Rock around the Blockade - Viva Cuba! news blog

Rene Gonzalez to be released - punishment to continue

2011-10-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Source: RATB.
by Helen Yaffe, 05 October 2011.

On Friday 7 October, Rene Gonzalez, one of the Cuban Five incarcerated in United States since 1998 for combating terrorism against Cuba, faces a ‘supervised release’ under life-threatening conditions. In 2001, Rene was sentenced to 15 years in prison charged with conspiracy to act as a non-registered foreign agent. He had already spent 33 months in ‘preventative custody’, including 17 months in isolation in ‘the hole’.

Rene’s real crime, like that of his co-defendants (Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerro, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez), was defending Cuba against acts of terrorism planned, financed and launched by Cuban exile groups in Miami; groups with well documented links to the US government agencies. The conditions imposed by Federal Court Judge Lenard on Friday 26 September 2011, force Rene to reside in Miami for three years, without returning to Cuba to be with his wife (who has been permitted to visit him just once by US authorities) and two children.

Rene was born in the United States in 1956, but returned to Cuba as a child just after the Cuban Revolution in 1961. He became a pilot and flight instructor. Between 1977 and 1979 he was among thousands of Cuban combatants who fought for the national liberation of Angola and against the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. In 1990, at the request of the Cuban government, Rene returned to the United States to gather information in order to prevent terrorist plots against Cuba.

The Cuban Five had no guns and no explosives. They were not after classified information or threatening US national security. They were gathering information and evidence from terrorist networks about actions planned and launched from US soil. In the 1990s more than 200 attacks were launched from Miami, many of them targeting Cuba’s expanding tourist industry. In 1998, Cuba handed the FBI a mountain of evidence compiled by the Cuban agents from the terrorist networks in Miami. That information made it possible to successfully prevent 170 attacks against Cuba, including a plan to blow up aeroplanes filled with Cuba-bound tourists from Europe and Canada. Instead of acting on the information to break the terror networks, the FBI arrested the Cuban agents.

The utter hypocrisy of the US judiciary is emphasised by the conditions established for Rene’s ‘supervised release’, which prohibit him ‘from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists, members of organizations advocating violence, organized crime figures are known to be or frequent.’ In other words, the court can identify where terrorists and criminals hang out in Miami, but rather than arrest and put them on trial, it warns Rene, a US-citizen who has actively opposed terrorism, not to disturb them. So much for the war on terrorism!

Perversely, while warning Rene to stay away from these groups and individuals, the court will not permit him to do the only thing which would secure his safety – return to Cuba. The conditions force him to remain in the same city as the terrorists he was monitoring, where the ‘show trial’ took place, during which journalists were paid by the US government to secure a conviction, and which has a powerful right-wing Cuban exile population. Among Miami’s Cuban exile residents is Luis Posada Carriles, an ex-CIA agent, responsible for bombing a Cuban civilian aeroplane in 1976, killing all 73 persons aboard, and the bombing of hotels and restaurants in Havana in 1997. Carriles recently reaffirmed his support for further violence against Cuba.

‘Why is the Court putting Mr Gonzalez’s safety at risk by forcing him to live for the next three years side by side with the very terrorists that he tailed as an unregistered Cuban agent?’ demands José Pertierra, an attorney representing the Venezuelan government’s extradition case against Carriles.

Terrorism against Cuba has cost the lives of 3,478 Cubans and permanently maimed another 2,099. Rene’s life is at risk if he is forced to remain in Miami. Judge Lenard, who issued the ‘supervised release’ has justified her decision by stating that if Rene returns to Cuba she won’t be able to assess whether the US public ‘will be protected from further crimes of the defendant’. But as Pertierra responds: ‘His only “crime” was failing to register as a foreign agent.’ Absurdly, Judge Lenard also claims more time is needed to ‘provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner’. This is nonsense. Rene has declared his intention to renounce his US citizenship and return to live in Cuba with his family, he does not need to be ‘reintegrated’ into US society. Pertierra adds: ‘As for medical care, he will have access to the best medical care in Cuba and it will be available at no expense to the United States or to himself.’

Judge Lenard’s decision allows Rene to re-file his motion to return to Cuba at a later time ‘should circumstances warrant modification’. Pertierra asks: ‘What circumstances could she be waiting for? For a terrorist to take a potshot at Rene?’

However, for right-wing Cuban-exile community even this ‘supervised release’ is too generous. Miami Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the US Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, condemned Rene’s release stating on 3 October that: ‘He has American blood on his hands and dedicated his life to harming our country on behalf of a regime that is a state sponsor of terrorism.’ This from a woman who just weeks ago called for Cuba to be attacked Libya-style; an attack which has so far cost the lives of 50,000 to 60,000 Libyans.

In early September, RATB activists participated in two anti-terrorism events in Havana. The first, on Saturday 10 September, commemorated the 14th anniversary of the murder of Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo, killed in the 1997 explosion at the Copacubana hotel in Havana. Guistino di Celmo, Fabio’s elderly father thanked the Cuban people for remembering his son and complained that, years after the terrorist act which took his son’s life, the US press continues to report the lie that Cuba supports terrorism, while the Cuban Five remain in US prisons for combating terrorism. Magalys Llort, mother of one of the Five, presented Guistino with a plaque in homage to his son made by Gerardo Gonzalez, another one of the Cuban Five.

Two days later, RATB joined thousands of representatives of Cuba’s grassroots organisations, cultural organisations, military, foreign diplomats, foreign students and Cuban workers in a cultural event to honour the Cuban Five, whose poems and letters were put to music. President of Cuba’s National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, condemned the conditions imposed on Rene Gonzalez’s ‘supervised release’ and pointed out that the case of the Cuban Five proves the US government is complicit with terrorist groups in Miami.

Rock around the Blockade joins international condemnation of this cruel and unusual punishment meted out to Rene and the Cuban people who are waiting to welcome him home. We demand the full, immediate and unconditional release of the Cuban Five and the trial of those terrorist plotters and supporters in the United States, including all those in US government agencies.

US SMS campaign targets Cuba

2011-10-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

Attacking censorship: U.S. text-messaging campaign targets Cuba
Source: CubaMoneyProject, 01 October 2011.

A Maryland company has won a U.S. government contract to set up a system capable of sending tens of thousands of text messages every month to Cuban cell phone users who want to receive news and information from TV and Radio Martí. Washington Software, Inc., will design a text messaging system aimed at countering Cuban government attempts to block politically sensitive messages, according to a Sept. 23 award notice. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, or BBG, solicited bids for the text-messaging service on Aug. 17. The base contract is worth $84,000 during the first year. Four additional one-year options would boost the total value of the contract to $464,160. One prospective contractor wondered if the text-messaging campaign was legal. He wrote:

We are concerned with the legality of sending these types of notifications to people in another country. Does the US government take all legal responsibility for these messages? Are there legal considerations a vendor would have to be aware of on these kinds of broadcasts?

The BBG replied:

The Agency assumes responsibility for the content of the messages. The Contractor assumes all responsibility under this requirement and should consider all aspects of this requirement before submitting an offer.

Translation: If you’re worried about legal trouble, don’t bother to apply.

The International Broadcasting Bureau, which oversees Miami-based Radio and TV Martí, explained the need to get around Cuban censors.

The IBB’s Internet anti-censorship program seeks to ensure Internet users in target countries are able to access USG broadcasters’ web sites to access their news and other programming, using a variety of tools to counter foreign government-sponsored Internet censorship controls. These techniques must include the ability to add unique changes to each message instance sent to each individual subscriber to avoid detection of messages being sent in bulk to many subscribers. Additionally, these techniques may include keyword substitutions, where potentially provocative keywords which are likely to be censored are replaced with other words or characters which leave the meaning intact but foil automated keyword detection.

FedBizOpps.gov lists Washington Software as the winning contractor. The firm’s first-year contract runs from Sept. 15, 2011, through Sept. 14, 2012. The government contract requires that the contractor be able to distribute up to 24,000 total messages per week – and that amount may rise, depending on events in Cuba. Washington Software has been in business since 1998. Its address is 20410 Century Blvd, Ste 220, Germantown, Maryland. Its clients include the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Health & Human Services and the Department of Labor and other government agencies. Washington Software also serves such businesses as IBM and Lockheed Martin. The company website states:

We are an IT Solution Provider and we pride ourselves in our experience, knowledge, and skill set to provide our clients with positive results. We utilize a secure and agile methodology alongside proven technologies to maximize our efforts in our projects. Our main focus has been to satisfy our commercial and government organizations located in our region.

The full text of the bid is here

Cuba’s Report On Resolution 65/6 of the UN General Assembly on ending the US blockade

2011-09-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Cuba Report 2011

Chilean police violently repress peaceful demonstration

2011-09-29T15:35:00.000-07:00

Source: Prensa Latina, 29 September 2011.

Chilean police suppressed on Thursday a peaceful and massive march for free public education with tear gas and water cannon, which was denounced here by the leaders of the student.

"Police should have helped to guide or control the demonstration, but not repress it", said a spokeswoman for the Confederation of Students of Chile (CONFECH), Camila Vallejo. "We saw the police repressing all the demonstrators, not only those who threw a pebble", says Vallejo in statements on the march that ended Thursday in Santiago O'Higgins Park with an estimated 150,000 participants.

According to the press, a tear gas canister thrown by the police near the O'Higgins Park caused injuries to a five-year child.

However, the mayor of Santiago, Pablo Zalaquett, told the press that those calling for marches are responsible for the unrest. For the Chilean people, the police attack on the march, just within hours of the start of a dialogue between the government and social sectors, was quite shocking.

Ongoing Social Protests in Chile
Prensa Latina, 29 September 2011.

Primary health care workers and the Social Movement for Free and Public Education on Thursday will join together in a new day of anti-neoliberal protests around the country.

On Thursday, the students movement called for another national mobilization to oppose for-profit education, while being supported by dozens of social organizations including public health unions, which organized a 72-hour strike against privatizing the sector.

If the Social Movement is not mobilize, it will not be able to dialogue or do anything while holding a negotiating table with the government, said Camila Vallejo, president of the Chilean Students Federation (CONFECH).

According to CONFECH spokesman Giorgio Jackson, the negotiating table between the government and leaders of the Social Movement should not be seen as just a negotiating moment or photo opportunity, but as a way to channel citizen's demands.

Skepticism and distrust prevail among members of the CONFECH, in regard to a true government will to solve the conflict. The CONFECH, however, in spite of the government stance and discourse, maintains its willingness to dialogue while continuing further mobilizations.

Bolivia: NGOs wrong on Morales and Amazon

2011-09-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

Source: BoliviaRising
by Federico Fuentes, 25 September 2011.

Statements, articles, letters and petitions have been circulating on the internet for the past month calling for an end to the "destruction of the Amazon". The target of these initiatives has not been transnational corporations or the powerful governments that back them, but the government of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales.

At the centre of the debate is the Bolivian government’s controversial proposal to build a highway through the Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS).

TIPNIS, which covers more than 1 million hectares of forest, was granted indigenous territory status by the Morales government in 2009. About 12,000 people from three different indigenous groups live in 64 communities within TIPNIS.

On August 15, representatives from the TIPNIS Subcentral that unites these communities, as well as other indigenous groups, began a march to the capital city, La Paz to protest against the highway plan. International petitions have been initiated declaring support for this march, and condemning the Morales government for undermining indigenous rights. The people of TIPNIS have legitimate concerns about the highway’s impact. There is also no doubt the government has made errors in its handling of the issue.

Unfortunately, petitions such as the one initiated by international lobby group Avaaz and a September 21 letter to Morales signed by over 60 environmental groups mostly outside Bolivia misrepresent the facts and misdirect their fire. They could inadvertently aid the opponents of the global struggle for climate justice.

Avaaz warns that the highway "could enable foreign companies to pillage the world's most important forest”. But it fails to mention the destruction that is already happening in the area, in some cases with the complicity of local indigenous communities. On the other hand, the Morales government has promised to introduce a new law, in consultation with communities within TIPNIS, to add new protections for the national park. The proposed law would set jail terms of between 10 to 20 years for illegal settlements, growing coca or logging in the national park.

Also, Avaaz claims that "huge economic interests" are motivating Morales’ support for the highway. But Avaaz omits the benefits that such a highway (whether it ultimately goes through TIPNIS or not) will bring Bolivia and its peoples. For example, this 306 kilometre highway linking the departments of Beni and Cochabamba (with only a part of it going through TIPNIS) would expand access to health care and other basic services to isolated local communities that now travel for days to receive medical care.

The highway would also give local agricultural producers greater access to markets to sell their goods. At the moment, these must go via Santa Cruz to the east before being able to be transported westward. Given Beni’s status as the largest meat producing department (state), this would break the hold that Santa Cruz-based slaughterhouses have on imposing meat prices. The highway would also allow the state to assert sovereignty over remote areas, including some where illegal logging takes place.

It is facts such as these that have convinced more than 350 Bolivian organisations, including many of the social organisations that have led the country’s inspiring struggles against neoliberalism, to support the proposed highway. Many indigenous organisations and communities (including within TIPNIS) support the highway. It is therefore false to describe this as a dispute between the government and indigenous people.

Nor is it a simple conflict between supporters of development and defenders of the environment.

All sides in the dispute want greater development and improved access to basic services. The issue at stake is how the second poorest country in the Americas, facing intense pressure from more powerful governments and corporate forces, can meet the needs of its people while protecting the environment.

Given this, surely it makes more sense for those who wish to defend Bolivia’s process of change to support steps towards dialogue, rather that deepening the divisions.

Legitimate criticism can be made of the government’s handling of the consultation process. But the Avaaz petition and the letter from environmental groups simply ignore the government’s repeated attempts to open discussions with the protesters. Half the members of Morales' ministerial cabinet, along with many more vice-ministers and heads of state institutions, have traveled to the march route to talk with protesters.

The petitioners don’t mention the Morales government’s public commitment to carry out a consultation process within the framework of the Bolivian constitution, popularly approved in 2009. Neither do they mention its offer to have the consultation process overseen by international observers selected by protesters themselves. The government has also remained open to discussing the economic and environmental feasibility of any alternative route that could bypass TIPNIS. No such alternative has been presented yet.

As a result of these initiatives, a number of the TIPNIS communities that had joined the march, as well as representatives from the Assembly of the Guarani People, have since decided to return home. They will continue discussions with the government.

Sadly, the key opponents of the proposed consultation process are among the march leaders, which includes organisations based outside TIPNIS. These organisations were also the main proponents of a further 15 demands being placed on the government the day the march began.

Many of these demands are legitimate. But it is alarming that some of the more dangerously backwards demands have been ignored or dismissed by international environment groups. For example, the letter to Morales raises concerns regarding the Bolivian president's statement that "oil drilling in Aguarague National Park 'will not be negotiated'". Those gas fields represent 90% of Bolivia's gas exports and are a vital source of funds that the Morales government has been using to tackle poverty and develop Bolivia's economy.

The fact that the bulk of gas revenue is controlled by the Bolivian state rather than transnational corporation is the result of years of struggles by the Bolivian masses, who rightfully believe this resource should be used to develop their country. The concerns of local communities should be, and have been, taken into consideration. But for Bolivia to cut off this source of revenue would have dire consequences for the people of one of the poorest nations in the Americas.

It would, without exaggeration, be economic suicide.

Initially, protesters also demanded a halt to gas extraction in Aguarague. They have retreated on this and are now focused on the question of plugging up unused oil wells due to the contamination this is could cause to local water supplies. Similarly, neither of the Internet statements mentions the protesters’ support for the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program.

REDD is a grossly anti-environmental United Nations program that aims to privatise forests by converting them into “carbon offsets” that allow rich, developed countries to continue polluting.

Some of the biggest proponents of this measure can be found among the NGOs promoting the march. Many of these have received direct funding from the US government, whose ambassador in Bolivia was expelled in September 2008 for supporting a right-wing coup attempt against the elected Morales government.

Rather than defend Bolivia’s sovereignty against US interference, the letter denounces the Bolivian government for exposing connections between the protesters and "obscure interests".

These "obscure interests" include the League for the Defence of the Environment (LIDEMA), which was set up with US government funds. Its backers include the US government aid agency, USAID, and the German-based Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which frequently funds actions against governments opposed by the United States and European governments such as Cuba.

Secret US diplomatic cables recently released by WikiLeaks and declassified US government files have conclusively shown that USAID directly targets indigenous communities in a bid to win them away from support for Morales and towards supporting US interests. Behind these very real interests lies a campaign by rich nations and conservative environmental groups to promote policies that represent a new form of "green imperialism".

After centuries of plundering the resources of other countries, wiping out indigenous populations, and creating a dire global environmental crisis, the governments of rich nations now use environmental concerns to promote policies that deny underdeveloped nations the right to control and manage their own resources. If they have their ways, these groups will reduce indigenous people to mere “park rangers”, paid by rich countries to protect limited areas, while multinational corporations destroy the environment elsewhere.

Bolivia's indigenous majority has chosen a very different road. They aim to create a new state in which they are no longer marginalised or treated as minority groups that require special protection. In alliance with other oppressed sectors, they aim to run their country for the collective benefit of the majority.

The Bolivian masses have successfully wrested government power from the traditional elites, won control over gas and other resources, and adopted a new constitution. Mistakes have been made, and are likely in future. But they are the mistakes of a people of a small, landlocked and underdeveloped country fighting constant imperialist assaults. Key to the Bolivian peoples’ fight is the world-wide front for climate justice, in which Bolivia is playing a vital leadership role.

One example was the 35,000-strong Peoples Summit on Climate Change organised by the Morales government in Cochabamba in April 2010. The summit’s final declaration named developed countries as “the main cause of climate change". It insisted that those countries must "recognise and honor their climate debt", redirecting funds from war to aiding poorer nations to develop their economies "to produce goods and services necessary to satisfy the fundamental needs of their population".

