Yahoo! Monday April 10
Cuba enrolls Third World in "rebellion of Seattle"
By Jason Webb
HAVANA, April 10 (Reuters) - Third World leaders at a summit in Havana will continue the ``rebellion of Seattle'' against rich countries' attempts to hijack the World Trade Organization for their own interests, host nation Cuba said on Monday.
About 60 leaders from the 133 member nations of the Group of 77 -- so-called because of the group's 1964 founding with 77 members -- were expected in Havana to attend the five-day ``South Summit'' sponsored by Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Host country Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said representatives of 80 percent of the world's population were forging a unified voice to carry the struggle for their rights on from last year's chaotic WTO meeting in Seattle.
``This is coming after the rebellion of Seattle. I don't mean just the rebellion in the streets but also the rebellion inside the conference center against attempts to carry out an event that was not transparent and favored the interests of the few and not the majority,'' Perez told a news
conference.
The Havana meeting, chaired by Nigeria, will be the first full presidential summit in the G77's history, reflecting the importance given to finding a joint position from which to stand up to the rich on trade issues.
``We need a North-South dialogue in which the North listens to our opinions,'' said Perez, who added that the richest 20 percent of the world's population earned 82 times more than the poorest 80 percent -- up from 30 times more in 1964.
HAVOC IN THE STREETS
In Seattle, U.S. activists caused havoc on the streets as they called for trade agreements to insist on environmental and labor standards.
Many of the activists, who were often supported by U.S. labor unions worried about competition from low-wage countries, said they spoke for Third World workers. But poor-country delegates argued fiercely that they could not afford developed-world wages or pollution standards.
``We firmly oppose any linkage between trade and labor standards. We are also against the use of environmental standards as a new form of protectionism,'' read a draft declaration that will be debated by South Summit leaders.
The document, seen by lower-ranking officials on Monday, will be discussed by foreign ministers starting on Tuesday and then by heads of state for the summit's final three days.
The draft declaration also called for a ``durable solution'' to the external-debt problems of poorer nations and made special mention of the dire economic situation in Africa.
It called for rich countries to honor their commitment to devote 0.7 percent of gross domestic product to official aid.
``You cannot force somebody to keep his promise because you don't know what problems they have had. But as far as North-South dialogue is concerned, we have to keep the door wide open because we are not living in an isolated world,'' said Nigeria's Chief Arthur Mbanefo, current head of the G77.
WEST'S KOSOVO ACTION REJECTED
The document rejected the ``humanitarian intervention'' invoked by the United States and other Western nations when they forced Serbia out of Kosovo in 1999. It called for Israel to withdraw from ``Occupied Palestinian Territory'' and for international sanctions against Libya to be ended.
The document urged rich countries to share the explosive growth in information technology. Ironically, in Cuba, access to the Internet requires government permission.
Most of the top names billed at the summit, like Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and South African President Thabo Mbeki, were due later in the week.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was expected to fly into Havana on Monday night. Some presidents, including those of Vietnam and Nigeria, had already arrived.
Mbeki in particular will have more on his mind than the G77. He has planned a private meeting with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, in which he is expected to express concern over the occupation of white-owned farms in South Africa's smaller neighbor.
Although the summit is taking place in Cuba, it is largely being downplayed by major Latin American countries, most of which are sending low-ranking delegations. Brazil and Argentina are G77 members but in recent years have preferred to concentrate their energies on their free-trade bloc,
Mercosur.
An exception is Venezuela, which will be represented by President Hugo Chavez, an admirer and sometime baseball opponent of Castro.
Cuba's veteran communist leader, 73, always generates huge media attention at international events. He was hosting his third major international event in as many years.
Law Clearly on Elian's Dad Side
By LAURIE ASSEO, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The four-month dispute over Elian Gonzalez is should be considered a ``no-brainer'' under U.S. laws, legal and immigration experts say.
``No way under our legal tradition the father should be deprived of his ability to care for his son,'' says Bernard Perlmutter, director of the University of Miami's Children and Youth Law Clinic. A decision in favor of the boy's Miami relatives would ``wreak havoc with the whole concept of the
parent-child relationship as a sacred one,'' he added.
Perlmutter and other legal observers say it's clear that federal courts - and not state courts - have the authority to decide the case.
``It's a very straightforward, simple immigration law matter,'' George Washington University law professor Alberto Benitez said Monday. ``If Elian were Mexican or Haitian he probably would be back in Mexico or Haiti already. He's Cuban and that makes all the difference.''
