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Yahoo! April 26, 2002.
Group Calls for Activists' Release
Thu Apr 25,10:05 PM ET
HAVANA (AP) - One of Cuba's best known human rights group called Thursday
for the release of eight opposition activists, including a blind man, arrested
during a protest last month.
The eight men were arrested March 4 in the central provincial capital of
Ciego de Avila during a protest at a hospital where another colleague was
receiving treatment after police allegedly roughed him up, said Elizardo Sanchez
of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
The protest consisted of the men yelling human rights slogans, then sitting
down silently in a hospital hallway, said Sanchez. They were later arrested and
taken away by police.
The blind activist, Juan Carlos Gonzalez, and the rest have been accused of
public disorder and disrespect, charges often leveled for insulting high-ranking
Cuban leaders. The charges carry prison sentences of up to three years.
"This is yet another example of the Cuban government's intolerance,"
Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Americas
Division, said in a statement from New York.
Human Rights Watch is a private organization that monitors human rights
around the world.
The Cuban government traditionally does not comment on specific human rights
complaints.
Mexico Accuses Cuba of Blackmail
By John Rice, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 25, 4:08 PM
ET
MEXICO CITY (AP) - President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) apologized to
those who believe he lied about rushing Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web
sites) out of Mexico, but Mexico's foreign secretary on Thursday accused the
Cuban leader of trying to blackmail Fox.
Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda accused Castro of trying to blackmail
Mexico into voting against a U.N. resolution targeting Cuba's human rights
record — and then, after Mexico voted for it, trying to embarrass Fox by
making public a private conversation between the two leaders.
"It was blackmail, and the release of the conversation was revenge, a
vile revenge," Castaneda told TV Azteca.
The interview continued an unprecedented war of words between Cuba and
Mexico, long Castro's most valued friend in Latin America.
In late March, Castro accused Mexican officials of hurrying him out of a
major summit in Monterrey at the bidding of President Bush (news - web sites).
Fox denied hustling Castro out.
Castro was enraged last week when Mexico ended a tradition of abstaining on
U.N. human rights resolutions targeting the island. On Monday, he released the
tape recording in which Fox clearly prodded Castro to leave Mexico on March 21 —
a day before Bush was to arrive.
Fox has continued to deny pressuring Castro, asserting he was just trying to
cope with Castro's last-minute announcement he would attend the 187-nation
meeting.
"Of course I didn't lie," Fox said Wednesday in an interview with
the Multivision cable television network. "If it seems to somebody in
Mexico that I wasn't in line with the truth, and even lied, I ask their pardon."
Castaneda at first repeated that denial Thursday, but then said Fox had
wanted to get Castro out of town for reasons other than the arrival of the U.S.
president.
"The problem was not Bush," Castaneda said. "The problem was
that Castro had threatened, through his acts, to dedicate himself to internal
politics in Mexico." Castaneda cited planned meetings with Mexican news
media and anti-globalization protesters.
Castaneda said Fox also wanted to avoid having Castro disrupt the summit by
squabbling with the United States or protesting the "Consensus of
Monterrey," an agreement on financial aid for poor nations that had been
signed by virtually all of the nations at the event.
Castaneda claimed that while Cuba had accepted the document without major
protests two months earlier, Castro planned to "make a scandal" over
it in Monterrey.
In nightly state television broadcasts this week, Cuban officials have
showered Castaneda with insults, calling him "diabolical." Castro has
suggested that Fox is a "decent" but naive dupe of Castaneda.
Fox said Wednesday he has changed his country's foreign policy "in a
radical way" since becoming the first opposition party candidate to win
Mexico's presidency.
In addition to Mexico's traditional focus on noninterference in other
nations' affairs, Fox said Thursday that human rights "are universal and
are above political and ideological interests."
He insists Mexico won't cut ties with Cuba.
On Wednesday, he promised that Mexico would "go forward with the
relationship with Cuba, with the Cubans, continue defending the rights of the
Cubans, continue defending human rights, electoral rights, democratic rights of
the people of Cuba."
Castaneda said Mexico's traditional policy was to avoid criticizing Cuba "so
that they would not meddle here and would not say anything or do anything. That
was the pact, and all of us know it existed."
Cuba supported rebellions in many nations of Latin America, but always
insisted that it had kept hands out of Mexico. | 
