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Archive: 2/1/03 - 2/15/03
Fidel Castro Ruz, en la clausura del Congreso Pedagogía 2003 2/15/03 Consejo de Estado, Cuba
Fidel Castro Ruz, at the closing session of the Pedagogy 2003 Conference, 2/7/03 2/15/03 Council of State, Cuba: an important speech on racism in Cuba, given on 2/7/03. A hot topic in Cuba for those who know about it. " - From a BBC article on the speech: "Many blacks think that this is a historic speech and that the Cuban press has not given it the same exposure as they have the president's other speeches."
A Voyage to Cuba - Humanitarian supplies delivered from St. Augustine 2/15/03 St. Augustine Record: "Record Editor Brian Thompson traveled along with the St. Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association on their recent 14-day delegation to Cuba. Today is the first story in a series that will also continue next weekend. Tomorrow will focus on the group's humanitarian work in Baracoa, Cuba's oldest city."
Nominee for USCSCA BOARD, Region 4: Carol Cross, Redwood City, CA - Santiago de Cuba 2/15/03 USCSCA
Discount for terrorists - Florida Justice 2/14/03 Granma: "Miami-Dade County Judge José Rodríguez abruptly and suspiciously reduced Calatayud’s bond from the $200,000 originally set at the time of his arrest to $50,000 USD, thanks to the pharmacy owner’s lawyer arguing that his client had insufficient resources… A felony charge of this magnitude is extremely serious and could earn him 30 years in jail plus a $100,000 USD fine. Calatayud is simultaneously accused of defrauding Medicaid, which could cost him various years in prison and a fine of tens of thousands of dollars.
The pharmacy owner, not the pharmacist as the Miami press would have it, also owns La Primera Farmacia Latina, on 300 SW 107th Avenue in Miami. He lives in a luxurious residence on 14232 SW 21 Terrace. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that he has considerable financial resources and could take on board any important financial need." Details follow on Calatayud's career as terrorist, his associations with Posada Carilles and numerous other terrorists.
They are trying to do the same in Atlanta as they did in Miami 2/14/03 Granma: "• Ricardo Alarcón’s evaluates the U.S.‘ latest legal decisions on the Five Cubans imprisoned in the empire • U.S. government is doing all it can to bury the case"
Effort to weaken embargo of Cuba is axed from bill 2/14/03 Miami Herald: "The White House succeeded in stripping language to weaken the U.S. embargo of Cuba from a massive spending bill making its final passage through Congress, a Miami legislator said Thursday.
Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart credited President Bush and his threat last week to veto the entire $397 billion spending bill if legislators dismantled any part of the four-decade-old embargo." Diaz-Balart is related to Castro's first wife, their family is now tightly linked to the narcoterrorists in Miami.
Cuba: Drugs Shatter the Crystal Urn 2/14/03 Radio Progresso, Miami
Interview with Ricardo Alarcon By Saul Landau 2/14/03 Radio Progresso, Miami
Director Stone Shows Human Side of Cuba's Castro 2/14/03 Reuters
Advierten sobre racismo en Cuba 2/13/03 BBC Mundo: "Los negros cubanos viven en peores casas, tienen los trabajos más duros y menos remunerados y, por si esto fuera poco, reciben entre 5 y 6 veces menos remesas familiares que sus compatriotas blancos.
Por primera vez, el propio presidente de Cuba, Fidel Castro, reconoció en un discurso que la revolución no había logrado erradicar "las diferencias en el estatus social y económico de la población negra del país".
Muchos negros piensan que se trata de un discurso histórico y se quejan de que los medios de prensa no le han dado la difusión que tienen las demás intervenciones públicas del presidente cubano. Incluso disidentes negros saludaron este discurso. "Es interesante que el presidente cubano haya reconocido que hay racismo, porque existen muchos que pretenden ocultarlo", dijo Manuel Cuesta, uno de estos disidentes."
