Radio Havana Cuba-27 May 2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba - News Update - 27 May 2002 . *COLOMBIA: HARD-LINE CANDIDATE WINS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION *RIGHT-WING VENEZUELAN COUP-LEADER GETS ASYLUM FROM COLOMBIA *ARGENTINE PRESIDENT ISSUES ANOTHER ULTIMATUM ON IMF DEMANDS *PAKISTANI LEADER DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN KASHMIR TERRORISM *DRACONIAN SECURITY MEASURES OVERSHADOW NATO-RUSSIA SUMMIT IN ROME *7th CUBAN-PANAMANIAN INTER-PARLIAMENTARY MEETING WRAPS UP *GROWING SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA THROUGHOUT THE WORLD *SPANISH BOLERO SINGER DELIGHTS CUBAN AUDIENCE *CUBAN HOTEL COMPETES FOR UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE *Viewpoint: A NEW PRESIDENT, THE SAME OLD PROBLEMS . *COLOMBIA: HARD-LINE CANDIDATE WINS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Caracas, May 27 (RHC) -- Colombia's hardline presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe has become the first president-elect in Colombian history to win a first round of voting. Uribe's principle campaign platform was his promise to suppress leftist guerrillas and bring security to the world's most violent nation. And though numerous media outlets around the world are claiming that the vote constitutes a plebiscite against the country's leftist rebels, more sober analysts are noting that 54 percent of the electorate did not cast their ballots - up from 49 percent during 1998 elections, but down from 66 percent in 1994. With this abstention rate, of Colombia's 24 million voters, only 6 million cast their ballots for Uribe. Colombia's new president-elect has pledged to double the defense budget to enlist 150,000 extra troops and police officers and mobilize 30,000 reservists, mobilize and possibly arm one million civilians and open the door to deeper US involvement in the country's 38-year civil war. His critics, including United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, accuse him of tacitly supporting rightwing paramilitaries - who publicly celebrated the electoral victory - and say his plans could tip the country into all-out war. Though following his victory Uribe called for UN and other international mediation efforts to begin talks with the rebels, he had previously stated that he would only renew peace talks if the guerrillas agree to an unconditional ceasefire - which the 18,000-strong Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces is unlikely to agree to. As governor of Antioquía from 1995 to 1997, Uribe was an enthusiastic supporter of a civilian intelligence-gathering network in his state that quickly degenerated in rightwing death squads and vigilante killers. He opened his presidential campaign in 1999 with a speech at a gala dinner in honor of two former army generals accused of working hand-in-glove with rightwing paramilitaries who carried out several massacres in the mid-90s. Meanwhile, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces insurgency has welcomed Uribe's offer for talks, but has established conditions that the rightwing president-elect is not likely to accept. The rebel organization wants the government to again demilitarize a vast territory in southern Colombia, and is demanding the participation in any peace process of social and grassroots organizations. The guerrillas also insisted that government officials exclude the terms "terrorist" and "narcoterrorist" when referring to their organization, and demanded action against the military officers and police implicated in rightwing paramilitary activity, as well as against those who help finance that activity - believed to be fundamentally large cattle ranchers and other agro business tycoons. They did not mention a ceasefire. *RIGHT-WING VENEZUELAN COUP-LEADER GETS ASYLUM FROM COLOMBIA Caracas, May 27 (RHC) -- The government of Venezuela has expressed dismay over Colombia's decision to grant political asylum to rightwing coup leader Pedro Carmona. Carmona, who assumed dictatorial rule in Venezuela during a period of 28 hours during a failed effort to overthrow President Hugo Chavez, was under house arrest since last April 14th until he evaded police surveillance and fled to the Colombian embassy in Caracas last Thursday. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Luis Alfonso Davila said he was perplexed by the decision, particularly since the Colombian government officially condemned the attempted coup. After Davila said that Venezuelan authorities would consider whether Carmona will be granted safe conduct out of the country, President Chavez indicated that he would allow him to leave. The foreign minister also declined to speculate on whether the Carmona case would evolve into another dispute between the two countries, which have engaged in several public controversies regarding Chavez's alleged sympathy with Colombia's leftist guerrillas. Over the weekend, however, Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello stated that Colombia will be expressing support of the attempted coup if asylum is granted to Carmona. The Venezuelan business leader escaped house arrest after the country's Supreme Court ordered his transfer to a penitentiary to await trial on charges that could result in a prison sentence of between 12 and 24 years. *ARGENTINE PRESIDENT ISSUES ANOTHER ULTIMATUM ON IMF DEMANDS Buenos Aires, May 27 (RHC) -- Argentine President Eduardo Duhalde has issued another ultimatum for compliance with International Monetary Fund demands in what has been called a desperate message to the nation. In a dramatic tone, Duhalde asserted that "time is running out," insisting that the country cannot survive without the IMF. The speech came right before an important summit with the ruling party governors that control 14 of Argentina's 