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Posted on Mon, Jun. 24, 2002 in
The Miami
Herald
Castro calls parliament session
HAVANA - (AP) -- Fidel Castro has called a special parliamentary session for
today to approve inscribing Cuba's socialist system as ''untouchable'' in the
nation's constitution -- a move backed by a massive signature drive.
Castro said that today's debate would be "for however long it takes,
with the aim to examine the constitutional reform bill.''
In a letter read on state television Saturday evening, Castro agreed to
National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon's request for a special session to
approve the proposed constitutional change.
The constitutional change was the subject of a campaign by the communist
system's national support groups, which say they gathered 8.1 million signatures
-- more than 99 percent of the island's legal voters age 16 and older.
Opposition leaders say the signature campaign was the government's response
to their own petition, called the Varela Project, which collected more than
11,000 signatures seeking a referendum asking voters if they favored reforms
such as freedom of expression, the right to own a business and an amnesty for
political prisoners.
Organizers of Varela Project campaign delivered their petitions to the
National Assembly on May 10 and have received no response.
Varela Project supporters say the official campaign to declare Cuban
socialism ''untouchable'' is the government's response to their own drive to
force a democratic opening in this still closed society.
U.S. returns 7 Cubans to island
By Charles Rabin. crabin@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun.
22, 2002.
Seven Cuban migrants who were lost at sea for two days aboard a 16-foot boat
were returned to Cuba on Friday by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The group's journey was a little different from most. The vessel's captain,
Pedro Orestes Reyes Matos, had a 20-watt ham radio aboard the boat that allowed
him to communicate with a group of ham radio operators affiliated with the Cuban
exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
He told those listening -- Brothers to the Rescue leader José Basulto
among them -- that the group left in the middle of Monday night from Matanzas
Bay on the island's north coast, and that within hours of leaving Cuba, the
vessel's only engine failed.
He also said the group passed a Cuban patrol boat along the way. The Cuban
boat permitted Matos and his passengers to keep sailing, and wished them luck,
he said.
By Wednesday, Basulto, Osvaldo Pla and others were flying a Brothers plane
over the Florida Straits trying to pinpoint radio signals sent from Matos's
boat. At the same time the Coast Guard launched a 36,000-square-mile search with
boats, planes and helicopters.
Late Wednesday morning, Matos and six men and a woman were spotted aboard
the blue vessel 30 miles northwest of Cay Sal Bank in the Bahamas. The Coast
Guard Cutter Nantucket picked them up just after 11 a.m., and transferred them
to another Coast Guard boat. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents on
that boat determined that because the group failed to reach U.S. soil they had
to be returned to Cuba. The Coast Guard returned them to Bahia de Cabanas.
Friday, Basulto said it was a mistake to repatriate the Cubans, especially
after they had spoken to Brothers of the Rescue, a known enemy of the Castro
regime.
''I think it's a tragic decision by the U.S. government once again,'' he
said. "The U.S. is being the real border patrol for Cuba.''
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