``Politics appears to be the only explanation why this wasn't settled a while ago,'' added Columbia University law professor Gerald Neuman.
Miami relatives of the 6-year-old boy are waging their battle to keep him in the United States on two fronts: a federal court appeal arguing that he should be allowed to seek asylum against his father's wishes, and a custody bid in state court.
A federal judge last month upheld Attorney General Janet Reno's decision to return Elian to Cuba to live with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who came to the United States last week and said he wants to take his son home.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore said a provision of federal law allowing ``any alien'' to seek asylum was ambiguous and did not necessarily allow applications by children over parental objections.
And Florida Circuit Judge Jennifer D. Bailey asked the Miami family to explain why she should hear the state case, noting that state courts cannot interfere with federal matters such as immigration.
Elian's fate has been debated since he was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast on Thanksgiving. His mother and 10 other Cubans drowned when their boat capsized during an attempt to reach the United States. Since then Elian has lived with his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, in
Miami.
If the boy ultimately is returned to Cuba, ``We're not returning Elian to Juan Miguel, we're returning him to Fidel Castro,'' attorney Linda Osberg-Braun, representing the Miami relatives, said in an interview Monday.
The relatives told a federal appeals court that since children as young as Elian are allowed to testify in serious criminal trials, the INS should take his desires into account in an asylum hearing instead of asserting that only his father can speak for him.
In state court, Osberg-Braun said, the family seeks a hearing on whether Juan Miguel Gonzalez is a fit parent, and whether ``returning a global symbol to Cuba is abusive.''
Because the boy is an alien, Perlmutter said, the case is a federal court matter under immigration law, not an issue for state family court. The Constitution invalidates state laws that conflict with federal laws.
``This is a no-brainer by all accounts,'' Perlmutter said.
Charles B. Keely, a Georgetown University professor of international migration, predicted courts would not buy the argument that living in communist Cuba is persecution enough to warrant keeping the boy here.
If an American child were in another country where officials said, '``Nobody should be sent to the U.S., it's a horrible place,' we'd say 'twaddle,''' Keely said.
State Department spokesman James Rubin said last week a failure to return Elian to Cuba would complicate U.S. efforts to have about 1,100 American children in other countries brought home.
Keely and Perlmutter said it might be a different matter if a child feared specific persecution in another country, such as female genital mutilation.
Perlmutter contended that even if the case were decided in family court, the result likely would be the same.
Under Florida law, custody can be taken away from a child's sole surviving parent only if the parent were proven unfit by ``clear and convincing evidence.'' The child's best interests are considered when the dispute is between two parents - not between a parent and a non-parent, Perlmutter said.
Parents' rights ``are so far superior, so paramount to other relatives,'' Perlmutter said. ``That is the heart of our family law.''
Keely said that if the Miami relatives won custody of Elian, ``it would open up enormous problems in this country for family law. You'd start expanding the basis for taking custody away from parents.''
Elian's Miami Relatives, Medical Experts Meet
By Frances Kerry
MIAMI, 10 (Reuters) - Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez's great-uncle met government-appointed mental health experts on Monday on how to make the handover of the motherless 6-year-old to his father as painless as possible for the child at the center of a long and bitter custody battle.
The talks at Miami's Mercy Hospital between Lazaro Gonzalez and the three experts had been expected to take up to three hours but lasted only around an hour after the two eminent child psychiatrists and a psychologist had waited all afternoon to see the great-uncle.
There was no word on what was said at the meeting, ordered by the government to work out how best to carry out the custody transfer of Elian, who has not seen his father since setting out on a disastrous migrant smuggling trip from Cuba last November in which his mother and 10 other people
drowned.
In yet another hitch in the protracted struggle over Elian, the talks began three hours late and in a different venue from the one planned after Lazaro Gonzalez, who wants to keep the boy in the United States, said his daughter, Marisleysis, was ill in Miami's Mercy Hospital and the talks should
be held there.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, arrived in Washington last week to take custody of his child and end a 4 1/2-month tug of war that has fired up decades-old enmity between President Fidel Castro and anti-communist exiles in Miami.
Government Order
The U.S. Justice Department ordered Lazaro Gonzalez, who has been caring for the boy since he was rescued from the sea off Florida, to meet with the experts to plan the transfer.
The experts were due to report to immigration officials on how to make the handover as easy as possible for the child. The government was expected to inform the Miami relatives in the coming hours how the transfer, expected later this week, should take place.