To achieve this, the international climate justice movement must focus its efforts on forcing rich nations to accept their responsibilities. The global movement must explicitly reject imperialist intervention in all its forms, including the “green imperialist” policies of US-funded NGOs. Only through such a campaign can we support the efforts of poorer countries to chart a development path that respects the environment.

Unfortunately, Avaaz and the organisations that have signed the letter against Morales let the real culprits off the hook. Their campaign should be rejected by all environmentalists and anti-imperialists fighting for a better a world.

Uruguay apologizes over alleged Haiti sex assault

2011-09-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Source: AFP, 07 September 2011.

Uruguay's president has apologized for the "outrage" carried out by peacekeepers accused of sexually assaulting a young Haitian man and vowed the "maximum penalty" for anyone found guilty.The soldiers, who were based in southern Haiti, stand accused of attacking an 18-year-old man in the small coastal town of Port-Salut. Video footage of the alleged attack on a Uruguayan base has been circulated on the Internet.

"I come at this terrible time to offer you and the dear and heroic people of Haiti my apologies for the outrage that some soldiers of my country committed," Uruguay's President Jose Mujica said in a letter released late Tuesday."I share your sadness, which I feel as my own," he said, adding that authorities would investigate the matter and apply the "maximum penalty" to those responsible.

Uruguay's defense minister had earlier admitted that the incident had caused "a lot of damage" to the armed forces, which provide around 2,400 peacekeepers worldwide, mostly in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo.The five peacekeepers accused of sexual assault are to be sent home this week, Defense Minister Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro said.The Uruguayan government has opened a case in the matter, as peacekeepers must be tried in their home country for any crimes allegedly committed during their deployments abroad.Montevideo has also sacked a navy commander with the UN mission in Haiti over the incident.

Haitian President Michel Martelly has condemned the alleged attack and demanded a detailed report on the exact circumstances of the incident, according to his office.Martelly has also requested a meeting between Haitian officials and UN mission staff so that "measures can immediately be taken to ensure that such acts do not reoccur," his office said in a statement.On Monday, hundreds of people demonstrated in Port-Salut to demand justice for the alleged victim, while some Haitians have asked for the UN mission -- in the country since 2004 -- to be shut down.

The UN mission -- formed to help maintain peace after chaos erupted at the end of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's presidency -- has also come under fire after a cholera outbreak that could have been transmitted by Nepalese peacekeepers.

‘Another terrible injustice’: A message from the Cuban Five on the execution of Troy Davis

2011-09-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

Source; National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
by the Cuban Five, 23 September 2011.

The message below was sent by Ramón Labañino on behalf of the Cuban Five. The Cuban Five are political prisoners in the United States, serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively after being falsely convicted of politically motivated criminal charges while monitoring the operations of anti-Cuba terrorist organizations in Miami.

Brothers and sisters:We feel deeply the horrific execution of Troy Davis. It is another terrible injustice and stain on the history of this country. We join in the pain felt by his relatives, friends and brothers across the world. Now we have another cause, another flag, to pursue our struggle for a better world for all, free of the death penalty and barbarism.In Troy’s honor, and all the innocents of the world, we must continue, united, until the final victory!Our most heart-felt condolences!

Five fraternal embraces,

Antonio Guerrero
Fernando González
Gerardo Hernández
René González
Ramón Labañino

Cuba launches campaign for Cuban Five

2011-09-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Source: South Journal, 11 September 2011.

The Cuban people, headed by the youth, kick off a nationwide campaign on Monday for the release of the five Cubans held in US jails for 13 years.The Campaign will run until October 6 and it will include actions not only in Cuba but also in other countries of the world, where people will demand the release of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, known as the Cuban Five.

The initiative´s program includes views exchange, arts exhibitions, galas, an anti-imperialist tribunal, book launchings and other activities to start September 12, marking thirteen years of imprisonment of the Five.

Here a chronicle of the case:
September 1998: five Cubans were arrested in Miami by the FBI and held in punishment cells for 17 months before their case was taken to court. These Cubans were in the United States monitoring Florida-based ultra-right organizations of Cuban origin that had undertaken terrorist actions against Cuba, and even in US territory, over the past 50 years.

The five Cubans named Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and René Gonzalez were charged with conspiracy against the United States. Three of them, Gerardo, Ramon and Antonio were also accused of conspiracy to commit espionage. But the US government never asserted that such act was committed. They were never proven to have possessed any classified document.Despite energetic objection by the defense, the case was taken to a court in Miami, a community harboring over half a million Cuban exiles with long hostile records against the Cuban government.

Miami was the environment which, a US federal appeal court described later as “the perfect storm” of prejudices that did not favor a fair trial.And this trial took over six months, being considered the longest such process ever in the United States. Three retired US army generals, a retired admiral, the former advisor to Bill Clinton on Cuban issues testified at the trial and said there was no evidence of espionage.Seven months after the official accusation was issued, a new charge was imposed on Gerardo Hernandez: conspiracy to committee assassination. This was the result of a huge media and public campaign to take revenge for the downing in 1996, by the Cuban air force, of two planes belonging to the Florida-based anti-Castro group “Brothers to the Rescue” and the death in the action of four members of this organization. The Brother to the Rescue planes had illegally entered Cuban airspace 25 times prior to the incident and during 20 months, which led to reiterated protests by the Cuban government.

At the end of the trial, just when the case was almost ready for sentencing, the US administration admitted its failure at proving the charge of conspiracy to commit assassination imposed on Hernandez by saying that in the light of the proofs presented, this would constitute an insurmountable obstacle for the United States in relation to this case and would also result in the failure of the specific accusation.However, the jury found Gerardo Hernandez and the other four Cubans guilty of all charges, following intense pressure by the local media.

The Cuban Five, as these men are known around the world, were given 4 life terms and 77 years. This conviction turned three of them into the first people in the United States to have been given life terms in espionage-related cases, in which there was no evidence of their possession or transfer of any secret document. And then, they were confined to five different high-security prisons, far off from each other and with no communication among them whatsoever.

THE NINE-YEAR LONG APPEAL
August 9, 2005: A three judge panel with the Atlanta Court of Appeals revoked the court ruling after considering that the Cuban Five were not given a fair trial in Miami. But, the US government requested the rehearing by the Court en banc of the decision reached by the three-judge panel. This procedure is an action that only takes place in cases involving constitutional principles. One year later, the court revoked, by majority, the unanimous decision of the three judges.

May 27, 2005: The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, after having considered the arguments presented by the relatives of the Cuban Five and by the US government, described the convictions as arbitrary and called on Washington to take the necessary measures to correct such decision.

September 2, 2008: Atlanta´s Court of Appeals ratified the guilty verdicts, upheld the convictions against Gerardo Hernandez (two life terms plus 15 years) and against Rene Gonzalez (15 years) while it annulled the sentences against Antonio Guerrero (life term plus 10 years), Fernando Gonzalez (19 years) and Ramon Labañino (life term plus 18 years) for considering them incorrect. So the cases of the three men were sent back to the Miami Court to be resentenced.The Court admitted the absence of any piece of evidence about the possession or transmission of any secret information or related to US national security in the case of the defendants under the charge of conspiracy to committee espionage. Some months later Antonio Guerrero was resentenced to 21 years and 10 months in prison, plus a 5-year parole; Fernando was given 17 years and 9 months in prison; and Ramon 30 years in jail.

June 15, 2009: The US Supreme Court announced, without further details, its decision not to review the case of the five men despite the unquestionable arguments submitted by the defense in the face of evident and countless legal violations committed during the whole process.With this decision, the US justice also turned a deaf ear on the huge world support of this petition and of the Cuban Five, which was openly expressed in 12 amicus curiae documents—an unprecedented action since it has been the largest number of such documents ever filed with the US Supreme Court requesting the revision of a criminal case.The amicus curiae documents were signed by ten Nobel laureates including the president of East Timor, Jose Ramos Horta; Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu, Jose Saramago, Wole Soyinka, Zhores Alferov, Nadine Gordimer, Gunter Grass, Dario Fo and Maired Maguire; the Mexican Senate; Panama´s Parliament; former Irish President, Mary Robinson who was High UN Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), and the former director of UNESCO, Federico Mayor, among others.From the legal point of view the case has concluded. The Cuban Five are now undertaking an extraordinary process, which is known as Habeas Corpus. This is a one-time opportunity of the defendants after all appeal resources have concluded with no success.

In October 2010, Amnesty International issued a report on the case, which read that if the legal appeal process did not yield on-time compensation, and given the long sentences imposed and the term already served by the Five, the organization would support all calls on US authorities to review the case through the proceeding of pardon or any other appropriate ways.

Cuban Five Demand Freedom
by Teresita Jorge Carpio

The Cuban Five have been victims of an unfair conspiracy after being detained on September 12th 1998 for having infiltrated terrorist organizations based in southern Florida aimed at stopping actions against the Cuban people.Gerardo Hernández, René González, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and Antonio Guerrero were abruptly striped from their family and submitted to a biased trial in Miami and later sentenced to long unfair prison terms ranging from 15 years to 2 life plus 15 years.

Their defense statements were impressive, sincere and passionate. Tony Guerrero´s defense was poetic stating that they will always defend their principles and cause in their unjust imprisonment. His final words affirm a better future when he said: Because, at the end, we shall rest free and victorious beneath that sun which we are denied today.Rene did not request clemency, but justice for his comrades accused of crimes they did not commit, while Ramon proclaimed: I will wear the prison uniform with the same honor and pride with which a soldier wear his most prized insignias! Fernando concluded by saying: In my years in prison, I always carry withme the dignity I have learned from my people and their history. Gerardo Hernandez was also an example of integrity and dignity when he praised US patriot Nathan Hale saying: My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country."Love and hope irradiate the letters of these five men that synthesizes a history of value, sacrifice and love as characterized by African American writer Alice Walker.

A phrase by French writer Victor Hugo became their own: "Love, you know, seeks to make happy rather than to be happy." Sweetness and kindness accompany the heroism of the Cuban Five in its incarceration in the dark dungeon, witness of their commitment to the Homeland and their loved ones. To his jewels, as characterized Ramon Labañino to his wife Elizabeth Palmeiro and daughters, he said: Love is the most profound feeling in our lives. Rene Gonzalez, one of the five anti terrorist fighters incarcerated for the last 13 years write to his daughter Ivette: Your good qualities today will turn into virtues tomorrow.In every letter, message or telephone contact, Gerardo, Rene, Ramon Fernando and Tony constantly transmit a message of love and hope.

These five men, characterized by Gail Walker as heroes are dignified heirs of Jose Marti. Homeland is Humanity, said Cuba´s National Hero. They are an international symbol from their prison cells in the fight for peace and for making a reality the desire that a better world is possible. Their loyalty for the Homeland and firmness of the principles are an example for the honest citizens of the world that demand the immediate release of the five giants, as characterized by the leader of the CubanRevolution Fidel Castro.

Libya Resistance News Agency created in Venezuela

2011-09-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com, 20 September 2011.

by Tamara Pearson

The Libyan Resistance News Agency (ANRL) was inaugurated yesterday in Caracas at a forum in the Gallegos Foundation Centre for Latin American Studies (CELARG). It aims to break the “information blockade imposed by the international mass media” regarding what’s going on in North Africa and the Middle East.The agency came out of an “autonomous” proposal by popular collectives and national and international journalist movements, according to the coordinator of yesterday’s forum, “Palestine, Libya, and Syria: Between Revolution and Counter-revolution”, Venezuelan journalist and a founder of the agency, Hindu Anderi, speaking to the Correo del Orinoco.

The initiative is independent of the Venezuelan government, receiving no financial or technical support from it or from any Venezuelan government institution.Among the other founders of the news agency are journalists Cristina Gonzalez, Marcos Salgado, Richard Penalver, Miguel Cova, Hernan Cano, and members of the La Piedrita collective, a group “dedicated to Guevaran volunteer work” and grassroots work to solve community problems.

The ANRL also has the support of Cuba Periodistas, the journalists’ union of Cuba. “We are open to all the international collectives who want to participate in this initiative,” Anderi said. The agency’s website is ‘Al Mukawama - Resistencia’, http://resistencialibia.info/ where it has sections for the latest information, “Specials”, analysis, video, audio, and features. The site is currently only in Spanish.“It’s an initiative responding to the need in the world for information that isn’t distorted. That’s why any project like this is welcome,” Anderi said.“Analysis will be made of all the information coming out of the different spaces, about the conflict in our North African brother nation,” she added.In terms of sources the agency will use, Anderi said they would include “direct sources”. “Remember that much of the media that broadcasts information from Libya is censored by the system. In Libya there are many resistance groups and there are, we might say, communication initiatives that are going to be consulted. Also, of course, [we’ll also use] all those websites for the resistance and progressive international agencies linked to our approach,” she explained.

Another member of the news agency, Basem Tajeldine, said that the “Libyan companeros” also put out a lot of information through websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, from which the agency will also compile information and reports.Tajeldine said the new news agency would also supply “correct information to the different community, national, and international radio programs, and also to the Venezuelan public media”.

See also: Telesur journalists speak truth on Libya, 08 September 2011; and ALBA bloc moves to halt “imperialism” through United Nations, 11 September 2011.

Resistance symbol killed in Honduras

2011-09-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net, 08 September 2011.

The FNRP holds the Honduran State responsible for the act

This day [September 7] during the afternoon the tragic death of a member of the National Front of People’s Resistance was announced. A naturalized Honduran Mahadeo Roopchand Sadloo Sadloo, better known as Emo, who after returning from a FNRP rally was attacked on the visitors area of his own retailing business.

As expressed by witnesses, Emo was in his tire repair shop near the Hospital Escuela, when a man approached him and without saying a word shot his humanity, with at least 6 shots, immediately afterwards he fled. Still alive, Emo was taken to the emergency room of Hospital Escuela, where he died soon after.

At the emergency room former First Lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, who declared that they have killed a symbol of resistance, "do not come to me and say this is a common crime, this is a political crime" said Castro de Zelaya.

"We will demand an investigation into what happened," Castro said while adding that the murder of Emo is a threat against former president, since the now deceased was very close to Zelaya and participated openly in the mass mobilizations and concentrations of FNRP. During the morning, he participated in a rally in front of the Court of Appeals, in solidarity with a member of the FNRP, Enrique Flores Lanza, demanding an end to political persecution against members of the National Front of People's Resistance.

Cuba excluded from UN 2010 Human Development Index

2011-09-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Source: CaricomNews Network, 19 February 2011.

by Calvin G. Brown

Cuba is protesting its exclusion from the United Nations 2010 Human Development Index (HDI) calling it a political manipulation aimed at trying to ignore the great strides that country’s development.A statement on the matter from the Cuban Embassy noted that “In the 2009 Human Development Report, Cuba was listed as the 51 country worldwide, preceded only by developed countries and by Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, which means that we were part of the list of “High Human Development” countries. In 2010, if you analyze health and education only, Cuba would rank 17 and considering the Gross Domestic Product it would move into place 36 in the HDI, which would place us on the list of countries with a “Very High Human Development”, where developed nations are ranked.”

Human Development Index (HDI) which is published by the United Nations, is a world reference for the assessment of a country’s human development level and is used to make comparisons at a global level. “Whichever way you look at it, this is a political manipulation aimed at ignoring Cuba’s headways. The 2010 HDI bases its indicators on inequalities and poverty, in which Cuba would rank at an outstanding position worldwide for being one of the countries where citizens have universal and free access to health, education up to university and postgraduate levels, employment and social security regardless of race or gender, which is acknowledged throughout the world in UNDP precedent reports and in the reports issued by other international organizations like UNESCO and the WHO, among others,” the Cuban statement declared.

According to the statement, “the reason put forward by the Office that drafts this report is that Cuba is among the 4 countries of the world which have the data of all the HDI components except for the gross domestic product (GDP), since it does not use the “global purchasing power parity” (PPP) method used by the World Bank and therefore by the HDI to determine its GDP.” Cuba says “this justification is a falsehood, as Cuba worked with CEPAL in 2005 to resolve those difficulties in relation to the Cuban indicators and our data have been officially acknowledged by the UN system. In fact, our Gross Domestic Income was posted on the UNDP Website until the day following the publication of the HDI Report, time at which it was suppressed.”

The report violates the provisions contained in resolution 57/264 of the United Nations General Assembly, which establishes the process for its drafting, particularly, for the drafting of the Human Development Report that should be drawn up in a neutral and transparent way, in full and effective consultation with Member States and bearing in mind the unbiased character and the use of the sources.

Among the most negative elements identified in relation with our country is the inclusion of indicators not approved by the inter-governmental organs. The attempts of the UNDP and the HDI Office to draw up assessments and data on issues that are above their competence have been the object of the widest rejection by member states and given rise to resolutions of the UN General Assembly. This is not the first time that Cuba is excluded from the HDI. In 2001, Cuba was not included “by chance” due to the lack of data on the gross domestic product. That incident provoked the reaction that led to the promotion and adoption of resolution 57/264.

The information on Cuba in the 2010 HDI Report is not only unacceptably tendentious but it also twists the reality of a country that has endured the longest and most unjust economic, commercial and financial blockade in the history of mankind; a policy that represents the main hindrance to its development. Despite of that, Cuba shows significant results on social matters, which are internationally acknowledged.

This kind of manipulation of statistical data with political ends against Cuba, which lacks objective bases, far from favoring prestige and the acknowledgement merited by an organ like the UN Development Program, arouses discredit, categorical rejection and lack of trust from Cuba. The UNDP must refrain from favoring these ignominies against UN member states. Cuba demands a public, oral and written rectification in relation with the information on the Human Development Index so that our results are known.

