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The Miami
Herald, June 11, 2002.
Castro calls for huge march across Cuba to back constitutional amendment
By ANITA SNOW. Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - (AP) -- President Fidel Castro on Monday called for a massive march
in the capital and in cities across Cuba to back a constitutional amendment
ratifying Cuba as a socialist state.
Castro said that in Havana alone at least 1 million people were expected to
participate in the event Wednesday, adding that such a march "has never
been done before.''
''It will put our organizational ability to the test ... to organize the
march in all of the country's provincial capitals, in all of the country's
municipalities,'' Castro said after an evening gathering of the national
leadership of the government's popular support organizations.
The announcement comes one month after activists delivered more than 11,000
signatures to Cuba's National Assembly, demanding a referendum for broad changes
in the island's socialist system. The government has given little hope for its
success.
During a subsequent visit in mid-May, former President Jimmy Carter
mentioned the Varela Project signature drive by name -- the first time most of
the island's 11 million citizens had heard of it -- during a live and uncensored
television address to the Cuban people.
Seen as the biggest homegrown, nonviolent effort in more than four decades
to push for reforms in Cuba's one-party system, the proposed referendum would
ask voters if they favor civil liberties such as freedom of speech and assembly,
the right to own a business, electoral reform and amnesty for political
prisoners.
Before Castro spoke Monday, hundreds of representatives of the popular
organizations, which form the pillars supporting Cuba's one-party system,
unanimously agreed to ask the National Assembly to consider approving the
proposed amendment.
The proposal asks lawmakers to ratify that "Cuba is a socialist state
of workers, independent and sovereign, organized with all and for the good of
all, as a unified and democratic republic, for the enjoyment of political
liberty, social justice, individual and collective well-being, and human
solidarity.''
In addition, it asks that the amendment to Cuba's 1976 constitution state
that "the political will of the people is that the economic, political and
social regimen consecrated in the constitution of the republic is untouchable.''
It also asks lawmakers to "ratify that economic, diplomatic and
political relations with any other state are never negotiated under pressure,
threat or pressure of a foreign power.''
Castro said the marches are an extension of speeches he's made the last
three Saturdays in eastern provincial capitals, responding to President Bush's
May 20 address reiterating his promise not to ease up on Cuba trade or travel
restrictions until the communist country undertakes deep reforms, including the
holding of free and competitive elections.
Belize rejects U.S. proposal to beam Radio Martí signal
By TIM JOHNSON. Tjohnson@Herald.Com
WASHINGTON - Belize may be tiny, but it knows how to say ''no'' to
Washington.
Belize has flatly rejected a U.S. proposal to convert a Voice of America
relay station to beam U.S.-operated Radio Martí signals toward Cuba.
The denial has dismayed Cuban-American supporters of the radio station, who
say the Belize facility might have helped Radio Martí sidestep efforts by
Cuba to jam its signal.
But Belize, a former British colony in Central America, sought to avoid
getting ensnared in U.S.-Cuba frictions. It did not want to risk that Havana
would retaliate by withdrawing more than 100 doctors and nurses it has sent to
Belize.
''We do not want to get involved,'' said Vaughan Gill, a spokesperson for
the Belize government. "Belize has good relations with both Cuba and the
United States.''
The United States operates two AM radio transmitters near the town of Punta
Gorda in the southernmost part of Belize. The transmitters send both English and
Spanish Voice of Americas broadcasts throughout Central America each evening.
As a sister facility to the Voice of America, Radio Martí was
established in 1985 to offer an independent source of news and entertainment to
Cubans. Radio Martí is beamed toward Cuba on AM from Marathon in the
Keys, and on short wave from Greenville, N.C. and Delano, Calif.
In late 2000, U.S. officials began scouring the Caribbean looking for
alternative broadcast sites to send the signals of Radio Martí toward
Cuba from a different latitude, making it more difficult for Cuba to block its
signals.
''They went to the Turks and Caicos. They went to the Bahamas. They went to
the Caymans,'' said one official, insisting on anonymity.
Then they noticed the Belize facility, and quickly allotted $750,000 in the
2002 fiscal year budget to enhance the site. An appeal went out to Prime
Minister Said Musa of Belize for permission to change the use of the facility.
No one seriously expected Belize -- an unspoiled nation popular with U.S.
scuba divers and Maya archaeology buffs -- to refuse. But two months ago, it did
just that, setting tongues wagging around Capitol Hill about how the Bush
administration took it on the chin from Belize.
Belize felt it had too much to lose. Since 1999, Belize has hosted an
increasing number of Cuban physicians and nurses working in remote villages.
Gill, the government spokesman, also noted that more than 100 Belizean
students are in Cuba on full scholarships, some of them studying medicine.
As word arrived in Washington this spring that Belize might turn down the
U.S. request, the State Department sent two diplomatic notes to Belmopan,
Belize's capital.
''The second one was apparently sternly worded,'' the congressional staffer
said.
U.S. denies envoy to Cuba will arrive in a sailboat
The Department of State has denied rumors circulating within the
Cuban-American community that the diplomat expected to head the U.S. Interests
Section in Cuba plans to take a sailboat to Havana.
Spanish-language radio in Miami was abuzz Monday with reports that James
Cason will be sailing around the Caribbean waters when he replaces Vicki
Huddleston as chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in September.
''It's not true,'' a State Department spokesman said. "He does not have
a sailboat. He does not have a yacht. He has a fishing boat that is going to
stay in storage when he is gone.''
State Department officials acknowledged that Cason had given some brief
consideration to taking his 24-foot motorboat but almost immediately decided
against the idea.
''This is just a rumor and there's no controversy that I'm aware of in
Washington,'' said James Carragher, coordinator for Cuban affairs.
Cason, a longtime Department of State official, currently serves as director
of policy planning and coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
in Washington.
Huddleston, a career member of the Foreign Service, recently was nominated
by President Bush to serve as ambassador to Mali. She has been chief of the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana since September 1999.
-- NANCY SAN MARTIN | 
