Yahoo! March 27, 2001
Relatives of Fallen or Missing at Bay of Pigs Release Open Letter
Monday March 26, 5:48 pm Eastern Time. Press Release.
SOURCE: Cuban American National Foundation
WASHINGTON, March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday in Miami, family members of
Brigade 2506 participants killed or missing at the Bay of Pigs made public an
open letter sent to Brigade veterans. Signed by over sixty relatives, the
missive was prompted by reports of a conference held in Cuba with five veterans
of the Brigade, former CIA officers involved in its planning, Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro and members of the Cuban military who fought the freedom fighters.
The letter, directed to Brigade "brothers,'' expressed sadness that any
of them would participate in a historic analysis "concerning all Cubans''
while "the Cuban people remain enslaved.'' Noting the absence of academic
objectivity, freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas in Cuba, it
maintains that the people of Cuba, "deserving the full truth, cannot
participate in this intellectual exchange nor benefit from its conclusions
through a free press.''
Partaking of the conference is considered "sitting at the table with
the tyrant... who brutally enslaves the Cuban people'' and "elevating the
stature of Castro's regime, thus offending the memory of so many... victims of
the quest for Cuba's freedom.''
The letter also calls it unlikely that the conference would "seek to
investigate the whereabouts of the missing, of whom the Cuban government has
refused to disclose information or allow for proper burial.''
Recognizing the sacrifices of all invasion participants who fought for
Cuba's freedom, they are, however, called on to wait until Cuba is free to write
the final page of this saga and "all together embrace on those Cuban shores
that witnessed so much pain and glory.''
The invasion, financed by and coordinated with CIA support, took place in
April 1961, several months into John F. Kennedy's Administration. After the
force had landed, Kennedy refused planned air cover -- a crucial aspect of the
operation -- in ill-conceived efforts to preserve the covert nature of U.S.
support. U.S. involvement became apparent nonetheless, Brigade members were
killed or captured and Fidel Castro was emboldened to proclaim the Marxist
Communist nature of his revolution. The Bay of Pigs disaster helped consolidate
Castro's power and stands in the annals of history as President Kennedy's
greatest foreign policy failure.
Cuba Denies Rights Abuse Charges
By Naomi Koppel, Associated Press Writer
GENEVA (AP) - The Cuban government on Tuesday defended its human rights
record and said the United States is in no position to lecture other nations on
rights abuses.
Felipe Perez Roque, the Cuban foreign minister, told the 53-nation U.N.
Human Rights Commission there were "no human rights abuses in Cuba.''
"There is absolutely no justification for the singling out of Cuba in
this commission. Such an assertion is only possible due to the United States'
pathological incapacity for accepting Cuba as an independent state,'' Perez
said.
The commission is expected to consider a resolution condemning human rights
abuses in Cuba. Last year it narrowly voted to express "concern about the
continued repression of members of the political opposition and about the
detention of dissidents.''
Perez said criticism of his country was being led by Washington, which at
the same time was resisting calls to treat hunger and other problems of
developing nations as fundamental human rights violations.
"The United States accuses Cuba of violating human rights. As we all
know, this accusation is not a matter of real concern for the human rights
situation in Cuba; it is really a matter of whether a small, Third World country
may or may not chose its own path,'' said Perez.
He said the United States was "the least-best-placed country morally to
judge Cuba on issues of human rights and democracy.''
"Has anyone ever seen the police in Cuba beating up workers or students
in a demonstration, firing rubber bullets at them, setting dogs or horses or
tear gas against them?'' he asked.
He also attacked as "genocidal'' the trade blockade that the United
States has imposed on Cuba for 40 years.
George Moose, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (news - web sites)
offices in Geneva, said last week that the United States is correct to criticize
Cuba.
"Cuba stands out as the one country that not only continues to
systematically violate the fundamental human rights of its people but moreover
continues systematically to reject any outside scrutiny, criticism, observation
or indeed cooperation,'' he said.
