CUBA
NEWS
Yahoo!
Fidel Castro Says Bush 'Very Much a
Fool'
By Anne-Marie Garcia, Associated
Press Writer, Dec 23, 2005.
HAVANA - Fidel Castro said Friday that
the Bush administration was wrong to prohibit
Cuba from sending a team to next year's
World Baseball Classic.
"He is very much a fool," the
Cuban president said of Bush. "He doesn't
know who the Cuban baseball players are,
or that they are Olympic and world champions.
If he knew, he would know something about
this country's government."
Castro mentioned the ongoing dispute during
the second day of regular sessions of the
island's National Assembly.
The U.S. Treasury Department last week
rejected the application for Cuba to play
in the 16-team tournament scheduled for
March 3-20, evidently because of concerns
that Castro's government could enjoy financial
gain by participating.
Major League Baseball and the Major League
Baseball Players Association, which are
organizing the tournament, reapplied Thursday
to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign
Assets Control. OFAC's permission is required
under U.S. laws and regulations governing
transactions with Cuba, which has been under
an American trade and financial embargo
for more than four decades.
In an attempt to eliminate a major concern
of the U.S. government, the Cuban Baseball
Federation announced Thursday night that
any money gained by the national team would
be donated to Hurricane Katrina victims.
Cuban baseball "would be willing for
the money associated with participation
in the classic to go to those displaced
by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans,"
said the statement read on state television
by baseball federation president Carlos
Rodriguez.
Cuba is scheduled to play first-round games
in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and would remain
in San Juan if it advances to the second
round.
Antonio Munoz, a businessman who agreed
to pay millions of dollars to bring the
games to Puerto Rico, thinks the Treasury
Department will reverse its decision.
"All efforts are being made to get
Cuba to come and participate and I think
we will succeed," Munoz told The Associated
Press by telephone from New York.
Associated Press writer Luis R. Varela
in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to
this report.
Castro calls US diplomat 'little gangster'
HAVANA, 23 (AFP) - Cuban President Fidel
Castro has called the head of the US diplomatic
mission in Havana, Michael Parmly a "little
gangster" for slamming the regime's
human rights record.
Parmly, head of the US interests section
in Havana, criticized the Castro regime
at a speech marking International Human
Rights Day earlier this month.
"The Cuban regime's hurling of angry
and often violent groups against pro-democratic
dissidents is particularly disgusting,"
Parmly said, adding that such actions were
akin to those of the Nazi brown shirts.
He called on the world to reject Castro's
"outrageous crimes," pointing
out that one out of every five imprisoned
journalists in the world is in Cuba.
Castro said during a rambling speech to
the rubber-stamp National Assembly on Thursday
that he did not know who was worse -- "that
little gangster," referring to Parmly
or "the previous gangster" --
meaning Parmly's hard-charging predecessor,
James Cason, who Castro earlier had described
as a "bully."
Castro said he at first thought Parmly
was a "respectful" diplomat but
his opinion changed when he heard the human
rights speech.
Earlier this week, a moderator on a state
television round table condemned "the
cynical and provocative activities"
of the two US diplomats.
"They took Corporal Cason and left
us Sergeant Parmly," the program moderator
said.
The United States and Cuba broke off diplomatic
relations in January 1961. For the next
16 years, the US was represented by the
Swiss Embassy in Cuba. The US Interests
Section, or USINT, opened on September 1,
1977, re-occupying the seven-story former
US Embassy building.
But officially, according to the US State
Department, USINT remains a part of the
Swiss Embassy, to which American diplomats
are accredited.
Parmly accused Castro of keeping citizens
artificially poor because that way it was
easier to control them. He said two million
Cubans in the United States were richer
than the entire Cuban population of more
than 11 million.
| 
