Spanish
HAVANA,
November 30
CHEMICAL
MISHAP IN “SUCHEL CAMCHO” (CAMCO’s
Department of Engineers)
A
chemical accident in the early morning hours of November 18 at
the "Suchel Camacho" laboratories endangered personal
safety at the lab. The workers complained that the company does
not guarantee them the means of protection required by their activities.
The
laboratory, located in the Cerro municipality of Havana, exhibits
high toxicity and environmental pollution index. It releases toxic
gases into adjoining areas, where there are four hospitals, two
children's hospitals and one middle school. Residents have conveyed
to the authorities their wish that the lab be moved to a distant
place where the risk of toxicity can be minimized.
HAVANA,
November 30
SCHOOL
SURROUNDED BY BLOCKED UP SEWER DRAINS (CAMCO’s
Department of Engineers)
The
"General Emilio Núñez" primary school
in Old Havana is surrounded by fifty-two sewer drains which have
been blocked up for years and by six more that are barely functional.
Whenever
it rains, the area floods for hours, so that the students have
to wade through the water to get into and out of the school. The
situation is made worse by sporadic trash pick-ups, which cause
trash to float away with the flooding waters.
HAVANA,
November 29
AT
LEAST SOMEBODY IS LAUGHING
The U.S. government's long-time communist foe -- Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro -- gloated Monday over the spectacle of rival candidates
Al Gore and George W. Bush squabbling over Florida votes for the
keys to the White House.
"Look at the disaster going on in the
United States," Castro said with a chuckle. "We've been laughing
for I don't know how long at what's going on! It's chaos, that
model of democracy." Castro sought to present to his people
the confused aftermath of the U.S. presidential election as evidence
of the failure of Western-style democracy.
His own one-party Communist system
has long been condemned as a dictatorship by Washington, and both
Democrat Gore and Republican Bush have pledged during their campaigns
to keep pressure up on Castro should they win the presidency.
The 74-year-old Cuban dictator
has called both candidates the most "boring and insipid"
ever to stand in a U.S. election. "It's a disaster. Neoliberalism
is in crisis," added Castro.
HAVANA, November 29
CASTRO UPS ANTE IN POSADA
CASE. SWIPES SPAIN
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, in an escalating political campaign over
the case of Luis
Posada Carriles, an anti-Castro Cuban exile captured in Panama, led a protest on Saturday
at which he blasted the leaders of El Salvador, Mexico and Spain.
"Spain is the emerging European
economic power in Latin America which is sometimes useful against
the voracity of the North, but its political leadership behaves
with obvious inclination towards arrogance," said Castro,
in reference to Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar.
His views were echoed by speaker after speaker at the anti-American
rally -- a weekly political activity that takes place in a different
location every Saturday.
MIAMI, November 29
FAMILY OF FIVE CROSSES FLORIDA
STRAITS UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS
A
Cuban family dropped off the coast of Virginia Key in a pre-dawn
smuggling operation Monday said they fled the communist island
because they could not afford medical care for their eldest daughter,
who has a congenital heart defect.
Miguel Gorayeb, 50, an architect who said he spent 10 years
working for Cuba's nuclear power plant, and his wife, Ana Amelia
Pérez, 35, a former supermarket clerk, said their daughter
was referred to a medical clinic that normally treats foreigners.
“I
would need to pay $15,000 if I wanted to have her operated on
again,'' Pérez said. ``That is why I left Cuba.''
The trip was still costly: They paid a smuggler all of
their material possessions -- including a car, color television,
refrigerator and clothes washer -- in addition to $5,000 cash.
Louris
Gorayeb, 13, was born with part of a heart valve missing, her
parents said. Making matters worse, her parents said, Dr. Luis
Arango, one of the doctors who had overseen Louris' treatment
at the William Soler Pediatric Hospital in Havana since she was
an infant, defected earlier this year.
LAS
TUNAS, November 28
TRAVELING FROM LAS TUNAS TO HAVANA (CAMCO’s
Department of Engineers)
A
trip from Las Tunas in eastern Cuba to Havana should take no more
than 12 hours. However, finding transportation to make the trip
could take considerably longer.
To
buy a bus ticket, would-be-travelers
get on a list 30 days in advance. If the need to travel arises
unanticipated, such as a family emergency, then the hapless traveler
places his name on a waiting list, hoping someone with a reservation
drops out. If he has some ready cash, for 150 pesos he may be
able to negotiate a seat on one of three buses making the trip.
The
procedure for buying a train ticket is different. It involves
signing up 15 days in advance and confirming your interest every
day. Here, 150 pesos may also grease your access to one of the
three trains available, the "Especial," the "Hurón
Azul," from Santiago de Cuba, and "El Holguinero,"
from Holguín, farther east. "It’s a nightmare,
brought on by a government that keeps everything constantly in
short supply," said one resident.
PINAR DEL
RIO, November 28
WATERWORKS WILL NOT OPERATE UNTIL IT IS INAUGURATED (CAMCO’s
Department of Engineers)
Hundreds
of residents of the towns of Pincho, Santa Mónica and parts
of the municipality of Los Palacios in Pinar del Río province
lack water in spite of having a newly built waterworks at their
disposal.
The
Water Authority, the agency in charge of bringing the new waterworks
on line, said they don’t have the fuel necessary to bring
officials together to inaugurate the pumping station.
Engineer Pedro
Pablo Hernández Mijares, of the Unitary Council of Cuban
Workers, said that residents got their water in tank trucks sent
by the Cubanacán rice company, but that once the waterworks
was finished two months ago, the company stopped sending the trucks
for "lack of resources, especially fuel." In the meantime,
residents have been left to their own devices, procuring and carrying
water by their own means.
