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Walesa to Cuba Dissidents: Be Prepared
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press Writer Sat Jan 21, 2005.
HAVANA - Former Polish President Lech Walesa
advised Cuban dissidents to be ready for
an inevitable democratic transition, telling
them Saturday that activists in his country
had been unprepared for the collapse of
East European communism.
The former Solidarity labor leader and
Nobel Peace Prize laureate took questions
from Cubans during a morning Internet teleconference
at the home of the top American diplomat
in Havana.
"When liberty arrives it's going to
be difficult," Walesa said from Poland
during the hour-long exchange, his image
beamed on a projector screen set up in a
salon. "We made a lot of errors. We
were not prepared."
The Cuban government maintains that there
will be no such transition on the island,
and that the current economic and political
systems will remain after 79-year-old Fidel
Castro is gone.
Castro and other Cuban authorities have
criticized a U.S. presidential commission
report detailing how American aid can be
used to promote a democratic transition
on the island, calling it a thinly veiled
blueprint for regime change.
About 100 people attended the event, including
around a dozen of Cuba's better-known dissidents,
diplomats from Poland and other East European
nations and international journalists.
The Cuban government, which has grown increasingly
critical over the past year of former East
European nations that offer moral support
to Cuban dissidents, did not immediately
comment on the event.
The meeting at the home of U.S. Interests
Section chief Michael Parmly came days after
U.S. officials hooked up an electronic sign
to broadcast human rights messages along
the side of the American mission.
Poland was an ideological ally of Cuba
before the breakup of the former Soviet
Union and subsequent collapse of communism
across eastern Europe.
"For me, for many Cubans, you are
a symbol of liberty, of liberty, of the
defense of the rights of man, a courageous
leader," the independent Cuban journalist
Angel Polanco told Walesa.
Martha Beatriz Roque, a former political
prisoner, told Walesa that more than 330
prisoners of conscience are held in Cuba.
"They have paid a very high price
for liberty in Cuba," Roque said. She
was the only woman among 75 government opponents
arrested in a crackdown on the opposition
in March 2003. She and 14 others have been
paroled for medical reasons.
The rest are serving sentences of up to
28 years on charges of being mercenaries
who worked with Washington to undermine
Castro's system - allegations they and U.S.
officials deny.
Castro slams new US "provocations"
in diplo-row
HAVANA, 21 (AFP) - The United States has
launched a glaring new chapter in its diplomatic
fight with Cuba: an electronic screen broadcasting
messages on its diplomatic building's side
in a move Cuba calls a provocation.
"I must analyze the provocations,
the outlandish things (US authorities) are
doing," President Fidel Castro pledged
on state television Friday.
The electronic screen perched on the fifth
floor level of the six-storey US Interests
Section in Havana broadcasts in crimson
letters more than a meter (three feet) high.
Last Monday and Tuesday it began broadcasting
the UN Declaration of Human Rights, thoughts
of US civil rights leader Martin Luther
King Jr and news, as stunned passersby watched
on Havana's storied seafront.
The USIS said in a statement to AFP Monday
that "it is here to stay. We are trying
to provide the Cuban people uncensored information.
The intention is to break the news embargo
Cubans are subjected to."
The screen, however, was not turned on
on Wednesday and Thursday.
Castro, 79, also charged the United States
was "planning to break the migratory
accords" reached with the US government
of Bill Clinton in 1994. He did not elaborate.
But the accords -- under which Cubans trying
to emigrate to the United States and who
are picked up at sea by US authorities are
repatriated to Cuba -- are a cornerstone
of the neighbors' tense bilateral ties.
The new US lighting fixture is the latest
chapter in US efforts to draw Cuban public
attention to what the United States sees
as human rights concerns in Cuba. The former
top US diplomat in Cuba, James Cason, started
the campaign in 2004, which has been expanded
by his successor Michael Parmly, who took
over at the USIS in September.
The United States and Cuba do not have
full diplomatic relations, but maintain
interest sections in the other's capital.
Washington has had a full economic embargo
on Havana since 1961.
Castro on December 23 called US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice "mad"
after having condemned the new head of the
US diplomatic mission in Havana as a "little
gangster."
Castro's tirade against the United States
followed Rice's meeting last month with
a US government commission intended to prepare
for a democratic transition in Cuba after
Castro.
"I am going to tell you what I think
about this famous commission: they are a
group of shit-eaters who do not deserve
the world's respect," Castro told the
Cuban parliament in blunter-than-usual language.
"In this context, it does not matter
if it was the mad woman who talks of transition
-- it is a circus, they are completely depraved,
they should be pitied," he added.
The attack followed Castro's comments a
day earlier when he called Parmly a "little
gangster" for criticizing the regime
at a speech marking International Human
Rights Day this month.
"The Cuban regime's hurling of angry
and often violent groups against pro-democratic
dissidents is particularly disgusting,"
Parmly said, adding that such actions recalled
the Nazis.
Deadline for Americans With New Property
Claims Against Cuba to File in Second Cuban
Claims Program is Feb. 13, Says Justice
Dept.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ --
The filing deadline for any new property
claims against the Government of Cuba is
February 13, 2006, Mauricio Tamargo, Chairman
of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission,
reminded the public today. Under the Second
Cuban Claims Program, the Commission is
authorized to receive claims of U.S. citizens
or corporations against the Government of
Cuba for the loss of real and personal property
taken after May 1, 1967.
The Second Cuban Claims Program provides
for claims of U.S. citizens and corporations
that would have been eligible under the
earlier program but for the fact that the
claim did not arise by the time of the filing
deadline of May 1, 1967 and were not otherwise
previously adjudicated by the Commission.
The program is intended to cover those property
claims that arose subsequent to the earlier
program. Chairman Tamargo emphasized that
the program is open only to those who were
U.S. citizens or American corporations at
the time their property was taken.
All inquiries concerning these claims should
be forwarded directly to the Foreign Claims
Settlement Commission of the United States,
600 E Street N.W., Suite 6002, Washington,
D.C. 20579, Phone: 202-616-6975, Fax: 202-616-6993.
The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission
of the United States (FCSC) is a quasi-judicial,
independent agency within the Department
of Justice which adjudicates claims of U.S.
nationals against foreign governments. More
information about the Commission is available
at http://www.usdoj.gov/fcsc/
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