Forced disappearances being implemented in Honduras

2011-09-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

COFADEH: Once Again Forced Disappearance is being Implemented in Honduras
Source: HondurasHumanRights blog (espanol)

The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), with great concern, would like to inform the international community, and the Honduran population in particular, that the practice of forced disappearance is once again being systematically implemented in Honduras, as demonstrated by the following cases.

1. Osmin Obando Cáceres (age 22), son of Eliodoro Cáceres, Coordinator of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) in Tela, department of Atlántida, has been disappeared since Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 4:30 PM when he was driving his taxi and told his family that he couldn’t speak to them by phone because he was surrounded by police. The taxi appeared abandoned that same day around 6:30PM in the community of Los Cedros, in the jurisdiction of Tela. After his disappearance, the family received false calls, one caller claiming that Osmin was in the hospital in Tela and another that claimed that he was dead in the community of Las Palmas. Relatives went to verify each of the calls and neither was true.

2. Denis Alexander Russel (age 19) was captured in an operation of the Special Anti-Kidnapping Taskforce (GEAS) on July 13, 2010. The operation was commanded by Vice Minister of Security Armando Calidonio and police spokesperson Juan Rochez. His mother, Carlota Anariva, denounced that the day he was taken away he had been with her buying groceries, and when they returned to the house she left him to park the car and suddenly the neighbours came to tell her that her son had been taken away. He was a student in the Instituto de la Patria in La Lima, Department of Cortés.

3. Luís Alexander Torres Casaleno, detained on July 20, 2010 by police agents while driving his motorcycle, after having passed a police checkpoint on the Corocito highway towards Tocoa, Colón. A few kilometers passed the checkpoint he was detained by four agents of the Preventative Police who were riding in a white unmarked double-cab pick-up truck and crossed in front of him on the highway. Two agents in uniform got out of the truck and put him into the vehicle, leaving his motorcycle behind. The motorcycle was retrieved by the Corocito police shortly afterwards. A habeas corpus was filed in his name and there has been no response to date.

4. Vilmar Edmundo Talavera Avilez, a police officer, was detained by the Border Police (Policía de Frontera y Análisis) on July 15, 2010 when he was riding a bus. He was detained after presenting his identification documents. Before his disappearance he was reportedly threatened by a police officer by the name of Tercero.

5. Samuel Josué Pastrana Molina was kidnapped on February 7, 2011 at 2:30 when armed men with ski masks entered the place he was in the department of El Paraíso, ordered those who were with him to place themselves on the ground and close there eyes, and they took him away.

6. Francisco Pascual López of the Rigores agricultural cooperative in Tocoa, Colón, is disappeared since May 15, 2011.

7. Kelvin Omar Andrade Hernández (age 18), son of political exile Dagoberto Andrade, mysteriously disappeared on June 11, 2011 when he went out to ride his motorcycle in the neighbourhood of Bella Vista in Catacamas, department of Olancho. He has not appeared since.

8. Mauricio Joel Urbino Castro (34), who worked as a taxi driver of taxi number 248 in the city of Ceiba in the department of Atlántida. He was having a problem with the electrical system of the car on August 2, 2011 and at approximately 4:30PM he arrived at a garage that specialized in electrical repairs in the San José neighbourhood of Ceiba to repair the vehicle. At about the same time four men whose faces were covered with ski masks, of large and muscular build, who were carrying long and short barrelled weapons, identified themselves as police and immediately ordered all present inside the garage to get on the ground, shouting “we’re the police – hit the floor!” while they kicked the garage owner. They then proceeded to beat Mauricio Joel Urbina Castro, fastened his hands behind him, and violently removed him from the garage, forcing him into a grey double-cab pick-up truck with heavily tinted windows and without liscence plate which was waiting in the street. He has not been seen since and his cellphone has never been answered since.

9. Oscar Elías López Muñoz (49) was kidnapped by masked men around 5:00 AM on Sunday August 21st in the Suyapa neighbourhood of Chamelecón in the North of Honduras. The men arrived in three cars and broke down the doors of his home, where López Muños was with his wife and ten year-old daughter. They said they were agents of the National Department of Criminal Investigation (DNIC). They were wearing hoods and ski masks.

10. José Reynaldo Cruz Palma, president of the Community Council (Patronato) of Planeta Neighbourhood in San Pedro Sula. According to his family members he was kidnapped on August 30, 2011 by agents of the DNIC and Preventative Police when he was travelling by public transport along with his wife Nubia Carvajal between La Lima, Cortés and their home in the neighbourhood of Planeta. The bus he was riding in was intercepted by various agents of both police forces who were driving in two vehicles, one was a grey Mazda double-cab pick-up truck with the partial licence plate BP50 and the other was a patrol vehicle of the Preventative Police. The uniformed agents got on the bus, said to his wife that the problem was not with her but with her partner, and took him by force.

In light of these facts COFADEH has filed the corresponding denunciations but to date the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, and state investigative bodies have maintained a conspiratorial silence and have not taken any action in any of these cases.

COFADEH is accompanying these new families who are regrettably suffering this torturous journey and hold the State of Honduras responsible for the re-implementation of this despicable practice, which is a crime against humanity and was carried out in the 1980s against our relatives, who we are still looking for. The people responsible for these crimes continue to benefit from impunity and many are still part of the failed institutions of this country.

WE SHALL NOT FORGIVE OR FORGET THE CRIMES OR THE PURPETRATORS

RATB reports: solidarity with the Cuban 5 – September 2011

2011-09-12T04:11:00.002-07:00

Rock around the Blockade – events in Britain in solidarity with the Cuban 5 – September 2011

On Saturday 10 September, as part of the international days of action for the Cuban 5, on the 13th anniversary of their incarceration in US gaols, members and supporters of Rock around the Blockade in Britain, supported by the Revolutionary Communist Group, held street rallies in four cities: in Glasgow by Donald Dewar Statue, in Newcastle at Grey’s Monument, in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens and in Trafalgar Square in London.

We gathered under banners demanding the freedom for the five political prisoners, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero and René González, and with petitions, leaflets, flags and placards, with open microphones, speeches and music, we ensured that everyone who passed the stalls understood the significance of the day and the importance of the Cuban 5, the need to build the campaign for their freedom and solidarity with the socialist revolution in Cuba. The Cuban 5 may have exhausted their legal avenues in the US, but the political struggle on the streets all around the world goes on.

Comrades gave speeches in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and against the US blockade, they talked of the gains made in Cuba, contrasting this with the cuts in public services in Britain in the current economic crisis where health care and education for all are under threat. Speakers raised the issue of the vengeance of the capitalist state against those who pose any threat, as we are witnessing currently in the aftermath of the uprisings in August in cities in Britain. The US and Britain continue shamelessly to use the guise of fighting terrorism while bombing, killing, torturing and incarcerating those who rise up against imperialism. The movement against this oppression must be anti-imperialist, militant and uncompromising. Socialist Cuba and the Cuban 5 are showing the way.

The international days of action for the Cuban 5 have also been marked by Rock around the Blockade with film showings in all these four cities of Saul Landau’s award winning documentary, Will the real terrorist please stand up, released this year which tells the hidden story of 50 years of US terrorism against Cuba, presenting the case of the Cuban 5.

Rock around the Blockade has the following message for the Cuban 5:

‘Dear comrades,

We are writing to you with solidarity on the 13th anniversary of your detention and imprisonment. We organise regular demonstrations, meetings, film showings and solidarity brigades for Cuba because we know that Cuba is a beacon of hope for oppressed people around the world. We know that here in imperialist Britain we have a lot to learn from socialist Cuba and it is the only way to destroy the state and overthrow capitalism. We want to thank you for your continued struggle in the prisons of the US and we want you to know that we take a lot of inspiration from your fight and the continued advances of the Cuban revolution. We are not going to stop until capitalism is destroyed and you are free.

With much love and solidarity,

Rock around the Blockade’

For more information about Rock around the Blockade visit www.ratb.org.uk

Cuba Solidarity campaign joined in with RATB in Manchester, 10 September 2011.
________________________________________________________________________
Rock around the Blockade – Gran Bretana– solidaridad con los Cinco Cubanos - September 2011

El sábado 10 de septiembre, los miembros de Rock around the Blockade y el Grupo Comunista Revolucionario, realizó un evento animada en las calles de Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester, Glasgow y Londres, Gran Bretana, exigiendo la libertad de los 5 cubanos. Los compañeros dieron discursos en solidaridad con Cuba Socialista, contra el bloqueo de EE.UU. y en contra de la prisión ilegal de los cinco héroes cubanos. Los habitantes se detuvo a firmar peticiones para los 5 cubanos y firmar cartas de solidaridad que han sido enviados a Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero y René González. La manifestación marcó 13 años desde su detención en Miami y busca destacar el caso de los 5 cubanos y fomentar la solidaridad con la Revolución Socialista Cubana. Rock around the Blockade tiene el siguiente mensaje para los 5 cubanos y sus partidarios

‘Queridos compañeros,

Nos dirigimos a ustedes con la solidaridad en el 13 aniversario de sus detención y encarcelamiento. Se organizan manifestaciones periódicas, reuniones, proyecciones de películas y brigadas de solidaridad de Cuba, porque sabemos que Cuba es un faro de esperanza para los pueblos oprimidos de todo el mundo. Sabemos que aquí en Gran Bretaña imperialista que tenemos mucho que aprender de Cuba socialista y es la única manera de destruir el Estado y derrocar el capitalismo. Queremos darle las gracias por su continu luacha en las cárceles de los EE.UU. y queremos que sepan que tenemos un montón de inspiración de que la lucha continúa y los avances de la revolución cubana. No vamos a dejar de luchar hasta que el capitalismo se destruye y ustedes son libres.

Mucho amor y solidaridad.

Rock around the Blockade’

El fin de semana de acción culmina en una película que muestra de "¿El verdadero terrorista por favor ponerse de pie", un premiado documental lanzado este año cuenta la historia oculta de 50 años de terrorismo estadounidense contra Cuba, al presentar el caso de la Cinco cubanos. Los entrevistados son renombrados terroristas Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, José Basulto y otros, que tengan libertad de caminar por la calles de Miami, apoyado y protegido por el gobierno de EE.UU., junto con
imágenes raras de la invasión de Bahía de Cochinos.

Para más información sobre Rock around the Blockade, visita www.ratb.org.uk

Chile police officer implicated in student death

2011-09-12T04:11:00.001-07:00

Source: The Santiago Times, 29 August 2011.

by Alison Silveira and Adeline Bash

Bullet from officer's UZI machine gun matches that found in student's body, prosecutor says.

The bullet that killed 16-year-old high school student Manuel Gutiérrez last week was fired from Carabinero police officer Miguel Millacura's firearm, prosecutor Jorge Martinez confirmed late Monday night. Martinez said that experts reviewed 160 weapons before concluding that Millacura’s was a match.

Millacura was asked to resign earlier Monday after admitting to using his firearm in the Macul borough of Santiago near where Gutiérrez was shot and killed Thursday night.
According to an announcement by Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, Millacura hid his 9mm UZI submachine gun and changed the ammunition after the incident to avoid detection by the prosecutor's office.

In a press conference, Minister Hinzpeter also formally requested that the national director of Carabineros ask Gen. Sergio Gajardo, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Zone, to resign. Gajardo rejected the possibility of police involvement in the student's death last week and refused to open an internal investigation into possible wrongdoing within the police force.

Four other Carabinero officers were also discharged from the force Monday night in connection with the student death.

"Just as we have said on many occasions, we support the important, valuable sacrifices made by the Carabineros de Chile, but we demand that their actions be always within the framework of respecting the law, the rights of our citizens, and the norms that regulate these procedures," Hinzpeter said. "In this we are categorically inflexible."

He called both for recognition of the difficult situation that Carabineros have faced at ongoing student protests, and asked for the cooperation of both citizens and police officers in understanding and respecting the law and public order.

According to local media, Millacura, who has been with the Carabinero police force for 18 years, admitted early Monday to firing two shots into the air from an UZI machine gun close to midnight Thursday in the same area where Gutiérrez was reportedly shot in the chest. Gutiérrez died Friday morning in a nearby hospital.

Officer Millacura insisted that he fired his weapon only in response to other gunshots fired by protestors in the Macul area after Chile’s two-day national strike on Wednesday and Thursday.

Witnesses, including Manuel’s brother Gerson Gutiérrez who was with him at the time, have nevertheless maintained that Carabineros were responsible the youth’s death.

Carabinero officials immediately rejected these claims, however, initially refusing to even conduct an internal investigation.

Police maintained this stance until Monday, when Deputy Chief José Luis Ortega confirmed that Millacura was asked to resign for unauthorized use of his firearm. Ortega insisted that the measure was not related to possible involvement in the 16-year-old’s death.

There is still not enough evidence to connect Carabineros to Gutiérrez’s death, Ortega said midday Monday, explaining that an investigation of the bullet extracted from the youth would help officials better determine whether it came from Millacura’s weapon. Yet by Monday night Hinzpeter had confirmed the bullet to be a match for Millacura's machine gun.

The announcement about Millacura’s unauthorized firearm use on Monday coincided with public demands by politicians, national human rights groups and Chilean activists for investigation into alleged police involvement in Gutiérrez’s death.

"It's not reassuring that police officers use their weapons against civilians," said Supreme Court Justice and spokesperson Jaime Rodríguez after Hinzpeter's Monday night announcement.

Rodríguez likewise recommended that the case be reviewed by the military justice system, as the Carabineros police force is considered part of the Armed Forces.

On Saturday, student strike leaders demanded further investigation into Gutiérrez’s death as one of their pre-conditions for meeting with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera to discuss education reform. That same day, Lorena Fries, president of Chile’s National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), publicly criticized Carabinero police officials’ refusal to investigate the claims of police involvement.

“It does not seem like an adequate response by the Carabineros to say we are not going to investigate because we had nothing to do with it,” Fries told Radio Cooperativa, adding that the organization plans to take legal action if someone is not held accountable.

According to Fries, appropriate investigation into Manuel’s death is especially pertinent given the Carabinero police force’s fragile public image, especially in light of allegations of excessive force in the recent citizen demonstrations across Chile.

“We know that there have been incidents of excessive violence in different cities and regions of the country,” Fries said. “(Investigating Gutiérrez death) requires maximum transparency so as to not increase the public’s existing distrust of police activity.”

Cuba refuses to recognize the Transitional National Council in Libya

2011-09-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

by the Cuban Foreign Ministry

Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi

The Foreign Ministry of Cuba has withdrawn its diplomatic staff from Libya, where foreign intervention and NATO military aggression has exacerbated the conflict and prevented the Libyan people from advancing toward a peaceful negotiated solution, in full exercise of their self-determination.

The Republic of Cuba does not recognize the Transitional National Council, nor any provisional authority, and will only recognize a government established in Libya in a legitimate manner, without foreign intervention, through the free, sovereign, and common will of the brother people of Libya.

Ambassador Víctor Ramírez Peña and First Secretary Armando Pérez Suárez, accredited in Tripoli, have maintained impeccable conduct, strictly observing their diplomatic status, have endured risks, and have stood by the Libyan people in this tragic situation. They have directly witnessed the NATO bombings of civilian targets and deaths of innocent people.

Under the grotesque pretense of protecting civilians, the NATO has murdered thousands of them, disregarded the constructive initiatives of the African Union and other countries, and even violated the questionable resolutions imposed at the Security Council, in particular by its attacks on civilian targets, by its financing and arming of one side, and by its deployment of diplomatic and operational personnel on the ground.

The United Nations has ignored the clamor of international public opinion in defense of peace and ended up becoming complicit in a war of conquest. The facts confirm the early warnings of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz and the timely condemnations issued by Cuba at the UN. Now the world can see better what purpose the so-called "Responsibility to Protect" serves in the hands of the powerful.

Cuba declares that nothing can justify the murder of innocent people.

The Foreign Ministry demands the immediate end to NATO bombings, which continue to claim lives, and reiterates the urgent need to permit the Libyan people to find a peaceful negotiated solution, without foreign intervention, in exercise of their inalienable right to independence and self-determination, to sovereignty over their national resources, and to the territorial integrity of that brother nation.

Cuba condemns the conduct of the NATO, which is aimed at creating similar conditions for intervention in Syria, and demands the end to foreign intervention in that Arab country. Cuba calls upon the international community to prevent a new war, urges the United Nations to abide by its duty to safeguard peace, and supports the right of the Syrian people to full sovereignty and self-determination.

Havana, 3 September 2011

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The original statement "Declaración del MINREX: Cuba no reconoce al Consejo Nacional de Transición" may be read at CubaDebate.cu

See also: Nicaragua refuses to recognise NTC, calls NATO drunken warmonger, 05 September 2011.

Weekend of action for the Cuban 5!

2011-08-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend of 10-11 September 2011, RATB activists across Britain will be organising activities in support of the Cuban 5 as they approach the 13th anniversary of their 'kidnapping' and imprisonment by the US government.

In Manchester on Saturday 10 Sepember, we will be holding a campaign stall with leaflets, petitions and a speak-out in Piccadilly Gardens, city centre starting at 12 noon. The following day we will be showing the new film by Saul Landau, 'Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up' in the Cross Street Chapel, Cross Street, starting at 2pm. Make sure you put the film show in your diary, this will be the first time the film has been showed anywhere in the North West.

Free the Cuban 5!
Solidarity With Socialist Cuba!

RATB events you can join in

FREE FILM SHOWINGS

Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up (2011, Saul Landau), telling the story of the Cuban Five and a half century of hostile US-Cuban relations.

