Yahoo! July 11, 2000
Cubans Push for Better US Relations
HAVANA, 10 (AP) - A pro-democracy group in Cuba said Monday it will reach out to grass-roots groups in Cuba and the United States to build popular support for a rapprochement between the two estranged neighbors.
A committee will be formed ``to handle new and greater points of understanding and communication between both nations and to collaborate with both states in the removal of the obstacles that impede a positive and respectful rapprochement,'' the Reflective Roundtable of the Moderate Opposition
said in a document read at a news conference.
The Roundtable said it will contact other members of Cuba's tiny civil society - opposition groups, churches and professional organizations not controlled by the government - to stimulate public discussion on rapprochement.
They said they would also deliver a copy of their proposal to the U.S. Interests Section, which represents American interests in the absence of formal relations, to be shared with interested groups in the United States.
Aside from distributing its proposal and getting people talking, the group did not say what kind of concrete steps it was prepared to take to push the two countries to resume normal relations, which ended after Cuba's 1959 revolution.
A center-left group of intellectuals who favor gradual reform, the Roundtable first emerged publicly last year when it presented a detailed plan for communist Cuba to make a peaceful transition to democracy and a market economy.
Since then, it has taken a low-key, intellectual approach to opposition, calling for change primarily by drafting and distributing documents. The Roundtable is considered more moderate and thoughtful than many of the other small opposition groups here, and it has not tried to draw attention by
holding public protests, fasts or the like.
The Roundtable is technically an illegal organization because it operates without government authorization, but it appears to have been tolerated up to now.
Cuba Boasts Thriving Energy Sector
HAVANA, 10 (AP) - Cuba now produces more of its own crude petroleum and gas than it did before it lost crucial oil subsidies with the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago, plunging the island nation into a severe economic crisis.
Cuba this year is projected to produce 2.8 million tons of petroleum, Economics and Planning Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said. Before the Soviet breakup, Cuba produced only 1 million tons of its own petroleum annually, he said.
Rodriguez' comments were carried late Sunday by Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency.
The minister said that Cuba also has moved into the extraction and production of other energy products that were ``practically nonexistent'' here in the 1980s, such as natural gas. Cuba is projected to produce 600 billion cubic meters of natural gas for domestic consumption this year, he said.
During the decade-long austerity program known here as the ``special period,'' Cuba has been forced to learn to be self-sufficient, producing many of the products it once received free or heavily subsidized from its former communist allies in the Soviet bloc.
UNHCR: Cuban Doctors Await Asylum
By Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden 10 (AP) - Two Cuban doctors who were jailed in Zimbabe after they defected are resting in Sweden while awaiting political asylum, a UNHCR spokeswoman said Monday.
Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, and Noris Pena Martinez, 25, who fled a Cuban medical mission in Zimbabwe, arrived in Sweden early Saturday after the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees negotiated with Zimbabwean officials for their release from police custody.
Swedish immigration authorities issued the pair temporary visas and they are now resting at an undisclosed location in the country.
``We're really happy that they are out of prison,'' UNHCR regional spokeswoman Anki Eriksson said. ``I really cannot tell what is going to happen next. All I can say is that we are trying to find a solution.''
From Sweden, they would be able to go anywhere, including the United States, which reportedly offered them asylum shortly after Zimbabwe attempted to deport them.
Officials at the U.S. embassy in Stockholm declined to comment on the case, citing long-standing policy not to discuss issues that may eventually fall under the U.S. refugee program.
After the doctors sought refuge, both the Canadian and U.S. embassies referred them to the U.N.'s refugee agency. But the Cubans disappeared June 2, the day of their hearing before a Zimbabwean asylum committee.
The doctors accused Zimbabwean security officers of kidnapping them, and together with Cuban diplomats, trying to force them on a Paris-bound flight with a connection to Havana. Air France refused to let them board after the doctors slipped a note to a crew member saying they were kidnap
victims.
The doctors were returned to Zimbabwe and jailed, while the U.N. refugee agency demanded their release under international law.
The Cubans were freed Wednesday and UNHCR kept them at a secret location until their departure on Friday, officials said.
Cuba has denounced the defectors, saying they betrayed the medical mission to aid Zimbabwe's health service, but denied any involvement in the kidnapping.
Democracy Barely Holding On
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 11 (AP) - The map showed a sea of green but the red that was Cuba stood out - the lone country in the hemisphere that was not a democracy.
The State Department created the map and liked to use it to highlight the democratic trend in the hemisphere as well as communist Cuba's isolation. But it has fallen into disuse lately, a reflection of the tenuous state of democracy in much of the region.
Mexico bucked the trend with its democratic leap forward a week ago but in many countries, democracy is barely holding on.
``Incomplete and inappropriate'' was the way the State Department described Sunday's parliamentary runoff elections in Haiti. The principal complaint, shared by the United Nations and the Organization of American States, was that it failed to include Senate seats not won in the first round by an
absolute majority.
Officials still harbor hopes that Haiti will reverse course and reaffirm its commitment to a democratic outcome. But Haitian officials have stood by their process in the seven weeks since the initial round of voting was held.
U.S. officials consulted Monday with other hemispheric countries on a response.
There were extensive consultations as well after Peruvian authorities decided to go ahead with a May 28 presidential runoff despite concerns about the reliability of new vote-counting software - and appeals by international observers that the balloting be postponed.
The Clinton administration was eager for vigorous action against Peru but few hemispheric countries shared that view. In the end, an OAS delegation that visited Peru settled for a wish list of reforms it hoped might make the next elections more democratic.
Outright military coups are no longer part of the Latin American reality. Except for Haiti in 1991, there have been no such power grabs since Argentina in 1976.
But there are enough deviations from constitutional norms to give committed democrats pause. Besides Peru, the countries seen to be the most vulnerable are Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the democratic tide that began in Latin America two decades ago is being threatened by persistent poverty and ineffective government.
``The fruits of growth in the last decade have not appeared on every table within or among countries in our region,'' Albright said.
Michael Shifter, an associate at the Inter-American Dialogue, said the hemispheric community has chosen to ignore press crackdowns and other anti-democratic abuses by Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for 10 years.
Shifter said this emboldened Fujimori to embrace quasi-authoritarian policies. A stronger U.S. stand early on could have made a difference, he said.
Shifter also said he was discouraged by the trends in Venezuela, where the perception of corrupt civilian administrations over the past 40 years has induced many to look to the military for solutions; both leading candidates in national elections later this month, including President Hugo
Chavez, gained fame by staging a coup attempt against the elected government in 1992.
``This model is completely at odds with the way people thought democracy would develop in Latin America,'' Shifter said.
The military should remain in the barracks and the United States, working through hemispheric institutions, should be driving this point home more forcefully than it has, he said.
Copyright © 2000 The Associated Press.
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