``We continue to believe that Elian's well-being is best served if the Miami relatives participate in an active and responsible way in preparing Elian prior to the transfer, as well as in supporting him during and after he is reunited with his father,'' the Immigration and Naturalization Service
said in a statement after the meeting ended.
The three prominent medical experts, who had waited all afternoon at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where the meeting was supposed to take place, agreed late in the afternoon to go to Mercy Hospital to talk with Lazaro Gonzalez.
The head of Mercy Hospital, Ed Rosasco, said the talks began just after 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) and ended an hour later. The experts planned to fly back to Washington on Monday evening.
Quick Resolution Sought
The INS believes the boy belongs with his father and since Juan Miguel Gonzalez's arrival in the United States has been pushing for a quick resolution of the case, with a transfer expected this week.
But the Miami relatives, who have battled with the impassioned support of anti-Castro exiles to prevent Elian from being sent back to grow up under communism, are still resisting handing him over. They had wanted mental health experts to evaluate whether Elian should be returned to his father,
not how to do it.
Miami family attorney Roger Bernstein, explaining Monday's hitch in the talks with the medical experts, did not say what was wrong with Marisleysis, who has taken on a mother-figure role for Elian and has been an often tearful advocate for his staying in America.
But the 21-year-old cousin has previously been hospitalized for stress and fatigue caused by the custody battle.
Lawyers for the Miami relatives, meanwhile, worked on their latest legal salvos in the bid to prevent Elian's return to Cuba. They planned to complete late on Monday their appeal of a federal judge's ruling upholding an INS ruling that the boy should be returned to his father.
On a second legal front, the relatives will file briefs in a Florida family court on Tuesday to have Lazaro Gonzalez declared the boy's legal guardian.
Government Plans Outlined
Maria Cardona, an INS spokeswoman in Washington, outlined government plans for steps after the meeting with medical experts.
``We are looking at getting this meeting done. Shortly after, the INS will send a letter on when and where to effect a transfer of custody,'' she told Reuters, adding that the order would probably set a handover date two or three days in the future.
She said the Miami relatives had always said they would comply with the law and the INS action was lawful.
Bernstein said the Miami relatives' legal appeals were proceeding despite their concerns that the government would allow Juan Miguel Gonzalez to take his son home immediately.
While the appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will focus on the narrow issue of whether Elian has a right to a political asylum hearing, in the family court case Lazaro Gonzalez seeks custody of Elian on the grounds that the boy would be in danger if he returned to Cuba.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he hoped the relatives would agree to turn Elian over to his father at a neutral site.
But they have insisted that Juan Miguel Gonzalez come to Miami to retrieve the boy from the Little Havana home of Lazaro Gonzalez, which is the site of a day-and-night vigil by Cuban exiles determined to see the boy stay in the United States. The father has said he will not travel to Miami.
Cuban diplomats and U.S. officials cast doubt on reports that the father had agreed to go to Miami to pick up his son.
Cardona declined comment on the reports, but said no decision about a venue had yet been made.
``We had hoped that the Miami relatives would be a part of it because Elian needs to feel that they are supporting him,'' she said. ``We hope that it will be cooperative in that way.''
Justice officials said they did not want to use force but also said they would not rule out any necessary measures.
Cuba Says Elian's Father Will Decide Return Date
HAVANA, 10 (Reuters) - The father of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez will decide when to return with his son after their expected reunion in coming days in the United States, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said on Monday.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez traveled to Washington last week in a bid to end a 4 1/2-month-old family custody dispute which has also pitted Cuban President Fidel Castro against anti-communist groups in Florida.
But with the father-son reunion looking increasingly likely, it was not clear if Gonzalez would try to return immediately with Elian to his homeland, or wait while the case went to final appeal in an Atlanta court.
``I think that Juan Miguel, in consultation with his lawyer or whoever he wants to, will determine what is best and most positive,'' Perez Roque told a news conference in Havana, saying he preferred to ``abstain'' from giving his own opinion on when the father would bring Elian back to Cuba.
Elian's Miami relatives, and anti-Castro groups in Miami, have alleged that Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a 31-year-old tourism worker, is a pawn of the Cuban government who has not spoken freely since the case blew up last November.
Elian has lived with his U.S. relatives since being rescued at sea following the capsize of a boat carrying illegal Cuban migrants. The 6-year-old's mother and 10 others drowned.
Perez Roque was asked when Elian would return to Cuba, during a news conference about the current Group of 77 summit of Third World nations in Havana. He quipped: ``Elian is not scheduled to attend the South Summit, he is not old enough, he's only a boy.''
He added, however, that Cuba hoped the reunion with his father would occur ``as soon as possible.''