HAVANA, November 27
GRANMA REPORTS CLINTON-CASTRO
SHARE INFORMATION ON CUBAN EXILE GROUPS' ACTIVITIES
Different
from his predecessors, President Clinton has paid close attention
to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s complaints about Cuban exile
individuals or groups based in the United States.
“There is no doubt that the Clinton Administration
has paid the necessary attention to Cuba’s complaints,”
said Granma. “His attitude has been very different than that
of previous U.S. administrations.
An important document recently declassified
by the Cuban government was made public by the communist newspaper
Granma on November 23. It summarizes a message from Castro to
be confidentially transmitted to Bill Clinton by Colombian writer
Gabriel García Márquez on April 18, 1998.
During the meeting,
the Colombian writer alerted Clinton of “terrorist incursions
into Cuban tourist installations...” Granma confirms “U.S.
police and intelligence agencies share information with Cuba on
Cuban exile groups located in the United States.”
According to Granma, “Other matters”
were discussed in "another wide-ranging meeting" on
May 7, 1998, between García Márquez and U.S. senior
officials, specialists and presidential advisers. “Two days
later,” the paper said, “the acting head of the U.S.
Interest Section in Havana handed over a message to the Cuban
authorities acknowledging the information from the Cuban government…”
On May 11, a State Department official, "among
other things," ratified to the head of the Cuban Interests
Section in Washington, a “willingness to work together.”
As a result, President
Clinton instructed a delegation, headed by a high level official
from the FBI, to travel to Cuba where they were given ample information
by Cuban authorities. However, the delegation’s arrival in
Havana was immediately met by protest from Cuban-American members
of U.S. Congress and “they prevented Clinton’s instructions
from having any effect,”Granma said.
MEXICO, November 26
MEXICO DECLINES COMMENTS ON CASTRO’S FIERCE
ATTACK AGAINST PRESIDENT ZEDILLO
The Mexican government declined to comment on
fierce criticism of President Ernesto Zedillo from Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro. Castro accused the Mexican president of kowtowing
to the United States. The Mexican Foreign Ministry, "out
of courtesy," did not respond at all to Castro's comments,
saying he would be visiting the country for Friday's inauguration
of President-elect Vicente Fox.
Castro blasted the leaders of Mexico, El Salvador
and Spain. The Castro
blamed Spain for "cooking up in advance," with El Salvador
and Mexico, a "hypocritical" terrorism motion condemning
Basque separatist group ETA at the X Summit.
Castro said the terrorism motion in Panama was
seconded by "the president of a different Mexico, now ruled
by the interests, principles and commitments imposed by the free
trade agreement with the north." Castro said the condemnation
should have been broader to include Washington's negative attitude
toward communist Cuba. The dictator once accused Mexicans of being
more familiar with Mickey Mouse than they were of their own history.
PANAMA CITY, November 25
PLOTTERS SOUGHT TO DOWN CUBAN
DICTATOR’S PLANE, CUBA SAYS
Cuban
officials claim that three Cuban Americans arrested here last
in Panamá with Luis Posada Carriles planned to shoot down
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's plane with two surface-to-air missiles
and are demanding to know why Panamanian police haven't been able
to find the weapons.
“The
Cubans are pressuring us, pressuring us hard, saying, ‘Where
are these things? a Panamanian security official said. “But
so far we haven't come up with them…All we've got so far
is the Cubans' word for it,'' he said.
The Cuban government revealed that it has asked
for the extradition of all four men. However, a Panamanian spokesman,
citing his government’s difficulties getting Castro to surrender
fugitives from Panamanian justice who have sought refuge in Havana,
said no one would be extradited to Cuba.
Cuba, the official noted, has for years rejected all requests
to send accused Panamanian criminals home, including two former
captains in Gen. Manuel Noriega's army accused of murdering fellow
officers who plotted a coup against him.
“We've asked and asked, and they just ignore us,''
said the official. ``It has to be a two-way street.
''WASHINGTON, D.C., November 21
SENATOR HELMS WANTS HOTELIERS’ VISAS
REVOKED
Senator Jesse Helms is calling on the State
Department to revoke the visas of officers and directors of a
Spanish hotel company on grounds that the firm is operating in
Cuba on property confiscated from U.S. nationals. Helms, chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued his appeal in
a letter last Thursday to Thomas Pickering, the State Department's
third ranking official.
Helms said the Spanish hotel company Grupo Sol
Meliá has violated a U.S. law Helms co-authored in 1996
to punish foreign companies that operate on properties seized
by Cuba from their American owners. The letter says that Grupo
Sol Meliá “knowing and willfully'' has been operating
on property taken from U.S. nationals who owned an enterprise
called Central Santa Lucia. Grupo Sol Meliá is the largest
hotelier in Cuba. Its holdings include many of the most luxurious
hotels on the island.
Helms also said the alleged activities of Grupo
Sol Meliá is known to State Department officials who have
been investigating whether there were any violations of the 1996
law. “As such, the State Department is required by the 'Libertad'
act to notify officers and directors of Grupo Sol Meliá
that, after a 45-day period, they will forfeit their U.S. visas
and be excluded from the United States,'' Helms wrote.
COSTA RICA, November 21
INCREDIBLE! AZNAR SAID: CUBA-SPAIN RELATIONS
WILL NOT BE AFFECTED DESPITE CASTRO’S SUPPORT OF ETA TERRORISTS
Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar said Cuban
President Fidel Castro's refusal to condemn Basque terrorism would
not affect bilateral relations that have been underpinned for
decades by Spanish investment in the communist island and undermined
the U.S. economic embargo to the island. With the exception of
the Cuban dictator, all Latin American presidents signed the declaration.