The Anti-War Movement and the Five Cuban Prisoners 2/13/03 Radio Progresso, Cuba: "The Anti-War Movement is calling for February 15th and 16th anti-war demonstrations. It is very important to raise the issue of the Five Cubans unfairly incarcerated in U.S. prisions because they were condemned for their fighting against terrorists that are freely operating right now on U.S. territory protected by the U.S. Government (see below).
This case should be denounced in speeches to be delivered at those gatherings. Special references should be made in support of the Motion for a new trial introduced by Defense Attorney Leonard Weinglass last November and the ominous silence of the big media about this case as well as to the denial of permits to Gerardo and Rene wives to visit them."
Cuban exiles shifting hard-line position 2/12/03 Miami Herald: "In a marked shift away from hard-line positions, a majority of Cuban Americans in South Florida say they support dialogue with Cuban government officials and believe that dissidents on the island are more important than exiles to Cuba's political future, according to two polls released Tuesday on a range of Cuba-related topics.
More than half of South Florida's Cubans support recent efforts at dialogue between exiles and Cuban government officials, according to a poll commissioned by The Herald.
And nearly 70 percent of Cuban Americans believe dissidents in Cuba play a more important role in a democratic transition than exile leaders, according to another, unrelated survey conducted for the Cuba Study Group, an organization of prominent Cuban Americans."
The Next "Peace" Protest Will Be Brought to You By a Castro Groupie 2/11/03 FrontPage: "Yet a February 4 New York Times puff piece benignly heralded Cagan as "one of the grandes dames of the country’s progressive movement," a woman whose "organizational skills are prodigious." Predictably, there was no mention that Cagan has consistently lavished praise upon Castro’s Cuba, which she considers a far better place than the United States. During her seven years as director of the Cuba Information Project, she led numerous demonstrations demanding that the US end its economic embargo of, and travel ban to, Cuba. "In the winter of 1969-70," Cagan fondly recalls, "I spent over two months with the First Venceremos Brigade in Cuba. Just ten years into their revolution, the Cubans had taken control of their history. . . . While we were in Cuba, Fred Hampton and other Chicago Black Panthers were murdered. It was a shocking reminder of the brutality and power of the US government, and there we were in Cuba, a whole nation under attack from the US."
An exceptional reference book 2/11/03 Granma: "The expert also calls attention to the little-known case of Rolando Eusebio Hernández, a Cuban-American terrorist who, in the 1970’s, detonated seven bombs in one day against the U.S. military in Miami, in addition to his sinister record of committing some 30 terrorist attacks in only a few years.
When Hernández was detained, the U.S. legal authorities ordered his trial to take place in Jacksonville and not in Miami because they considered it would have been impossible to prevent the émigré Mafia from intervening in the trial and thus spoiling the chances for this dangerous criminal’s conviction.
This is exactly the opposite of what happened with the five Cubans currently imprisoned in the United States after a rigged trial held in Miami in the presence of Mafia elements and with prosecution and the FBI’s certainty that the trial could be manipulated to their liking."
Alabama Delegation: Cuba to Buy Products 2/10/03 AP: "Cuba's food import company pledged to buy $10 million in agricultural products from Alabama in a move to revive historic trade ties with the southern state, members of a delegation said Monday.
Alabama Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley said that Pedro Alvarez of Alimport asked the delegation over the weekend to work with Alabama producers in drawing up a list of farm products."
Alabama group says Cuba to buy $10 million in state farm products 2/10/03 AP: "Mobile Mayor Michael C. Dow, who has visited Cuba numerous times in recent years through the Mobile-Havana Sister City program, said the two ports share a history of more than three centuries.
"We want the trade back, the ability to travel freely," said Dow. "We want Alabama to once again be a good friend of Cuba."
U.S. returns patrol boat used by Cuban coast guardsmen to defect 2/10/03 AP: "The United States has returned the patrol boat used by four Cuban coast guardsmen to flee the island nation and defect in Key West last week, U.S. officials said Monday.
