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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Mexico, Cuba end diplomatic controversy
Posted on Fri, May. 28,
2004
GUADALAJARA, Mexico - (AP) -- Cuba's foreign
minister said both his nation and Mexico
agreed Thursday to return their respective
ambassadors, moving to ease the latest diplomatic
dispute between the traditional allies.
At a news conference on the sidelines of
an international summit here, Cuban Foreign
Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said
he met with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis
Ernesto Derbez and that they had decided
to restore the ambassadors to their posts.
He did not give an exact date for their
return.
''Derbez and I have agreed on the necessity
to reestablish relations,'' he said.
Mexico was angered by Cuban allegations
that a Mexican official arrested in Havana
on fraud charges was part of a larger political
conspiracy.
The Mexican government charged that Cuba
was meddling in its affairs and withdrew
its ambassador from Havana in early May.
Cuba responded by doing the same with its
ambassador in Mexico City.
Historically, Mexico was Cuba's strongest
ally in the region. But relations have become
strained under President Vicente Fox, whose
administration has criticized Cuba's human
rights record.
Derbez, who spoke to reporters earlier,
did not mention the decision to restore
the ambassadors. Mexican officials were
not immediately available for comment.
But Derbez had called the meeting with
Pérez Roque ''positive'' and the
''first step'' toward normalizing relations.
When asked if he felt the two countries
would be able to overcome their differences,
he said: "I always see a resolution.''
The decision was a surprise, especially
considering that Pérez Roque had
said he didn't expect much from the meeting.
The ambassador flap hasn't been the first
fight between the countries.
In 2002, after a U.N. summit of world leaders
in Mexico, Cuban leader Fidel Castro released
a tape of a phone call in which Fox asked
him to leave the summit early to avoid overlapping
with President Bush. Fox's government had
denied making the request.
Cuban-American reggae man on a musical
mission
By Elaine De Valle, edevalle@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, May. 28, 2004
Johnny Dread is on a roll again, slicing
the air in front of him with his hands,
unable to finish a sentence, thinking so
fast on topics so urgent that it's on-to-the-next,
quoting New Testament verses and Bob Marley
lyrics simultaneously, working this audience
of one as if his life depended on it.
And in a strange, spiritual sense, it does.
This is his life.
''It's my job to educate,'' he says.
This is what the past 17 years in music
has been all about. This is how, this is
why, Johnny Dread -- Cuban-American, Rastafari
reggae man, singer/songwriter with the waist-low
locks -- came to be. He is more preacher
than rock star.
''In my Catholic Columbus/FIU days, I never
thought I would be a prophetic messenger,''
Johnny says.
So it's OK that there were only about 60
people at The Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale
on a recent Thursday night. Johnny performed
as if it were for a cheering arena crowd
-- this, just three hours after his wife
gave birth to their third little girl in
the backyard whirlpool of their North Miami
home.
The music is more than a gig. It's his
mission. It's his journey.
GROWING UP
It began when Juan Carlos Guardiola was
born in Philadelphia 40 years ago last month.
The family soon moved to Weh-chés-teh,
where Juanito grew up in the pews at St.
Brendan Catholic Church and the basketball
courts of the Big Five Club and Christopher
Columbus High. Dad Felix Guardiola played
basketball in Cuba before he left in 1958
-- perhaps he, too, was a prophet -- and
delivered papers and milk and sold insurance
to put food on the table.
Mom Elena stayed home. She hasn't learned
to drive to this day.
The Republican couple worked hard to raise
eight respectful, educated children -- four
boys, four girls. Each day Elena parted
Johnny's hair -- ''le hice la raya,'' a
perfect line -- to send him to parochial
school. And she's never accepted his ''horrible''
dreads.
''He moved out of the house because of
his hair,'' said Elena Guardiola, 71, who
lives with Johnny's 74-year-old father in
the same three-bedroom house near Westwood
Lake where they raised him from age 6 --
and where one entire wall in the Florida
room is dedicated to basketball trophies:
Johnny's, his brothers', his nephews'.
''We made all our boys cut their hair,''
Elena says. It wasn't easy to accept Johnny's
transformation. ''Imagine! Fue un shock.
It's not our music and, well, when he quit
school it broke our hearts. But we have
no complaints about him,'' she is quick
to add. "He is un amor de persona.
He has such a big heart, so idealistic.
He's totally unselfish.
Still, mami sometimes longs for what could
have been had Johnny continued his studies
at Florida International University, where
he majored in hospitality management on
a full basketball scholarship.
''I'd be living in Cocoplum with a 94-foot
yacht,'' Johnny says. "But that's not
my style. I was put here to do something.
Ever since I was a little guy, people were
always attracted to me.
"I decided to use music.''
That decision came on the heels of a gift:
It was during his FIU days -- when he also
spent many a night at the Rat Skeller, studying
beer bottle labels -- that his girlfriend
of the time bought him a set of drums that
changed his life. They were metallic blue.
He painted them red, green and yellow.
So even if he keeps having to moonlight
in the daytime as a landscaper or sell parking
lot Christmas trees in December between
paying gigs, that's OK, too. It's all part
of his journey. "My own personal mission,
yeah, to teach.''
That mission takes him to the Montreal
Reggae Festival in June and, possibly, a
concert next month in Nigeria in a conscious
attempt to take Johnny's message global.