LONDON
Sunday 4 September, 5pm
The Compass pub, corner of Chapel Market and Penton Street
Angel, Islington, N1

MANCHESTER
Sunday 11 September, 2pm
Cross Street Chapel
Cross Street, M2

NEWCASTLE
Tuesday 13 September, 7pm
Barkollo
22 Leazes Park Road, NE1

GLASGOW
Wednesday 14 September, 7.30pm
Langside Halls,
Shawlands, G4

RALLIES AND PROTESTS FOR THE CUBAN FIVE

LONDON
Saturday 10 September, 12-3pm
In front of the National Gallery. Bring stalls, literature, banners and music.
Trafalgar Square, Central London

MANCHESTER
Saturday 10 September, 12-3pm
Piccadilly Gardens

NEWCASTLE
Saturday 10 September, 12-3pm
Grey’s Monument
Grey Street, NE1

GLASGOW
Sunday 11 September, 1-3pm
Donald Dewar Statue
Buchanan Street, G1

Free the Cuban Five! - Defend the socialist revolution in Cuba

2011-08-27T16:03:00.001-07:00

Source: Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) no. 222, August/September 2011.

by Ali Erkaslan

12 September 2011 will mark 13 years since the arrest in Miami, Florida of five Cuban intelligence agents who had infiltrated right-wing terrorist organisations in the United States to help foil terrorist attacks against the Cuban people. They remain incarcerated in US prisons. The campaign for their release is an essential part of the struggle to defend Cuban socialism. In September, Rock around the Blockade will join activists from around the world demanding the release of the Cuban Five.

‘No revolution is worth anything unless it can defend itself’ – Lenin

Since 1959, Cubans have learned the hard way the importance of defending their revolution from sabotage and terrorism in every sphere and sector. In 1961 there was the invasion at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) by Cuban exiles and mercenaries, organised and funded by the CIA. In 1962, there was the threat of nuclear attack during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Revolution has defended itself for more than 50 years against the brutal and criminal US blockade, which has cost the country $236 billion since 1960. It survived the collapse of the socialist bloc and subsequent loss of around 80% of its trade. Cuba has also defended itself against diplomatic isolation, severe natural disasters, the global capitalist crisis, against propaganda and slander from the right-wing and sectarianism and lies from ‘left-wing’ opportunists.

Cuba has been the victim of sustained terrorism for longer than any other country in the world, costing the lives of 3,478 Cubans and permanently maiming another 2,099. Miami, Florida, hosts a terrorist network which has frequently launched attacks against Cuba: bombing and arson attacks on factories, offices, recreation centres, and Cuban agencies abroad; killings of Cuban diplomats in foreign countries; burning sugar cane fields and other economic targets; smuggling pests, viruses and diseases into Cuba; bombings and shootings of tourist hotels; assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and other leaders. Examples include: 4 March 1960, the French cargo ship La Coubre exploded in the Havana docks, killing 101 people; 6 October 1976 two bombs exploded on a civilian Cubana Airlines flight killing all 73 people on board (57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five Koreans); dengue fever was introduced into Cuba in 1981, infecting over 344,000 people and killing 158, including 101 children.

In the 1990s as the bourgeoisie celebrated the collapse of the socialist bloc, terrorist attacks against Cuba intensified. More than 200 attacks were launched from Miami, mostly targeting Cuba’s expanding tourist industry, which became the principal means of securing the hard currency necessary to pay upfront in cash for goods imports – a precondition imposed uniquely on Cuba. Cuban exile groups shot at coastal tourist resorts from the sea and bombed five hotels in Havana in 1997. They sent mercenaries to bomb the famous Tropicana entertainment venue in Havana, but the attack was foiled.

On 11 September 2011, a flood of rhetoric about the ‘US war on terror’ will accompany the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. That day will also mark 31 years since Felix Garcia Rodriguez, a Cuban diplomat accredited by the UN, was murdered in broad daylight on a crowded street in New York by terrorists from the Miami-based group Omega 7. It is, of course, also the 38th anniversary of the US-backed coup d’état against democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, which led to the brutal dictatorship of General Pinochet, friend of Reagan, Thatcher and the Chicago Boys.

The Cuban Five revolutionary heroes
‘In the view of these aggressions and the shameless avoidance of punishment of the aggressors’, writes Randy Alonso Falcon, Director of the Office of Communication of Cuba’s Council of State, ‘Cuba has the right to employ every method and instrument at its disposal in order to save the lives of its own people and of the citizens of other countries who visit Cuba’ (With Honour, Courage and Pride, Cuban Council of State, Havana, 2002).

The US authorities refuse to stop Cuban exile terrorists operating domestically and often act with complicity. It is the need for the Cuban Revolution to mount its own defence that sent Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez, the Cuban Five, to infiltrate terrorist groups in Miami in the early 1990s and monitor the threat against Cuba. The Cuban Five had no guns and no explosives. They were not after classified information or threatening US national security. They were gathering information and evidence from terrorist networks about actions planned and launched from US soil. They did their job with utmost professionalism and rigorous care.

In June 1998, Nobel prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez brokered an unprecedented meeting between top officials at the FBI and Cuban State Security. Over three days, the Cubans handed the FBI a mountain of evidence – four volumes of more than 300 pages each, two hours and 40 minutes of video tapes, eight audiocassette tapes – compiled by the Cuban agents from the terrorist networks in Miami. They demonstrated the links between the Cuban American National Foundation and the hotel bombings in Havana the previous year and revealed their intention to ratchet up the campaign of terror. The information gathered by the Cuban Five made it possible to successfully prevent 170 attacks against Cuba, including a plan to blow up aeroplanes filled with Cuba-bound tourists from Europe and Canada.

Instead of acting on the information to break the terror networks, the FBI arrested the Cuban agents. 26 charges were made against them by the US government, 24 of which were technical offences relating to the use of false names and failure to register as foreign agents. All five were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and Gerardo Hernandez was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. This relates to the shooting down by Cuban authorities of two aeroplanes from the Brothers to the Rescue exile group in 1996. After repeated incursions into Cuban territory throughout the 1990s, the planes were given a final warning before being shot down by the Cuban Air Force killing four men. Gerardo Hernandez was accused of supplying information to the Cuban government which led to the shooting. No evidence was provided.

US imperialism and human rights
The case of the Cuban Five shows how imperialism will trample its own ‘bourgeois-democratic’ laws to fight against socialism. The Cuban Five were put in solitary confinement after their arrest and effectively denied the right to collaborate on their defence for the first five months. It took 17 months to bring the case to court. The trial took place in Miami, a hotbed of the counter-revolutionary exile community and home of the terrorist organisations they had infiltrated. Documents recently published by the Partnership for Civil Justice, the Committee to Free the Cuban Five and the US newspaper Liberation show that during the trial the US government paid Miami-based journalists who saturated the Miami media with inflammatory and prejudicial reports about the five Cubans. This is illegal under US law. The trial judge refused the request to move venues because, in his words, a trial in Miami would be more interesting than any television show.

After a six month trial, in July 2001 the Five were convicted of all charges and sentenced to a total of four life sentences plus 77 years. Dispersed across the US in maximum security prisons they were denied the opportunity to communicate with each other and obstructed from seeing families and lawyers. The US government has repeatedly denied visas to Adriana Perez, wife of Gerardo Hernandez, and Olga Salanueva, wife of Rene Gonzalez, to travel from Cuba to visit their husbands.

In August 2005 the US Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta unanimously overturned the Cuban Five’s convictions and ordered a retrial. They ruled that the original trial was unfair due to the hostile publicity before and during the trial and intimidating presence of the Miami exile community. However, the Cuban Five were kept in prison and one year later the ruling was appealed and reversed. In June 2009, an appeal to the US Supreme Court to review the case was turned down despite being supported by an unprecedented 12 Amicus Curiae (friends of the court) briefs from ten Nobel Laureates, 75 members of the European Parliament, 85 Mexican Deputies and 87 British parliamentarians, among others. The Supreme Court’s decision marked the end of the legal battle. The political battle, however, continues.

Solidarity with the Cuban Five
‘The worst thing that can happen to anyone in the American system of justice is to be alone. Solidarity is necessary, not to intimidate the Court, but to indicate that the world is watching and the law should be followed’ – Leonard Weinglass, US civil rights lawyer and lead appellate of the Cuban Five (died on 23 March 2011).

The solidarity movement which has developed worldwide shows that the world is watching the case of the Cuban Five. They are not alone in their struggle against terrorism, imperialism and the repressive ‘justice’ system. Activists have taken to the streets and outside US embassies during and after every court hearing and for international days of action. In Britain Rock around the Blockade (RATB) began campaigning for the Cuban Five shortly after they were sentenced. We see this as part of the struggle to defend the socialist Revolution. In September we will be participating in the international days of action marking the 13th year of their incarceration. (See below for details of events around the country.)

US imperialism, harbouring the real terrorists
While the Five are punished for their commitment to socialism, the terrorists responsible for deadly attacks on Cuban civilians have lived freely in Miami. Among them Orlando Bosch (died peacefully in Miami 27 April 2011) and Posada Carriles, who both admitted to planning the bombing of the Cubana Airlines flight in 1976. Both have been on the CIA’s payroll and are protected by their associates in the tops ranks of the US establishment. After a three-month trial in Texas earlier this year, Carriles was acquitted of 11 charges of perjury, immigration fraud and obstruction of procedure. Evidence of his involvement in international terrorism, from Iran to Honduras and, of course, Cuba, was brushed aside. There is also evidence that the White House had advance information about Carriles’s plans for the Cuban Airlines’ bombing in 1976, the 1997 Havana hotel bombs and plans to assassinate Fidel Castro in Panama in November 2000.

This is not just ‘hypocrisy’ – it is the very nature of the imperialist system which tramples all rights and laws to maintain its hegemony over the people of the world. US imperialism shamelessly uses the guise of fighting terrorism while it bombs, kills, tortures and incarcerates those who rise up against its interests. The movement to oppose this system of oppression must be an anti-imperialist one, militant and uncompromising. Socialist Cuba and the Cuban Five are showing the way.

Send your solidarity to the Cuban Five:

Gerardo Hernandez

#58739-004

USP Victorville

PO Box 5300

Adelanto, CA 92301

Antonio Guerrero

#58741-004

FCI Florence

PO Box 6000

Florence, CO 81226

Luis Medina

(Ramon Labañino)

No. 58734-004

FCI Jesup

2680 301 South

Jesup, GA 31599

(NOTE: address the envelope to ‘Luis Medina’, but the letter inside to Ramon)

Rubén Campa (Fernando González)

#58733-004

FCI Terre Haute

PO Box 33

Terre Haute, IN 47808

(NOTE: address the envelope to ‘Rubén Campa’, but the letter inside to Fernando)

René González

#58738-004

FCI Marianna

PO Box 7007

Marianna, FL 32447-7007

Government-funded propaganda operation in Miami exposed - Part 1

2011-08-27T15:44:00.001-07:00

Source: Reporters for Hire

by Gloria La Riva

More than 2,200 pages of documents obtained through FOIA

In 1998, five Cuban men were arrested by the U.S. government and tried in Miami on charges of conspiring to commit espionage on the United States.

The five men’s mission was to stop terrorism, keeping watch on Miami’s ultra-right extremists to prevent their violent attacks against Cuba. “The Cuban Five,” as they are now known, were convicted after repeated denials by the judge to move the trial venue out of Miami. The U.S. government insisted that they be tried in Miami.

What the Cuban Five and their attorneys did not know during trial was that the U.S. government—through its official propaganda agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors—was covertly paying prominent Miami journalists who, at the same time as the government conducted its prosecution, saturated the Miami media with reports that were highly inflammatory and prejudicial to the Cuban Five.

The presence of Miami journalists on the U.S. government payroll, who purported to report as “independent” press, goes to the heart of the unjust conviction of the Five. The Five were not only victims of a politically-motivated prosecution, but a government-funded propaganda operation as well.

Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for Colin Powell when he was Secretary State from 2001 to 2005, commented about the inability of the Cuban Five to receive a fair trial in Miami:

When the case came to trial, a change of venue was warranted and asked for because no Miami court was going to give the Cuban Five a fair trial, since the city is largely in the hands of some of the very Cuban-Americans and their supporters who've allegedly perpetrated these atrocities on the Cuban people and are prepared to invade the island. But the change of venue motion was denied. And of course the five were convicted.

Wilkerson has called for the release of the Cuban Five.

So, too, has former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who stated:

I believe that there is no reason to keep the Cuban Five imprisoned, there were doubts in the U.S. courts and also among human rights organizations in the world. Now, they have been in prison 12 years and I hope that in the near future they will be released to return home.

Digging up the truth
A multi-year effort by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the civil rights legal organization the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and, most recently, Liberation newspaper, has uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased materials exposing this government operation.

More than 2,200 pages of contracts between Miami journalists and Radio and TV Martí—released thus far to Liberation newspaper through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) petition—expose the fallacy of an independent press in Miami.

This is the first in a series of articles about these new disclosures.

The BBG and its Office of Cuba Broadcasting have operated Radio Martí since 1985 and TV Martí since 1990. They broadcast into Cuba with the intent to destabilize the government. They also broadcast directly into Miami.

The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 regulating U.S. “public diplomacy” abroad—Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio and TV Martí, etc.—prohibits the U.S. government from funding activities to influence and propagandize domestic public opinion, see 22 U.S.C. § 1461.

The U.S. government has funneled nearly half a billion dollars into the Office of Cuba Broadcasting in Miami. With an annual budget nearing $35 million, the OCB and BBG put on their payroll domestic journalists to broadcast the same message inside and outside the United States on Cuba-related issues, effectively violating the law against domestic dissemination of U.S. propaganda.

The earliest documents obtained thus far from the BBG go back to Nov. 1, 1999. Despite the FOIA petition request for data on the journalists going back to the date of the shoot-down in 1996—which also covers the date of the Five’s 1998 arrest—the BBG has so far refused to comply, claiming that contracts and other documents have been destroyed.

These contracts evidence the U.S. government’s payments to journalists in Miami whose reports constituted a sustained effort to create an atmosphere of hysteria and bias against Cuba and the Cuban Five. Three of the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino—have filed habeas corpus appeals arguing that their constitutional rights to due process were grossly undermined by the government’s media operation in Miami and payments to the Miami reporters.

The reportage of these journalists and their contracts with the government demonstrate a close partnership between Washington and right-wing Cuban exile reporters. Prominent journalists who churn out biased anti-Cuba themes in the Miami media are richly rewarded with contracts from the BBG.

Headquartered in Miami, Radio and TV Martí are the only U.S. propaganda stations that operate outside of the Washington, D.C., area. Moving to Miami in 1997, they were able to recruit a stable of virulent anti-Cuba reporters.

Those contracted by the U.S. government also served as guests, hosts, regular commentators and writers of shows such as “Actualidad Mundial” (“World Update”), “Mesa Redonda” (“Roundtable”) and regular daily newscasts. In other words, they directed and shaped the message. At the same time that they are employed by the U.S. government, these journalists also hold themselves out as independent reporters covering U.S.-Cuban affairs in other media.

Such is the case with Pablo Alfonso and Ariel Remos.

Reporters condemn the Five before trial
Pablo Alfonso was a longtime reporter for El Nuevo Herald. The contracts released by the Liberation newspaper FOIA show that Alfonso received BBG payments of $58,600 during the Cuban Five’s trial during the period between Nov. 1, 1999 and Dec. 31, 2001. His total payments were $252,325 through Aug. 22, 2007.

Ariel Remos is a longtime reporter and commentator for Diario Las Américas. Remos received BBG payments of $11,750 during the Five’s trial from Nov. 1, 1999 to Dec. 12, 2001—roughly the same time span as Alfonso. His total pay was $24,350 through Nov. 20, 2006.

During the Cuban Five’s prosecution, both Alfonso and Remos wrote incendiary articles that were placed in the Miami media accusing the Cuba government of murder.

Brothers to the Rescue had repeatedly sent planes to invade Cuban airspace in 1995 and early 1996, including buzzing Havana buildings and dropping thousands of leaflets over the city. With the Brothers to the Rescue’s public announcement that they would once again fly into Cuban territory on Feb. 24, Cuba warned that it would take direct action if the planes invaded again. When the planes crossed into Cuban airspace, they were shot down.

Virtual hysteria and demand for vengeance became pervasive in the Miami media in the aftermath of the shoot-down.

Despite being in Miami, not Cuba, and playing no role whatsoever in Cuba’s action to defend its territory, Hernández became a scapegoat. Seven months after the Five were arrested, Hernández was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Although trial judge Joan Lenard later claimed that the non-sequestered jury was sufficiently shielded from the media with her instructions that they should not follow the news during the trial, the Miami community had already been inundated with inflammatory coverage on the shoot-down for almost five years before the jury was selected.

Alfonso and Remos pounded a steady drumbeat to condemn Fidel Castro for the plane shoot-down, and interviewed others who demanded his arrest for “murder.” Their articles were inflammatory and sensationalist.

In 1999, while under contract with the U.S. government, Remos interviewed Tampa attorney Ralph Fernández—the legal representative of José Basulto, the president of Brothers to the Rescue.

The article by Remos, dated Nov. 28, 1999, states:

… [I]n the case of U.S. v. Gerardo Hernández, in which Caroline Heck-Miler has been serving as the prosecutor and where the chain of command and cause for the death of the four members of Brothers to the Rescue – three of them citizens of the US and one resident – supposedly begins with Fidel Castro.

Castro, therefore, is in the referenced case accused of murder and under investigation for murder; and if he sets foot on United States territory he can be arrested and brought before the justice of this country. That is the opinion of attorney Fernández, and that is how he just told it to DIARIO LAS AMERICAS.

The harm created by the partnership between the government and its paid journalists was reinforced during the trial itself.

The trial began in November 2000 and concluded in June 2001.