The U.S. Coast Guard turned over the boat to Cuban officials at a meeting point in waters near the island nation Sunday afternoon, said Dan Dewell, a Coast Guard spokesman in Washington." Unlike the plane a Miami judge ordered sold to satisfy extravagant judgments.
Anti-drug raids snare self-employed tradesmen 2/10/03 Cubanet: "Inevitably, the thorough searches police have been conducting have exposed people like Oscar Font, who had set up a small carpentry and upholstery shop at his home in the Playa municipality of Havana and made a living repairing furniture. Since any such independent activity is illegal in Cuba, Font's tools and materials were confiscated.
Similarly, police have confiscated merchandise from street vendors, and videotapes from the homes of people who rent them to their neighbors for a fee. The tapes are typically recorded off satellite signals, intercepted by home-made antennas, which are themselves also illegal."
Frometal Jacket: The Extreme Idealism of F-4 Commander Rodolfo Frometa 2/9/03 AntiTerroristas.cu: "This article from the Miami New Times is written by someone who is hardly a friend of Cuba but who nevertheless cannot help but be amazed at the overt nature in which the Miami terrorist Adolfo Frómeta proudly acknowledges an assassination attempt his group, Comandos F-4, is supposed to have carried out in Cuba recently."
First Cuba flight from Mobile in 43 years takes city, state group 2/9/03 AP: "A group of local and state officials were in Havana over the weekend, including Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley and Retirement Systems of Alabama chief David Bronner, who is researching whether the bankrupt US Airways should begin flights to the island.
RSA is a majority owner of US Airways… The Havana trip included Mobile Mayor Mike Dow and Al St. Clair, the Alabama port city's special projects director, joined by Baxley, Bronner and others on two chartered flights organized by Mobile-based Ala Caribe Initiative Inc. These were the first direct flights from Mobile to Cuba in over 43 years… Mobile City Council member Stephen Nodine, a critic of ties with Cuba, said this trip should be secondary to more immediate concerns. "Our city's budget is $1.5 million short and is probably going to end up being $6 to 7 million in the hole," Nodine said. "I think it's imperative for the mayor to focus on our problems here in Mobile." Nodine said he thinks Cuba is broke and the city should not be engaging the communist regime and its leader, Fidel Castro. Some Mobilians have been courting better relations with Cuba for the last decade. The Society Mobile-La Habana, a sister-cities group, was created in 1993, and ties with Havana were sealed in 1994 when Dow made his first visit."
Operation Northwoods: supporting material 2/7/03 AfroCubaWeb: "Operation Northwoods was a plan by the highest US military authorities to create a series of incidents involving loss of American and Cuban exile lives through the actions of phony Cubans in order to persuade the US public to go to war against Cuba… We present here this document (pdf, 778kb) as well as a body of ancillary supporting documents, not to our knowledge available on the web in one place. We also trace the careers of some of the participants in the development of this plan, for they all had interesting prior and subsequent histories."
Historical research that reads like a novel 2/7/03 Granma: "ITALIAN Piero Gleijeses is professor of Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies at John Hopkins University in the United States. He is also a researcher. These two aspects led the historian to ask himself several years ago why Cuba became involved in Africa; the answer to that question is Conflicting Missions. Havana, Washington y Africa. 1959-1976… For General Harry Villegas — known among Che’s guerrilla as "El Pombo" — presenting Gleijeses’ book at the Havana Book Fair is an almost family event. "I’ve met half my guerrilla group, including Víctor Dreke, Urbano, and friends from the Congo and Angola because of this book."
Rumsfeld puts Germany with Libya and Cuba 2/6/03 Deutsche Welle: "U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has put Germany together in the same category as Libya and Cuba as countries which have ruled out any role in a possible war on Iraq or in post-war reconstruction. Rumsfeld, testifying to Congress on Wednesday, said the trio had indicated that they would not help "in any respect." The German government has declined official comment on the remarks, but the general secretary of the ruling Social Democrats, Olaf Scholz, rejected them as "rubbish" and irritating."