Locally, the journey took him recently
to Q Lounge in Aventura and La Covacha on
a recent Saturday, where more than 100 black-clad
salsa lovers boogied to his roots rhythm.
''What people don't know is that Hispanics
looooooove reggae,'' Johnny says.
In fact, many of Johnny's efforts these
days are concentrated in that arena. He
has just returned from his second South
American tour, two concerts in Lima, Peru.
He has done Venezuela and Costa Rica, where
3,000 people waited hours on a soccer field
for him.
A posting to his website from Caracas calls
him el máximo and asks when he'll
return to Venezuela.
''This is my job now,'' Johnny says again,
referring to his music and the ties it has
to Rastafarianism, of which he is a devout
follower. "To spread the word to the
Latin American people. It's where I'm falling
into place.''
Not that Johnny wouldn't love a fat, juicy
record deal and sold-out shows along the
east coast. It would mean his message was
getting a wider audience. But it would also
mean he could keep paying the mortgage and
the hefty tuition for Herizen, 7, to go
to the Waldorf International School in Palmetto
Bay. Johnny is a devoted dad who drives
his oldest daughter 25 ½ miles to
school every morning -- no matter how late
the gig ran the night before -- in a beat-up
Mitsubishi in dire need of repairs.
DIVINE INSPIRATION
As could be expected, Bob Marley was part
of the inspiration.
But another part, he says, is his love
of Christ, something he traces back to his
elementary classes at the Jesú school
in downtown Miami.
''I loved Christ so much, I had to find
the real story,'' Johnny says. "I knew
it was heavier than the Dallas Cowboys or
the New York Knicks or George Washington.
I needed to find out the truth. Why are
we hear on Earth? Why did we go to Catholic
school? Why do we give money when we go
to church? It's a puzzle and they didn't
tell us all the pieces.''
Sometimes, he gets a bit wide-eyed and
his sentences start to run-on as he quotes
obscure biblical passages and tells you
how he and his family are descendants of
the lion of Judah and he talks about the
Rastafari belief that Christ has risen again
already in the form of an African king named
Haile Selassie I.
Like his conversation, his music is marked
by frequent references to the Lamb and pilgrims,
Ethiopia, the Trinity and Judah.
''A judgement time a come, Magnificent
People, Mek we get back to the origin of
Creation,'' he sings in the title track
to Chapter Two -- or capitulo dos -- of
the Book of Revelations.
Gustavo Godoy, a high school buddy who
now helps produce his videos, says Johnny
could not be more sincere about his music,
which he, too, called a mission.
''He believes in his music and his message,''
Godoy, 40, said. "He truly believes
he was put here to get across his views.
"I think he's already succeeded. I
don't think he knows that, but he's succeeded
in what he's wanted to do.''
Castro won't attend European-Latin American
summit
By KAREN BROOKS, Knight
Ridder Newspapers. Posted on Thu, May. 27,
2004
GUADALAJARA, Mexico - Mexico and Cuba are
likely to return their ambassadors to their
posts soon, Mexican President Vicente Fox
and the foreign ministers of Cuba and Mexico
announced Thursday, only hours after Cuban
President Fidel Castro angrily said he wouldn't
attend a European-Latin American summit
here.
"There is more talking to do"
before the two nations' ambassadors will
head back to their jobs, Fox said, "but
the attitude on both sides is very positive."
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque
and Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto
Derbez both said their Thursday morning
face-to-face meeting was fruitful and positive,
and that a visit by Derbez to Havana was
likely in the next few weeks.
"This meeting was the first step,"
Derbez said. "We agreed that our primary
objective is the normalization of our relationship."
Mexico recalled its ambassador from Cuba
last month and ordered the Cuban ambassador
in Mexico City to go home after Cuba charged
that Mexico was taking orders from the United
States when it voted to condemn Cuba's human
rights record in the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights meeting in Geneva. It was the
most serious breach between the two countries
in decades.
In a statement delivered early Thursday,
Castro cited Mexico's expulsion of the Cuban
ambassador as well as the Human Rights commission
vote to explain his decision to skip the
summit. The summit brings together representatives
of 58 nations from Europe, Latin America
and the Caribbean.
Castro also criticized the "shameful
compliance and treason against Cuba of various
governments of Latin America" for their
support of the latest round of U.S. sanctions
against Cuba, which include restrictions
on the $1.2 billion in remittances sent
to Cuba each year.
In a "Message to the Mexican people"
sent from Havana, Castro blamed the European
Union for economic policies that cause "underdevelopment
and misery" in Latin America. He also
condemned the EU for its refusal to say
"not even one word" to condemn
the continued U.S. presence at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, where the United States maintains
a prison camp for suspected terrorists.
He called the summit "purely ceremonial"
with no room for "free debate"
and no tolerance for dissident views.
"I don't even dream that the European
Union will accept the denunciations of the
assassinations, mistreatments and humiliations
that have been committed against countless
Mexicans, Latin Americans in general and
Caribbean people who try to escape the underdevelopment
and misery imposed on them by the international
economic order, plundering and genocide
that today reigns in the world, which also
benefits (the EU)," the statement said.
Castro clearly was still angered by a 2002
incident in which Fox asked him to leave
a U.N. summit in Monterrey, Mexico, before
President Bush arrived. In his statement,
he referred to his "bitter experience"
in Monterrey as proof that "conditions
do not exist for a visit by me ... to result
in anything constructive."
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