At a news conference Monday, journalists questioned
Aznar about Castro's refusal Saturday to sign a declaration at
the 10th Ibero-American summit condemning "terrorism"
in Spain by the Basque separatist group ETA. "It is a very
serious position to take, but the relations between our two countries
will remain the same," replied Aznar, who was concluding
a two-day visit to Costa Rica after attending the summit in Panama
Friday and Saturday.
PANAMA CITY, November 21
PANAMA CONSIDERS PRESSING CHARGES
AGAINST LUIS POSADA CARRILES
Panamanian authorities said Monday they would
consider pressing charges against a group of Cuban exiles detained
in connection with an alleged plot to kill Cuban dictator President
Fidel Castro. Panama might also have to weigh extradition requests
from Cuba and Venezuela for Luis Posada Carriles.
Panama's government handed the case to the district
attorney's office to decide whether to press charges against the
four Cuban exiles. Some of them apparently had entered the country
with false documents.
Cuba has said Panamanian security forces on
Sunday seized plastic explosives from Posada Carriles' driver,
as well as a map of the University of Panama, where Castro addressed
hundreds of students over the weekend.
JAPAN, November 21
JAPAN ASKS CUBA TO IMPROVE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION
Japan asked Cuba to improve its human rights
situation to ease relations with the United States, a Japanese
Foreign Ministry official said. Foreign Minister Yohei Kono made
the request in a meeting in Tokyo with Ricardo Alarcón,
president of the Cuban legislature. ''There needs to be a reason
for the U.S. to change its policies toward Cuba, and one such
reason may be created if there are advances made in the protection
of human rights in Cuba,'' Kono said.
Alarcón said Cuba's poor relationship
with the U.S. was a result of such issues, but added that their
differences in opinion also come from a gap in political philosophy
and interpretation. Alarcón also requested more investment
from Japan into Cuba, saying the economic environment is ready
but Japan has not contributed as much as it could.
PANAMA
CITY, November 21
CUBA SEEKS CUSTODY OF LUIS POSADA CARRILES –
HE WOULD FACE A DEATH SENTENCE
Cuban
dictator Fidel Castro has formally asked Panamá to extradite
Luis Posada Carriles to Cuba. Posada Carriles faces a death sentence
after being convicted in absentia for the 1976 bombing of a Cubana
Airlines plane that killed 73 people. He has always denied any
participation in that terrorist act.
The
extradition request, accusing Posada Carriles of 16 specific terrorist
acts, was presented Saturday night in a diplomatic note from Cuban
Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque. Meanwhile, Venezuelan
officials said they would make a formal extradition request for
Posada Carriles today. The Cuban exile fled
prison in San Juan de los Morros, Venezuela, in
1985 disguised as a priest, while awaiting a third trial on charges
for the bombing after he had been acquitted twice before. “He's
a fugitive from justice,'' Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
said.
Castro said Cuba “has the first claim''
on Posada Carriles. “We'll defend that right up to the end,''
the Cuban dictator said at a press conference late Saturday night.
PANAMA CITY, November 20
CASTRO
DEMANDS THE CREATION OF A LATIN AMERICAN TRIBUNAL TO TRY POSADA
CARRILES
The Cuban dictator Fidel Castro demanded the
creation of a Latin American tribunal to try Luis Posada Carriles,
the Cuban exile who was arrested on Friday for supposedly planning
to kill him.
Castro
announced at a news conference in Panamá City that Cuba
will ask for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles and three
other Cuban exiles detained by Panamanian police. He said the
men should be tried in Cuba because they had been plotting to
overthrow his government, and were Cuban citizens.
At the same news conference, Panama Foreign
minister, Jose Miguel Alemán, said Venezuela officials
also intend to seek the extradition of Posada, the group's alleged
leader, who escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985.
According to a source from the Attorney General
office, Panamá and Venezuela had signed an extradition
agreement but it relates only to drug trafficking cases.
PANAMA CITY, November 20
FLORES AND CASTRO QUARRELED DURING
THE IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT
A dispute over a resolution against terrorism
spiraled into an argument drenched in civil-war bitterness, as
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the President of El Salvador,
Francisco Flores, hurled allegations at the close of the Ibero-American
Summit on Saturday.
Castro was upset because of an anti-terrorism
measure sponsored by El Salvador and Mexico and said that it showed
sympathy for Spain.
As a result, in the course of the summit debate on terrorism,
the Cuban dictator charged that several nations had cooperated
with or failed to stop Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile that
Castro said was in Panamá to kill him.
Castro said that Posada “comes from El
Salvador, whose government knows perfectly well that he lives
there.'' Flores took Castro’s remarks as an insult, and in
turn accused the Cuban dictator of involvement in the deaths of
“tens of thousands'' of Salvadorans during El Salvador's
civil war, which ended in 1992. Flores said: “What you have
done here is intolerable,'' and charged that Castro held "cruel,
bloody and unacceptable responsibility" for EL Salvador's
12-year civil war that killed around 75,000 people. Castro admitted
training rebels from many countries, saying “we supported
the revolutionary movement and do not repent for that…inter-revolutionary
support is a tradition.''
PANAMA
CITY, November 19
FOUR CUBAN EXILES HELD IN PLOT AGAINST CUBAN
DICTATOR FIDEL CASTRO
Four
Cuban exiles were taken into custody Friday after Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro warned Panamanian authorities that they planned to
assassinate him during the Ibero-American summit here.
Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile identified
by Castro the previous day as the man who wanted to kill him,
was detained along with two Miami residents, Pedro Remón
and Guillermo Novo, both of them former members of the anti-Castro
group Omega 7. A fourth man, identified as Manuel Díaz
on his U.S. passport, was also held. No charges have been filed
against any of the men, said Pablo Quintero, the chief of Panamanian
Intelligence. “President Castro said they were going to kill
him, so we have to check them out and see what they were doing
here,'' Quintero said.
