|
CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Stances on Cuba collide
A Bush administration official defends the
embargo, and an ex-president of the former Soviet
Union deplores it.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Mon, Oct. 06, 2003
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Addressing rare competing seminars on U.S.-Cuba
policy, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Bush administration's
top diplomat for Latin America pushed strongly
diverging views Saturday on how best to propel
democracy in the communist-ruled nation.
Before a Coral Gables audience of about 200 people,
Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere
Roger F. Noriega rattled off a list of pressures
espoused by President Bush, who he said was ''wholly
committed to the cause of Cuban freedom'' and
ending President Fidel Castro's rule. Noriega's
appearance was sponsored by the University of
Miami's Institute for Cuba and Cuban-American
Studies.
ANTI-EMBARGO VIEW
Hours later, former Soviet President Gorbachev
spoke before an equally large audience and urged
an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. His speech
was sponsored by the World Policy Institute and
several local and Washington organizations.
''I do believe it would be a great thing if the
United States, as the only remaining superpower,
would take the first step and lift the embargo,''
Gorbachev, who spoke in Russian, told reporters
at a news briefing. "I think it would have
far-reaching consequences, and I would be the
first to salute the American government for overcoming
its fear of Cuba.''
''Lift the embargo,'' he said in a raised voice.
"Lift the blockade.''
Outside, about 150 supporters of the embargo
against Cuba, carrying anti-Castro posters and
chanting ''Liberty!'' marched in a circle past
a huge Cuban flag tied between two palm trees.
''No perestroika. Freedom for Cuba,'' one sign
read, referring to Gorbachev's program of economic,
political and social restructuring in the mid-1980s
Soviet Union. ''No tourism for terrorist Cuba,''
another sign read.
René Luis said Gorbachev does not understand
the problem in Cuba. "He's helping prop up
a dictatorship that is enslaving a people.''
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who led the rally with
fellow Miami Republican lawmakers Lincoln Díaz-Balart
and brother Mario Díaz-Balart, called Gorbachev
'a former KGB guy who can only be considered a
reformer with a small 'r.' ''
The gathering at the Biltmore Hotel, a virtual
twin of the famed Hotel Nacional in Havana, was
rare in its use of prominent leaders to face off
in the increasingly heated debate over the four
decade-old U.S. trade embargo.
'NEWCOMERS' DISMISSED
Referring to embargo opponents gathered at the
opposite end of the hotel as ''newcomers'' to
the Cuba debate, Noriega said those who propose
lifting trade and travel restrictions risk further
enriching Castro with U.S. dollars.
''That is a risk that only a bunch of strangers
would take, so count me out,'' Noriega said, adding
that the Bush administration prefers to seek advice
on Cuba policy from ''elected leaders'' rather
a ''self-appointed spokesmen'' for the Cuban-American
community.
Anti-embargo proponents, who took exception to
being called newcomers, shot back with disparaging
words of their own.
VETERAN'S VIEW
Retired Gen. John Sheehan, who as chief of the
U.S. Atlantic Command oversaw operations at the
U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,
said Noriega was just ''a little kid'' when the
ex-Marine was facing the Cuban missile crisis.
''He's the newcomer to the issue and doesn't
quite understand it,'' Sheehan said to loud applause.
Sheehan also took a jab at allegations, repeated
by Noriega on Thursday before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, that Cuba had ''at least
a limited'' biological weapons program.
''The fact is that there are no weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq and the fact is that there
are no weapons of mass destruction in Cuba,''
Sheehan said.
Allegations over Cuba's biological weapons capabilities
have been made by U.S. officials several times
in the past year, but no evidence has been made
public, and Cuba has vehemently denied the accusations.
Noriega praised dissidents on the island, including
Oswaldo Payá, who delivered a new batch
of signatures Thursday to Cuba's National Assembly
from registered voters seeking a referendum on
sweeping democratic reforms.
Many dissidents in Cuba have criticized the embargo,
but Noriega said it would remain intact until
Cuba carries out political and economic reforms.
''The embargo is one tool of our policy, and
it is a tool that we will not surrender,'' he
said. "Rather than make unilateral concessions
to a dictator drawing his last breath, we will
reserve that tool as a lever to ensure the Cuban
people, not Castro's cronies, will be running
Cuba.''
Herald staff writer Karl Ross contributed
to this report.
Payá takes petition to Cuban leaders
Wielding a document with 14,384 names, a democracy
activist continues his crusade in the face of
Castro's crackdown.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sat, Oct. 04, 2003
Varela Project leader Oswaldo Payá delivered
14,384 new signatures to Cuba's legislature Friday,
boldly defying a March crackdown that included
the arrests of 42 members of his campaign for
a referendum seeking democratic reforms.
''The Varela Project lives,'' Payá, 51
and one of the communist-ruled island's best-known
dissidents, told reporters as he lugged a box
stuffed with the names, addresses and national
identity card numbers of petitioners.
Government opponents say the signatures serve
as a testament of Cubans' courageous desire for
political change, despite efforts by President
Fidel Castro to quash the dissident movement.
