CUBA NEWS
Yahoo!
Castro Warns Bush Against Launching
Attack
By ANITA SNOW, Associated
Press Writer
HAVANA, June 21, 2004 - Tens of thousands
of Cubans rallied Monday, as Fidel Castro
warned President Bush against launching
a military attack on Cuba, saying it would
provoke a mass exodus and an all-out ground
war.
Washington has repeatedly denied it is
planning any military action against Havana.
But an increased tightening of sanctions
against the island, along with the Bush
administration's pre-emptive strike on Iraq,
has convinced the Cuban leadership that
a military attack is not impossible.
"Do not try crazy adventures such
as surgical strikes or wars of attrition
using sophisticated techniques because you
could lose control of the situation,"
Castro said in a speech addressed specifically
to Bush before the morning.
"You could shatter the immigration
agreement and provoke a mass exodus that
we would not be in a position to prevent,
and you could bring about an all-out war
between young American soldiers and the
Cuban people," he said. "That
would be very sad."
"You would never be able to win that
war," the Cuban leader said. "Here
you will not find a divided people."
In May, a U.S. presidential commission
delivered Bush what amounts to a policy
of regime change in Cuba, recommending that
the United States subvert the planned succession
in Cuba under which power would pass from
Castro to his younger brother, Raul.
The release of the report coincided with
a new round of tough new measures that will
further limit travel here by U.S. citizens
- including Cuban Americans.
Dressed in his typical olive green uniform
and cap, Castro spoke at a mahogany wood
podium on a stage outside the oceanfront
U.S. Interests Section - the American mission
here.
The coastal Malecon highway was crowded
with tens of thousands of people called
out by their workplaces, schools and neighborhood
authorities. The government estimated the
crowd at 200,000, a number impossible to
confirm independently.
The Communist Party daily Granma said the
morning gathering was called to deliver
Cuba's "most energetic condemnation
and protest against the brutal anti-Cuban
measures by the current U.S. government."
The sanctions are to take effect June 30.
The new rules by the U.S. Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control will severely
limit how often Cuban-Americans can visit
family and which relatives they can legally
send money to on the impoverished island.
Cuban-Americans who previously could visit
relatives every year will now be able to
travel here once every three years.
While in the past they could send money
to aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces -
along with more immediate family - they
now will be able to send financial help
only to parents, grandparents, siblings,
spouses, children and grandchildren.
The moves have been welcomed by more conservative
Cuban exiles in Miami. But they have been
rejected by other Cuban immigrants, especially
those who arrived in the United States more
recently and still have family on the island.
Small protests against the measures were
held in Miami and Key West over the weekend.
The measures will also make it even more
difficult for non-Cuban Americans to travel
here legally. Students now will be prohibited
from traveling to Cuba for courses that
last less than 10 weeks.
This change will end a host of short educational
trips sponsored here in recent years by
American universities and other groups.
Artist Outraged By Cuban Memorial Vandalism
Thu Jun 17,10:13 AM ET.
WPLG Click10.com.
There are plans to repair a Cuban memorial
that was vandalized Tuesday night.
Someone cut some of the fingers of a pair
of hands of the Liberty Column (pictured,
right) memorial at Bayfront Park. One of
the hands looks like it's giving an obscene
gesture.
Humberto Sanchez sculpted the memorial
in 1994 in honor of rafters who died at
sea. He's outraged.
"It's the most disgraceful act that
I've ever seen," Sanchez said.
"I think it's a shame. Whomever did
this has an evil mind. (It) won't accomplish
anything," said Nicholas Garcia, a
Cuban American.
Sanchez will try to repair his sculpture.
The city of Miami and Bayfront Park management
trust have also offered to help. The column
has been dusted for fingerprints, but Miami
police think finding the vandals won't be
easy.
Castro, at 14, asked Roosevelt for 10
dollars
WASHINGTON, 17 (AFP) - At the age of 14,
Cuban leader Fidel Castro sent a letter
to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking
for 10 dollars, according to researchers.
The letter sent by young Fidel, dated November
25, 1940, has been found among eight billion
long forgotten documents and pieces of paper
kept by the US National Archives and Records
Administration.
At the time, Castro signed off "your
friend". Since his 1959 communist revolution
in Cuba, Castro has been the arch-rival
of nine US presidents.
Written in lopsided cursive on lined stationary
from Colegio de Dolores in Santiago, the
Cuban leader's Roman Catholic secondary
school, Castro said in the letter: "I
have not seen a USD10 bill green American
and I would like to have one of them."
Castro was an admirer of Roosevelt and
wrote, "I like to hear the radio, and
I am very happy, because I heard in it,
that you will be president for a new period."
Almost 19 years later, Castro ascended
to power under a Communist regime after
his guerillas toppled Cuban dictator Fulgeneio
Batista.
The United States went to the brink of
war with Castro's regime during the 1962
Cuban missile crisis.
"I think it's amusing that he had
written this when he was a young man or
a teenager. It's just odd considering the
feeling he had later," said Marvin
Russell, an archivist with the administration.
The records are part of the Havana Post
files collection, papers that document correspondence
between the US State Department and the
US embassy in Cuba.
Russell said the letter was found accidently
when the files underwent a declassification
review in the 1970s.
There are thousands of more letters in
the archive.
One, is a thank you note from Robert Kennedy,
who was assinated when a presidential candidate
in 1968, for some stamps that Roosevelt,
an avid stamp collector, sent him.
Another, is a letter written to President
Dwight Eisenhower from three adoring Elvis
Presley fans who begged that the president
excuse the singer from military service.
The girls who wrote the letter were most
concerned about what would happen to his
hair.
"If you cut his sideburns off we will
just die!," they wrote.
Some of the letters will be on exhibit
in "Just Between You and Me, Children's
Letters to Presidents," at the National
Archive from November 15.
|
