Yahoo! News
December 18, 2001
Sinn Fein Leader Adams Meets Castro
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 17 (AP) - President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) showed off
Cuba's education system Monday night to Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams,
taking the Northern Ireland politician to the reopening of a newly reconstructed
school.
Media access to the evening ceremony at the school was closed to
international press, but the event was broadcast live on state television.
Earlier Monday, Adams placed a wreath at a monument to Cuban independence
leader Jose Marti as he began a four-day visit.
Adams planned to thank Castro for his solidarity with Irish hunger strikers
during a dramatic protest 20 years ago at a ceremony on Tuesday. On arrival
Sunday night, Adams said the memorial prompted his visit.
Adams met Monday afternoon with Vice President Carlos Lage, Cuba's top
financial planner and the architect of the communist nation's modest economic
reforms over the past decade. He also visited with Ricardo Alarcon, president of
Cuba's National Assembly, or parliament.
Adams has rejected critics complaints that his visit to communist Cuba would
harm relations with Irish-American supporters in the United States.
``Having been in America as recently as November, there will be some people
clearly who support the peace process, who support Sinn Fein, who support the
Irish cause, who will not agree with me going to Cuba but I think they will
accept and understand it,'' Adams told reporters at a Paris stop on his way to
Cuba.
Adams, whose Irish Republican Army (news - web sites)-linked party plays
down its socialist politics during fund-raising tours to the United States,
originally planned to visit Cuba in October. The visit was delayed after the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The trip was expected to provide political fodder for Castro's enemies in
Miami's Cuban exile community, who continually try to link the communist
government with terrorism.
Havana officially halted all financial and technical support of
revolutionary movements more than a decade ago.
The visit is also expected to refocus attention on the cases of three
suspected IRA activists being held without charges in Colombia, where they were
arrested in August on suspicion of training Marxist rebels. Among them is Niall
Connolly, Sinn Fein's Havana-based representative for Latin America.
Adams initially denied that Connolly was a Sinn Fein official, then said
Connolly had been appointed to the post without his knowledge.
Convicted cuban spy faces 30 years behind bars
Tuesday December 18 08:39 AM EST. Miami Herald | WPLG
Click10.com
A man convicted of spying for Cuba may know his fate by the end of the day.
Prosecutors have asked for a sentence of nearly 30 years in federal prison
for Fernando Gonzalez. Gonzalez was convicted spying on Cuban exiles and working
on false identity papers.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard has not said whether she would stack
consecutive terms against Gonzalez. Although, Lenard has sentenced three other
spies to the maximum terms. | 