24 provinces. Thus far, only 8 of the provinces have signed a drastic, almost 2 billion dollar spending cutback package demanded by the IMF. Many provincial leaders, already facing daily protests by the unemployed or public workers who haven't received their paychecks, are concerned that further belt-tightening measures would lead to an uncontrollable social explosion. Buenos Aires Province, the country's largest, is among those that haven't signed. The Argentine president last week threatened to resign if lawmakers continued blocking his efforts to obtain more IMF bail-out loans, but the lower house of Congress responded by again refusing to repeal legislation designed to prosecute corrupt corporate executives and bankers - as the credit institution is also demanding. *PAKISTANI LEADER DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN KASHMIR TERRORISM Islamabad, May 27 (RHC) -- Pakistani military leader Pervez Musharraf has denied any involvement in terrorist attacks in the region of Kashmir controlled by India and has claimed that his regime does not sponsor cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. The denial came as world leaders leaned on Pakistan to reign in Islamic militants and halt attacks against India launched from bases in Pakistan. On the eve of a visit by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to the region, Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly held Monday a 15-minute phone conversation with Musharraf urging him to reduce tension with India and telling him that infiltration by Islamic militants across the Line of Control dividing disputed Kashmir "had to stop." The United States, which has become Musharraf's most important ally since he threw his weight behind the US's so-called war on terror, adopted a similar position. Washington, however, has also been accused of ignoring the situation in Kashmir since last January Secretary of State Colin Powell made a crisis visit to defuse tension between India and Pakistan following an armed assault against India's Parliament. Influential Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland has asserted that the US has not acknowledged Pakistan's backsliding since Musharraf promised last January to crack down on Islamic militants. He said that the US intelligence community now accepted that General Musharraf allowed 50 to 60 camps in Kashmir, harboring some 3,000 fighters, to come back to life in mid-March. India, meanwhile, has said it would wait to see if there is any success in international efforts to persuade Pakistan to crack down on militants, which analysts see as a small window of up to two months to prevent war. It's estimated that a war between the two nuclear powers would immediately leave 12 million people killed and 7 million wounded. *DRACONIAN SECURITY MEASURES OVERSHADOW NATO-RUSSIA SUMMIT IN ROME Rome, May 27 (RHC) -- Security measures called draconian have overshadowed the NATO-Russia Summit to be held near Rome, Italy on Tuesday. "Rome in a state of siege" and "Rome, the closed city" were some of the front-page headlines in local news dailies. The southern coast of Rome has been declared a zone of exclusion where swimmers aren't even allowed, while the authorities have shut down all roads and highways connecting the Italian capital to the Pratica di Mare air base where the summit is to take place. Anti-aircraft batteries will reportedly shoot down any plane that comes near the summit. Alitalia Airlines has cancelled all flights to and from Rome between 10 am and 3 pm Tuesday, while other flights in Italy will be carrying security agents to prevent a September 11-style hijacking. But holding the summit in a sterile military base-- NATO's second largest in Europe -- instead of in Rome, has also been attributed to the expected anti-globalization and anti-war protests. *7th CUBAN-PANAMANIAN INTER-PARLIAMENTARY MEETING WRAPS UP Havana, May 27 (RHC)-- The 7th Cuban-Panamanian Inter-Parliamentary Meeting was positive and successful -- consolidating good relations among lawmakers from both nations. Ramon Pez Ferro, President of the International Affairs Commission of the Cuban Parliament, told reporters upon his return to Havana that such ties are important because they help to strengthen bilateral relations. The Cuban parliamentary leader said that the annual meeting, held in Panama City last week, provided for serious contacts between the national assemblies of both countries. Pez Ferro also noted that during their stay in Panama, the Cuban lawmakers were able to confirm the solidarity of the Panamanian people with the Cuban Revolution. The Final Declaration of the Cuban-Panamanian Inter-Parliamentary Meeting demands that the U.S. government lift its economic blockade against the island and strongly condemns Washington's extraterritorial legislative measures, such as the Helms-Burton Law. Participants at the meeting also demanded freedom for the five Cuban political prisoners being held in the United States for allegedly endangering U.S. national security -- when, in fact, they were working to protect Cuba against terrorist attacks organized in the United States. Ramon Pez Ferro announced that the next inter-parliamentary meeting between Cuba and Panama would be held in Havana in 2003 -- coinciding with the centennial of bilateral diplomatic relations. *GROWING SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA THROUGHOUT THE WORLD Pinar del Rio, May 27 (RHC)-- Cuba continues to receive growing solidarity from around the world, according to Sergio Corrieri, President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). Speaking with reporters in Pinar del Rio -- following an activity to commemorate the 39th anniversary of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) -- the president of ICAP noted that at