No weapons or explosives
were discovered when the men were picked up Friday afternoon at
a small Panama City hotel. But the “fact that two of the
men have irregularities in their travel documents -- Posada Carriles
was traveling with a Salvadoran passport identifying him as ‘Francisco
Rodríguez Mena’ -- tends to support Castro's
claim that they were plotting against him,” a Panamanian
security officials said.
HAVANA, November 19
THE COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT MAKES CUBANS THIRD-CLASS
CITIZENS
The Group of Four, a prominent Cuban dissident
group published Friday a damning report of society on the Caribbean
island, blaming the totalitarian regime for reducing the Cubans
to the state of third-class citizens.
"A Cuban is a pariah in his own land, a third-class
citizen ... Young people have lost hope in their future, forcing
them to seek ways of leaving Cuba, or even turn to alcohol, drugs
or prostitution …The average Cuban citizen is subject to
tourism apartheid," stated the document.
"The Cuban government doesn't want to acknowledge
that its so-called 'social justice policy' is a failure, and that
it has not fulfilled what it promised the people, turning itself
into a totalitarian regime in order to keep power…The communists
humiliate us," states the document signed by Felix Bonne,
Rene Gomez, and Martha Beatriz Roque.
Soon after releasing a similarly critical document
called "The Fatherland Belongs to All," the three were
jailed in mid- 1997, convicted in 1999 for "inciting sedition."
Early this year, three of them were freed on "conditional
liberty." However, a fourth member of the group, Vladimiro
Roca, remains in prison.
WASHINGTON, D.C. November 19
USA ACCEPTS THAT COMMUNIST CUBA TRAIN FUTURE
AMERICAN DOCTORS
A spokesman from the State Department said Friday
that the department is not objecting to a Cuban proposal to provide
medical training to 500 low-income Americans. Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro offered the medical training at a meeting in Havana last
May with a delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus
The offer is for annual groups of 250 Black
Americans and 250 Hispanics, American Indians and others from
poor families. The State Department official said it is unclear
whether Americans who receive training in Cuba will be able to
meet licensing requirements once they return home. Many Cuban
physicians who fled Cuba for the United States have had difficulty
obtaining permission to practice medicine.
Cuba also proposed sending its own doctors to
poor areas of the United States as part of the overall offer,
but the State Department official said the idea was rejected.
PANAMA CITY, November 18
CASTRO STEALS THE SHOW WITH DEATH PLOT
The king of Spain and Latin America leaders
were in Panama City to attend the Ibero-American summit, but Cuban
dictator Fidel Castro stole the show by alleging that his enemies
had sent armed assassins to murder him.
Castro said Friday that Luis Posada Carriles,
a Cuban exile, led the assassination plot. Hours later, police
detained Posada Carriles and three other Cuban exiles at a Panama
hotel for questioning. The four had apparently arrived in the
country Wednesday, and no guns were found in their possession,
said the chief of police.
Also Friday, Cuba blocked a resolution condemning
terrorism by the Basque separatist organization ETA. Coincidentally,
several ETA members are currently coordinating their terrorist
activities in Spain from Havana City. Minister Felipe Perez Roque
said Cuba considers the issue an internal matter for Spain and
favors a more general condemnation of terrorism.
PANAMA CITY, November 17
IBERO-AMERICAN LEADERS ARRIVE
FOR PANAMA SUMMIT
The first Latin American presidents began gathering
in Panama on Thursday ahead of a keynote summit targeting poverty
that affects almost two-thirds of the region's 200 million children
and teenagers. As
in previous summit, the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s presence
has originated strong protests by the press and democratic organizations—“a
dictator should not be welcomed in a summit of democratically
elected presidents,” the protesters said.
Aside from the theme of childhood, the declaration
-- which is set to be signed by all Latin American leaders including
the Cuban dictator -- sets out a pledge "to promote and defend
democracy ... and political pluralism." Cuba
had signed similar pledges during previous summits, but it seems
that those documents had gone directly to the dictator’s
trashcan as soon as he had arrived in Cuba.
HAVANA, November 17
EXIT PERMIT DENIED TO RAUL RIVERO’S
WIFE
Raúl Rivero, a prominent Cuban dissident
journalist, said on Thursday the island's communist authorities
were refusing to allow his wife to leave the country to visit
her only son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in the United
States. Rivero, a former state journalist who is now a critic
of President Fidel Castro's government believes the refusal to
grant his wife, Blanca Reyes, an exit permit was a deliberate
move to harass him and his family.
"I think it's to isolate me, to pressure
me," he said. Rivero
said his wife waited more than 50 days for a reply after requesting
permission to travel to Miami to visit her only son, her daughter-in-law
and two granddaughters. Havana immigration officials told Reyes
on Thursday that her request had been refused "indefinitely."
Besides a passport, ordinary Cuban citizens require an exit permit,
known as a "white card," to leave the island, unless
they are traveling on government or official business.
Rivero, who runs a small independent news agency,
Cuba Press, that is critical of Castro's one-party communist rule,
was one of more than 40 leading Cuban dissidents who last week
signed a public statement calling on Ibero-American heads of state
to press the Cuban leader to introduce democratic reforms. Cuban
authorities accuse anti-government opponents like Rivero of being
"counterrevolutionary traitors" in the pay and service
of the U.S. government.
VILLA CLARA, November 16
TRAGEDY IN A CUBAN MILITARY COMPLEX
An explosion at a munitions factory in central
Cuba killed at least five people and wounded 11 more, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces reported Thursday on the local television. Another
three soldiers were unaccounted for. Only one of the wounded remains
in intensive care.
