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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Visiting Chávez praises Castro
strength, 'clarity'
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez visited Cuban leader
Fidel Castro in Havana, interested in the
health of his friend, a Cuban paper reported.
Castro suffered an accidental fall last
month.
By Andrea Rodriguez, Associated
Press. November 8, 2004.
HAVANA - After a meeting with Fidel Castro
that lasted until dawn Sunday, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez said the Cuban
leader appeared strong and healthy despite
an accidental fall last month in which he
shattered a kneecap and broke an arm.
Cuban television images Sunday showed Chávez
talking with a relaxed-looking Castro, who
was wearing a red shirt and dark pants and
had his arm in a sling.
Castro generally receives visitors in a
dark suit or traditional olive military
fatigues.
''We've spent some time soul-sharing,''
Chávez told local reporters after
the meeting, praising Castro's ''extraordinary''
strength, health and "clarity.''
Chávez arrived in Havana on Saturday
on a visit from Santo Domingo, where he
signed an agreement for Venezuela to sell
up to 50,000 barrels a day of oil to the
Dominican Republic with preferential financing.
He was received at the airport by Cuban
Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque
and taken to the Palace of the Revolution
to meet with Castro, according to Juventud
Rebelde, Cuba's Communist Party's youth
newspaper.
Also present at the meeting were Vice President
Carlos Lage, Central Bank President Francisco
Soberón and Foreign Investment Minister
Marta Lomas, the newspaper reported.
The officials discussed bilateral relations
and the recent Rio Group Summit in Brazil,
which Cuba did not attend.
The international press in Havana did not
have access to Chávez's arrival or
his meetings with officials.
Chávez is a close friend and ally
of Castro. He came to Havana ''interested
in the health of Fidel, who said that [the
meeting] marked the best night he'd had
since his accidental fall,'' Juventud Rebelde
said.
Castro tripped and fell the evening of
Oct. 20 after giving a speech at a graduation
ceremony in the central city Santa Clara,
east of Havana.
Young messengers proclaim Cuban line
At age 5 or 6, Cuban
children get their political and patriotic
baptism. Castro's loyalists defend the practice;
others in the country are uncomfortable
with it.
By Tracey Eaton, The Dallas
Morning News. Posted on Sun, Nov. 07, 2004
in The Miami Herald.
HAVANA - At the tender age of 8, Lazaro
Castro gave a fiery political speech to
hundreds of thousands of people, then unexpectedly
leaped off the stage and kissed Fidel Castro
on the cheek.
More than four years and dozens of speeches
later, the precocious youngster is a celebrity
of sorts, a poster child for the Cuban revolution.
He's one of the most famous of Cuba's pioneros,
or pioneers -- young Cubans who get their
political and patriotic baptism each Oct.
9, the anniversary of the death of guerrilla
Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara.
On that special day this year, 148,199
Cuban children ages 5 and 6 became pioneers
and were given their first blue neck scarf,
a piece of cloth that's sacred in this land.
They'll wear it to school every day this
fall, and on Fridays, they'll stand and
call out in unison, "We will be like
Che!''
Pioneers are taught to worship Guevara,
killed in 1967 by Bolivian soldiers trained
by Green Beret and CIA operatives.
The late Argentine rebel is an icon in
the Third World and the subject of The Motorcycle
Diaries, a movie released in September about
his 1950s adventures in South America.
Lazaro Castro, now 13, adores Che -- and
Fidel Castro. He started learning about
their revolutionary exploits as a preschooler.
He took their messages to heart, memorizing
their speeches. And today, he regularly
travels around the country and abroad spreading
the word to millions of people and issuing
stinging criticisms of President Bush and
the U.S. sanctions against Cuba.
But not all people are comfortable seeing
Cuban pioneers so immersed in politics.
'CHILDHOOD IS SACRED'
''Getting children involved in political
problems that only adults can understand
violates what makes childhood unique,''
said Alina Sanchez, 26. "Childhood
is sacred. It's a time of innocence.''
Castro loyalists counter that the pioneers'
political work underscores just how much
the government cares about children.
The debate over Cuban children and politics
erupted during the custody battle over Elián
González, a grade-schooler found
clinging to a raft off Florida's coast on
Thanksgiving Day in 1999.
His mother and 11 others hoping to reach
the United States died in the voyage. In
June 2000, a U.S. judge ordered that Elián
be returned to his father in Cuba. The pioneer's
Miami relatives had fought against that,
saying they feared Elián would be
"brainwashed.''
''State control of the Cuban child begins
shortly after birth,'' conservative writer
William Norman Grigg wrote during the Elián
affair. "Cuban schoolchildren are marinated
in hatred for enemies of the revolution
. . . and relentlessly programmed to love
Fidel.''
Under Cuban law, ''the family, teachers,
political organizations and mass organizations''
have a duty to help children develop a ''communist
personality.'' And they must protect young
people from "any influence contrary
to their communist formation.''
Claudia Márquez, an independent
Cuban journalist, said she once went to
her 5-year-old boy's classroom and saw his
teacher passing out plastic guns and shouting,
"Go! Shoot! Boom! Boom! We are killing
imperialism!''