The United States wants to support a proposed censure motion from the Czech
Republic, but is pressuring Prague to remove parts that are critical of the U.S.
economic blockade against Cuba.
"The U.S. embargo is a national decision that the United States will
not trade with Cuba. It isn't as if we are ... isolating it from its relations
with other countries,'' said Moose.
On the Net:
Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights, http://www.unhchr.ch
Cuba concerned by controversial US pick of Cuban-American for key
diplo-post: FM
HAVANA, March 26 (AFP) - Cuba has voiced concern and disbelief at US
President George W. Bush's choice of a staunchly anti-communist Cuban-American
as the top US diplomat steering relations with Latin America, the Caribbean and
Canada.
If approved as assistant secretary of state for western hemispheric affairs,
Bush's Cuban-born pick Otto Reich, 55, a former US ambassador to Venezuela,
would oversee Washington's foreign policy in a region undergoing some democratic
political strain and sweeping economic change.
Communist-ruled Cuba and the United States do not have full diplomatic
relations, and Washington has had an economic embargo clamped on Havana for four
decades.
Reich headed the State Department's office of public diplomacy in the
mid-1980s, and was accused by some, including members of the US Congress, of
engaging in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities" in support of
the Reagan Administration's anti-Sandinista efforts in Nicaragua.
Those alleged activities were detailed in a 1997 report by the US general
accounting office. Reich never was charged with any crime.
Yet some members of the US Congress are gearing up for a contentious
confirmation battle on his nomination, and many Latin America experts have been
critical of the administration's choice of Reich.
"It seems really incredible to me that the (US) government would
persist in nominating a personality with the record this gentleman has,"
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told AFP in an exclusive interview at the
weekend.
"In the midst a controversy and a debate, nominating somebody who took
part in the dirty war in Central America, a paid lobbyist for Bacardi, one of
the authors of the Helms-Burton law (tightening sanctions on Cuba) -- they are
very negative credentials" Perez Roque said, adding they were cause for "concern
not only in Cuba but (across) Latin America."
Reich was formerly a paid lobbyist for Bacardi, now Bacardi Martini, a
spirits company run by a Cuban family that left Havana when Castro came to
power.
Reich himself left Cuba in 1960, one year after President Fidel Castro took
power.
Florida's influential Cuban-American exile lobby, which strongly supported
Bush in the election, is firmly behind Reich's candidacy.
Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, is governor of the US state of Florida, key to the
US president's White House win and home to almost one million overwhelmingly
anti-Castro Cuban-Americans.
Critics fear the Reich nomination might strain US relations within the
Americas. Many US trading partners are pressing for an end to the US sanctions
regime, while a growing number of conservative business leaders and farmers in
the US covet Cuban markets.
Last Wednesday, Perez Roque voiced dismay at recent US government officials'
remarks that Washington was, in essence, waiting for Castro to die before
engaging with the neighboring island nation of 11 million people.
"I am stunned that the entire theory, and the whole basis of relations
with a neighboring country could be wishing death upon its leader," said
Perez Roque, 35, Castro's former personal assistant, who stressed: "I can
confirm the excellent state of health of Fidel Castro," aged 74.
Belafonte Concert to Benefit Cuba
NEW YORK, 27 (AP) - Harry Belafonte, who supports improved U.S. relations
with Cuba, is scheduled to perform a benefit concert for the Center for Cuban
Studies, a nonprofit organization with the same mission.
"We want to celebrate Cuban culture, especially the music of Cuba with
this concert,'' the entertainer said in a statement. "It is such a major
part of the cultural heritage of the Americas, and it would be very difficult to
find a nation more committed to the development of the culture of its people,
than what I have witnessed in Cuba.''
The event, at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, was scheduled for Monday
night. Actor Danny Glover was to host the event.
Besides his career as a singer and actor, Belafonte has been a longtime
civil rights activist and a Goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.
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