The cause of the Wednesday explosion at the
Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara Military Factory in Villa Clara
province was under investigation, a military communiqué
said. The accident occurred as troops were unloading a military
truck outside a warehouse, it added.
LA
HABANA, November 15
TRAVEL AGENCY CANCELS CUBA TRIPS
A
Canadian travel agency that booked hundreds of Americans for weekly
cruises to Cuba announced Tuesday that it was canceling the tours
indefinitely because of threats against the company.
"The
decision was taken as a result of continued threats that the company
received by those opposed to travel to Cuba,'' a company press
release said. ``Those threats, including most recently a bomb
threat, made it impossible for the company to guarantee the safety
and security of the passengers.''
There were more than 400 passengers and crew booked on
the M.V. La Habana's inaugural voyage, which was scheduled to
leave Nassau on Nov. 18 on a trip that included three nights in
Havana.
The company said that for the past two weeks
the cruise has come under greater scrutiny as a result of the
passage of the U.S. Food and Medicine Bill that carried with it
``the enshrinement into law of the travel embargo.''
The embargo does not outlaw travel to Cuba, but prohibits
anyone subject to U.S. laws -- citizens and resident foreigners
-- from spending money in Cuba without special permission of the
U.S. Treasury Department. Cuban Americans, journalists and academics
have general exemptions, and business people can obtain specific
licenses for activities such as business fairs.
HAVANA,
November 13
INCREASING THE NUMBER OF HOMELESS
IN HAVANA (CAMCO's
Department of Engineers)
Homeless people who scavenge in garbage bins
for food or some items they might be able to use are routinely
fined by police and made to return the refuse they have picked
up to the bins.
Lately there seems to have been an increase
in the number of scavengers, who operate at night and can be seen
sleeping in the porches of buildings in the daytime. The increased
activity has led to turf fights, as the scavengers claim a proprietary
interest in a particular garbage bin and find it necessary to
fight off poachers.
Residents question the government’s objective
in imposing fines, arguing that it would make more sense to help
them. Others say the government doesn’t want to admit "the
social, economic and moral conditions to which the country has
sunk," as one man said who didn’t want to be identified
for fear of losing his license as a self-employed tradesman.
HAVANA, November 12
NO SALE, CUBA TELLS VISITING
U.S. FARMERS
The first American farmers to visit Cuba since
passage of a new U.S. law allowing them to sell food to the island
said Friday they failed to convince officials to buy their products.
“We need the Cuban government to take a more positive
position on the opportunity provided by the legislation,'' Jack
Laurie, president of the Michigan Farm Bureau, told a news conference
in Havana.
The Cuban government insists it will not buy
any U.S. food under the legislation that would allow agricultural
sales to the island for the first time in about 40 years. Because
of pressures from Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's foes in Congress,
the law bars the U.S. government and American banks from financing
the purchases -- restrictions the Cuban government says make such
sales almost impossible. Those restrictions would require Cuba
to pay for food either in cash or through financing via third
countries.
Laurie and other members of the Michigan agricultural
mission said they would willingly finance sales of agricultural
products to Cuba via third countries. Although the Cuban government
expressed interest in buying dried beans and other products from
Michigan farmers, it refuses to back down on its insistence that
it will not do so under the law, Laurie said. Cuban officials'
apparent concern, Laurie said, is ``if they do it, that will say
that this mechanism will work . . . And we concur that
it will not work long-term.''
MIAMI, November 10
ITINERARY OF VETERAN’S DAY
MEMORIAL SERVICES TO HONOR BAY OF PIGS B-26 PILOTS CRISPIN LUCIO
GARCIA FERNANDEZ AND JUAN DE MATA (NABEL) GONZALEZ ROMERO (By: The President of CAVA and also
CAMCO’s Senior Director for Personnel)
FRIDAY,
November 10, 2000
1:00 PM- 3:00 PM
- Private viewing at the house of the Assault Brigade 2506 Veterans
Association (Brigade members ONLY. Families request no media at
this event).
6:00 PM – 12:00 PM - Viewing at Funeral
Memorial Plan Funeral Home located at 9800 Coral Way.
SATURDAY,
November 11, 2000 – VETERAN’S
DAY
10:00 AM, - Services at St. Michael’s
Catholic Church located at 2987 W. Flagler Street, Miami.
12:00 Noon –
Burial following the Mass at Dade South Memorial Park at 14200
S.W. 117 Avenue (Honor Guard and Firing Part will be provided
by the Cuban American Veterans Association (CAVA).
On Veteran’s Day, the families request
those who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces and ROTC Cadets
to wear their uniforms.WASHINGTON, D.C., November 10
HAVANA, November 9
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE HAVING A GREAT LAUGH
WITH CUBA’S OFFER TO SEND OVER “EXPERIENCED
ADVISORS” TO SUPERVISE FLORIDA’S RECOUNT
Cuba's Foreign Minister
Felipe Pérez Roque drolly offered to send over advisors
experienced in "transparent, clean and totally democratic"
elections.
Perez demanded a new vote in Florida. Speaking at the United
Nations yesterday, he made no attempt to mask his contempt for
the leaders of a country that has maintained a 38-year economic
embargo of Communist-run Cuba and that condemns it as a dictatorship.
However, Mr. Pérez begged the new president to lift the
embargo.
But as Mr.
Pérez
poked fun at the U.S. election, Florida Agriculture
Commissioner Bob Crawford, who is serving on the state committee
that will certify the election results, took a jab at Cuba when
he said “all the frustration over the vote count was worth
it for democracy. If you want simplicity, just go about 70 miles
(112 km) south of Florida and you've got Cuba, and they're very
simple and they have no elections."