``We hope, as does international public opinion, and the majority of American public opinion, that the sufferings of this boy and his father finish at last, so he can return to his father, his family, here,'' he said.
``The sooner the better for the boy's health, so as to cure the wounds left by four months of exploitation and abuse.''
Havana has scoffed at claims that Juan Miguel Gonzalez is being manipulated by Castro, and Gonzalez himself, a member of Cuba's ruling Communist Party, has insisted he speaks ''freely.''
An editorial in state daily Trabajadores kept up Havana's recent rhetorical bombardment against the ``Miami mafia'' seeking to prevent Elian's return to communism in Cuba.
``The anti-Cuban Miami mafia ... maintains its ridiculous efforts to prevent or delay Elian's return to his father,'' the editorial said. ``Now they blurt out the unbelievable argument that the boy will suffer psychological damages if he returns to his father.''
Trabajadores said the ``cause was lost'' for the Miami, anti- Castro groups. ``The mafia institution, created by (former U.S. president Ronald) Reagan, is entering a phase of death pangs from which they will have trouble escaping,'' it added.
Cuban Stowaways Denied Canada Entry
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia 10 (AP) - Two Cuban stowaways found aboard a container ship were refused entry to Canada, an immigration official said Monday.
The two stowaways, believed to be in their 30s, never claimed refugee status, said Ron Heisler of Immigration Canada.
``They came for economic reasons, looking for better employment opportunities and that sort of thing,'' Heisler said.
He said immigration officials asked if there were any political factors involved, such as persecution by the government, and the stowaways answered no.
The container ship Melsi America left Cuba on April 4, and the stowaways were discovered about halfway through the five-day journey, Heisler said. The ship arrived in Halifax on Sunday.
It was scheduled to return to Cuba this week, with the stowaways on board.
Cuba to Restore Cut U.S. Phone Links
By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba said on Tuesday it would restore phone ties with the United States, cut for more than a year in retaliation for unpaid bills frozen over a compensation claim against Havana for the 1996 downing of two U.S. planes.
The ruling Communist Party daily Granma said the five U.S. firms, prevented from paying Cuba while a Miami court decided if that money should go instead to relatives of the downed planes' victims, had now paid their debts to state phone company ETECSA.
The Cuban firm, therefore, ``will proceed to re-establish the direct communications between both countries,'' Granma said.
The restoration of phone ties comes during tensions between Cuba and the United States in the custody battle over 6-year- old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, although Havana faults Cuban-Americans, not Washington, in the matter.
ETECSA cut five of the seven circuits between Cuba and the United States in February 1999, making long-distance communications considerably more difficult, especially for Cuban families divided across the Florida Straits.
In practice, however, some of the U.S. firms thwarted the measure in part by bouncing calls off satellites and rerouting via third countries.
The American firms, whom Havana said owed $19 million, were originally bound by a Miami court not to pay until a judge decided if the funds should be used to pay a $187 million compensation claim by families of four Cuban-American pilots shot down over the sea north of Havana on Feb. 24, 1996.
But Granma said on Tuesday those ``embargo edicts'' had been annulled on March 14 in the same Miami court in accordance with an earlier ruling against the measure in the Atlanta Appeals' Court.
The original freezing of the funds by District Judge James Lawrence King was, Granma said, ``an attempt to satisfy the ambitions of a group of anti-patriotic residents in that country and enrich their lawyers'' by seeking to ``strip'' ETECSA of its funds. ETECSA is a joint venture between the
Cuban state and Italian firm Telecom Italia (TIT.MI).
From the outset, President Fidel Castro's government had ''deplored this new hostile step by the United States against Cuba,'' added Granma, a mouthpiece for the Cuban leadership.
The five U.S. firms affected were AT&T (NYSE:T - news), MCI WorldCom Inc (NasdaqNM:WCOM - news), LDDS Communications, IDB Communications Group Inc (Nasdaq:IDBX - news) and WilTel. Two other U.S. firms operating Cuba circuits -- Sprint Corp (NYSE:FON - news) and Puerto Rico-based Telefonica
Larga Distancia -- were unaffected since they never defaulted on payments.
Several million telephone calls between the United States and Cuba each year are normally handled by the U.S. phone companies, which were authorized after 1992 to negotiate accords with ETECSA through special licenses under the long- standing U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
The cutoff hit especially hard in Miami, home to a huge community of Cuban emigres with relatives on the Caribbean island. But fears of a total telephone blackout between the two nations proved unfounded.
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