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Yahoo! June
13, 2003.
Cubans swarm Spanish and Italian embassies to protest EU
HAVANA, 12 (AFP) - Fidel Castro, in an olive uniform and carrying the Cuban
flag, led hundreds of thousands of marchers past Spain's embassy to protest
European reprisals for Cuba's crackdown on dissidents.
Castro marched through the narrow streets of Old Havana, while his brother
Raul, head of the armed forces, marched through a residential neighborhood, past
the Italian embassy. Followers carried placards equating Italy's fascist past to
Europe's decision to punish Cuba.
The government said it expected the crowds to swell to more than a million,
as the labor ministry gave workers the day off.
Posters depicted Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as a "puppet"
and a "little fuhrer."
Italian Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi became "Benito Berlusconi,"
in reference to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
Seventy-five dissidents were jailed in April for up to 28 years, and three
men who had tried to hijack a commuter ferry to Florida were summarily executed,
ending a moratorium on the death penalty.
The EU decided to review its Cuba policy and restrict political and cultural
contact with the communist island and released a statement on June 5.
"It must have been written in a drunken state, if not with alcohol, in
a state of Eurocentric drunkenness," Castro said late Wednesday.
He branded Aznar and Berlusconi "fascists" and "bandits"
as the brains behind the EU's Cuba policy, which he called "useless ...
lacking seriousness ... gross and insolent."
"What bothers us most in all this, is that those who signed on to this
statement are cooperating with the US government's Nazi-fascist policy,"
Castro said, adding that he would hold the EU leaders responsible for any
possible US military attack on Cuba.
Castro also ordered three statues be placed outside Spain's embassy: of
Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca who was executed under
dictator Francisco Franco (news - web sites); of Spanish poet Antonio Machado
who was killed in exile; and of Pablo de la Torrente Brau, a Cuban journalist
killed fighting with the international brigades against the Fascists.
EU ambassadors in Havana have made a point of inviting Cuban dissidents to
their diplomatic receptions. Castro warned that no Cuban official would attend
such gatherings.
In addition, EU ambassadors "would not be invited to official events in
Cuba."
Portugal celebrated its national festival with two receptions -- one for
official Cubans and another for members of civil society, including dissidents.
Cuban opposition leader Elizardo Sanchez is unfazed by the austere warnings.
"We will attend any diplomatic reception to which we are invited,
because in doing so we don't violate any law," said Sanchez, who spent
eight years in a Cuban prison for his militant opposition to Castro.
Felipe Gonzalez, Spain's Socialist prime minister from 1982-1996, told The
Miami Herald, "Fidel is pathetic."
Gonzalez was the conservative Aznar's predecessor and had a generally warm
relationship with Castro. But he is among those in Europe whose patience with
Castro clearly has waned.
"Now he is like Franco when he was dying," Gonzalez said in the
interview published Thursday.
Defecting Cuban Star Arrives in Miami
By Holly Hickman, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 12, 8:56
AM ET
MIAMI - Cuban pop star Carlos Manuel held tightly to his physical and
cultural families at a press conference in his new hometown Wednesday. Standing
close to his mother, Martiza Macias, who defected with him from Cuba this week,
Manuel spoke of his love for his "family" of 11 million left behind.
"The people who stayed behind gave me all I have. The people made me a
star and I love my people," he said in Spanish. "I would like to send
my love to the people of Cuba. I love that island."
Manuel defected from Cuba because he was "tired of all the hypocrisy,"
especially in light of harsh punishments of dissidents in his homeland. Though
pop stars tend to live in relative luxury in Cuba, he said he found the tradeoff
of personal and artistic restrictions unacceptable.
He hopes a career in the U.S. will expand his possibilities.
"I'm ambitious," he said. "I want to go all the way with my
music."
Manuel, 30, was performing in Mexico City last week with his band, "Carlos
Manuel and his Clan." He told his band members he wasn't going back to
Cuba. He crossed into the United States at Brownsville, Texas, late Sunday or
early Monday and was granted asylum there Tuesday.
"We'd been discussing it for a while," said Joe Garcia, executive
director of the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami.
The last time the Clan was in South Florida, two musicians and two
technicians defected.
"He went back, and that developed a certain amount of trust on the
island," said Garcia, speculating that this may have been why Manuel's
mother, sister and his sister's boyfriend were all able to accompany him to
Mexico. All three defected with him, as did his cousin, who is a percussionist
in his band, and another technician.
Manuel said that his intention was to remain in Mexico, but those plans
changed after his Mexico City concert. At 4 a.m. Sunday, officials from the
Cuban embassy showed up at his hotel, alerted to his intentions.
Manuel and his companions fled to another hotel. The officials convinced the
other band members to return to Cuba. Manuel said he believed until the very
last moment that almost all of those who were with him would defect.
The group caught a plane to Monterrey the next day, took a two-hour-cab-ride
to Matamoros, and then walked over the bridge that connects Matamoros to
Brownsville. He turned himself in to U.S. immigration authorities, accompanied
by Mexican television journalists whom he thanked at the press conference.
"Even here in the United States, when he got off the plane to Miami, he
was still feeling a little nervous, a little scared," said Hugo Cancio,
whose record label Ciocan Music represents the singer in the U.S.
Manuel, whose full name is Carlos Manuel Pruneda, said that career
aspirations may have brought him to the U.S., but that Cuba would always teach
him as an artist and person. He said he hoped his fellow Cubans would understand
his decision.
"I want them to keep listening to me," he said.
"I want to send a message to my people ... One day, you will realize
what the world is really like and you will like me again." | 