HAVANA, November 9
MASSIVE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE DENGUE, BUT NO INFORMATION
HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT (By: CAMCO’s Director for Communications)
On
Saturday, November 4, the municipality of
Havana Center was invaded by more than
2,300 mostly military personnel carrying out “Operation
Smoke 2000.” This was one of the latest campaigns to fight
the mosquito transmitting the Denge, an illness that is apparently
quickly developing, however
authorities are not providing any official information.
According to epidemiologists, there are large
numbers of highly deteriorating abandoned buildings in all municipalities
of the capital and this has led to
the existence of favorable conditions for the proliferation
of the dangerous mosquito. Those buildings also attract other
insect and rodent vectors for multiple other infectious illnesses.
According to observers in Havana, the emergency situation in the
city has greatly resulted from a lack of specialists in public
health who, instead of working in Cuba, are providing their services
to other nations in order to fulfill the political plans of the
Castro's régime.
Given the potential for an epidemic and the
lack of available antibiotic medications, there is increasing
restlessness within the population because of Castro’s reluctance
to purchase medicines from the United States. Although there are
no official figures, it is well-known that cases of Denge and
possibly other infectious diseases are on the rise but many
are assuming that Cuban authorities are waiting for the
opportune time to give the news and accuse the American government
for the epidemic.
HAVANA, November 9
UNIDENTIFIED
INDIVIDUALS DAMAGE
TLEPHONE SERVICE IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF “PLAYA” (By: CAMCO’s Director for
Communications)
Unidentified
individuals committed a clandestine operation that damaged cables
buried under 60th street between 31st
and 33rd in the municipality of Playa
interrupting the services of more than 1,377 telephones in the
referred municipality.
Officials report that three suspects have been arrested.
According to Company of Telecommunications the
affected area is located around
60th street. Although
many technicians and laborers are currently working hard to repair
the broken cables, the damage is so extensive that it is predicted
that services will
not be reestablished for at least six more days.
WASHINGTON,
D.C., November 8
US ELECTION RESULTS UNKNOWN
It
may be another 24 hours before Americans know who will be the
next president. The entire country is now awaiting the
outcome of a recount of
votes in the state of Florida.
Lawyers for Republican, George W Bush and Democrat, Al
Gore, have raced
to Florida to oversee the recount that should decide the next
president of the United States.
Florida aside, results show Vice President Al
Gore's leading in the popular vote. He is ahead by 128,000 votes.
The
Vice President has 260 electoral college votes to Governor Bush's
246 votes. A candidate
needs 270 to win. Florida with its 25 electoral college votes
will determine the victor.
MIAMI, November 8
CUBAN-AMERICANS
DECISIVELY SUPPORT BUSH
Republican
George W. Bush, big brother of Florida's governor Jeb Bush, built
his victory in the state of Florida on a surprisingly strong vote
among Cuban Americans disaffected with the weak policies implemented
by the Clinton administration against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
The Clinton administration's inaction against
Castro worked in Bush's favor: Cuban-American voters in Miami-Dade
County overwhelmingly backed Bush. The Republican has amassed
support among Cuban Americans that rivals former President Ronald
Reagan's vote in the 1980s.
Clinton
had made inroads, capturing as much as 40 percent of the Cuban
vote in his reelection. But Al Gore apparently was limited to
less than 20 percent of this influential vote largely because
of lingering resentment over Clinton's soft Cuba policy.
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 7
PLEASE, VOTE !!!
POPULAR VOTE IN TODAY’S PRESIDENTICIAL
RACE TOO CLOSE TO CALL
The
2000 presidential election campaign draws to its finale with the
national popular vote essentially too close to call. The following
are the finals allocated estimate of the popular vote:
47 %
Gallup - CNN - USA Today 45 %
48 %
ABC News
45 %
48 %
Washington Post
45 %
47 %
MSNBC - Reuters - Rogby 46 %
HAVANA, November 7
CUBANS
BORED BY U.S. ELECTIONS
Cubans seemed bored by the U.S. presidential
election today, saying it really doesn't matter who wins because
the outcome is unlikely to change the country's relations with
the United States.
The communist workers weekly Trabajadores called
the contest ``the most boring election of all time,'' saying Texas
Gov. George Bush and Vice President Al Gore were so similar that
it was difficult to tell them apart.
Both Gore and Bush have promised they would insist on democratic change
in Cuba before supporting an end to trade sanctions.
MIAMI,
November 6
ANOTHER
PROMISE – BUSH PLEDGES TO KEEP THE PRESSURE ON THE CUBAN
DICTATOR IF ELECTED
GOP
presidential nominee George W. Bush drew several thousand supporters
to a football field at Florida International University Sunday
afternoon as part of a four-rally tour around the state.
“We
will keep the pressure on Fidel Castro until the people are free,''
promised Bush, surveying his West Dade audience. “Should
I be the one,'' said Bush.
“Our major exportation is freedom,”
indicated the republican candidate to the important Cuban community
of Miami. He also promised “a more firm foreign policy”
that has been carried out by President Bill Clinton.
MIAMI, October 6
NEW CUBAN REFUGEES REACH THE KEYS
Three
separate groups of Cubans, numbering 81 in all, made it to dry
land in the Florida Keys on Sunday with the apparent help of smugglers
-- the largest arrival of Cuban refugees in South Florida so far
this year, U.S. officials said.
The newly arrived migrants, all of whom likely
will be allowed to stay, were being transferred to the Krome Detention
Center on Sunday night, officials said.
Sunday's arrivals were
detected shortly after dawn. The first group was spotted on Sunday
at mile marker 92 on Tavernier Key at 3:45 a.m.
