Yahoo! January 19, 2001
Castro attacks foreign press
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Contending some foreign media based in Cuba lack
objectivity, President Fidel Castro raised the possibility that entire news
organizations as well as individual journalists could be expelled from the
island.
Insisting he was not issuing a threat, and without naming any journalist or
organization, Castro said in a speech broadcast late Wednesday on state
television: "Some agencies are not at all objective ... while others are
more or less objective.
"On occasion, it is not about the agencies, but about the reporters
tolerated by the agencies that they represent,'' the Cuban leader said.
In some cases, he added, rather than expel a particular journalist "it
would be more reasonable to cancel the permission that the agency has to inform
from Cuba.''
He said, "We prefer that their own companies have enough common sense
to call back those people'' from Havana.
While turning up the heat on the foreign press, the communist government on
Wednesday freed independent Cuban journalist Jesus Joel Diaz, who served two of
four years in prison for "social dangerousness,'' the New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists reported Thursday.
Castro said some foreign correspondents based in Cuba "are dedicated to
defaming the revolution.''
"They have been, sometimes for years, not only transmitting lies but
insults as well - insults against the revolution and against me in particular,''
he said.
Castro said Cuban leaders have "tons of patience because we often know
what they seek with these insults: that we adopt a drastic measure by expelling
them.''
In the past, the Cuban government has expelled chief correspondents for
several news agencies permanently accredited here, including Reuters and Agence
France-Presse.
Cuban journalists working outside the government media can face arrest and
trial.
Diaz was arrested in January 1999 at his home in the central province of
Ciego de Avila, and sentenced shortly thereafter.
Activist Elizardo Sanchez, of the non-governmental Cuban Commission for
Human Rights and Reconciliation, said that Diaz was released on Wednesday from a
prison in Ciego de Avila.
US Condemns Arrest of Czechs in Cuba
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 18 (AP) - The United States is condemning the arrest by the
Cuban government of two Czech citizens, one of whom is a member of parliament,
for meeting with pro-democracy activists on the island.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday the only "offense''
the two committed was to meet with Cuban activists who seek "peaceful
change of Cuba's totalitarian government.''
Arrested Jan 12. in a central Cuban province were Ivan Pilip, a former
finance and education minister and a deputy in the Czech Parliament's lower
house, and Jan Bubenik, a student leader in the 1989 movement that toppled the
communist government in Prague. U.S. officials said Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright (news - web sites), a native of Prague, is personally acquainted with
the two.
Boucher said the administration agrees with the Czech Republic's statement
calling their detention "groundless and in defiance of the principles that
all democratic nations stand for.'' He called for their immediate release of the
two men.
An article this week on the Communist Party newspaper Granma said Pilip and
Bubenik entered Cuba on Jan. 8 as tourists but that their true purpose was to "contact
counter-revolutionary elements, give them instructions and hand over
resources.''
Noting that the two arrived in Cuba by way of Miami, the article said they
also had links with the "Cuban-American Mafia based in the United States.''
It said their activities were similar to those of emissaries dispatched to
Cuba by Freedom House, a New York-based pro-democracy group described as a
U.S.-government creation to provide funds to "traitors who conspire against
the revolution.''
A Freedom House statement offered no comment but condemned the arrest of the
two Czechs. It said Freedom House stands in solidarity with them for their
efforts to "advocate for human rights, democracy and freedom.''
On the Net:
Freedom House: http://www.freedomhouse.org/
Granma,
English edition: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html
Two Teens Buried in Cuba
By Vivian Sequera, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Two teen-agers who died in the wheel well of a jetliner
were buried Thursday, and Fidel Castro (news - web sites) called for more
protests of the U.S. policy he blames for their deaths - saying it encourages
Cubans to emigrate illegally.
The boys, military cadets in the 11th grade, hid inside the wheel well of a
British Airways jetliner on Dec. 24 before it took off for London. Alberto
Vazquez, 17, and Maikel Fonseca, 16, died during the flight from lack of oxygen
and subfreezing temperatures.
Their bodies arrived Wednesday night in Cuba and were buried in separate
funeral services on Thursday.
Fonseca's parents, stepfather, sister and aunts joined several thousand
people who filed past the closed wooden casket in a funeral home in the working
class Havana neighborhood of Regla. A framed color photograph of the boy sat
atop the coffin.
"Too many people have died - women, children, elderly people,'' in
dangerous migration attempts, said Daisy Barbara Suris, a 46-year-old housewife
who paid her respects even though she did not know the boy.
"Practically the entire country has suffered from this tragedy,''
Castro said Wednesday night on state television, calling for Friday protests.
The communist youth organizations announced that the first march Friday
would be held in the morning outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
For more than a year, Havana has demanded an end to the Cuban Adjustment
Act, a 1966 law that allows any Cuban who reaches American soil to apply for
U.S. residency.
The Castro government says the law encourages Cubans to take risky journeys
in hopes of reaching the United States.