French minister for cooperation in Havana 2/6/03 Granma: "He mentioned that there are already "important cooperative relations" between the two nations and that Cuba, along with Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Surinam form part of France’s so-called "priority solidarity zone."
Frometal Jacket 2/6/03 Miami New Times: "The extreme idealism of F-4 commander Rodolfo Frometa"
Americano leads group to Cuban sister-city 2/6/03 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The Cuban city of Nuevitas, a coastal town north of Camaguey, and Milwaukee are now officially sister cities. The formal agreement pairing the two was signed recently in Nuevitas. A delegation of 20 Milwaukeeans made the journey to sign the agreement. They included Daisy Cubias, a staff assistant to Mayor John O. Norquist; south side Ald. Angel Sanchez; and Ernesto Baca, a member of the Milwaukee Police and Fire Commission. RAUL GALVAN, manager of program production for WMVS-TV (Channel 10) and WMVT-TV (Channel 36) and head of the Milwaukee Nuevitas Association, left Cuba at 10. He headed the local contingency and spoke upon his return to reporter Georgia Pabst."
Cuba: Government Takes Scalpel To Medical System 2/6/03 Znet: "Basically, the reorganisation will mean that neighbourhood health clinics will once again provide a range of services that had gradually stopped being offered in the past 10 years, in order to turn them into ''centres of primary health care of the highest quality.''
The clinics will be furnished with ultrasound, x-ray, optometry, traumatology, ophthalmology, electro-cardiology and physical rehabilitation equipment."
Brothers to the Rescue halts search flights 2/5/03 Knight Ridder: "After 12 years and thousands of missions, Brothers to the Rescue is suspending its search-and-rescue flights, its mission made almost obsolete by smugglers' speedboats and changes in U.S. immigration policy."
Mobile family's money promotes UA-Cuba ties 2/5/03 Mobile Register: "A stream of University of Alabama students could soon be studying in Cuba, thanks in part to $50,000 from Mobile's Cooper family.
An 18-person group of professors and administrators made a five-day trip to Cuba last month, in an effort to set up ties with Cuban universities and other institutions. The donation from the Coopers, leaders of the Mobile stevedoring firm CoopeT. Smith Corp., helped pay for the recent trip, and will finance future exchanges."
Hear a Report-Back from Historic Sister County Ceremony: Friday, February 28, 7 p.m. 2/5/03 USCSCA: the first US Sister County deal was inked Jan 16, 2003 between Santa Cruz County and Guama, Cuba.
Terrorists Are On the Run - Some Away from Bush, Others Toward His Nurturing Arms 2/4/03 Counterpunch: "But a photograph showed a lesser terrorist actually sharing the platform with President Bush. According to a former, federal law enforcement official, the Prez must have told the Secret Service to find a seat for "that good old boy."
This referred to Sixto Reinaldo Aquit Manrique (aka El Chino Aquit). The Secret Service apparently seated Aquit, arrested in Florida in 1994, a few rows behind the President as he spoke… "There's no way the Secret Service didn't know that the man had been busted for a terrorist rap," the former federal police officer said. Indeed, the Miami Herald (Nov 4, 1994), on November 2, 1994, reported that the FBI anti-terrorism squad nailed Aquit after he and two colleagues had "pulled up to a Southwest Dade warehouse...armed with 10 gallons of gas, fuses, and a loaded semiautomatic handgun." The story cited police saying "the men smashed a window and tried to get inside before officers moved in."
