistan will drag on for a long time if the tribal areas, which share a rugged 450-mile border with Afghanistan, become a safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaida fighters to rest and regroup - which is exactly what US military officials have admitted they're doing. The Boston Globe reported Monday that Afghanistan's minister for border security and a top intelligence official have accused Pakistan of sheltering the fighters and helping them cross back into Afghanistan where they can attack US forces and destabilize the new government in Kabul. The two officials said the Afghan government is "100 percent sure" that Osama bin Laden is in those tribal areas and that Pakistani officials have done little to try to track him down. But while Pakistani military regime leader General Pervez Musharraf has recently cracked down on Islamic extremists and shut down cells of his intelligence agencies that previously aided the Taliban, some military intelligence officials are believe to still be quietly mobilizing against the new interim Afghan government, while General Musharraf - facing vocal and violent opposition to his alliance with Washington - cannot afford unrest in the tribal areas. Those areas are home to five million people who have their own councils, courts and laws, and where the rule of the leaders is absolute. *CHARITIES AND INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES SOUND ALARM OVER UNEXPLODED AMMUNITION IN AFGHANISTAN AND KOSOVO London, March 25(RHC)-- Fifty British charities and international agencies have reported that unexploded ammunition, including US cluster bombs in Afghanistan and Kosovo, are killing innocent civilians and there are no international controls over them. A report entitled Explosive Remnants of War, drawn up by the campaign coalition Landmine Action, has asserted that such weapons cause many more deaths than landmines. Children, according to the report, account for almost two-thirds of those killed or injured by unexploded ammunition in Kosovo - where a total of 58 people perished from these devices and 97 were wounded between June, 1999 and May, 2001. Over the weekend, British International Development Secretary Clare Short said the United Nations estimated that there were 14,000 unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs dropped by US aircraft in Afghanistan. Each cluster bomb releases more than 100 bomblets, up to 10 percent of which fail to explode. Peace activists are rallying for an international review on the use of cluster bombs, insisting that they should be banned by international law. *BRAZILIAN LANDLESS MOVEMENT TARGETS FOR TAKEOVER ESTATES OF PRESIDENT FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO AND ASSOCIATES Sao Paulo, March 25(RHC)-- Landless Movement activists in Brazil are targeting for takeover the estates of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and his associates. Just one day after hundreds of landless families evacuated one of Cardoso's ranches, another 300 families invaded the estate of an agro executive who is a friend of the president's. On Sunday, police arrested leaders of the movement for occupying Cardoso's ranch as they were peacefully leaving, despite a deal to let them go free. A representative from the president's office and a chief negotiator from the Agrarian Development Ministry expressed indignation that their word had been broken, threatening to resign. Landless Movement leader Jose Rainha said the invasions would continue until true agrarian reform is carried out. Rainha refuted government claims that the Cardoso administration has distributed land to 500,000 families, insisting that only 239 thousand families have been given parcels where they live in precarious conditions due to a lack of farm credits. Authorities have also been accused of using divide and rule tactics by giving out land to other campesino organizations and doing its best to discredit the militant land takeovers of what has been called Latin America's largest grassroots movement. *Viewpoint: MONTERREY - AN UGLY PRICE TO PAY FOR A SUMMIT Sometimes words are not needed to know what is going to happen. As soon as we saw Fidel Castro walk up to the stage in Monterrey wearing his green fatigues, we knew he'd come ready for a fight. We have become used to signs like this one that indicate that the dignity of this country is sacred. To see Fidel at an international meeting dressed in his military uniform, and then see him pull out of his breast pocket that little piece of paper informing that he would not stay at the Conference, made it clear that something dirty had been plotted against Cuba and that Cuba was, as usual, ready to fight back. The truth remains, regardless of the efforts made to distort it, that the United States put a price on the Monterrey Summit, and the Mexican government accepted the deal, a deal in which the exchange was Fidel Castro. But, they seemed to have forgotten that it is in the face of injustice that the Cuban leader is at his best, that circumstances like these bring him closer to the peoples of the world, to the poor majority which refuses to accept the kind of life that is being imposed on them, that turns them into mere puppets of the North. It is painful that this should happen with Mexico, because Mexico, at least in the past, has always been especially proud of its independent foreign policy. Many Latin Americans found a home there when United States-backed dictatorships murdered people by the thousands across the continent. As for Cubans, they will never forget that Mexico was the only country in the region that did not join in to isolate the island at a time when others refused to even acknowledge Cuba. Monterrey will go down in the history of this century as the place where obedience was paid to the world master, a master that despises Mexicans, meeting them with death at the border or reserving the dirtiest jobs for them-in the domestic arena and also in foreign policy, as we now see. The Mexican government has not only turned its back on its people, but also on its history. A history born in the 20th century under the sign of revolution, but that now enters the 21st century marked by a level of subservience that dishonors the memory of Father Hidalgo, Benito Juárez and many other eminent Mexicans who transcended their time and their nation. The much-publicized Monterrey Consensus will be remembered as the scandalous acceptance of blackmail-once again-at the hands of the United States government. Bush has spoken clearly: democracy has frontiers, but beware not to step on the line. In the face of such language, Cuba continues to be the option for those who do not have an option, the voice for those who do not have a voice. The consciousness of those who are cheated and deceived, of those betrayed, of the hidden protagonists of past and present reality, of the people who yearn for a different world, a world that is not only possible but cannot be postponed any longer. (This is a version in English of the editorial carried by the daily Juventud Rebelde this Sunday, March 24th, as prepared by RHC and aired on Monday, 25th.) (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-10489 2002-Mar-30 12:03:51