Yahoo! December 12, 2000
Putin Pledges Deeper Ties With Cuba
MOSCOW, 12 (AP) - Russia should move quickly to revive economic ties with
Cuba or risk losing out to companies from other countries already moving onto
the island, Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) said in an
interview aired Tuesday.
Putin spoke to Russian and Cuban media ahead of his planned visit Wednesday
to the former Soviet ally, the first by a Russian leader since the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia should use its good relations with Cuba as a bridge to revive
contacts with other Latin American nations, Putin said.
Putin emphasized that Russia has no ideological agenda in the region this
time around, and instead wants practical deals that will benefit Russian
business.
"Unfortunately for us, in the years when our economic contacts
collapsed, many important aspects of our mutual activity were squandered, and
the position of Russian enterprises were taken by foreign competitors,'' Putin
said on the ORT television channel.
Russian trade with Cuba now totals about $1 billion per year, Putin said,
according to the Interfax news agency. This is well down from about $3.6 billion
in 1991.
"Cuba plays a very important role in Latin America, and we hope very
much for Cuba's active role in solving a whole number of international problems,
in which we have to look for allies,'' Putin said, according to Interfax.
For the Soviet Union, Cuba - only 90 miles from the U.S. coast - was a
strategic outpost and ideological ally worth subsidizing. About 20 percent of
Cuba's gross national product is estimated to have come from Soviet subsidies.
Meanwhile, Putin said in the interview he hopes for positive relations with
the new U.S. presidential administration regardless who wins the disputed
election.
"We expect that the new U.S. administration, whoever heads it, will use
all the positive things achieved in Russian-U.S. relations in recent years,
including those in the international security spheres,'' Putin said, according
to Interfax.
Putin is scheduled to fly to Canada after visiting Cuba, and will cross U.S.
airspace but is not scheduled to make a stopover, the presidential press service
said Tuesday.
Cuba, U.S. Immigration Discussed
By Vivian Sequera, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 11 (AP) - With the Elian Gonzalez case still a delicate subject in
both countries, Cuban and U.S. officials on Monday wrapped up immigration talks
that did not end with any accords but were more conciliatory than the last round
of negotiations.
The two sides did establish that the legal migrations from Cuba to the
United States now outpace the number of illegal journeys, said William
Brownfield, a State Department undersecretary who is heading the U.S.
delegation.
Since 1995, 133,800 Cubans have emigrated legally to the United States, he
said. He did not have a figure for the number of Cubans who entered the United
States illegally, but both sides agreed it was significantly lower.
Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, or parliament, said
a "much lower'' number of Cubans have reached the United States illegally
in the past five years than legally.
The two men held separate news conferences after the day of talks wound up,
both speaking in tones much more conciliatory than after the last round of talks
in New York in September.
The two countries have been holding periodic talks on migration issues since
1994, when Cuba briefly lowered its borders and allowed more than 30,000 people
to leave for the United States on boats and rafts.
Havana maintains that U.S. policies encourage the Cubans to emigrate
illegally, particularly the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans who
reach U.S. shores to avoid deportation.
Washington, meanwhile, alleges that Cuba has put up barriers to "legal
and orderly'' migration to the United States - obstacles that have prompted
thousands to risk the dangerous passage trip through the Florida Straits on
rickety boats.
The talks resumed last fall following an interruption caused by the
international custody dispute over Elian Gonzalez, the boy who was rescued in
the waters off Florida after the boat he was in sank, killing his mother and 10
others.
Havana blamed the resulting tug-of-war between the child's Cuban father and
his Miami relatives on the Cuban Adjustment Act, which initially allowed Elian
to stay in the United States.
Alarcon, who traditionally heads the Cuban delegation at the talks and who
is President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s point man on Cuba-U.S. affairs,
has said the law "denigrates Cuba'' by giving the impression that all
emigrants are escaping political persecution.
Cuban and U.S. officials have expressed concerns about the rise in organized
smuggling of Cubans, often in flimsy boats. Both sides have separately promised
to crack down on the practice
Farmers Discuss Trade With Cuba
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 11 (AP) - An agricultural delegation from the home state of Sen.
Jesse Helms, a leading foe of President Fidel Castro (news - web sites), began
meetings Monday with Cuban officials on the possibility of future trade between
North Carolina farmers and the communist island.
"The purpose of this trip is to build relationships'' and is not
political, said state Sen. Allan Wellons, a Democrat who has a farm. "We
want to make these relationships as the law is changing.''
Wellons was referring to promises some members of Congress have made to pass
legislation that would enable American farmers to sell their products to Cuba.
A law passed earlier this year would allow American sales of food to Cuba
for the first time in four decades, but contains financing restrictions that
make such sales extremely difficult.
The legislation, which takes effect in February, would prohibit the
financing of such sales by the U.S. government or American banks, meaning Cuba
would have to secure third country financing or pay in cash.
Although some U.S. agricultural producers believe they can persuade Cuban
officials to buy American products despite the restrictions, Havana insists it
will not buy one cent of American food under the current legislation.
North Carolina delegation members expressed hope for additional legislation
next year that would make purchases of American food possible. Similar trade
missions from various states have visited Cuba over the past year, including
Minnesota, Texas and Arkansas.
Delegation members said Helms, the Republican U.S. senator who cosponsored
the Helms-Burton law that tightened the long-standing Cuba trade embargo, made
no public statements about the trip, which began Sunday and ends Friday.
"Trade is the future for North Carolina farmers and we look forward to
establishing relations that benefit both our farmers and Cuba,'' said Peter
Daniel, vice president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation.
Besides meeting with Cuban officials, delegation members will visit a flour
mill, a meat packing plant, a rum factory, a cooperative farm and a cigar
factory. Delegation members include producers of tobacco, pork, sweet potatoes,
buffalo meat, poultry, rice and dairy products.
Accused Cuban Said FBI Informer
By Terry Spencer, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI, 11 (AP) - A Cuban pilot accused of spying against the United States
was actually an FBI informer who provided evidence of cocaine smuggling by an
anti-Castro group, his lawyer argued in opening statements Monday.
Rene Gonzalez, 44, is one of five men on trial on spying charges.
Gonzalez, a pilot for the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, was
approached by a Florida-based paramilitary group and asked to fly cocaine from
Honduras to Miami, attorney Philip Horowitz told the federal jury.
Instead, Gonzalez contacted the FBI and offered information to help convict
the group's leaders, but his actions were seen as an attempt to infiltrate the
agency, Horowitz said.
Gonzalez was arrested in 1998 and charged with being part of a 14-member spy
ring that allegedly tried to infiltrate Florida military installations.
Five of the men have since secured plea bargains requiring them to
cooperate, and four more are fugitives believed to be in Cuba.
Attorneys for four other men - Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio
Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez - have told the court that their clients worked
for the Cuban government, but that they did not commit the crime of espionage
because they did not obtain classified information.
Hernandez is also charged with passing information to the Cuban government
that led to its 1996 downing of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over
international waters, killing four fliers.
On the Net:
Brothers to the Rescue:
http://www.hermanos.org
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