Three months into the trial, an article by Ariel Remos appeared in Diario las Americas (Feb. 27, 2001) under the headline “Jeane Kirkpatrick Asks Ashcroft to Prosecute Cuban Officials for International Terrorism.” The article reveals a letter to the new Bush administration attorney general, John Ashcroft, written by Kirkpatrick, the neo-conservative U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Reagan administration.

The article highlights the claim made in the letter to Ashcroft that “in the upcoming trial of five Cuban officials in Florida, evidence has come forward that the murders [of the Brothers to the Rescue pilots] were premeditated,” as well as the complaint that the “highest authorities who approved this act of state terrorism, have still not been charged.”

On its face, the “arrangement” between the government and the journalists covering Cuba and the Cuban Five prosecution clearly impacts—or rather negates—the possibility of a fair trial in Miami. But the government, in its April 25, 2011, “Response in Opposition” to a motion filed by Gerardo Hernández that appeals his double life sentence, puts forth a simple “you can’t ever catch me” defense.

The government’s recent response, filed by the Obama administration’s Justice Department attorneys, argues that the articles written by the government’s paid journalists could have no possible impact either because A) they were published before the trial started; or B) they were published after the trial started and the jury was empanelled and admonished by the judge not to be influenced by the media.

Thus, hostile and inflammatory media coverage could never be harmful to the defendants. According to the government, its pumping millions of dollars into the so-called “independent” media in Miami is of no significance or impropriety.

However, the U.S. prosecutors knew that the judge’s instructions were insufficient to protect the trial process from undue media influence, as demonstrated by the government's motion filed by prosecutor Caroline Heck-Miller in December 2000 seeking a gag order to prohibit the press from quoting potential witnesses – out of concern that those witnesses would help the defense.

The motion was filed after one potential witness, Richard Nuccio, had expressed disgust at learning that the FBI was aware that the shoot-down might occur before it had taken place.

The government's motion stated: “…the jury in this trial has been strictly instructed not to read press accounts of the case, and there is no reason to believe that they have disregarded their instruction. Nonetheless, unbridled comment by persons who are designated witnesses in this matter, contrary to the Court’s clear directives, poses risks to the process that none of the parties should have to endure.” (emphasis added)

The government knew and admitted the media could influence the jury. And it continued to pay reporters who were doing just that. It continued to simultaneously prosecute the Cuban Five in Miami in the midst of press-generated anti-Cuba hysteria that it generously funded.

Creating a climate of hysteria
Some of the journalists on the government payroll as of the date of the earliest 1999 documents released by the FOIA request were writing prejudicial articles about the Five immediately after their arrest.

The coverage went far beyond regular news reporting on a breaking story of the arrests to create the specter of a supposed threat that the just-arrested defendants and Cuba held for the United States.

On Sept. 16, 1998, four days after the arrest of the Five, Pablo Alfonso published a highly-inflammatory and unsubstantiated charge of a link of Cuba and its agents with terrorism. It appeared in El Nuevo Herald, titled “Possible Alliance with Terrorism.”

As evidenced by documents released to the National Committee, Alfonso received over $250,000 in BBG contracts between 1999 and 2007.

Alfonso writes:

The surprising offensive against an alleged network of Cuban spies in Miami, may be an action aimed at preventing a possible collaboration between the Cuban government and countries involved in terrorist actions against the United States, according to military and intelligence experts who expressed this to El Nuevo Herald.

In his article, Alfonso quotes Orestes Lorenzo, an ex-major of the Cuban Air Force who deserted to the United States in 1991:

“It’s ridiculous to assume that the Cuban army can do something serious to the powerful US military”, Lorenzo indicated. “However, if we think in terms of services provided to terrorist groups or nations like Libya, Iran or the like, things change.”

Lorenzo said that he isn’t surprised Fidel Castro’s regime is “lending or selling its intelligence services” to Islamic terrorist groups or powerful nations that are interested in carrying out terrorist acts on U.S. territory.

Alfonso’s unsubstantiated story ends by turning the speculation of Cuba’s link to “Islamic” terrorists into a fact.

This type of reporting contributed the political context and climate facing the Cuban Five following their arrest and all the way through their trial, jury deliberations and ultimate conviction. Cuba was painted as a terrorist entity by the Miami media, including by the inflammatory reports of anti-Castro journalists who wrote during the same period that the U.S. government was prosecuting the Cuban Five in Miami and who have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. government.

Wilfredo Cancio Isla, according to contracts published by Liberation newspaper, received $4,725 from Sept. 30, 2000, to Dec. 3, 2001—dates within the period of the Five’s prosecution. His contract P109-1036 with Radio Martí committed him to weekly “debate” participation on the station through Sept. 30, 2001. His total pay was $21,800 through Nov. 20, 2006.

During this same period, Cancio published the unsubstantiated U.S. government accusations in El Nuevo Herald that the jury was not permitted to hear in the courtroom. Yet those charges would appear in the press for all to read, including the unsequestered jury.

On June 4, 2001, the day the jury was to begin deliberations, a Cancio article appeared in El Nuevo Herald with the headline “Cuba Used Hallucinogens to Train its Spies.”

This inflammatory article—supposedly based on information from an anonymous “Cuban spy defector”—claimed that Cuba gave LSD and other hallucinogens for “behavior modification” for the purposes of “intelligence and counter-intelligence.”

The supposed “anonymous” ex-spy defector given two pseudonyms—Alex and José—conveniently links the drug accusation with the Cuban Five. Cancio writes:

Cuba experimented with hypnosis techniques and hallucinogens to "modify the behavior" of numerous agents who were sent abroad ... "Among these hallucinogens were psilocybin and LSD. ..." [as described by his source, Alex]

“I can assure you that the Wasp Network (broken up in September 1998) is just a part of the espionage work that was conceived to infiltrate the United States on a long-term basis,” said Alex, who now lives in southern Florida. [The Wasp Network is a reference to the Cuban Five.]

It is clear that the Cuban Five political prisoners were victims of vicious anti-Cuba propaganda by reporters on the payroll of their very accusers, the U.S. government.

The Reporters for Hire website will soon be publishing other articles and releasing additional documents obtained from the BBG exposing this illegal government propaganda operation and manipulation of the justice system.

Contributing to this article was Ben Becker, editor of Liberation newspaper.

read Part 2 here.

Chile: teenager shot dead, over 1,000 people arrested

2011-08-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

Source: Prensa Latina, 26 August 2011.

A 14-year old teenager died Friday of a chest wound afer being shot by the Chilean police forces during a mass protest Thursday against the government's neoliberal policies. During the mass rallies, at least 200 people were injured and 1,300 arrested, according to a government official.

The teenager, Manuel Gutierrez, died early Friday morning in a hospital in the capital's neighborhood of Macul, as a result of a large-bore gunshot. Regarding this event, Under Secretary of the Interior, Rodrigo Ubilla, urged Chileans "not to speculate" and "let institutions deal with this terrible case."

Ubilla underlined that Gutierrez' death occurred amid "clashes" and the government will do its best to quickly clarify the case. The official confirmed that more than 1,300 people have been arrested during the nationwide strike and nearly 200, civilians and police officers, have been injured.

WikiLeaks reveal: US and UN officials oversaw integration of ex-army paramilitaries into Haiti’s police force

2011-08-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

by Jeb Sprague, 10 August 2011.

Throughout 2004 and 2005, Haiti’s unelected de facto authorities, working alongside foreign officials, integrated at least 400 ex-army paramilitaries into the country’s police force, secret U.S. Embassy cables reveal.

For a year and a half following the ouster of Haiti’s elected government on Feb. 29, 2004, UN, OAS, and U.S. officials, in conjunction with post-coup Haitian authorities, vetted the country’s police force – officer by officer – integrating paramilitaries with the goal of both strengthening the force and providing an alternative “career path” for paramilitaries.

Hundreds of police considered loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's deposed government were purged. Some were jailed and a few killed, according to numerous sources interviewed. At the same time, former soldiers from the disbanded Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH), who were assembled in a paramilitary “rebel” force which worked with the country’s elite opposition to bring down Aristide, were stationed – officially and unofficially – in many towns across the country. As part of this, an extrajudicial strike brigade was assembled in Pétion-Ville. It carried out brutal raids (sometimes alongside police), often several times a week, in the capital’s coup-resisting neighborhoods, as documented in a November 2004 University of Miami human rights study. The secret U.S. dispatches detailing the police force’s overhaul were part of 1,918 Haiti-related cables obtained by the media organization WikiLeaks and provided to Haïti Liberté.

The cables show that UN and U.S. officials saw the program as a useful way to disarm and demobilize combatants, but the implications of providing coup-making paramilitaries with government security jobs have been hidden or ignored. The cables also make clear that the US officials – using “redlines” and “red flags” – took on a leading role in the “reforms,” minutely following the process of repopulating Haiti’s police. Millions of dollars in funding for the demobilization and integration of the FAdH was gathered — mainly through the UN and the U.S. — but officials also looked to other governments for funding.

Immediately after the coup, the integration process was carried out by officials of the so-called Interim Government of Haiti (IGOH), under U.S., OAS and UN supervision. Then, starting in November 2004, a longer-term apparatus, the UN’s DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration) program, was set up. Part of its duties included a continued integration of some of the paramilitaries into the Haitian National Police (HNP).

The U.S. Embassy cables go into detail about the integration of paramilitaries into the HNP and other government agencies. One of the most revealing cables is titled “Haiti’s Northern Ex-Military Turn Over Weapons; Some to Enter National Police.” The Mar. 15, 2005 cable provides an overview of a gathering two days earlier in Cap-Haïtien attended by Haiti’s de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdès. The officials oversaw a “symbolic disarmament,” where more than “300 members of Haiti's demobilized military in Cap-Haïtien” turned in a token seven weapons and then boarded buses to the capital. The UN and IGOH officials parked the paramilitaries at Port-au-Prince’s Magistrates’ School, where many other ex-soldiers were being placed.

The cable describes how previously high-level IGOH officials had made promises to the ex-FAdH paramilitaries. Some “of the ex-soldiers in Cap-Haïtien said they had been told by the PM's nephew and security advisor Youri Latortue and the PM's political advisor Paul Magloire that they would be admitted into the HNP,” explained the cable by U.S. Ambassador James Foley. “This raised a red-flag for us and the rest of the international community...” But at the Mar. 13 meeting, Gérard Latortue “made clear this was not the case,” telling the paramilitaries “that integration into the HNP would be a possibility for some, but they had to understand that not everyone would make it into the police. Ex-soldiers not qualified for the HNP could be hired into other public administration positions (e.g., customs, border patrol, etc.),” Foley wrote.

But the UN and IGOH authorities wanted to keep some of the ex-military together as a cohesive unit prepped for integration into the police, the cable reveals. The officials handed the matter over to UNOPS, a wing of the UN that focuses on project management and procurement services. Accordingly, “UNOPS has been working to relocate both the Managing Office [for Demobilized Military] and the approximately 80 individuals from the Magistrate's School to a former military camp in the Carrefour neighborhood outside of Port-au-Prince,” wrote Foley. (In March 2011, the author visited an ex-FAdH-run training camp in the Carrefour area.)

UN and U.S. officials appear to have often focused on achieving symbolic successes like the “demobilization” of paramilitary forces. “The symbolism of the ex-military disarming and leaving Haiti's second-largest city represents a significant breakthrough,” Foley concluded in his Mar. 15 cable. At the time, around 800 ex-military men were being housed in Port-au-Prince, with UN help. Of the 400 former soldiers integrated into the police, about 200 came in 2004 from the 15th graduating class of HNP cadets (called a “promotion” in Haiti), and 200 from the 17th promotion in 2005, the cables say. The number 200 was no coincidence.

The Embassy had told the IGOH that “the USG [U.S. Government] would not support more than 200 former military being included in Promotion 17” because “the USG was concerned that inclusion of ex-FADH in large numbers would detract from ongoing police reform measures; they therefore had to be closely scrutinized,” a May 6, 2005 cable explains. This cable also reveals Washington’s dominance of the police force’s reconstruction. In a meeting, the Embassy told the HNP’s chief Léon Charles that “the practice of allowing a class of people to receive special quotas for class enrollment (as had happened with the ex-FADH) had to end,” wrote Foley. Dutifully, “Charles agreed and stated that the practice would end immediately.” This did not mean that ex-soldiers wouldn’t continue to be integrated, only that “future recruitment drives would make no distinction with regard to the former military, but would also not discriminate against anyone for previous duty in the Haitian Armed Forces,” Charles said, according to the cable. An Apr. 5, 2005 cable explains that the 16th promotion of 370 HNP cadets included “none of [those who] had a history of ex-FADH activity.”

In another Mar. 15, 2005 cable entitled “DG [Director General] Charles Update on Ex-FADH in the Haitian National Police,” Foley outlined how the process of integration was occurring with new HNP cadet classes. “OAS officials charged with vetting police candidates reported approximately 400 ex-FADH candidates at the Police Academy on March 11 undergoing physical fitness testing,” his cable explained. The men, who had just previously served in paramilitary squads around the country, were vying for 200 slots in the HNP. The cable explains that a number of such individuals had been hired in prior months.

Police chief Charles, stated “that the ex-FADH from the 15th class who were rushed on to the streets last fall [of 2004] would return to class.” It was clear that officials felt somewhat worried about the new men they were bringing into the police force, so they decided that the ex-FAdH cadets from the 17th promotion would, upon graduation, “be deployed throughout Haiti on an individual basis and not as a group.” Charles added that, among the 200 ex-FAdH in the 15th promotion, most “had been assigned to small stations in Port-au-Prince,” adding that, “although they were disciplined, they were older and physically slower.” OAS officials noted that Haitian police officials who were now assisting the OAS in its vetting process feared some of the former soldiers they were interviewing: “HNP personnel assisting the OAS with the vetting program were afraid to interview some of the ex-FADH candidates out of concern they might be targeted if the panel disqualified an applicant.”

The U.S. embassy closely supervised how Haitian de facto officials conducted the integration, worried about the impact of any failures. Foley was pleased that Charles was holding ex-soldiers to “the same requirements as civilians for entrance into the HNP,” a policy resulting from “continuous pressure from us,” he wrote in the Mar. 15 cable. But Foley worried about “political pressures and decisions of PM [Gérard] Latortue, Justice Minister [Bernard] Gousse, and others,” his cable reported. “We have raised this issue with them on countless occasions, pointing out the real danger the IGOH runs of losing international support for assistance to the HNP if the process of integrating ex-FADH into the police does not hew to the redlines we have laid down,” Foley wrote.

Embassy officials, along with the OAS mission, would “monitor the recruitment, testing, and training process, including a review of the written exam, test scores, and fitness results.” Ambassador Foley added that “the pressure to bring ex-FADH into the HNP remains high.” He was likely referring to the calls made by some of Haiti’s most powerful right-wing politicians and businessmen, many having established relationships with the paramilitaries back when they were soldiers. Furthermore, Chief Léon Charles was “worried that others in the IGOH had made unrealistic promises to the ex-FADH about jobs in the HNP in order to convince them to demobilize,” the ambassador wrote. Charles “fretted that the Cap-Haïtien group set an example that others may follow, and indicated the IGOH could have over 1,000 former soldiers looking for jobs soon, including the 235 from Cap-Haïtien; 300 from Ouanaminthe; 200 from the Central Plateau; 150 from Les Cayes; 100 from Arcahaie, and 80 from St. Marc.”

The second Mar. 15 cable concludes “that the USG was willing to contribute $3 million to the DDR process but could not release the funds until the IGOH concluded an agreement with the UN on an acceptable DDR strategy and program.” The U.S. Embassy, playing a dominant role, was also clearly seeking to operate in accord with a transnational policy network — U.S. officials had helped to oversee other such integration processes in El Salvador and Iraq, and the DDR program has been deployed in a number of other countries where UN forces operate, such as Burundi, the Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Afghanistan, Nepal, and the Solomon Islands. After Charles provided information on the monitoring and processes through which the ex-FAdH paramilitaries were integrated into the police force, Ambassador Foley remarked in an Apr. 5, 2005 cable: “The fleeting reply to requests for updates on human rights investigations demonstrate the HNP's inability to perform internal investigations.”

During their first year in office, IGOH authorities appear to have received far less oversight in their handling of ex-FADH integration into the police. “Until now, the Interior Ministry and/or the Managing Office [for Demobilized Soldiers] have been in charge of identifying possible ex-FADH candidates for the HNP,” Foley wrote in one of his Mar. 15 cables. Then he made clear Washington’s oversight: “This needs to change, so that ex-FADH candidates for the police come out of the reintegration/counseling process that the UN (with U.S. support through the International Organization for Migration) will manage.”

While former soldiers were being integrated into the HNP, hundreds of police who had been loyal to Aristide’s government were fired, their names and positions documented in a list put together by Guy Edouard, a former officer with the Special Unit to Guard the National Palace (USGPN). In a 2006 interview, Edouard explained that some of these former police and Palace security officers had been "hunted down" after the coup. Furthermore, with US support, Youri Latortue, a former USGPN officer and Prime Minister Latortue’s security and intelligence chief, had led efforts to "get rid of the people he did not like," Edouard said.

Gun battles continued to occur between the Haitian police and a handful of gangs in the capital’s poorest slums well into 2005, and on numerous occasions, police opened fire on peaceful anti-coup demonstrations. “April 27 was the fourth occasion since February where the HNP used deadly force,” explained a May 6, 2005 cable. The Embassy was vexed that “despite repeated requests, we have yet to see any objective written reports from the HNP that sufficiently articulate the grounds for using deadly force. Equally disturbing are HNP first-hand reports from the scene of these events. These are often confusing and irrational and fail to meet minimum police reporting requirements.” The HNP, however, was working with UN forces in conducting lethal raids. Léon Charles acknowledged that UN troops had a “standard practice” of putting more lightly armed HNP forces in front of its units as they moved into Cité Soleil, and this “often resulted in the HNP overreacting and prematurely resorting to the use of deadly force,” the May 6 cable notes.

