Radio Havana Cuba-17 May 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 17 May 2002 . *FORMER US PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER WRAPS UP HISTORIC 5-DAY VISIT TO CUBA *WASHINGTON DENIES ENTRY VISAS TO PROMINENT CUBAN SCIENTISTS *CUBANS CELEBRATE ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY OF AGRARIAN REFORM LAW *LARGE FIRE IN CENTRAL CUBA THREATENS NATIONALLY PROTECTED AREA *COLOMBIAN GENTIL MONTANA PERFORMS AT HAVANA GUITAR FESTIVAL *BUSH ADMINISTRATION UNDER HEAVY FIRE OVER ADVANCE ATTACK WARNINGS *DAN RATHER ADMITS TO SELF-CENSORSHIP DUE TO "PATRIOTISM RUN AMOK" *UN OFFICIAL SAYS COALITION AGAINST TERRORISM WILL FAIL WITHOUT A COALITION AGAINST HUNGER AND POVERTY *Viewpoint: "CONSPIRACY THEORIES" HIT THE FAN . *FORMER US PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER WRAPS UP HISTORIC 5-DAY VISIT TO CUBA Havana, May 17 (RHC) -- Former US President Jimmy Carter Friday wrapped up an historic 5-day visit to Cuba, with Cuban President Fidel Castro seeing him off at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport. The highpoints of the visit came during his tour of the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center on the outskirts of the capital, during which Carter expressed his conviction that Cuba is not engaged in research or production or exportation of biological weapons - as was recently charged by a US State Department official -- and was carefully monitoring its biotechnological and genetic engineering programs to avoid any undue use of the information they possess. The statement put Washington on the defensive, particularly since Carter insisted that during several briefings with members of the current US administration he was told that they have no evidence against Cuba. Secretary of State Colin Powell had to admit that Washington had no evidence, but members of the George W. Bush administration denied ever having spoken to Carter about Cuba's biotechnology capacity. The second, and major, highlight came when the visiting dignitary addressed the Cuban nation from the University of Havana in a speech that was broadcast live - as part of President Castro's assurances that he could say and do whatever he wished during his stay. While praising Cuba's health and educational achievements, and recognizing that there are many shortcomings in his own nation, Carter criticized Cuba's political system. The criticism sparked a lively, but respectful exchange between the former US president and some of those present at the university's principle lecture hall who did not agree with, among other issues, Carter's definition of democracy. *WASHINGTON DENIES ENTRY VISAS TO PROMINENT CUBAN SCIENTISTS Havana, May 17 (RHC)-- Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX) issued a strong statement Thursday evening, denouncing Washington's rejection of entry visas to two prominent scientists. Adriana Carr Pérez and Tania Crombet Ramos, researchers at Havana's Center for Molecular Immunology, were invited to attend the Annual Conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, slated for May 18th through the 21st in Orlando, Florida. According to the MINREX note, a third cancer specialist -- Mauricio Catalá Ferrer -- has been informed that a decision on his visa has been delayed and would not be ready in time for the conference, even if it were to be approved. The official statement of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations notes that the medical experts were informed of the decision on Wednesday, May 15th, by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. MINREX points out that a Cuban delegation -- including the two women who have now been denied visas -- attended two previous conferences on clinical cancer research. During the meeting two years ago in New Orleans and the one last year in San Francisco, the Cuban scientists were able to exchange information on cancer investigation with specialists from the United States and other countries. The two Cuban specialists are among the island's most prominent researchers in the area of cancer, having written two scientific papers which were to have been discussed at this year's conference in Orlando. Cuba's Foreign Ministry says that by refusing to grant visas to the island's delegation, the U.S. government is trying to block the exchange of scientific and investigative research, which could help in the fight against the deadly disease of cancer -- responsible for the deaths of more than 500,000 U.S. citizens each year. According to the MINREX note, the U.S. State Department has refused entry visas to Cuban scientists from the Center for Molecular Immunology six times over the past two years alone. As on previous occasions, the requests were made at least one month in advance at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, which requires only 21 days to consider entry visa petitions. The Cuban Foreign Ministry says that Washington is trying to hide the fact that visa denials to scientists from the island also negatively affect the U.S. scientific community, who are denied the right to debate and analyze Cuban medical research -- even at the cost of the health of their own citizens. The MINREX statement, issued last night and appearing in Friday morning's editions of Granma and Juventud Rebelde, affirms that science and the fight against cancer should not be held hostage by hate-filled political interests. *CUBANS CELEBRATE ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY OF AGRARIAN REFORM LAW Havana, May 17 (RHC)-- Today, May 17th, marks the 43rd anniversary of the first Agrarian Reform Law in Cuba. Signed by Fidel Castro on this date in 1959, the law placed a limit on land holdings and expropriated, with compensation, the property of large landowners. At the time of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, foreigners owned 75 percent of the island's arable land. Historians note that five U.S. companies owned or controlled more than two million acres in Cuba. The first Agrarian Reform Law placed limits on privately-owned land to 3300 acres per owner. Washington officially