Miami Herald reporter Gail Epstein cited FBI Special Agent Paul Miller of the FBI's Terrorism Task Force who said "there was enough fuel to destroy several warehouses." The warehouse stored supplies for the Pastors for Peace who intended to ship them to Cuba. In 1993, according to Cuban authorities, Aquit fired a 50 caliber machine gun at a Cypriot tanker in Cuban waters off the province of Matanzas. The UN Rapporteur cited this event in his 1994 annual report on human rights in Cuba.
Aquit proudly claims membership in the anti-Castro Secret Armed Army. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to five years by a Florida court. But, according to El Nuevo Herald reporter Cynthia Corzo, the state office of the public prosecutor let Aquit and his terrorist co-conspirators off with two years of house arrest (allowing them to go to work, church or to the market) followed by three years of probation and an additional 150 hours of community service."
Sisters in cinema 2/4/03 News Tribune, Tacoma, WA: "Two distinctive wrinkles set the new festival apart from its forerunner. Before each screening, food from the film's country of origin will be served in the Blue Mouse lobby. For example, a catered traditional Cuban meal of rice, black beans and tortilla espangnola is on the menu for the evening of March 20, when "Buena Vista Social Club" will be shown, Petrich said.
The food will be served with a side dish of cultural events. A Cuban band will be on hand, and there might even be salsa dancing in the lobby before the showing of "Buena Vista Social Club," said Frances Lorenz of the Cienfuegos, Cuba, Sister City Committee."
Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture to Lead Delegation to U.S.-Cuba Business Conference in February 2/4/03 PRN
Cuba offers its condolences to the people and government of the United States 2/3/03 Granma
MIAMI IN SHOCK - Leader of anti-Chávez march arrested on fraud charges 2/3/03 Granma: nice bio - "El Nuevo Herald failed to mention Calatayud’s previous record in illicitly approving funds. As far back as 1978, in cahoots with Miami terrorists Rafael, Raúl Villaverde Lamadrid, Pedro Lucas Roig and Antonio de la Cova, he was investigated for embezzling Medicaid.
As a member of the terrorist organization RECE, founded and funded by the Bacardí Company and the CIA, Calatayud, a veteran of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, participated in various terrorist conspiracies alongside then-CIA operative Jorge Mas Canosa. From the outset he actively participated in terrorist activities with characters like Luis Posada Carriles, currently in prison in Panama, and Orlando Bosch, who presently resides in Miami.
In 1973, Calatayud organized a plan to sabotage the Cuban Embassy in Paris, France. The plot failed in light of the explosive device killing terrorist Juan Felipe de la Cruz as he was activating it.
The Miami swindler also actively participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro during a visit to Mexico. He personally hired Mexican resident and "veteran" mercenary Manuel Camargo to check out the airport and other places of interest in the Mexican capital for the express purpose of planning the failed attempt.
Calatayud later directed the Cuban Independence Party, a hard-line terrorist group out of South Florida. During the 1990s he was information chief of WQBA La Cubanisima radio station. He ultimately headed "Project Cuba," appointing himself general director of the organization.
Various sources confirm that Calatayud ordered and directed the bombing of the Cuban Commercial Office in Montreal, Canada on April 4, 1972, causing the death of a young Cuban diplomat, Sergio Pérez Castillo."
Essence of the Mas Santos Interview was Discarded 2/2/03 Radio Progresso, Miami: "But it shows that for more than a decade the Mas Canosa business empire has been aware that the only way to play in Cuba – the way they’d like to with green-backed George Washingtons, Lincolns and Franklins – is through Fidel.
And if my instinct is right, Fidel is the one who wants no part of them."
Rural principals for conference in Cuba 2/1/03 Observer, Jamaica: "THIRTEEN principals from rural schools have been selected to attend an international education conference in Cuba from February 2 to 8.
Project manager for the Jamaica All-age Schools Project (JAASP), Patricia Johnson, said the main objective of the conference was to expose the principals to another education system within the Caribbean region, and to see what lessons could be integrated into the Jamaican system."
Cuba Working Group (Universities) 2/1/03 Social Science Research Council
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