ACCUSATIONS
In July, President Bush put his own spin
on the treatment of children in Cuba when
he accused the socialist government of promoting
child prostitution.
Castro and his supporters reacted sharply.
It's a ''vile accusation . . . dreadful
and repugnant,'' Castro said.
Cuba calls U.S. worst 'violator' of
rights
Responding to American
criticism of its detention of dissidents,
Cuban officials point to alleged U.S. abuses
of prisoners in Iraq and terrorism suspects
at Guantánamo Bay.
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press. Posted on Sun, Nov. 7, 2004.
HAVANA - Cuba struck back at the United
States on Saturday, calling it the world's
worst human rights offender two days after
the U.S. State Department criticized the
island nation for continuing to imprison
scores of dissidents rounded up more than
1 ½ years ago.
''The government of the United States doesn't
have the minimum moral authority to accuse
Cuba,'' the island's Foreign Ministry said
in an official note published in the Communist
Party daily Granma.
''It's the government of the United States
that is the worst violator of human rights
in the world,'' the note said, pointing
to alleged abuses of prisoners in Iraq and
terror suspects at the U.S. naval base at
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The foreign ministry also said the U.S.
trade embargo against Cuba "is a cruel,
inhuman and genocidal blockade that over
more than four decades has violated the
human rights of all the Cuban people.''
The Cuban statement, as well as the U.S.
statement on Thursday, underscored that
relations remain as prickly as ever in the
days after the reelection of President Bush.
The two countries have not had diplomatic
relations since the early 1960s.
The long-standing American trade and travel
restrictions against the island nation grew
progressively tighter during Bush's first
four-year term.
''The United States condemns the Cuban
regime's abuse of advocates of peaceful
change and reform,'' the U.S. State Department
said Thursday, referring to the March 2003
roundup of 75 dissidents that Cuba accused
of being mercenaries for the American government.
Those 75 were later sentenced to prison
terms averaging 20 years. Seven of the most
seriously ill prisoners have since been
released for health reasons, but they are
still subject to harassment, the U.S. statement
said.
Both the dissidents and American officials
have repeatedly denied the charges that
the activists were receiving money to help
the U.S. government undermine Fidel Castro's
socialist system.
Martinez arrives to cheers in Miami
Mel Martinez visited
Miami for the first time since winning the
hotly contested U.S. Senate race. He vowed
to represent all Floridians, regardless
of how they voted.
By Gail Epstein Nieves,
gepstein@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Nov.
05, 2004.
Newly elected Mel Martinez brought his
victory tour to Miami on Thursday, thanking
supporters and pledging to be a U.S. senator
who represents everyone, "no matter
who they voted for.''
''Florida gets to have only two senators
and I'm one of them, and I'm going to represent
all Floridians,'' Martinez, a Republican
from Orlando, told an adoring crowd crushed
into his Miami-Dade campaign headquarters
on Coral Way.
Martinez bested Democratic challenger Betty
Castor by about 83,000 votes, in a bruising
battle marked by its negative advertisements.
He declined to talk any more about the controversial
ads.
''We've that put behind us,'' he said.
"I took a lot of shots. That's not
about today. Today is about uniting, it's
about forgetting the past, it's about moving
forward.''
Speaking in Spanish and English, Martinez,
who left Cuba in the Pedro Pan exodus when
he was 15, also thanked those who helped
him ''achieve this historic landmark'' --
a reference to his becoming the first Cuban-American
U.S. senator.
''It's a very special moment in history,
and it's a blessing,'' said Elly Chovel,
founder of the Operation Pedro Pan Group,
an alumni association for the 14,000 unaccompanied
children sent to the United States during
the early years of Cuba's revolution.
''He is a man with a very compassionate
heart, and he's going to do a great job,''
Chovel said, dialing her cellphone and sticking
it to Martinez's ear so he could hear congratulations
from a fellow Pedro Pan kid: Eduardo Aguirre,
the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services in Washington, D.C.
Martinez, a former secretary of Housing
and Urban Development for President Bush,
said he worked on bipartisan housing efforts
during his two years in Washington. He will
work with members of both parties again,
he said.
For South Florida, Martinez pledged to
work toward increased funding for construction
of highway and transportation systems and
to continue the Everglades clean-up. On
Cuba, a primary issue for many of his Miami-Dade
supporters, Martinez said he supports President
Bush's plan, which he said he helped draft.
''The White House has always supported
that human rights be respected in Cuba,
and the plan that the White House built
for the future of Cuba -- which is the one
in which I have a part and of which I am
very proud -- [includes] the travel restrictions,
help to dissidents and all those things,''
said Martinez, who carried Miami-Dade in
Tuesday's election.
On Wednesday, Castor said the results of
the race reflected a Florida electorate
that is fairly evenly split, but Martinez's
analysis differed.
''This country showed a remarkable amount
of unity, because we had an overwhelming
majority elect President Bush. We've also
seen a wave of Republican senators elected,''
said Martinez, who also held gatherings
Thursday in Tampa and Orlando.
"So I think the country has made some
choices, and I think now we need to move
forward on them.''
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