protested the law, especially the terms of compensation. U.S. landowners were angry over Cuba's basis for compensation because it was calculated on the values the owners used for tax assessment; in order to pay lower taxes, the owners had claimed their land was worth much less than it really was. May 17th is commemorated each year as "El Día del Campesino" -- the Day of the Farmer. *LARGE FIRE IN CENTRAL CUBA THREATENS NATIONALLY PROTECTED AREA Santa Clara, May 17 (RHC)-- A huge fire is threatening the protected area of Cubanacan, in the island's central province of Villa Clara -- a natural forest preserve of more than 17,300 acres. The blaze reportedly started Tuesday evening in Cayo La Plata, 67 miles south of Santa Clara. According to Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Garces, a provincial Forest Ranger, the fire is currently some six and a half miles wide. He noted that this area is valuable, not only for its vegetation -- including 14 species of endemic plants -- but also for 93 kinds of birds. Firefighters have extinguished the biggest fire in 15 years in the area of Matembo, Corralillo -- located some 335 miles from Havana. The blaze devastated nearly 3000 acres. According to reports from the scene, the greatest damage includes 1300 acres of pine trees, more than 150 acres of eucalyptus and nearly 70 acres of fruit trees. According to experts, the intense drought, together with high temperatures and winds, favored the propagation of flames in the region. The lack of rain in recent months has provoked similar fires in Holguin and Camagüey, to the east, and in Matanzas, in the central part of the island. *COLOMBIAN GENTIL MONTANA PERFORMS AT HAVANA GUITAR FESTIVAL Havana, May 17 (RHC)-- Colombian guitarist Gentil Montana, considered to be one of the six-string myths of Latin America, has performed at the 11th International Guitar Festival and Contest in Havana's Amadeo Roldan Theater. Playing to a sold-out audience, Gentil Montana -- who many compare to Argentinean Atahualpa Yupanqui and Venezuelan Antonio Lauro -- demonstrated both popular and classical techniques during the concert. He was accompanied by Brazilian guitarist Gabriel Improta. The International Guitar Festival has also included performances by other musical virtuosos: Victor Pellegrini, Joaquin Clerch and Rosa Matos. The awards ceremony took place Thursday evening, with the performances of guitarist Luis Orlandini from Chile, Alfonso Moreno from Mexico and Aldo Rodriguez from Cuba, as well as the Matanzas Symphony Orchestra, directed by Lourdes Santiesteban. Workshops on the guitar and special concert presentations have entertained festival-goers over the past several days. The 11th International Guitar Festival and Contest winds up tomorrow, Saturday. *BUSH ADMINISTRATION UNDER HEAVY FIRE OVER ADVANCE ATTACK WARNINGS Washington, May 17 (RHC) -- Revelations that the George W. Bush administration had ample warning of a spectacular terrorist attack against the United States has Congress demanding answers, the White House on the defensive, and relatives of the September 11 victims seething. With the Bush administration admitting eight months later that it had been told that Osama bin Laden's followers might try to hijack American airplanes, lawmakers are threatening to launch expanded probes into whether the government did enough to protect American lives. The Washington Post asserted Friday that Democrats have shed their reticence about attacking the allegedly popular president. On the defensive, Vice President Richard Cheney warned Democrats to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making what he called "incendiary suggestions." Worried that the sudden questioning of whether Bush did enough to prevent the attacks could raise serious doubts about the president's competence and undermine the credibility of his administration, other members of the Bush team tried to insist that it was unfair to suggest that he and his aides should have known about the full nature of the threat - seeking to dispel the impression of a coverup. But the Democrats have continued pressing about why no action was taken on an FBI memo more than 2 months before September 11 indicating that several Arabs were taking flight training course in the United States, and why no connection was made in the several briefings the president received affirming that Al Qaida was interested in hijacking American planes. The Boston Globe news daily noted that since September 11, the president and other US officials have said that the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center came without warning. Meanwhile, some relatives of the September 11 victims are angrily asserting that lives could have been saved had the White House shared its advanced warnings with the public. Stephen Push, whose 21-year-old wife was killed aboard the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon, told Associated Press that had she known, she would not have taken that flight. Push termed as shameful that the government knew as much as it did and didn't warn anyone, affirming that "they put the business interests of the airlines above the lives of the citizens." Kristin Breitweiser, whose husband died at the World Trade Center, demanded an investigation "for the safety of ourselves and our fellow citizens," so that this should never happen again. She said she wants accountability. Don Marshall, whose wife died at the Pentagon, stated that "it sort of makes you wonder where the get-tough president was when he was getting all this information" and "why they didn't react more vigorously." Bill Doyle, whose son was killed at the World Trade Center, termed as shocking the extent to which the government let people down. And in related news, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has issued a statement recalling that when several weeks ago she requested an investigation into what warnings the Bush administration had before September 11, she was derided by the White House, right wing talk radio, and spokespersons for the military-industrial complex as a conspiracy theorist. McKinney