Although the jet the boys boarded was bound for Britain, the government says
they hoped to get to the United States.
Castro's call for new marches recalls the seven-month government campaign
during the fight for the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez.
Hundreds of rallies were held during that period to demand Elian's return
and an end to the Cuban Adjustment Act, which Havana blamed for the
international custody battle over the boy.
The rallies have continued sporadically since Elian, now 7, returned to Cuba
in June. They are still held every Saturday in a different provincial community,
usually to protest U.S. migration or other policies.
Little Known About Martinez in Cuba
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Nearly four decades after Mel Martinez left his native
Cuba as a 15-year-old refugee, the only thing that most people here know about
the man is what the communist government thinks of him.
"Worm!'' the Communist Party newspaper called him last month, using a
common derogatory term for Cuban exiles, and saying his nomination as housing
secretary was a prize for anti-communist Cuban-Americans.
The Granma newspaper noted that Martinez worked to impede Elian Gonzalez's
return last June to his father in Cuba. Martinez, the top county official in
Orange County, Florida, paid for Elian's highly publicized trip to Walt Disney
World shortly after the boy's November 1999 rescue at sea.
In an attack on Martinez in late December, the Cuban government also
stressed his involvement with the Cuban American National Foundation, a powerful
exile group that Havana counts among its most hated enemies.
But it has provided no other information about Martinez's early years on the
island, which he left in 1962 as part of the Pedro Pan airlift, a program that
sent about 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States over nearly
two years beginning in December 1960.
Fearing that their children would be indoctrinated into communism, many
Cubans obtained quick exit visa waivers to send them to the United States. Some
parents were separated for years from their children, who like Martinez lived in
foster homes.
Martinez's parents did not arrive in the United States for four years.
Since its first reaction to President-elect Bush's choice of Martinez - he
would become the first Cuban-American to sit on a U.S. presidential Cabinet -
the Cuban government has said nothing more about him. Several Cuban officials
acknowledged privately that very little is known about Martinez's first years
here.
Since Martinez would have no control over U.S.-Cuba policy as the country's
housing chief, Havana's main objection to his nomination has been what it
considers Bush's relationship with its exiled enemies in South Florida.
Even back in his native town of Sagua la Grande, a town of about 20,000
people in the central province of Villa Clara, members of several Martinez
families reached by telephone denied being related to him - or even having heard
of him.
"He's not from our family,'' an elderly woman named Vera Martinez said.
"We don't know him.''
Cubans Protest U.S. Immigration Laws
By Vivian Sequera, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 19 (AP) - President Fidel Castro (news - web sites) led thousands of
people in a march past the U.S. mission here Friday to protest American
immigration policies Havana says lure Cubans to their deaths trying to reach the
United States.
The rally was called after the burial Thursday of two military cadets who
died trying to leave the country as stowaways in a jetliner's wheel well -
deaths the Cuban government blamed on the U.S. policies.
"Down with the murderous law!'' a young girl shouted over a loudspeaker
as Castro, wearing his typical olive green uniform and white athletic shoes,
started the trek down the Malecon coastal highway and past the U.S. Interests
Section. Marchers vigorously waved tiny red, white and blue Cuban flags.
Castro issued a call Wednesday night for new mass protests - "tomorrow
and the day after that and as many are needed.''
Described by state media as "the first march of the victorious
revolution in the new millennium,'' the gathering was being held to draw
attention to the Cuban Adjustment Act, an American law that Havana says
encourages its citizens to undertake risky journeys to flee.
The 1966 law allows Cubans who reach American soil to apply for U.S.
residency. Illegal immigrants to the United States from most other countries are
usually immediately deported.
The marches recall those held over seven months during the international
custody battle over the Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, who is now 7. Elian's father
returned with the boy to Cuba in June after winning a lengthy legal battle
against their Miami relatives, who fought to keep him in the United States.
After the Elian case was settled, Havana said the protests would continue
against American policies that target the island.
The government blamed the Cuban Adjustment Act for the Christmas Eve deaths
of military school students Maikel Fonseca, 16, and Alberto Vazquez, 17, who
tried to leave the country as stowaways in a British Airways jetliner.
The boys died from lack of oxygen and subfreezing temperatures during the
flight to London. Cuba says that the teens had sought to go to the United
States, citing a farewell letter from one boy to his family.
Fonseca and Vazquez were buried Thursday in Havana in separate ceremonies
that were later shown on state television.
Meanwhile, six Czech legislators were to travel to Havana in an attempt to
win the release of two Czech citizens, including another lawmaker, who were
detained in Cuba for meeting with pro-democracy dissidents. The date of the trip
was not yet announced.
The U.S. State Department has condemned the Jan. 12 arrest of the two
Czechs, whom Cuban have accused of being "American agents.''
Copyright © Yahoo!
Inc.
Copyright © 2000
The Associated Press.
| 