RHC Weekend-01/02 June 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - Weekend News Update - 01/02 June 2002 . *FIDEL CASTRO REAFFIRMS CUBAN REVOLUTION'S STRUGGLE AGAINST EXPLOITATION, FOR TRUE EQUALITY AND JUSTICE *WASHINGTON REPAYS MONTEVIDEO FOR ANTI-CUBA POSITION IN GENEVA *UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM IN CUBA RECEIVES AWARD *LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH MEET IN THE CUBAN CAPITAL *HUGO CHAVEZ SAYS VENEZUELA WILL NEVER AGAIN LIVE UNDER DICTATORSHIP *ALABAMA RETURNS LAND STOLEN BY STATE 40 YEARS AGO TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN FAMILY *REVELATIONS ABOUT WHAT FBI KNEW BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 CONTINUE TO SNOWBALL *VIETNAM ACCUSED FORMER US SENATOR BOB KERREY OF WAR CRIMES Viewpoint: *EU RATIFICATION OF KYOTO PROTOCOL: NICE TRY, BUT NOT ENOUGH . *FIDEL CASTRO REAFFIRMS CUBAN REVOLUTION'S STRUGGLE AGAINST EXPLOITATION, FOR TRUE EQUALITY AND JUSTICE Havana, June 1 (RHC)-- Cuban President Fidel Castro has reaffirmed that the end of the exploitation of human beings and true equality and justice is, and will be, the objective of a Revolution whose essence will remain unchanged. In another response to US President George W. Bush's May 20th speech on Cuba, speaking Saturday before more than 400,000 people at a rally in Holguín province, President Castro stated that it was shameful and ironic to listen to Bush call for independence and freedom, not for Puerto Rico but for Cuba -- and to talk about democracy, not for Florida but for Cuba. Renouncing any return to Cuba's so-called "democratic" past, as demanded by the US president, the Cuban leader recalled his own childhood when the West Indies Sugar Company and the United Fruit Company owned tracts of land up to almost 300,000 acres while tens of thousands of landless Cuban farmers could only work part of the year cleaning or cutting sugar cane, going hungry and barefoot, dressed in rags and living in terror of the special "rural guard" repressive force that would ruthlessly put down strikes or revolts. He recalled how votes were bought or coerced from a mostly illiterate and semi-illiterate population in elections that had nothing to do with changing the political or social system. In reference to Bush's call for private property in Cuba, Fidel Castro stated that the only property rights known by most Cubans before 1959 were the rights of large foreign companies and their allies of the national oligarchy to own enormous amounts of farmland in Cuba, as well as the country's natural resources and biggest factories, crucial public services, the banks, the storage facilities, the ports, the hospitals and the private schools that served with excellence a negligible minority of privileged individuals. In the cities, he added, very few owned their own homes for which they had to pay very high rents, whereas the Cuban Revolution has converted into land and homeowners hundreds of thousands of rural families and city dwellers who don't even have to pay land or property taxes. The Cuban leader noted that out of a historical necessity to leave behind a legacy of underdevelopment, Cuba shares with foreign companies those productions that it would not have access to with its own technologies and funds, but that no international financial institution or foreign private capital can determine Cuba's destiny. He said the foreign companies doing business in Cuba know that not a single penny ends up in Castro's pockets or those of his followers, that no senior Cuban revolutionary leader has a dollar in a bank or personal account in hard currency in Cuba or anywhere else, that none of them can be bribed, and that unlike the president of the United States, none of them are millionaires. Fidel Castro said none can be included on the long list of Bush's neoliberal friends in Latin America who are Olympic champions of misappropriation and theft since the few who do not steal from the public coffers and State taxes steal from the poor and the hungry while killing hundreds of thousands of Latin American children every year whose lives could be saved. That, he said, is the system that Bush longs to impose on Cuba as a model, adding that his insults are unwarranted, so he shouldn't complain about Cuba's tough responses. *WASHINGTON REPAYS MONTEVIDEO FOR ANTI-CUBA POSITION IN GENEVA Washington, June 1 (RHC)-- The White House has repaid Uruguay for presenting its anti-Cuba resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. According to Arturo Porzecanski, an executive with the ABN Amro Bank, Washington's efforts were decisive in obtaining a multi-billion dollar loan for Montevideo from international lending agencies. The director of the Amro Bank's Emerging Markets and Debt Strategy told reporters in Washington that Uruguay has receiving more than three billion dollars for its political support of the U.S. position in Geneva. Porzencanki explained that this was "a very high level decision at the White House to take Uruguay out of its economic crisis." On April 10th this year, Uruguayan representatives to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva introduced the annual resolution against Cuba on behalf of the United States. The bank executive said that Montevideo was doing Washington's bidding in Geneva and that now the favor has been returned. Arturo Porzecanski said this week's announcement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Uruguay would receive a loan due to the financial crisis in Argentina was actually "payment" by the George W. Bush administration for Montevideo's sponsorship of its resolution condemning Cuba for alleged human rights violations. Media reports initially pointed to Peru as the country chosen by Washington to present the resolution in Geneva, but Uruguay -- under extreme economic and political pressure -- eventually accepted the job assigned by the White House. Referring to loans from international lending agencies, the