affirmed that even her patriotism was questioned because she dared to suggest an investigation into the most disastrous intelligence failure in American history. The African-American legislator from the state of Georgia affirmed that revelations that the Bush administration was given months of notice that a terrorist attack was a distinct possibility now makes it clear why the White House has been vigorously opposing congressional hearings - accusing the administration of engaging in a conspiracy of silence. According to McKinney, if committed and patriotic people had not been pushing for disclosure, these revelations would have remained hidden by the White House. *DAN RATHER ADMITS TO SELF-CENSORSHIP DUE TO "PATRIOTISM RUN AMOK" Washington, May 17 (RHC) -- Star network news veteran Dan Rather has admitted that "patriotism run amok" caused him to shrink from tough questions concerning the George W. Bush administration's war in Afghanistan. The CBS star news anchor, speaking Thursday to the BBC's Newsnight current affairs program, warned American journalists to not allow that patriotism to force them to shrink from the task of taking on the Bush administration over its war on terrorism. Though he wore a Stars and Stripes pin in his lapel during his evening news show, Rather told the BBC that the pressure to conform exerted on journalists kept them from asking the toughest of the tough questions. The British news daily The Guardian wrote that such a confession is astonishing bearing in mind its source, noting that the 70-year-old Rather is almost as famous in the United States as a president. He said that there has never been an American war, small or large, in which access has been so limited as this one, adding that unfortunately the American people have accepted this and the current administration revels, relishes and takes refuge in that acceptance. The CBS news anchor said it is unpatriotic not to ask those planning this war the questions they don't want to hear. *UN OFFICIAL SAYS COALITION AGAINST TERRORISM WILL FAIL WITHOUT A COALITION AGAINST HUNGER AND POVERTY Berlin, Paris, May 17 (RHC) -- The international coalition against terrorism is condemned to failure because the countries that support it haven't created simultaneously an international coalition against hunger and poverty, according to Swiss sociologist and special United Nations representative Jean Ziegler. In an interview with German TV networks, Secretary General Kofi Annan's special representative for the Right to Food said the planet will not put an end to the causes that generate so much violence and absurdity as long as nothing effective is done to prevent the death from hunger of 100,000 people everyday. Ziegler's comments coincide with a new report revealing that anti-poverty aid from the world's 29 most industrialized nations has again decreased. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, found that aid fell by 2.3 billion dollars between 2000 and 2001, in a report released in Paris on Thursday. It also found that only five countries, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden, meet the UN target of giving at least 0.7 percent of their gross national incomes to development assistance, while all the other OECD countries remain far below the UN target established by the General Assembly 30 years ago and reaffirmed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil. The United States, according to the report, tops the list of industrialized nations that give the least for development aid, earmarking only 0.11 percent of its gross national income, followed by Japan, Germany and France - all of which give far less than 0.4 percent. *Viewpoint: "CONSPIRACY THEORIES" HIT THE FAN A new scandal has tainted US President George Bush with the discovery this week that the White House had been informed of possible terrorist attacks a month before the September 11 tragedy. It appears that the information and threats were taken for granted even though they contained elements of great concern - particularly pertaining to two specific details that Bush's intelligence agencies were unable to link together. One was the possibility of action against US airliners and the second - an FBI report - related to people of Middle Eastern descent receiving flight training in Florida. The disclosure of these facts has provoked a public outcry with the Bush Administration uselessly trying to get out of the issue with inept declarations. For instance, White House spokesperson, Ari Fleischer confirmed that last summer the Government received numerous calls threatening U.S. interests and territory and that all appropriate measures were taken and that any of the criticisms being leveled at Bush were from "conspiracy theorists". Hijackers, as we know, easily walked through security controls at US airports on September 11 and once they had taken over the flights, they were free to manipulate them towards their objectives without any interception - something "conspiracy theorists" find stranger than fiction. Condoleeza Rice, the National Security Adviser, did not escape criticism when she affirmed to the public that the Bush Administration did not expect such suicidal terrorists but just ordinary, "traditional" hijackers. As if this was something that occurs on a daily basis... Without much argument, US patriotism hit the headlines and there are already statements by officials accusing Washington of being incapable of protecting its own people. We are still waiting to see how President Bush will explain to the relatives of September 11 victims and the thousands of innocent civilians killed in Afghanistan that all this killing could have been avoided with a minimum of commonsense and intelligence - something that unfortunately the White House's security agencies lack. One should note that the whole affair made George W. Bush look extremely good and enabled him to consolidate more power into his hands than any of his predecessors had enjoyed. Or are we, too, succumbing to simple "conspiracy theories?" (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-25714 2002-May-18 20:31:35