CNS News, April 2,
2001.
Castro criticizes U.S. in weekend speeches
By Jim Burns. CNS Senior Staff Writer. April 02, 2001
(CNSNews.com) - Cuban Leader Fidel Castro Sunday attacked the United States
during the opening session of the Interparliamentary Union, a world organization
of parliaments in Havana.
Castro criticized the United States for not sending a delegation to the
meeting, saying American politicians were missing a "good chance" to
find out what the rest of the world is thinking. As many as 1,400
parliamentarians from more than 120 countries were expected to attend the
conference, which runs all week in Havana.
Women's issues, human rights and the Middle East situation are among the
items on the agenda.
IPU President Najma Heptuallah told reporters in Havana the non-attendance
of American politicians had nothing to do with the United States' differences
with the Castro government. The United States has not sent a delegation to an
IPU conference since 1994.
Heptuallah, who's from India, had no qualms about holding the conference in
Cuba because she believes the Castro government has fulfilled the organization's
criteria for a democratic country.
Before the IPU meeting, Castro delivered a speech criticizing the United
States, according to a Radio Havana broadcast. He called on the U.S. to
eliminate the "Cuban Adjustment Act," which controls Cuban immigration
to the United States, and end the economic blockade against the communist
nation.
Castro called it a "great privilege" for him to have declared the "socialist
character" of the Cuban Revolution in 1961, just before the U.S.-led
invasion at the Bay of Pigs. He believed the attack was "aimed at
installing a foreign government on the island to open the way to bloody
intervention."
Castro vowed the Cuban people will never give up their struggle to end
exploitation through the socialist system, which he called the only way to
create a "just and humane society." He recalled that the Cuban people
shed their blood for the socialist cause in the Bay of Pigs as well as fighting
against colonialism and apartheid in Africa.
Castro also mentioned Elian Gonzalez in his Saturday speech, saying that it
was just 15 months ago that mass rallies began in Havana to protest Elian's "kidnapping"
in Miami. He called Elian the "spark" who ignited "a battle of
ideas" between the two nations.
Castro had promised not to use Elian as a political pawn after he returned
to Cuba with his father after court battles in the United States.
Castro also criticized President Bush for pulling the United States out of
the Kyoto global warming treaty, saying that decision makes a new arms race
inevitable and comes at a most inopportune moment -- the beginning of a new
century.
Anti-Cuban Embargo group begins operations in Washington
By Jim Burns. CNS Senior Staff Writer. April 02, 2001
(CNSNews.com) - Several former diplomats from Republican administrations
have formed a new organization called the "Cuba Policy Foundation" to
lobby against the decades-old U.S. economic embargo against the communist
nation.
Sally Grooms Cowal, a former deputy assistant secretary of state under
President George H.W. Bush in the 1980s, serves as president of the
organization. She described the new group as being "non-ideological"
and devoted to examining all aspects of Cuba policy.
"There's a real need for a new centrist group, not left-leaning
activists and not just business interests," Cowal said.
Cowal allowed 7-year-old Elian Gonzales, his father, and several Castro
government officials to stay in her Washington home last year when the custody
battle involving Elian was at its height. Elian returned to Cuba with his father
last June.
Radio Havana, the official voice of the Castro government, commended Cowal's
efforts in starting the Cuba Policy Foundation in a broadcast last Thursday.
"The Cuba Policy Foundation has challenged the ultra-right-wing
Cuban-American National Foundation to a public debate concerning the merits of
Washington's blockade of Cuba," the broadcast said.
The communist radio station quoted Cowal as saying, "there is a silent
majority, including Cuban Americans, that does not support Washington's
positions regarding Cuba."
According to the broadcast, Cowal said the lack of dialogue with Havana is
undermining Washington's principle interests in the Caribbean, which are
immigration and drug trafficking.
Bankrolling the organization is the Arca Foundation, chaired by Smith
Bagley, a grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds and a major contributor to
the Democratic Party.
Cowal said she wrote the Cuban American National Foundation, proposing a
series of joint forums to debate Cuba policy. CANF Washington Director Jose
Cardenas rejected the idea.
"This groups looks like old wine in new bottles, and they're selling a
defective product that no one is buying in Washington," Cardenas said.
Both President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have stated that the
economic embargo against Cuba will stay in effect as long as Castro remains in
power.
Cuban exile community says Castro is using Elian as a trophy
By Jim Burns. CNS Senior Staff Writer. March 30, 2001
(CNSNews.com) - The surprise visit to Elian Gonzalez by Cuban Leader Fidel
Castro and South African President Thabo Mbeki displeased the Miami attorneys
who represented the child's relatives in the battle to keep the child in the
United States. Other members of the Cuban exile community are upset as well.
One of the lead attorneys in the case for keeping the young lad in America,
Kendall Coffey of Miami told CNSNews.com that Castro insisted he would not use
Elian for political purposes.
"He [Castro] insisted that he would not exploit Elian. We predicted,
and it's painful to be vindicated in this way, that he would assuredly be used
as a tool to promote the revolution, and that event confirms that he is a trophy
for Fidel Castro," Coffey told CNSNews.com in a telephone interview Friday
from Miami.
"Castro will always use Elian as his victory trophy against the United
States. Elian is basically incommunicado with anybody from the United States.
It's frustrating because no one knows what's really going on with him. It's
clear that everything regarding Elian has always been political as far as Castro
is concerned. It does not surprise me that he's using Elian as his political
trophy," attorney Linda Osberg-Braun said Friday in a telephone interview
from Miami with CNSNews.com.
A spokesman for Elian's Miami relatives also said in effect, we told you so.
"We've said all along that Castro would show him off. Castro is a crazy
man who will do anything to get publicity," according to Armando Gutierrez,
a spokesman for Elian's Miami relatives in a telephone interview with
CNSNews.com.
The Cuban American National Foundation, a nemesis of the Castro government
felt the same way.
"This is the one victory for Castro against the United States. He was
able to take this poor little boy back to join the other 11 million prisoners,
and he's going to use him [Elian] as a trophy every chance he gets," CANF
Executive Vice President Dennis Hayes told CNSNews.com.
Other critics in Florida's Cuban-American community say he has turned Elian
into a political trophy, but the Castro government insists the boy has been
treated with discretion and successfully reinserted into normal life.
The Elian meeting was closed to the foreign press. It was reported in
Thursday's edition of the Cuban Communist party newspaper Granma.
The newspaper said, "Stung by curiosity, the South African leader Thabo
Mbeki did not want to miss the miracle of personally meeting Elian Gonzalez."
The newspaper also said Mbeki and Castro first met Elian's relatives, then
showed a "rather paternal tenderness" during the school visit where
the newspaper said both leaders watched Elian "dancing happily" in an
activity with other students.
Other than Castro, Mbeki was believed to be the highest-level world leader
to have met Elian, now 7 years old and at one time the center of a custody
dispute between his Miami and Cuban relatives for several months. Elian returned
to Cuba with his father last June after lengthy court battles in the United
States. | 