bank executive admitted that -- in his words -- "the money and international help are there, but only if the country does what we ask." *UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM IN CUBA RECEIVES AWARD Havana, June 1 (RHC)-- The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has received the Elena Gil Award -- given to individuals or institutions for their promotion of humanistic values and social justice in Latin America. The award, granted by the Félix Varela Center, was presented to the "Human Development Program at the Local Level." The program started in September of 1998 in two Cuban provinces and in Old Havana. It has now been expanded to benefit a larger segment of the Cuban population with initiatives for local economic and social development, the protection of the environment and a revolving fund for financing expansion of small and medium enterprises -- all with an explicit gender perspective. The award given the UNDP program in Havana was established in honor of Cuban pacifist Elena Gil, who devoted her life to the promotion of social and economic justice, especially for young girls and women. Initially funded by UNDP and the Government of Italy, the Human Development Program at the Local Level is now supported by several European governments and territories. Two Basque government institutions in Spain became the latest supporters of the program, during a ceremony in Bilbao and attended by UNDP's Resident Representative in Cuba, Luis Gomez-Echeverri. *LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH MEET IN THE CUBAN CAPITAL Havana, June 1 (RHC)-- Young people from throughout the region are attending a meeting in Havana of the Board of Directors of the Latin American Youth Forum (FLAJ). Delegates are discussing the regional situation and exchanging views with young people from high schools and universities from Latin America and the Caribbean. Organizers of the meeting told reporters that they will also take part in various activities during their stay in Cuba. At the end of their conference this weekend, participants at the FLAJ Board of Directors meeting will issue a statement demanding the release of the five Cuban political prisoners being held in the United States. The statement calls the five Cuban patriots as "an example to all Latin Americans in the struggle for dignity and sovereignty." *HUGO CHAVEZ SAYS VENEZUELA WILL NEVER AGAIN LIVE UNDER DICTATORSHIP Caracas, June 1 (RHC)-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has affirmed that Venezuela will never again live under a dictatorship. Speaking at the closing session of a congressional investigative commission that opened hearings last May 2nd, Chavez insisted that there is no force capable of stemming the Venezuelan people's struggle for social justice. He said the anti-government march that ended in bloodshed and the botched coup that followed it were both part of a premeditated and violent attempt to oust him from Venezuela's presidential palace with the participation of political parties, the business elite, most of the country's media outlets and a small group of high-ranking military officers and police. He played videotapes which he said clearly demonstrated that several government supporters had been firing handguns in self-defense against police armed with rifles and water cannons. During four hours of testimony, Chavez said: "I ask the nation: Is it a peaceful expression of democracy to march to the palace to depose the president?" He denied the possibility of a repeat of April's events, saying that there are only small groups of discontented officers in the country's armed forces - though admitting that what he called "media laboratories" are still plotting his downfall and security forces are investigating another conspiracy to end his rule. Six military officers are facing rebellion charges for their alleged roles in the coup. With the conclusion of congressional hearings, the investigative commission has one month to draw up a report on the individuals and institutions responsible for the attempted rightwing coup. *ALABAMA RETURNS LAND STOLEN BY STATE 40 YEARS AGO TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN FAMILY Montgomery, Alabama, June 1 (RHC)-- Publication of research into how land owned by African-Americans was systematically stolen during the 19th and 20th centuries has resulted in the return of stolen land to a Black family in Alabama. Associated Press published last December a series documenting the theft of 24,000 acres of African-American land through murder, intimidation, trickery and legal maneuvers by individuals, business firms and government officials. The AP series "Torn From the Land" uncovered 107 land thefts during an 18-month investigation. The state of Alabama has returned a farm to Willie Williams and his family that was seized 40 years ago due to a legal technicality based on a 1906 federal law - land that the family has always claimed was rightfully theirs. The AP reported that the family held an 1874 deed and had records to show they had been paying taxes on the land for generations. Records show that a judge in 1965 said allowing the state's claim would create a "severe injustice," but nonetheless signed an order giving the property to the state. Williams' great-grandfather, named George Washington, bought 240 acres in 1874. The purchase and his conveyance of the land to his children in 1900 are documented in well-preserved, handwritten courthouse records. State officials secured "quiet title" to the 40 acres Williams' father inherited, based on a 1963 U.S. Bureau of Land Management notice. That notice said a 1906 federal patent classified the Washington property as swampland owned by the state. Letters and internal memos on the case in files of the State Lands Division in Montgomery are replete with references to the family's race. They show officials adamantly opposed allowing "the Negro defendants" to keep the land, even while acknowledging that the family could trace its ownership back to 1874. *REVELATIONS ABOUT WHAT FBI KNEW BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 CONTINUE TO SNOWBALL Holmdel, New Jersey/Washington, June 1 (RHC)-- Revelations about what US federal authorities knew prior to September 11 has continued to snowball, with the Bush administration's top anti-terrorism prosecutor affirming that the United States had ample evidence that a devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil was likely long before it actually occurred. Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff has cited nearly a decade's worth of hints that foreign terrorists were targeting Americans. Speaking to law school graduates in New Jersey, Chertoff said Friday that all US officials new everything they needed to know about the possibility of a September 11-style attack. At the same time, US media outlets have revealed that a top secret report warned top officials of the FBI in the months before September 11 that the bureau faced significant terrorist threats from Middle Eastern groups like Al Qaida but lacked enough resources to meet the threat. The document, called the Director's Report on Terrorism, provided detailed recommendations and proposed spending increases to address the problem, according to unnamed officials who said they've seen it. But despite this assessment, the FBI failed to win an increase in the Justice Department spending request submitted shortly before the September 11 attacks. On Sept. 10, Attorney General John Ashcroft rejected a proposed 58 million dollars increase in financing for the bureau's counterterrorism programs, though a Justice Department official has claimed that the director's report was not provided to Ashcroft's budget staff. *VIETNAM ACCUSED FORMER US SENATOR BOB KERREY OF WAR CRIMES Hanoi, June 1 (RHC)-- Vietnam has accused former US Senator Bob Kerrey of committing crimes in a raid on a village during the Vietnam War in which the Navy SEAL team he led killed more than a dozen unarmed civilians. It was the first time Vietnam has publicly accused Kerrey of criminal activity. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh made the accusation Friday in reaction to a revised account of the raid in Kerrey's new memoir. She said families in the village had experienced "incomparable suffering and losses" because of the "crimes committed by Kerrey's unit." The incident, which Kerrey acknowledged last year, put the former senator at the center of a national discussion about U.S. conduct during the war. Kerrey said then that about 13 civilians were killed "by mistake" after his SEAL team was fired on and returned fire during the raid on Thanh Phong village on February 25, 1969. He said he did not know of the civilian casualties until the shooting stopped. But in his new memoir, "When I Was a Young Man," Kerrey writes that he was aware that women and children had begun to gather as his squad searched the village for enemy Viet Cong. Shortly thereafter, Kerrey says, his men were fired upon from the direction of the women and children, with the Americans shooting back and the villagers caught in the crossfire. But after Kerrey acknowledged the incident last year, a member of his Navy SEAL unit and two Vietnamese women who said they witnessed the raid charged that the soldiers herded the women and children together and massacred them -- a charge that Kerrey and five other members of the SEAL team deny, but that the Vietnamese government backed Friday as the truth. Viewpoint: *EU RATIFICATION OF KYOTO PROTOCOL: NICE TRY, BUT NOT ENOUGH The continued rise in our planet's average temperature is turning the Earth into a giant steam boiler, melting huge icecaps at both poles. As a result, the sea levels have also significantly increased, threatening to wipe from the face of the earth entire islands and other coastal strips of land. And while the waters continue to rise, the sky has begun to fall. Recent research revealed that the layer closest to the earth's surface (the troposphere) dropped over 800 meters due to emissions of toxic gases into the atmosphere. Toxic gases cause the so-called "greenhouse effect," which scientists say is the genesis of sudden climatic changes and the outbreak of infectious diseases. However, the interests of a wealthy few continue to prevail over the majority's concern about global warming, which could cause irreparable damage to the environment -- threatening the very survival of the human species on the planet. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is thus far the most viable effort to stop the deterioration of the atmosphere, only that its implementation requires the ratification of 55 states that are accountable for the emissions of 55 percent of six particularly damaging gases going into the atmosphere. But the United States, which accounts for 30 percent of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, has refused to accept the Protocol rules ever since President George W. Bush assumed the presidency, arguing that it would damage the U.S. economy. In yet another effort to push the Kyoto Protocol out of the coma in which Washington has kept it up to now, the European Union decided on Friday to ratify the international treaty. The decision of the 15 EU member states to reduce their emissions of toxic gases by eight percent between 2008 and 2012, raises to 69 the number of nations that have ratified the agreement, though they represent only 26.6 percent of noxious emissions. The world now expects Russia, another one of the big polluters, to take a similar step before the end of this year, which would get the Kyoto Protocol back on track. However, as long as the United States insists in its selfish, hegemonic philosophy, the fate of the Kyoto Protocol will still be uncertain and so will be humanity's possibilities to survive. (c) 2002 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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