the same time that Washington's hostility toward the island increases, more supporters are joining the solidarity movement. Sergio Corrieri cited the example of Mexico, where huge demonstrations were carried out against the position taken by President Vicente Fox and Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda regarding the presence of Cuban President Fidel Castro at an international summit in Monterrey last March. He said the Mexican Movement in Solidarity with Cuba was working hard to preserve relations between the two countries. The ICAP president also referred to the situation in Uruguay after Montevideo presented the anti-Cuba resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and then announced it was breaking diplomatic relations with Havana. Corrieri said the solidarity movement in Uruguay has grown tremendously over the past several weeks -- noting that some 30,000 people turned out for a rally when Cuba's ambassador to Montevideo was declared persona non-grata and left for Havana. *SPANISH BOLERO SINGER DELIGHTS CUBAN AUDIENCE Havana, May 27 (RHC)-- It was standing-room only at Havana's Mella Theater for a night of bolero music on Saturday. Spanish singer Moncho delighted the audience with his romantic songs about love and life. Between sets, Moncho told his Cuban audience that he was born in a working class area of Barcelona and fell in love with bolero music at a very early age. He said his style was very much influenced by Benny Moré, noting that it was a challenge to sing boleros in Cuba because the island is considered the birthplace of the musical genre. The internationally-renowned singer announced that his latest CD is entitled "De Corazón Cubano" and is a co-production between Virgin Records and the Cuban company EGREM. *CUBAN HOTEL COMPETES FOR UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE Matanzas, May 27 (RHC)-- The Melia-Varadero Hotel will compete for an environmental award to be granted during the upcoming UN World Summit, slated to take place from August 26th through September 4th in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to Remberto Abrahantes, the hotel's marketing manager, the Melia-Varadero Hotel is the only facility in Cuba to be awarded the National Environmental Recognition. He said that since its inauguration in 1991, the hotel's management has worked for financial, environmental, cultural and social sustainability. The Melia-Varadero Hotel -- located at Varadero Beach in Mantanzas province -- has also been granted the Green Planet Award from the Kuoni Swiss Agency. *Viewpoint: A NEW PRESIDENT, THE SAME OLD PROBLEMS As predicted weeks ago, Alvaro Uribe Velez was elected president of Colombia on Sunday. This time though, in a departure from the traditional trade off between the conservative and liberal parties, a self-proclaimed independent has taken control of the leadership of the South American nation. In a country exhausted by more than four decades of war and grave internal problems that have turned it into the most violent on the continent, Uribe managed to convince nearly six million voters to support his platform. The principal ingredient of the campaign had been to eliminate obligatory military service and end the war by militarily defeating the insurgents. However in the past, both conservative and liberal administrations have failed in their attempts to end the bloody war by treating it as an isolated phenomenon. That is why if the Uribe government intends to fulfill its campaign promises of peace and development, it will have to go farther than its predecessors. In order to achieve those noble goals, the government will have to make a profound analysis of just what it has inherited. When it does, it will discover that Colombia now is home to 25 million poor, 63 per cent of the entire population. It will see that one in every four Colombians are either unemployed or underemployed and that the economy has come to a standstill due to the free fall of international coffee prices and a 30 billion dollar foreign debt. What's more, the new government will be faced with more than a hundred gangs specializing in drug trafficking; a business that flourishes despite the millions of dollars invested in its eradication because demand from its principal market, the United States, remains steady or increases. The only "good" news Uribe will receive is the nation's capacity for war. He will find an army whose regular forces increased 48 per cent under the Andes Pastrana administration. The number of special troops has tripled and its air and combat capacity has gone up 500 per cent. The new president will also have the US Congress' blessings to use money originally designated to fight drug trafficking, to put down guerilla movements. In sum, Alvaro Uribe will find a country ready for war but poorly prepared for peace. That could well mean that the new president's claims of bringing peace and development to Colombia will go down in history as just another in a long list of fiascoes, as in the case of the government of Andres Pastrana The new president must also keep in mind that despite having won the presidency in the first round of voting, more than half of Colombia's voters stayed away from the polls, and many others left their ballots blank. So in reality Uribe received approval from only a fourth of the country's electorate, which will make achieving a consensus difficult if not impossible. Educated in universities in the United States and Britain, Alvaro Uribe faces one of the most daunting challenges in Latin America. It is one thing to end the war and quite another to win the peace. That can only done by achieving social justice, development and equality. (c) 2002 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. 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