Numbering 21 -- including 11 women, seven men and three
girls -- they told officials they were from the town of Pinar
del Rio. At 6:25 a.m., a second group originating from the town
of Matanzas was found wandering near the Ocean Reef Club. The
group consisted of 28 people -- 18 men, six women, three girls
and one boy. The third group was spotted on the Marquesas Keys
at noon, but Coast Guard officials were unable to reach them until
6:30 p.m. Numbering 32, the group included 17 men, nine women,
four boys and two girls.
CIEGO DE AVILA, November 5
AUTHORITIES DON’T
STOP WASTE WATER LEAKS IN CIEGO DE AVILA (CAMCO’S Department of Engineers)
Residents
of Ciego de Avila complain of the numerous waste water leaks in
the streets of this city.
Several pools of smelly water and human waste
have affected the population for more than six months and the
government cannot seem to solve the problem.
Among other places, there are problems at Cuba
Street, between Honorato del Castillo and Marcial Gómez,
at Benavides between 5th and 6th, and at H Castillo Street between
Independencia and Joaquín AgŸero, this
one in the middle of
the city. An expert said that waste water leaks such as
these are breeding areas for parasites and epidemics.
HAVANA, October 5
CUBA
VOWS NO SURRENDER
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro who has survived
the opposition of nine U.S. presidencies, defiantly predicted
on Friday he would also outlive the tenth. The latest attacks
from Havana at the American presidential candidates -- whom Castro
has already dismissed as the most "boring and insipid"
in U.S. electoral history -- came this time from Cuban Foreign
Minister Felipe Pérez Roque.
"I should warn that whichever of the two
is elected, he could well become the tenth president of the United
States who retires without managing to make Cuba surrender,"
Perez told a news conference. Perez noted that Democratic nominee
Al Gore and Republican hopeful George W. Bush had both made "virulent
comments against Cuba and its revolution" during campaign
trips to Florida ahead of the Nov. 7 poll.
"We don't have expectations about what
either of the candidates might do," Perez said, when asked
to speculate what initiatives the next U.S. president may take
relating to Washington's current Cuba policy, the centerpiece
of which is an economic embargo.
WASHINGTON,
D.C., November 4
THE
WASHINGTON POST CHARGES THAT VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ
IS PROMOTING HIS LEFTIST ANTI-AMERICANISM IN LATIN AMERICA
In an editorial titled “The Next Fidel
Castro,” the newspaper charges that the Venezuelan leader
of embracing in Latin America “the kind of anti-American
foreign policy that Che Guevara might have smiled at.” Chávez
is “not just another Latin American strongman. He is a strongman
who controls the biggest oil reserves outside the Middle East,
who supplies the United States with a good chunk of its energy
imports and who seems intent on spreading his brand of leftist
anti-Americanism throughout the region.”
The editorial not only criticizes the close
ties with Cuba but attacks Chavez in other fronts: “He turned
the recent OPEC summit into a platform to sound off against the
West; he has gone to Iraq to visit Saddam Hussein; he has flirted
with the leftist opposition in Bolivia and with Colombia's drug-peddling
guerrillas. Meanwhile he has used oil to buy influence in Central
America and the Caribbean, recently signing a deal to supply 12
countries there with cheap energy.”
The editorial added: “Mr. Chavez's role
model appears to be Cuba's Fidel Castro, who concluded a five-day
visit to Venezuela on Monday. Mr. Chavez proclaimed that ‘our
two peoples are one and the same.’ Mr. Castro reminisced
that the young Chavez government reminded him of the early years
of revolutionary Cuba, and dismissed Gov George W Bush and Vice
President Al Gore as "little gentlemen" of no substance.
“But
Mr. Chavez has now been sounding off against the United States
for two years,” the editorial continues: “It would be
foolish to assume he won't make trouble where he can; one nightmare
scenario has him recognizing the legitimacy of a secessionist
state declared by the Colombian rebels. Rather than merely hoping
for the best, the next president needs to limit Mr. Chavez's opportunities
to export his ideology. That means getting more engaged with Latin
America, as Gov. Bush has urged.”
LA HABANA, November 4
CUBAN DISSIDENTS DEMAND FREEDOM FOR OSCAR BISCET
About 70 Cuban dissidents packed the garden
of a Havana house Friday to demand the release of jailed activist
Oscar Elias Biscet and others in one of the largest opposition
meetings of recent months. The event coincided with the anniversary
of the 1999 arrest of Biscet, who was sentenced to three years'
imprisonment on "public disorder" and other charges
after a series of protests including turning the Cuban flag upside-down.
Those present, belonging to some 20 small groups
opposed to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's ruling Communist Party,
shouted slogans like "Freedom for Biscet!", "Freedom
for Political Prisoners!", and "Long Live Human Rights!"
The gathering was held in a garden behind a house, out of public
sight but presumably being monitored by Cuban state security infiltrators.
"I know that the Cuban people, although they cannot come,
feel that we are here," said a dissident. Another dissident
said state security forces had prevented some activists from attending
the meeting in Havana, and a similar gathering in the town of
Matanzas.
The dissidents also backed the demand of the
Group of Four who urged Castro to let them participate ina proposed
public debate with Venezuelan oppoisition politicians, whom he
invited to the island to discuss politics with him.
HAVANA, November 2
“THE
GROUP OF FOUR” CHALLENGE
CUBAN DICTATOR FIDEL CASTRO TO ALLOW DEBATE
A Cuban dissident group called “Group of
Four” challenged Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on Wednesday
to let it take part in an unprecedented public debate, after Castro
made such an invitation to his accusers in Venezuela. During his
recent visit to Venezuela, Castro publicly invited opponents there,
who had protested his address to the National Assembly on grounds
that he abused human rights, to come to Cuba and publicly discuss
their differences with him. Castro said that he was willing to
debate his detractors in any "nook or corner of Cuba."