Forty-two of the 75 people arrested in March and
serving prison terms of up to 28 years were active
members of the Varela campaign.
''The wave of repression has not stomped out
the will of the Cuban people who want change,''
Ernesto Martini Fonseca, who accompanied Payá
to the National Assembly, said in a telephone
interview from Havana. "Our campaign will
not be paralyzed. We have thousands more signatures.''
SECOND PETITION
Friday's delivery was the second time in 17 months
that Payá has gone to the National Assembly,
the island's legislature, to hand over the signatures
of registered voters requesting a referendum on
democratic reforms, a process allowed by Cuba's
constitution.
He delivered the first 11,020 signatures, 1,020
more than constitutionally required for a referendum,
just days before a May 2002 visit to Cuba by former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Carter, who met with Payá during his trip,
told Cubans about the democracy effort in an uncensored
speech broadcast live across the island on television
and radio.
The Cuban government responded to the Varela
Project with a massive signature drive of its
own for a constitutional amendment, later approved
by lawmakers, ratifying Cuba's socialist system
as "untouchable.''
There was no response from the government Friday
on the new delivery. But Cuban officials in the
past have said the Varela Project has no official
standing and effectively shelved it.
COMBINED TOTAL
Payá went to the National Assembly shortly
after 11 a.m. accompanied by his wife, Ofelia,
and Martini. The signatures, accepted by the same
official who received the first pile, brings to
25,404 the combined total of signatures submitted
so far.
The delivery was accompanied by a letter addressed
to National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón
in which Payá said his arrested supporters
''suffer unjust imprisonment and are an example
of the strength and dedication of our people,''
The Associated Press reported.
''The rights that we demand in the Varela Project
are enunciated in the constitution. But we also
have them because we are human beings, sons of
God,'' Payá wrote. "And because of
that, we will continue demanding them for all
Cubans, with the faith that we will achieve them.''
Payá, who has received worldwide recognition
for his grass-roots campaign in Cuba, also has
been touted as a possible recipient for the Nobel
Peace Prize, which was to be announced Friday.
CASTRO RESPONSE
His actions were applauded by supporters in Cuba
and Miami, although no one expected a positive
response from Castro's government.
''They must continue to try so that those in
charge can understand, once and for all, that
people want change,'' prominent dissident Vladimiro
Roca said by phone. "Unfortunately, the government
won't do anything. But at least this will let
the international community know that the desire
is very much alive.''
Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American
National Foundation in Miami, said: "If you're
fighting for freedom, you continue fighting for
freedom.''
Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for
Cuba and Cuban American Studies at the University
of Miami, said the new batch of signatures "shows
there are a lot of courageous people in Cuba.''
But, he added, "It plays more outside of
Cuba than inside. Castro is in a very, very tough
mood. He isn't going to change anything. And,
legally, they have an excuse -- the avenue of
petitions is closed now because of the constitutional
amendment the National Assembly approved.''
Castro's column appears after all
The New York Daily News runs an article by
Cuba's leader that a Spanish-language paper refuses
to print.
Herald Staff Report/ Posted on
Sat, Oct. 04, 2003.
A column by Cuban President Fidel Castro was
published by New York's Daily News on Friday after
the newspaper El Diario-La Prensa refused to print
it amid a furor that led the editor of the Spanish
language daily to resign.
The 540-word column under the byline ''By Fidel
Castro'' was devoted entirely to Cuba's educational
system, calling it ''first in the world'' because
99 percent of the island's children reach ninth
grade and all are eligible to attend school through
the 12th grade.
The column was originally written for El Diario-La
Prensa, which had been announcing for several
days that it would publish it early this week.
Castro is known to regularly write columns for
the Cuban newspaper Granma, but without his name.
But El Diario-La Prensa's owners blocked its
publication after three Cuban-American staff members
and New York area residents complained, leading
Editor-in-Chief Gerson Borrero to resign on Monday.
A Daily News staff report on Friday said the
tabloid was publishing "the polemical piece
on its opinion page today because of the interest
the controversy has raised.''
The report added that the Daily News had obtained
a copy of the column and verified its authenticity
with the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
The paper's staff translated it into English,
it said.
The Daily News noted that its decision to publish
the column had drawn fire from some of the same
Cuban Americans who successfully pushed El Diario-La
Prensa to block it.
It quoted Cuban exile Grammy Award winning musician
Paquito D'Rivera as calling it "immoral and
a slap to journalistic ethics.''
U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano, a Bronx Democrat who
has often met with Castro, was quoted as saying
it was "hypocrisy to criticize Cuba without
giving them a chance to say what they have to
say.''
The Castro column said Cuba's grade school students
rank first in math and language arts and average
one teacher per 20 students. In the past year,
117,868 preschool children had access to computers
and 100,000 Cubans are enrolled in higher education,
the column said.
But Castro could not pass up a parting shot at
the United States and his new foes in the European
Community:
"Blockaded by the only superpower and semi-blockaded
by Europe, the Cuban revolution has not been defeated.
One reason is that these two powers do not have
-- nor will they ever have -- the human capital
or the moral values to do what socialist Cuba
has done.''
|