In a 2001 study published in the academic journal Small Wars and Insurgencies, researcher Eirin Mobekk explained in part how the U.S. worked to integrate large numbers of former soldiers into the HNP as Aristide, to thwart future coups, dissolved the FAdH in 1995. Washington’s strategy was to hedge in Lavalas with the new police force. A decade later, this policy was resurrected. Just as Washington recycled part of the military force that carried out the 1991 coup, it (along with the UN and the IGOH) recycled part of the paramilitary force that carried out violence leading up to the 2004 coup.

The WikiLeaked cables reveal just how closely Washington and the UN oversaw the formation of Haiti’s new police and signed off on the integration of ex-FAdH paramilitaries who had for years prior violently targeted Haiti’s popular classes and democratically elected governments.

Jeb Sprague is the author of a forthcoming book on paramilitarism for Monthly Review Press. He has a blog at jebsprague.blogspot.com and tweets as http://twitter.com/#!/jebsprague

CIA forced to release long secret official history of Bay of Pigs invasion

2011-08-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

National Security Archive Lawsuit Yields Never-Before-Seen Volumes of Massive Study; Agency Continues to Withhold Volume 5
by Peter Kornbluh, Global Research, 02 August 2011.

Pursuant to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive on the 50th anniversary of the infamous CIA-led invasion of Cuba, the CIA has released four volumes of its Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation. The Archive today posted volume 2, "Participation in the Conduct of Foreign Policy" (Part 1 | Part 2), classified top secret, which contains detailed information on the CIA's negotiations with Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama on support for the invasion.

"These are among the last remaining secret records of this act of U.S. aggression against Cuba," noted Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the Archive. "The CIA has finally seen the wisdom of letting the public scrutinize this major debacle in the covert history of U.S. foreign policy." Kornbluh noted that the agency was "still refusing to release volume 5 of its official history." Volume 5 is a rebuttal to the stinging CIA's Inspector General's report, done in the immediate aftermath of the paramilitary assault, which held CIA officials accountable for a wide variety of mistakes, miscalculations and deceptions that characterized the failed invasion. The National Security Archive obtained the declassification of the ultra-secret Inspector General's report in 1998.

Volume 2 provides new details on the negotiations and tensions with other countries which the CIA needed to provide logistical and infrastructure support for the invasion preparations. The volume describes Kennedy Administration efforts to sustain the cooperation of Guatemala, where the main CIA-led exile brigade force was trained, as well as the deals made with Anastacio Somoza to gain Nicaragua's support for the invasion. CIA operatives, according to the study, took over diplomatic relations with Anastacio Somoza, pressuring the State Department to agree to loans to Nicaragua as a quid pro quo for covert support of the invasion.

Volume 3 of the Official History was previously declassified under the Kennedy Assassination Record Act; and volume 4 was previously declassified to the CIA historian, Jack Pheiffer, who wrote the study in the late 1970s and early1980s. The Archive will post a detailed assessment of the declassified history, along with two other volumes tomorrow.

Read more...

vol 1:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol1-part1.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol1-part2.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol1-part3.pdf

vol 2:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol2-part1.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol2-part2.pdf

vol 3:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol3.pdf

vol 4:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol4.pdf

Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up Indeed!

2011-08-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

Source: The Havana Note
by Lawrence Wilkerson, 11 April 2011.

Several nights ago (6 April), I watched “Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up” at the West End Cinema in Washington. Six months ago, Saul Landau, the filmmaker, had given me an earlier rough-cut version on DVD that I had watched, but I was not prepared for the final version with all of the added footage gained by Saul’s recent sojourn in Cuba itself and the slap-in-the-face showing on the large screen.

But the added footage from the island and the bigger screen were not all that made the final version more electrifying. It was, all in all, the pro-Cuba aspect of the film that stunned me.

And it was clear that this pro-Cuba aspect was not conjured by the filmmaker but by history. Perhaps, I told myself, I knew much of this history, intellectually, academically. But I had never seen it so graphically put before me, in such a tight, cinematic package that seemed to leap off the screen almost in synch with the beating of my pulse.

The backdrop of the film was the U.S.-Cuba relationship from the 1959 revolution to the present. That relationship was portrayed quite accurately, leaving no doubt why Theodore Roosevelt referred to the island as “that infernal little Cuban Republic” even though TR pre-dated the revolution by a generation-plus. That is chiefly because the one-sided nature of U.S. policy has been the same from 1823 to the present. TR’s remark demonstrated well before the Cuban revolution, well before the dictator Fulgencio Batista, well before the U.S. mob took over Havana, well before Fidel Castro shouted “¡Bastante!” from the Sierra Maestra, well before Jesse Helms displayed his latent racism toward Cubans, just how badly the U.S. had treated its island neighbor since the beginning of our republic. So badly, in fact, that the portrayal of it, however evanescently, by a master filmmaker made one want to weep for his country and its policies. I doubt there was a single person in the audience that night who felt any differently, except perhaps the several Cubans who were present who, indeed, probably wept for el coloso del norte as well but for different reasons.

And then there was the main point, the point embodied in the film’s title.

Clearly shown and vividly documented was the fact that the United States sponsors terrorism. In Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch alone, there are overtones of Osama bin Laden and Aman al-Zawahiri, the nefarious leadership of al-Qa’ida. In the film, Carriles and Bosch as much as tell us this in their own words. Moreover, they seem to rejoice in it, as they live today undisturbed and unmolested in Miami; indeed, as heroes among the ignorant Batista-like refuse whose mother’s milk sustains them. Neither man has even the redeeming feature of religious asceticism that some would argue gives bin Laden and Zawahiri a grudging respect; instead these two terrorists seem precisely what the film depicts, criminal thugs.

Whether it is bringing down a Cuban airliner with more than 70 people on board—including the young people on the Cuban fencing team—or murdering a young Italian man in a Havana hotel, these terrorists appear to take joy in what they have done, declaring in so many words and facial expressions that such deaths are the collateral damage of war. War? Yes, a war waged from the territory of the United States—the state of Florida primarily—and against another sovereign country. A war that continues to this day with the United States doing almost nothing to stop it and, as the film depicts in subtle ways, from time to time even aiding and abetting the terrorists who are waging it.

Once, of course, the dictates and fears of the Cold War afforded a patina of credibility to this war waged from our own shores and against the laws of our own land. As a U.S. soldier for 31 years, I participated in that twilight struggle most of my professional life, so I understood its demands however imperfectly they were sometimes met. But the Cold War ended almost 20 years ago. Not the case, however, with the undeclared war against Cuba.

Perhaps the best cinematic summary of this reality was rendered in the film by none other than the current chairman of the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who declared for all to see and hear that she would welcome the assassination of Fidel Castro. No matter how cynical one may have become, that is an astonishing scene. A U.S. Congresswoman asking for the murder of another country’s leader—a most egregious, unbelievable demonstration of this undeclared war with Cuba.

Most vividly and disconcertingly, however, the film goes on to portray this continuing illegal war through the case of the Cuban Five. These are the five Cuban intelligence agents who, in the 1990s, were dispatched to Florida to help the government in Havana defend itself better in this undeclared war.

We know a little of their story. After infiltrating the Cuban-American terrorists ranks in Florida, they accumulated information about planned terrorist activities against Cuba. Alarmed at what they learned, they informed their government in Havana. That government, itself now alarmed, confided in the FBI, hoping that that law enforcement organization would act on the evidence thus accumulated and break up the terrorists ranks in Florida. Instead, the FBI—no doubt at the prompting of the White House—used the information to identify the five Cuban agents, then arrested them. Afterward they were tried in a Miami Court—like trying an Israeli spy apprehended in Iran in a Tehran court. Surprise, surprise, the Cuban Five were not only convicted, twelve years later they are still rotting in U.S. federal prison with the “worst” of them having been awarded two life sentences-plus.

At the very worst, these five Cubans were “foreign agents operating on U.S. soil”, an offense warranting 18 months in jail under U.S. law. As the film makes quite clear, however, usual U.S. practice—for Russians like Anna Chapman, e.g.—is deportation. Instead, these men still languish in jail. Perhaps had they been sexy, provocative women...?

When the film ended and the short, crisp vignettes came on, interspersed among the film’s credits, the main points were hammered home adroitly by some of the film’s principal characters.

As these characters summed up from the screen, I don’t believe there was any doubt in anyone’s mind in that audience—Cuban or American—who the “real terrorist” in the U.S.-Cuba relationship actually is.

The question that had to be buzzing around in everyone’s mind, however, as they walked out of the theater—again, Cuban and American—was what to do about it?

Just like the failure to close the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, the extension of the draconian provisions of “the national security cover-up” methodology in courtroom after courtroom across America, the civil liberties-usurping parts of the Patriot Act, the military tribunals for the likes of Khaled sheik-Mohammad, and on and on in the litany of dangerous and illegal acts by the U.S. Government in the name of perfect security and corrupt, special interest politics, the affair of the Cuban Five, and all it represents about the U.S.-Cuba relationship, stains the very fabric of our democratic republic.

Recently, a long-serving veteran of the CIA wrote a heavily-redacted yet still extremely eloquent and convincing memoir of his days in that agency, days that included the most intense period of our so-called Global War on Terror during the George W. Bush administrations. Here is one of his final conclusions in that memoir:

“I saw that a few of our leaders, in their insularity and sanctimonious certainty, corrupted the laws and started to corrode our social compact. We can take actions, however, to diminish such men, and that reaffirm our society’s commitment to our principles, our institutions, and the rule of law.”

That is the answer to our question and Saul Landau has taken a powerful action.

Colonel, US Army (Retired) Lawrence Wilkerson is the Visiting Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government at the College of William Mary, as well as Professorial Lecturer in the Honors Program at the George Washington University. His last positions in government were as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff (2002-05), Associate Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and member of that staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific, political-military and legislative affairs (2001-02). Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army, including as Deputy Executive Officer to then-General Colin Powell when he commanded the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989), Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and as Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97). Wilkerson retired from active service in 1997 and then worked as an advisor to General Powell.

Chávez nationalises gold industry

2011-08-25T05:21:00.000-07:00

Venezuela Tackles Illegal Gold Mafias as Chávez Nationalises Gold Industry
Source: Venezuelanalysis.com
by Rachael Boothroyd, 23 August 2011.

This Tuesday military chief Henry Rangel Silva revealed that over 40,000 hectares of land had been recovered and 15,000 people freed from conditions of “slavery” as part of Plan Caura, the Venezuelan government’s anti-illegal mining project.

Silva, Chief of Venezuela’s Operational Strategic Command, is currently head of the anti-illegal mining initiative, formed in 2010 when the Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) were given the task of stemming Venezuela’s growing problem with illegal mining activities in the south eastern part of Bolivar state.

In an interview with state television station VTV, Silva condemned the clandestine mining mafias operating in the region for creating a “system of exploitation” which destroyed the environment and subjected miners to dehumanising conditions, including human trafficking and prostitution.

“Man believed in the legend of El Dorado... delving into the jungle in search of that fortune, an enormous quantity of gold that never turns up for them because although they work their whole lives extracting the mineral and destroying the natural environment, they are also exploited by a system, by mafias which build themselves up around that system, moulding an important and solid structure,” he said.

During the interview the military chief remarked that dealing with the Venezuelan mining problem was no easy task and that it had become a “way of life” for a lot of people who lived in the jungle. Despite this, Silva stated that the FANB had managed to reduce illegal mining activities by 85% in the state of Bolivar, where the practice had existed for 50 to 60 years.

Silva elaborated that mining activity had been particularly harmful to the nation’s river beds and estuaries, as the power of the water had been used to erode the river banks in order to search for gold, leaving the ground totally “destroyed.” This had also had a negative impact on the country’s electricity supply, which is 70% based in hydro-power, said Silva.

Most of the miners that the armed forces found were from Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil and had been enticed by the idea of finding an “El Dorado”. In reality, the miners were being heavily exploited by the mining mafias, who provided the workers with equipment and financing, but who then took the gold and legalised it in neighbouring countries abroad.

“We broached the issue with intelligence work, and we arrived at a military strategy of dialogue, of interaction with the miners, because we were sure that the miner that was in the jungle was not an enemy of the armed forces,” he continued.

“But if the mafias arrive in a particular place, we get there immediately to stop their activities.”

Nationalisation of the Gold Industry
Following his announcement last week that his government planned to “bring its gold reserves home” and to nationalise the Venezuelan gold industry, president Hugo Chávez today officially signed a decree nationalising the industry. The Venezuelan mandate stated that this was the first step in “putting an end to illegal mining activities.”

Chávez also signed a document allowing for the formation of majority state-owned “mixed businesses” for mining exploration and exploitation. These businesses, formed between the state and private enterprise, will “undo the serious effects of the capitalist mining model, characterised by the degradation of the environment, irrespective of national laws, and the attack on the dignity and health of the miners and neighbouring communities,” said the president.

During this week’s ministerial meeting at the Miraflores Palace, Chávez urged the Bolivarian armed forces, miners, and the Venezuelan people to organise in order to make nationalisation “a reality.”

“Without you this would be impossible. I’m calling on the workers in the mining industry to join. This is for you, for the motherland. To fight against old vices,” said Chávez, speaking directly to the workers at Minerven, Venezuela’s General Mining Company.

Following the announcement workers at the company classified the day as “historic” and confirmed that they would set up committees for the defence of the nationalisation process in response to Chavez’s appeal. José Khan, Minister of Mining and Basic Industries, stated that these committees would unify the workers collective efforts and create “new forms of organization.”

“We have to say with pride that this is the rescue of sovereignty. Guayana is a town with more than 300 years of historical experience in gold exploitation, and in those 300 years, we cannot say that the gold was reinvested for the benefit of those who mined it. Each day, it has been an impoverished town, whilst only a few benefited from that exploitation,” concluded Khan.

Venezuela’s Chávez condemns NATO “massacre” in Tripoli, warns of opposition destabilisation plans

2011-08-25T05:14:00.002-07:00

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com
by Rachael Boothroyd, 22 August 2011.

This Sunday, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez reiterated his condemnation of NATO’s bombing of Libya, amidst international media reports that the Libyan rebels were advancing on the city of Tripoli.

During a press conference, Chávez, who had recently returned from chemotherapy treatment in Cuba, described the actions of the U.S. and certain European governments as a “massacre” and repeated his call for peace for the people of the world.

“The democratic European governments, not all of them, but we know which ones, are practically demolishing Tripoli with their bombs; the supposedly Democrat and democratic U.S. government as well, because they feel like it, simply because they feel like it,” said the Venezuelan president.

Chávez has continuously denounced the NATO-backed intervention in Libya since it began in March, and maintains that the U.S., France, and Great Britain are involved for cynical and strategic reasons, as well as to take advantage of Libya’s oil and extensive gold reserves.

“Today they dropped I don’t know how many bombs, and they are falling in a totally shameless and open way, they no longer even bother to explain anything, falling on schools, hospitals, homes, places of work, factories, agricultural farms, right now at this very moment” continued the president.

For his part, PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) representative Rodrigo Cabezas, denounced the use of ‘criminal force’ by NATO in what he described as a an act of “territorial aggression”. The PSUV legislator also claimed that 5,000 civilians had been killed since the beginning of the conflict and that a similar number had been seriously injured.

Venezuelan Opposition Seeks to “Unleash Violence”
In further statements, Chávez urged the Venezuelan people to ‘neutralise’ the Venezuelan opposition’s plans to destabilise the country, and stated that members of the opposition political forces were trying to unleash violence in Venezuela.

Members of the National Assembly convened a special meeting this Monday to discuss concerns of an opposition attack on the Venezuelan state. PSUV representatives claim that the opposition is trying to “create panic and promote an international intervention” within the South American nation.

Santos Amaral, PSUV representative, remarked that the opposition and their media were currently creating a political climate in Venezuela similar to that of the days preceding the April 2002 coup, during which democratically elected Chávez was temporarily ousted and more than 50 Venezuelans died at the hands of the interim government.

“We (the PSUV) hope that nobody is wishing for, is asking for a Libyan solution to life in Venezuela, one that entails a military attack, that entails death” said PSUV representative Rodrigo Cabezas.

Cuba adopts new economic guidelines to raise production

2011-08-25T05:14:00.001-07:00

Source: PSLWeb.org
by Gloria La Riva, 15 August 2011.

Millions participated in meetings to debate policy changes

Cuba’s parliament—the National Assembly of People’s Power—concluded its session in Havana on Aug. 2. The economy was the centerpiece of deliberations. Delegates approved an extensive series of economic and accompanying political measures that have been discussed throughout Cuba since November 2010.

In November, the “Project of Guidelines on the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and Revolution” was published for national debate before its formal presentation at the Sixth Congress of Cuba’s Communist Party (PCC) in April 2011. The consultative process has continued since then.

The objectives of the sweeping proposals are to stimulate the economy and raise production. Some measures are already under way: distributing unused lands for cultivation; decentralizing some state services (beauty parlors, barbershops, tire repair, taxis, and more); reassigning thousands of state workers to jobs in construction, teaching and agriculture and reducing the state work force by tens of thousands more. Opportunities for self-employment and small-scale enterprise have been expanded. Payroll and income taxes will be paid by those engaged in this activity.

Debating the changes were 8,913,838 Cubans—out of a population of 11.5 million—who participated in work and neighborhood meetings to discuss the Guidelines. More than 3 million Cubans commented during the meetings.