"We express our satisfaction and support
for this initiative, which we hope will be accepted by democratic
legislators of the brother country," wrote three members
of the group in a document distributed to foreign media in Havana.
The three, Félix Bonne Carcasés, René Gómez
Manzano and Marta Beatriz Roque -- all recently freed from communist
jail -- expressed unhappiness that only foreigners, and not internal
opponents, had received such an offer from Castro.
"We would like to express our willingness
to participate too in debates of that sort, and we urge the current
Cuban authorities, who have the possibility to allow it, to facilitate
such a forum," wrote the group. The three who signed the
statement were released earlier this year on "conditional
liberty," while the fourth member, Vladimiro Roca, remains
imprisoned. All were detained in mid- 1997, and later convicted
of encouraging sedition.
CARACAS, November 1st.
“THE BATTLE OF IDEALS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE TOTAL DISAPPEARANCE
OF THE IMPERIALIST SYSTEM,” SAID THE CUBAN DICTATOR IN CARACAS
Without
illusions, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro awaits the next resident
of the White House, who will be de tenth since he assumed power
in Cuba 40 years ago. Castro
insisted that it doesn't matter who wins the U.S. presidential
election, “we are prepared to challenge him because we are
convinced that nobody can defeat the revolution.”
He also said both candidates will continue and increment
the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. “Neither of them
interests me in the least,'' Castro said” . . . I
don't expect anything from either of them, and I am not interested
in any of them,” he repeated.
Republican
or democrat, he said, if the next president wanted to change his
policy towards Cuba, it must be unilaterally. If the Cuban-American
relations normalize, as it has happened in China and Vietnam,
“the battle of ideals will continue until de total disappearance
of the imperialist system,” he emphasized. “We do not
care who might become the head of that superpower government that
has imposed to the world its hegemonic and dominant power,”
Castro said.
Castro promised to resist U.S. pressure no matter
who wins, and suggested the embargo can't last forever. With Vice
President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush seeking Cuban-American
votes, Castro said: “We're not stupid . . . . We’re
ready to fight whoever it is.''
MIAMI, November
1st.
ITINERARY OF VETERAN’S DAY
MEMORIAL SERVICES TO HONOR BAY OF PIGS B-26 PILOTS CRISPIN LUCIO
GARCIA FERNANDEZ AND JUAN DE MATA (NABEL) GONZALEZ ROMERO (By: The President of CAVA and
also CAMCO’s Senior Director for Personnel)
FRIDAY, November 10, 2000
1:00 PM- 3:00 PM - Private viewing at the house of the Assault
Brigade 2506 Veterans Association (Brigade members ONLY. Families
request no media at this event).
6:00 PM – 12:00 PM - Viewing at Funeral
Memorial Plan Funeral Home located at 9800 Coral Way.
SATURDAY, November 11, 2000 – VETERAN’S DAY
10:00 AM, - Services at St. Michael’s Catholic
Church located at 2987 W. Flagler Street, Miami.
12:00 Noon – Burial following the Mass at Dade South
Memorial Park at 14200 S.W. 117 Avenue (Honor Guard and Firing
Part will be provided by the Cuban American Veterans Association
(CAVA).
On Veteran’s Day, the families request
those who had served in the U.S. Armed Forces and ROTC Cadets
to wear their uniforms.
WASHINGTON,
D.C., November 1st.
U.S. LOSES NO SLEEP OVER CUBA-VENEZUELA TIES
Closer ties between Cuba and one of the United
States' main oil suppliers, Venezuela, is unlikely to cause headaches
in Washington, a senior Clinton administration official said yesterday.
He also said that: "The thinking in the administration is
that Castro is an anachronism and Chavez, in associating himself
with Castro, is also casting himself in an anachronistic light."
Before the Cuban dictator left Venezuela, Chavez
decorated him, sealing an economic and political alliance stoked
by anti-Americanism. But officials in Washington, which has maintained
a trade embargo on Cuba for 38 years, were unworried. "I
don't think this leads anywhere. Nobody is particularly worried
about it here," the official said.
HAVANA, November 1st.
CUBA ANNOUNCES BOOST IN POWER SUPPLY, ENDO TO BLACKOUTS
After
decades of long, scheduled blackouts caused by electricity shortages,
Cubans woke up to the news Tuesday from officials who announced
the lights -- and the refrigerator and TV -- were on to stay.
`”Today, the island's [power] generating capacity is above
national demand, aided by the modernization of our power plants
and the country's energy conservation program'' Radio Rebelde
said.
While
progress since then appears to have been made, top officials remain
cautious about the power supply. The modernization ``does not
mean that power cuts might not take place in some areas, Cuban
towns and even provinces due to technical difficulties and other
unexpected developments'' the radio said, quoting a top government
electricity expert.
“I don't believe
the news because only an hour ago there was a blackout in the
Cerro neighborhood," said an economist from Havana.
HAVANA, November 1st.
OPEN SEWERS CONTRIBUTE TO THE SPREAD OF MOSQUITOES
(By: CAMCO’s Department of Engineers)
Sewer water gushes out of a broken sewer pipe
in sight of a hospital and three children care centers in the
Havana district of Luyanó.
The Miguel Enríquez hospital, and the
Globo Rojo, Semillitas del Futuro and Chispitas de Lluvia child
care centers, in the vicinity of Arango, Acierto and Atarés
streets are affected by the flowing waste. At the same time, more
waste flows down Municipio Street from another broken pipe.
Wastewater leaks such as these have been identified
as the principal breeding areas for mosquitoes in Luyanó.
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