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Yahoo!
December 10, 2002.
Family reports human-rights activist detained in Cuba
Sat Dec 7, 6:54 PM ET
HAVANA - A Cuban dissident who had been freed from prison in October was
detained again after police blocked a meeting of a human rights club, his wife
said Saturday.
Elsa Morejon said that here husband, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, was detained
with about 12 other people on Friday.
"There was going to be a meeting over topics of human rights" with
people who had come from the nearby province of Matanzas, she said. But
officials "did not let them enter the house where it was going to be."
She said the club members then lay down in the street in protest and that
police arrived and took them away.
Morejon said she had received no word from her husband or information from
officials. "I still don't know where he is," she said.
Biscet was arrested in November 1999 for dishonoring patriotic symbols,
public disorder and instigating delinquency for hanging three Cuban flags upside
down in a sign of protest. He was sentenced in February 2000 to three years in
prison and was released in late October.
During his trial, Biscet testified he became an activist after protesting
abortions at a government hospital where he worked. He eventually was fired.
Biscet's flag protest was unrelated to his anti-abortion stance.
Castro says Cuba to renew request for Europe aid pact; promises doctors
to fight AIDS in Caribbean
By John Rice, Associated Press Writer. Sun Dec 8, 3:26 PM
ET
HAVANA - Playing host to most of the Caribbean's leaders, President Fidel
Castro said Sunday that Cuba will renew its request to join a major European
aid agreement. He also promised 1,000 medical workers to help fight AIDS in
Caribbean Countries.
Cuba withdrew its request to join the Cotonou Agreement between Europe and
77 developing nations in 2000, accusing European officials of imposing
discriminatory conditions involving human rights in the communist nation.
"The situation has changed in part," Castro told the visitors from
14 members of the Caribbean Community. Though he did not elaborate, he said that
"some humiliating conditions have tempered in some form."
Under the agreement signed in the Benin capital of Cotonou in 2000, the
European Union promised 13.5 billion euros, or about US$ 12.7 billion, in aid
over five years and concessionary trade terms to the 78-member African,
Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. It sets conditions involving human rights
and anti-corruption efforts.
In July, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy rejected calls from Group states
to include Cuba in the Cotonou pact. He told delegates that it was "the
wrong time" for Cuba to join and said that the EU wanted to see more
political reform in Havana.
If that was a setback for Cuba, the presence here Sunday of 13 heads of
government and a vice president seemed to be evidence that the U.S. effort to
diplomatically isolate Castro's government in the region has failed. Of the 15
Caribbean Community states, only the tiny state of Montserrat was absent.
The summit celebrates the 30 year anniversary of Cuba's establishment of
relations with four Caribbean states — Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and
Trinidad and Tobago in defiance of U.S. pressure to politically isolate Cuba in
the hemisphere.
The current chairman of Caricom, Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo, made a
speech calling for the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.
"That long-awaited act will mend the last issue of fragmentation in our
hemisphere," he said. "The trade embargo imposed by the United States
is anachronistic in this era of globalization and trade liberalization and
should be removed."
Castro thanked the Caribbean leaders for their support of Cuba's efforts to
enter the Cotonou agreement and for their opposition to the U.S. embargo.
He said the establishment of relations with four Caribbean countries in 1972
"was a fundamental step toward the rupture of the diplomatic and commercial
blockade of Cuba in the region."
Castro said his country's universities have already graduated 818 Caribbean
students since 1961 and said about 1,000 others are now studying medicine in
Cuba free of charge.
He promised to contribute 1,000 Cuban-paid health workers to help in the
regional right against AIDS and to help create a regional Technical Education
Center to help 200 nurses and other specialists a year to deal with AIDS.
Castro Joins Giant Chess Game in Cuba
By Anne Marie Garcia, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 8,
1:09 AM ET
HAVANA (AP) - After decades on the global political chessboard, Cuban
President Fidel Castro joined 11,000 other Cubans at the real thing on
Saturday, taking part in what Cuban officials billed as the world's largest
chess exhibition.
Castro spent a little more than an hour before a chessboard, one of a dozen
people playing Cuban Grand Master Silvino Garcia, before heading off to take
part in a summit of Caribbean leaders.
About 11,000 amateurs played 550 chess masters on tables that filled
Havana's Revolution Square. The idea was to top the world record of 10,007
tables set recently by Mexico.
"We never thought we would be able to speak with Fidel. He came up to
us when we shouted, 'Fidel, the sons of Chavez want to greet you,'" said
Venezuelan Eric Civina, referring to his country's embattled President Hugo
Chavez, a friend of Castro.
"He gave me his hand and asked me to excuse him, that he was tired and
had to go. He put is arm on my shoulder to encourage me and said, "Forward,
forward with the revolution of Comandante Chavez," Civina added.
The president of the National Sports Institute, Humberto Rodriguez, called
the exhibition "a great success because of the response of the population."
Rodriguez noted that Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che"
Guevara had been a chess fanatic and Cuba also produced a past world champion,
Jose Raul Capablanca.
The event was part of what Cuba calls a "National Olympics" that
was organized after Cuban officials decided not to participate in the current
Central American-Caribbean Games in El Salvador , citing security problems.
Castro tells U.S. students Cuba like an ant alongside an elephant
By Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press Writer Sat Dec
7,10:17 AM ET
HAVANA - Cuban President Fidel Castro told visiting U.S. students that he
never considered retaliating against U.S. presidents for attempts to assassinate
him.
Comparing the small nation of Cuba to an ant living alongside the elephant
of the United States, he said Friday night that "if the ant starts to do
foolish things ... the ant disappears."
Castro spoke for several hours to about 600 U.S. university students taking
part in a Semester at Sea program sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh.
The 76-year-old Cuban leader, who had appeared earlier in the day at an
elementary school dressed in his usual military uniform, wore a suit and tie as
he signed autographs and fielded questions from the students at Havana's Palace
of Conventions.
The comparison between ant and elephant came when a student asked him if he
had ever tried to retaliate against U.S. President John F. Kennedy for
assassination attempts directed at him.
Castro said such actions would not only be foolish but contrary to his
ideology because the elimination of a man does not eliminate a political system.
The Cuban leader defended Cuba's tolerance with religions, saying that "in
general," relations with religious leaders were good.
"I observe all the beliefs with respect, though I do not share them,"
Castro said.
He also defended Cuba's policies of barring many Cubans from hotels aimed at
foreigners in their own country, calling the hotels "export products"
meant to bring in money to finance social programs, not to create social
inequality.
"What is more important for us? To go to a five-star hotel or to have
an antibiotic of the latest generation?" Castro said, noting that health
care in Cuba is free and that food supplies are subsidized.
It was the fourth time that Cuba has met students from the program, which
sends students and professors to countries round the world on a cruise ship.
Venezuelan turmoil delays oil shipments for Cuba
Fri Dec 6, 7:17 PM ET
HAVANA - Turmoil in Venezuela has delayed oil shipments to Cuba, the
Venezuelan embassy said Friday.
"The ambassador informs ... that this problem will be solved in four
days," said Armando Marin, the political officer at Venezuela's embassy in
Havana, speaking at a news conference.
Marin, who held a telephone as he relayed information to reporters from
Ambassador Julio Montes in the Venezuelan capital, said the captains of six
ships had "rebelled" and were detained by Venezuelan officials. One of
the ships had been headed for Cuba.
That appeared to refer to a general strike in Venezuela aimed at ousting
President Hugo Chavez.
Venezuela is a major supplier of petroleum to Cuba, shipping some 55,000
barrels a day to the island on preferential terms. | 