Of the original 291 guidelines in the document, 181 were modified and 36 new ones accepted, making a total of 313 guidelines.

Cuban President Raúl Castro said at the National Assembly session, “[W]e can characterize with total certainty the Guidelines as an expression of the will of the people, contained in the policy of the Party, the Government and the State, to update the Social and Economic Model, with the objective of guaranteeing the irreversibility of socialism, as well as the economic development of the country, together with the necessary formation of ethical and political values of our citizens.”

Economic situation requires action
External and internal factors have placed Cuba in a precarious economic situation that requires the government and Communist Party to make major changes to grow the economy. The U.S. economic blockade, hurricanes and drought, the volatility of capitalist markets and prices, as well as domestic inefficiencies, have severely impacted Cuba’s economy.

From 1998 to 2008, according to the Guidelines report, 16 hurricanes caused $20.5 billion in damages. Cuba is still recovering from three major hurricanes in 2008 that caused more than $10 billion in damages.

Between 1997 and 2009, changes in export and import prices cost the country $10.9 billion. With nickel ore for example, Cuba’s second major source of export income, the international price dropped from $50,000 per ton to only $9,000 to $10,000 per ton in 2008.

Rising food prices worldwide have created a huge problem for Cuba, which buys up to 80 percent of its food from abroad. Cuba’s plan to spend $1.2 billion on imports for the year 2011 had to be revised up to $1.5 billion for the same quantity of food, due to price increases alone. This year’s economy is expected to grow 2.9 percent overall, and 6 percent in agriculture.

The Special Period
The new economic strategy is not a sudden change in the direction of the Cuban socialist revolution. It is a continuation of the process—although more far-reaching today—that Cuba undertook at the cusp of the “Special Period,” starting in the 1990s.

At the start of that decade, Cuba’s main trading partner, the Soviet Union, canceled overnight all trade with the island nation, just before the USSR’s demise. Almost 85 percent of Cuba’s trade had been with the USSR and socialist Eastern Europe.

Plunged into the realities of an imperialist-dominated world, Cuba urgently needed new sources of income. Severe shortages in fuel, raw materials and spare parts caused the country’s production to drop 34.5 percent between 1989 and 1994. Aggressive U.S. laws were passed against Cuba in 1992 and 1996, tightening the U.S. blockade.

The new shortages forced Cuba to adopt major economic reforms. Before the Special Period, most Cuban agriculture was organized in state farms, which require the large-scale use of machinery, fuel and other inputs to be efficient and productive. Most state farms were converted to cooperatives, where the land remained state-owned, but the product was owned cooperatively by the farm workers. The aim was to spur production through private incentive. This was a step back from a higher form of socialist property, which was the state farm where both the land, product and “profit” (which in a planned economy is transformed into social or collective surplus) from agriculture belonged to society through the medium of the workers' state.

Opening up to capitalist foreign investment was another step accepted by the Cuban leadership as necessary to bring more resources into the country. So, too, was a major expansion of tourism. Many new hotels took the form of joint ventures with foreign corporations. The legalization of self-employment was needed to absorb workers laid-off in state industries.

Cuban leaders forthrightly explained that these measures did not represent further steps forward in building socialism, but rather a tactical retreat aimed at preserving the fundamental achievements of the revolution.

On July 26, 1993, Fidel Castro explained Cuba’s situation in the midst of the Special Period: “Today we have to save the homeland, the Revolution and the gains of socialism, which is the same as defending the right to continue building it in the future. We will never resign ourselves to renouncing that. This is what we mean when we say 'Socialism or Death.'

"Today we have to make concessions. … We have had to divide the island on the map and accept international bids so that foreign companies can explore and drill. … We would have to share with them a part of the petroleum that is found. When the USSR existed, we conducted the exploration ourselves, we did the drilling, the petroleum was all ours.

"Today life, reality, the dramatic situation in which the world is living, this unipolar world forces us to do what we would never have done if we had capital and if we had the technology to do it.”

Some “left” enemies of the Cuban Revolution claimed that these steps signaled the “restoration of capitalism.” Washington harbored no such illusions, and has not let up for a moment in its drive for “regime change.”

By 1996, the economy began a slow but steady climb upward. And Cuba marked many milestones along the way: constantly improving indices of health, tens of thousands of doctors serving abroad, health care and education remaining universal and free, energy policies saving more than $1 billion , an impressive sustainable-agriculture model, the Latin American ALBA alliance.

The economic strategy of the Special Period was not imposed on the population by President Fidel Castro or the National Assembly. In 1993, much like today, 83,000 “workers’ parliaments” were held with 3,000,000 workers as well as debates in the mass organizations. The people had a real say on where to cut back and what to preserve. Cuba’s survival and economic recovery was only possible with socialist consciousness, a strong will to sacrifice, and the unity of the Cuban people.

The process is underway
A Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines has been formed in the National Assembly. It will be responsible for controlling, verifying and coordinating activities of all entities involved, as well as to evaluate and adjust where necessary.

For example, on Aug. 5, in response to farmers’ complaints that farm tools were too expensive to buy, it was announced that all 1,200 farm-supply stores would lower the prices of 93 items, including machetes, hoes, plows and milking cans, by 60 percent.

Much of Cuba’s arable land has been unused or underutilized, while up to 80 percent of Cuba’s food is still imported. Replacing imports with domestic production through wider use of the land is crucial.

In July 2008, the agricultural Law Decree 259 was approved for the free transfer of land to current and new farmers, with renewable 10-year terms for individuals and 25 years for cooperatives.

For first-time users, the land parcel will be up to 13.42 hectares (31.8 acres). For existing entities, 40.26 hectares will be granted (95.4 acres). The practice is “usufruct”: the land held by the state but production belonging to the producer.

So far, about 2.5 million acres of land has been granted to 143,000 people, out of 171,000 who applied.

One major challenge for growers is the pervasive and hated “marabú” weed. An estimated 50 percent of the land is covered with this deep-rooted and fast-growing thorny plant, which renders the land useless. This reporter can attest to the challenge of marabú, having spent exhausting hours chopping marabú with others.

Expansion of private employment
Before the new economic reforms, the granting of private employment licenses had been suspended, with only 174,000 people working as “cuenta-propistas.” Now licenses have been dramatically expanded to an estimated 325,000 people. A total of 178 types of small-scale self-employment have been legalized.

The license holders are required to pay payroll taxes if employing others, and taxes on their profits. Some feedback from the people indicates that many are struggling to break even. So a moratorium on payroll taxes has been declared through the rest of 2011. Other taxes have been lowered.

Before the new policy, the self-employed were legally limited to hiring family members only. This has now been expanded to include the hiring of other workers. This is seen as necessary because up to 1 million workers may be laid off from state employment and cannot be absorbed completely through other state employment.

When this reporter traveled to Cuba in May, she spoke with people engaged in private restaurants, room rentals and private taxis, including some who had not been working before. Now it takes as little as a week to receive a license.

Walking down central 23rd Street and other roads in Havana, one can see people with small stands of home-produced CDs and DVDs, movies and music, handicrafts, as well as a sprouting of more food operations in people’s homes. Many activities were already operating “underground” without a license. Now they can operate legally and contribute to the economy.

Many state enterprises became unsustainable for the state to run. Barbershops, beauty salons, tire repair, taxis and other services operated at a loss for too long.

With extremely limited resources, the government must prioritize its expenditures in order to guarantee the most vital needs for the population: health care, education, food, industrial production for consumer goods and hard currency income.

By converting services workplaces to “usufruct,” where the workers own the production and the property remains in state hands, what was a drain can now render an income to the state.

A Communist Party member explained to this reporter, “For a long time, although the price for a haircut in state-run barbershops was officially 20 centavos, the actual price that the workers charged was higher, sometimes 5 pesos [there are 100 centavos to a peso.]

"The state’s income was only 20 cents, yet as owner of production and property, the state provided electricity and other utilities, the barbershop and supplies.

Now,” the PCC member said, “those workers are responsible for the operation. They have to pay rent, utilities, and taxes. They are invested in the operation’s success and contribute to the government budget.

"Although the workers hold power and the wealth is owned in common, sometimes an individual worker doesn’t feel that responsibility.”

He added, “But accumulation of capital, the combining of shops into a larger operation, will not be allowed. This is true of all the self-employment enterprises.”

Sale of houses
Much has been made in the U.S. media about the announced change allowing for house sales. Up to now, selling one’s home was prohibited. The most that could be done was to swap a house or apartment for another dwelling, or “permuta” as they say in Cuba.

Most Cuban families are owners of their own home. This did not come about from a successful real estate market, but resulted from revolutionary decrees in 1961 and 1962, which converted all the housing stock into a right, a home for each family.

But in the five decades since the 1959 Revolution, some families ended up with more than one house through marriage, death or other circumstances. House swaps are sometimes difficult to resolve through a one-for-one trade; a payment will now be allowed to achieve more equitable exchanges, as well as sale of one’s house. But home ownership will still be limited to one dwelling.

With the new regulations, Cubans who live abroad for long periods of time can now rent their home out. This is expected to help solve the severe housing shortage.

The house sales are still restricted. There is little danger of the new home sale policy turning homes into “investments” or leading to a huge disaster of foreclosures as in the United States,

Social security and the ration book
The law on social security was modified in 2008 and took effect in 2009 to change requirements for retirement. Because of the aging of the working population, the legislature approved an increase in the retirement age—to be phased in over five years—to 65 from the previous age of 60 for men, and to 60 from the previous age of 55 for women. Without this change, the system’s finances would be heavily strained for future retirees.

Every Cuban has been entitled to the rationing system since the early days of the Revolution. It has guaranteed a food basket of basic items at a price that has remained unchanged throughout the years. But it has been heavily subsidized by the government and can no longer be sustained economically. Some items have been phased out, and at some point in the future the whole program will be ended.

The announced phasing out of the rationing system evoked the most responses in the debates, with pro and con opinions.

At the PCC Congress, President Raúl Castro stated: “The problem is not the concept, it is in how, when and how to phase it in. Ending the ration book is not an end in itself, it cannot be seen as an isolated decision, but as one of the main measures that will be essential to apply to eradicate the existing deep distortions in the functioning of the economy and society as a whole.

“It would not occur to anyone in the leadership of this country to suddenly decide the end of that system, without first creating the conditions for that. This means carrying out other transformations in the Economic Model with the aim of increasing efficiency and work productivity, in a way that can guarantee with stability the levels of production and supply of products and basic services at non-subsidized prices and at the same time accessible to all citizens. …In Cuba, under socialism there will never be room for ‘shock therapies...’”

While millions of people in the world are suffering from starvation, while the growth of billionaires multiplies, Cuba’s planned and rational economy is able to channel its resources for the benefit of all the people.

In the United States, genocidal wars continue unabated and millions lose their jobs and homes, and the billionaire bankers make the real decisions to assure their profits. In contrast, it is clear from the debates and process over the Cuban economy and society that the Cuban people are in power.

US gives asylum to dozens of terrorists and fugitives

2011-08-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

by Jean-Guy Allard
Source: Granma, 23 August 2011.

The United States, promoter of the "list of state sponsors of terrorism," whose real purpose is to denigrate nations that reject their policies of domination, has granted asylum to dozens of terrorists, fugitives and swindlers of all types sought by various governments in Latin America.

The website Contrainjerencia.com has established, since the beginning of the year, a list of the better known fugitives. Sixty offenders are identified as Latin American fugitives living in U.S. t, most of them with terrorist pasts.

With the Cuban community in Miami, the "File" had to be limited to the most "infamous" terrorists and killers. The overthrow of Fulgencio Batista, supported by Washington, marked the arrival in South Florida of thousands of accomplices of the dictatorship who the CIA then recruited for terrorist operations which were executed and covered up against the Cuban Revolution.

Several authors of terrorist acts that occurred in Venezuela in recent years have also found asylum in the U.S., as well as participants in the murderous conspiracy of Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Among others who promoted the use of terror in different countries of the continent and now reside in the United States with the knowledge and approval of the State Department contrainjerencia.com identifies the following characters:

- Alejandro Melgar, leader of the Santa Cruz conspiracy, Bolivian businessman.

- Angel de Fana Serrano, participated in 1997, in the Isla Margarita, in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Ibero-American Summit. An associate of Luis Posada Carriles, De Fana also conspired to assassinate President Chavez.

- Armando Valladares, an accomplice in the assassination attempt of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and several terrorist acts, was imprisoned in Cuba for planting bombs in shops and resumed his work with the CIA since his departure from the island.

- Carlos Alberto Montaner, lived for several decades on his performances against Cuba. A fugitive from Cuban justice for planting bombs in shops and cinemas in 1960. He was a member of the terrorist network of Orlando Bosch. He owns homes in the U.S. and Spain.

- Gaspar Jiménez, murderer of Cuban diplomat Dartagnan Díaz Díaz, an accomplice of Luis Posada Carriles and sentenced in Panama for terrorism. Based in Miami with FBI protection.

- Guillermo Novo Sampol, a terrorist, an accomplice in the assassination of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, a torturer under Operation Condor, the murderer of two Cuban diplomats in Argentina, an accomplice of Luis Posada Carriles for terrorism and sentenced in Panama. Based in Miami.

- Huber Matos, known for directing terrorist activities. His ties to the Central American drug trafficking world are so well known like of his son, who fled to Costa Rica. Based in Miami.

- Hugo Acha Melgar, financier of the terrorist gang made up of Hungarian and Croatian neo-Nazis who tried to assassinate Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2009 in the Santa Cruz plot.

- Joaquim Chaffardet, ex-director of the Venezuelan secret police, linked to international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. He was trained by U.S. intelligence services School of the Americas (SOA).

- José Antonio Colina Pulido, responsible for bombings of diplomatic offices in Spain, Colombia and in Caracas in 2003. Based in Miami.

- Nelson Mezerhane, financial conman, shareholder in Globovisión, among the main suspects in the murder of prosecutor Danilo Anderson. Disappeared from Caracas stealing seven million dollars.

- Patricia Poleo, an accomplice in the assassination of Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson. She is located behind a variety of CIA operations conducted with the U.S. embassy in Caracas against the Bolivarian Revolution. Based in Miami.

- Pedro Remon, a CIA assassin, murderer of Felix Garcia Rodriguez and Eulalio Negrin, in New York; accomplice of Luis Posada Carriles, convicted of terrorism in Panama. Based in Miami with FBI protection.

- Luis Posada Carriles, a CIA agent and international terrorist. He has an endless history of crimes. Sought by Venezuela for the 73 murders on a Cuban airliner blown up in 1976. Based in Miami.

- Reinol Rodriguez, associated with Luis Posada Carriles: an accomplice in the murder in Puerto Rico by Carlos Muñiz Varela. Currently military chief of the Alpha 66 terrorist group, tolerated by the FBI. Based in Miami.

- Roberto Martin Perez, son of one of the most infamous henchmen of the Batista dictatorship, former head of the paramilitary committee of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF).

- Raul Diaz, convicted of attacks with C4 explosive on two embassies in Caracas which occurred in 2003. Based in Miami.

- Carlos Yacaman, Honduran, murderer of the former minister of housing the administration of Manuel Zelaya, Roland Valenzuela. Located in Miami.

- Branko Marinkovic, Bolivian opposition leader in Santa Cruz, the main financier and accomplice of the terrorist group disbanded in 2009. He gave $ 200,000 to the terrorists to buy weapons. He lives in Miami.

- Jose Guillermo Garcia, Salvadoran general, former minister of defense, responsible for the torture and murder of four American nuns.

- Carlos Vides Casanova, former head of the National Guard of El Salvador, torturer and responsible for the murder of four American nuns.

- Michael Townley, an officer of Pinochet's secret police, accomplice in the murder of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. Based in Miami.

- Santiago Álvarez Fernández Magriñá terrorist and Cuban-American arms dealer, an accomplice of Posada Carriles. Based in Miami.

- Osvaldo Mitat, terrorist and Cuban arms dealer, accomplice of Posada Carriles. Based in Miami.

- Hector Alfonso Ruiz alias Héctor Fabián, Cuban terrorist, planted bombs in embassies, associated with Posada Carriles. Based in Miami.

- Ramon Saul Sanchez, hitman Omega 7, an accomplice of Eduardo Arocena and Pedro Remon. Based in Miami.

- Rodolfo Frómeta, Cuban terrorist, leader of F4 commandos, the confessed authorof terrorist actions against Cuba. Based in Miami.

- Roberto Guillermo Bravo, Argentine military responsible for the slaughter in Trelew that killed 16 young revolutionaries. He lives in Miami.

- Virgilio Paz Romero, an accomplice in the assassination of Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his assistant Ronni Moffitt, was pardoned by George W. Bush. Based in Miami.

- Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel, alias Charco de Sangre, an accomplice in the assassination of Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt his collaborator, released by George W. Bush. Based in Miami.

- Felix Rodriguez Mendigutía, alias El Gato, a CIA agent, ordered the murder of Ernesto Che Guevara, an accomplice of Posada Carriles in El Salvador's Ilopango base in arms for cocaine. Based in Miami. trafficking

- Salvador Romani, president of the terrorist Cuban Patriotic Junta in Venezuela, attacker of the Cuban embassy in Caracas, accomplice to the murder of lawyer Anderson. Based in Miami.

- Johan Peña, ex-commissioner of DISIP, planted the bomb that killed lawyer Anderson. He lives in Miami.

- Jaime Garcia Covarrubias, former chief repressor of Pinochet accused of torture and murder, now a professor at an academy of the Pentagon, Washington, USA

- José Basulto, a Cuban-American terrorist, CIA agent, head of Brothers to the Rescue, and author of murderous provocations. He lives in Miami.

- Inocente Orlando Montano, Salvadoran colonel sought by the Spanish courts for murder of the Jesuits.

- José Guevara, ex agent of DISIP. Participated from Miami in the conspiracy to assassinate the Venezuelan prosecutor Danilo Anderson.

In Miami, dozens of Cuban-American organizations linked to terrorism are still active even though the FBI knows their connection with violent activities. The terrorist group Alpha 66 and Commandos F4 openly preach the use of terror against Cuba.

Meanwhile the activities of support of terrorist actions by leaders of the CANF and the Cuban Liberty Council have been publicly denounced on several occasions.

Nothing surprises anyone in this area in the country of Representative Connie Mack, who suggested the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and his colleague Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who suggested, in an interview on British television, the physical elimination of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Cuba calls for respect for Syrian sovereignty

2011-08-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

Translated by Granma International, 23 August 2011.

Rodolfo Reyes, Cuba’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council, stated today that the island rejects "any attempt to ignore Syria’s sovereignty."

Reyes added, "It is in the hands of the Syrian people and their authorities to determine their will and future."

The international community "should be providing assistance to guarantee peace, not taking actions to increase the death of citizens," the Cuban representative emphasized.

Cuba trusts in the skill of the Syrian people and authorities to resolve their problems, without intervention from the international community, he continued.

The convening of this session is based on the evident interest of a group of powers headed by Washington, who are even manipulating human beings’ right to life to justify their interventionist objectives, Reyes commented, according to PL.

He lamented the fact that certain political and press media are clearly inciting violence, military aggression and foreign intervention. The diplomat asked those attending the meeting to consider the barbaric NATO and U.S. actions in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, and those of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories if they are so concerned about human life.

see: UN condemnation of Syrian attrocities. click here to see the Voting Chart.

Ecuador condemns invasion of Libya

2011-08-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Source: Prensa Latina, 23 August 2011.

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino on Tuesday condemned what he called the invasion of Libya to take over its oil by a coalition of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Patino criticized that those nations have acted under the protection of a decision of the UN Security Council that in March imposed an air exclusion zone over Libya. Speaking to the daily El Ciudadano, Patino referred to recent events in Libya and pointed out that apparently there is a victory of the opposition, but only thanks to support from USA and NATO without any terms of equality.

Patino said this has confirmed what many countries warned from the beginning: the desire to invade Libya in order to seize oil reserves there. As those attacking are "world powers, no one can judge them, that shows the level of fragility that we have, the level of inability of the United Nations to support peace and justice in the world. What is happening is a clear act of invasion," Patino said.

Cuba's statement on bogus US 'terrorism list'

2011-08-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Source: Granma, 20 August 2011.

On August 18, the State Department includes Cuba, for the thirtieth time, in the bogus list of "state sponsors of international terrorism," with the sole purpose of discrediting our country and continuing to justify the cruel and repudiated the policy of blockade against Cuba.

The U.S. government, which historically has practiced state terrorism, extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, assassinations with drones, torture and illegal detentions, which has established secret prisons, which is responsible for the death hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians as a result of occupation and wars of conquest in Iraq and Afghanistan, that systematically bombed sovereign states such as Libya, does not have the slightest morals nor any right to judge Cuba, which has an unblemished the fight against terrorism and has also been consistently the victim of this scourge.

The U.S. government acts as if it had not protected, permanently, the confessed criminal Luis Posada Carriles, whom it has refused to prosecute on terrorism charges, despite having ample evidence. Posada Carriles, with, Orlando Bosch Ávila, who benefited from a presidential pardon from George Bush, is the author of the horrific bombing of a Cuban airliner in flight, which cost the lives of 73 innocent people. He is also directly responsible for the death of Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, during the bombings of Cuban tourist facilities in 1997. Today Posada Carriles walks freely and with impunity through the streets of Miami after being acquitted in a sham trial in El Paso, Texas.

At the same time, as irrefutable proof of its double standards, the U.S. government unfairly holds in prison and punishes our five antiterrorist fighters, for preserving the lives of Cuban and U.S. citizens, and those of other countries.

Some 3,478 Cubans have been killed and 2,099 have been maimed as a result of terrorist actions, organized, funded and perpetrated from U.S. territory, often with the very complicity of the government the United States.

Political manipulation of a subject as sensitive as the fight against terrorism offends the memory of victims of the criminal acts of September 11, 2001, a fact that prompted the offer of solidarity and unconditional support of our government and people.

Cuba demands that the U.S. government punishes the real terrorists who now reside in U.S. territory, frees the Five anti-terrorist heroes and ends the policy of blockade and hostility against our country, which threatens the legitimate interests of both peoples.

Havana, August 19, 2011

See also: Venezuela Says U.S. Lacks “Moral Authority” to Judge Antiterrorism Efforts, Franklin Rosales, 19 August 2011.

Statements on continued repression in Aguan, Honduras

2011-08-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

Public Statement MUCA-MI
Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net, 17 August 2011.
Translation by FOA

The Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan - Left Bank (MUCA-MI), in our struggle for a real and true application of integral agrarian reform, DECLARES to Honduran Society, the International Community, and National and International Human Rights Organizations that:

1. Sunday, August 14, 2011 between five o'clock and eight o'clock in the morning (5:00 AM and 8:00 AM), private guards from agroindustrialist Migue Facusse Barjum's deadly palm plantation brutally attacked our campesino colleagues from the community of Panamá (who are not members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan - Left Bank MUCA-MI), and according to police reports, six security guards (hired criminals) and an underage campesino, Wilmer Javier Melgar, were killed.

2. Maliciously, certain communication media (radios and newspapers) linked to the interests of agroindustrialists have indicated to government institutions that our colleages Jackeline Liseth Fúnez Bueso, Marco Tulio Paredes Molina, Gerardo Alonso Argueta, Cesar Murillo and Dennis Javier Ramos, who are leaders of various cooperatives associated with the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan - Left Bank (MUCA-MI), are responsible for these condemnable acts of violence.

3. We categorically reject these defamatory and slanderous accusations against our colleagues being carried out by the oligarchic press with the intention of criminalizing our struggle and discrediting the leadership of the the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan - Left Bank (MUCA-MI). The are trying to represent us nationally and internationally as a bloodthirsty organization with criminal intentions in order to justify the presence of more police and military, fierce repression, and the killing of our leardership in the Lower Aguán Valley.

4. It is no secret to anyone that the activities we carry out as an organization are part of a just struggle for official recognition for land, and as part of a genuine process of integral agrarian reform they are peaceful and public actions. Since we have nothing to hide, we have always declared ourselves and our actions via traditional and alternative media .

5. The violence that has been practiced against our struggle--and especially against our leadership, which has been the victim of assasinations, constant death threats, and a fierce campaign of defamation and slander--does not erase from the national stage our just struggle for land; it does not keep us from using dialogue as an instrument which can help us find a real solution that will end this agrarian conflict. For this reason we reiterate our willingness to participate in a frank and sincere dialogue with the government of Mr. Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

Lower Aguán Valle, August 16, 2011

For a real integral agrarian reform with the just distribution of land, for effective public health, housing and education policies that prioritize men and women, for a full democracy including national coexistence and the full exercise of human rights, there must be social justice for peace in the countryside.

Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan - Left Bank (MUCA-MI)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Bajo Aguán the Movimiento Campesino de Rigores sufferes continued repression
Translated by the FNRPs Translators group from Spanish Version
Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net, 17 August 2011.

The Movimiento Campesino de Rigores (Campesino Movement of Rigores) in the Aguán Valley was violently evicted by military and police forces on the 24th of June of this year, leaving behind a scene reminiscent of Port au Prince, Haiti or some areas of the Palestinian occupied territories. Houses, churches, and agricultural buildings belonging to more than 120 families were razed. Eleven years of effort and struggle without any support from the State were lost in one sad and demoralizing day for the MCR.

The eviction of the MCR families occurred on the 24th of June of this year and lasted from 6 am until nightfall. It is estimated that 20 million Lempiras (roughly 1 million dollars) in damages were caused including the destruction of a 6-grade school, evangelical and catholic churches, wells and fields. As a result, 14 campesinos were detained and currently find themselves processed. This harassment by repressive forces has increased in recent months and is a clear signal to the campesino movements that seek to fight for the land and a better life for their families.

In addition to the last week’s eviction, the campesinas and campesinos who are in the process of reclaiming La Consentida farm located near the MCR area were attacked by three police patrols. Upon its return, the police attacked an MCR campesino who was working on rebuilding his house. He was hospitalized with serious injuries.

The MCR is comprised of 8 campesino joint enterprises that live and work in a 600-hectare area (roughly 1,500 acres). Despite the proximity of great expanses of African palm, the MCR has pursued a comprehensive agricultural model working with basic grains, vegetables, livestock and small animals to produce their own food and some income. This model seeks to distance itself from the African palm oil market largely controlled by the area’s large landowners.

“We have the rest of our lives to keep working” commented a MCR campesina in reference to the eviction and the 3 martyred compañeros of the Movement. “We go out to work and plant to meet our needs, what most worries us now are housing conditions and the lack of clear information about legal matters.” “Besides, we only have one classroom left for 6 grades and 6 teachers.”

The uncertain situation the MCR finds itself in is the same in many places throughout the country, including, among others, the Movimiento 10 de Junio San Juan Pueblo and Zacate Grande. Because of the National Congress’s November 2010 repeal of decree 18-2008, several campesino movements are about to lose a long process of legalization and recuperation of lands. Article 17 of the degree, approved during President Mel Zelaya’s administration, allows campesino communities or businesses who have spent 10 years or more reclaiming land to request the title to it from the Instituto Nacional Agrario, or National Agrarian Institute (INA).

Currently the decree is “frozen” given that it has not been published in the The Gazette. However, the latest news indicates that only a month remains before the decree is to be published. The situation of campesino groups and movements is even more complicated given the Secretary of Finance refuses to pay out money as part of the title transfer process and considers the decree null.

For the campesino families the decree’s repeal is only the beginning of a new attack on their survival. The Honduran oligarchy and transnational capital already have several projects underway: Special Development Regions (model cities), a new mining law, river concessions and the promotion of genetically modified seeds. These projects aim to eradicate small-scale agriculture and supplant it with an agro-industrial model and the exploitation of the country’s natural resources.

Despite the terrible conditions in which the families currently find themselves, the MCR struggle continues. The vast majority are living in destroyed houses with plastic tarps to protect them from the elements. Threats of eviction exist and there is no guarantee from the INA that issue of land ownership will be resolved in favor of the movement.

Los Necios Political Organization
August 7, 2011
Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Cuban statement on Syria

2011-08-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Statement by Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Marcos Rodríguez Costa

WE express our profound concern over the treatment of the internal situation in Syria within the UN Security Council, on the basis of the heavy pressure being exercised by the Western powers on this body to adopt decisions against the legitimate government of that country.

Taking into account the experiences and precedents already created by recent cases, which demonstrate manipulation of the UN Charter and the double standards which characterize the conduct of the Security Council, we express our condemnation of any attempt to undermine the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of that nation.

Cuba reiterates its confidence in the capacity of the Syrian government and people to solve their internal problems without any foreign interference and demands full respect for this Arab country’s free self-determination and sovereignty.

Havana, August 4, 2011

RATB Report: Happy 85th birthday Fidel!!!!

2011-08-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 13 August 2011, Manchester RATB held a birthday stall in Piccadilly Gardens, to celebrate Fidel's 85th birthday. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in Biran, Mayari, in the former province of Oriente (now Holguin), on his father's farm on 13 August 1926. Some of the ideas of this great leader of the Cuban Revolution include the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) founded in November 1999 in Cuba, to train physicians from many countries, with the ability to offer their services anywhere in the world, the 500 scholarships offered to US medical students to study medicine in Cuba, and the over 700 Haitian doctors trained at the Caribbean School of Medical Sciences in Santiago de Cuba, one of the biggest contributions to Haiti's long-neglected health system.

Activists highlighted the injustice of the continued incarceration of the Cuban 5 anti-terrorist fighters for the past 13 years in US prisons, and the achievements of the Cuban Revolution in social care, health care and education, comparing these to the growing attacks on working class living standards in Manchester. The city centre itself was unusually quiet following the recent uprisings in Manchester and Salford, of sections of the working class on 9 August 2011, against decades of poverty, unemployment, marginalisation and police racism and harassment.

A large birthday card was signed by members of the public. Blue, yellow and red balloons, a large, bright birthday banner, the Cuban and Che Guevara flags along with revolutionary music Inventos which celebrates Cuban hip hop added to and improved the atmosphere.

Happy birthday comrade Fidel! 85 years more! Our card is on its way to you!
Viva Cuba!
Long live socialism!

New book on US blockade of Cuba

2011-08-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

France: Forthcoming Book on U.S. Blockade of Cuba
Source: Prensa Latina, 08 August 2011.

A historical and legal analysis of U.S. political, economic and commercial sanctions against Cuba is the idea behind a book soon to be published by French Professor Salim Lamrani in his country.

The blockade is the most developed, sophisticated and long-lasting network ever implemented by one country against another, said Lamrani, an expert in Cuba-U.S. relations, in an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina during the Meeting of Coordinators of the Network in Defense of Humanity.

State of Siege: The U.S. Economic Sanctions against Cuba, a Historical and Juridical Perspective, is the title of the book, whose French edition will be launched at the offices of the newspaper L'Humanite in September.

The book, with a prologue by the former chief of the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba, Wayne Smith, reviews Cuba-U.S. relations from 1960, when the blockade came into force, to the current Barack Obama administration. It also analyzes the blockade's impact on Cuba's public health, the extraterritorial nature of anti-Cuba measures and U.S. society's opposition to Washington's hostile policy.

Lamrani, a journalist and professor at the universities of Paris-Descartes and Paris-Est Marne-la Vallee, stated that Cuba-U.S. relations can not be explained from the beginning of the Cold War, although that was Washington's political rhetoric from 1959 to 1989. However, after the demise of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. stepped up its sanctions on Cuba with the Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws.

The author mentioned a December 23, 1958 memorandum declassified by the U.S. National Security Council, quoting CIA Director Allan Dulles as saying, "We have to prevent Castro's victory."

An analysis of nationalizations during the early years of the Cuban Revolution, in the light of international law, shows that other countries affected, including European nations, accepted the measures. Only the United States demanded "effective, appropriate and rapid" compensation, Lamrani said.

Time to get closer to Cuba

2011-08-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Source: Guardian.co.uk

To improve the UK's relationship with Cuba requires more than just words – we must act on this new formal agreement

by Dan Smith for Left Foot Forward, 08 August 2011.

Last month Cuba and the United Kingdom signed a formal declaration to strengthen bilateral co-operation. The agreement champions "closer dialogue and economic, scientific, technical, educational, cultural and sporting links between the two countries" and highlights key areas for collaboration including environmental issues, biotechnology, trade and investment, regional security, child protection and disaster preparedness.

The move should be welcomed as a positive step – not just by those supporting the Cuban people, but also by those looking to expand British trade relations in Latin America. In order to make tangible change, however, the agreement must be substantiated by positive action – something which has been lacking in previous UK policy towards Cuba.

The UK is the sixth largest economy in the world and the third largest economy in the European Union. It is the seventh largest importer and the 11th largest exporter in the world. In spite of this, the level of trade between Britain and Cuba is derisory. Exports to Cuba totalled an abysmal $14.4m (£8.9m) in 2009 while imports came to a pathetic $15.8m (£9.8m). Compare this to September 1958 when the UK government exported 25 fighter jets to General Batista's dictatorship. The equivalent value today – at around £40m a plane – would equate to an annual UK export to Cuba of around £1bn.

It is tempting to explain the lack of commercial activity between our two countries as a legacy of the cold war. However, back in 1986, Cuba constituted the UK's fifth largest market in Latin America. Furthermore, UK trade with Cuba is dwarfed by other EU countries including Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. Indeed, in 2008, the UK was only the 11th largest exporter of goods to Cuba from the EU.

It is therefore more appropriate to view the level of trade as a direct consequence of policy adopted by consecutive UK governments. In particular, the Blair government – as a result of closer ties with the Clinton and Bush administrations – took an increasingly aggressive and hard-line stance against the island. Blair was a keen advocate of the EU common position – which suppresses trade and exchange with Cuba – while, in 2003, the UK was instrumental in blocking Cuba's entry into the Cotonou agreement which gives trade preferences to former European colonies.

According to UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), "the greatest hurdle to doing business in Cuba is painfully slow decision-making which results from all investment decisions being referred to the highest levels of government". However, as indicated in the graphs below, there are a number of other countries which manage to cut through the perceived "layers of bureaucracy". It is ridiculous that UKTI blames restrictions within Cuba for the lack of trade when the main obstacle remains the UK's unwillingness to challenge the ongoing US blockade.

In theory, the UK Protection of Trade Interests Act makes it illegal for UK companies to comply with extraterritorial US Helms Burton legislation but, in practice, the UK government replicates the pernicious and illegal blockade. Transactions cannot take place in US dollars and payment cannot be channelled via American banks. The risk of US sanctions creates uncertainty and banks, businesses and companies can get caught between conflicting legal requirements. For instance, in August 2010, Barclays bank was fined $298m (£190m) by US authorities for handling transactions with banks in Cuba. The result is that the little trade that does occur often takes place through "third parties" and unfairly increases Cuba's import costs.

The blockade also restricts access to long-term credit which means Cuba is often limited to dealing in cash transactions or expensive short-term credit. This makes bilateral trade more costly for the island and significantly stifles its economic freedom. The uncertainty caused by the blockade creates a volatile market and increases the risk of liquidity problems. As the UKTI report says: "Even when there is potential demand for many products, the reality is that not all companies are in a position to ensure payment or to finance long-term payments … This is mainly due to Cuba's lack of access to the long and middle-term financial market, so relying mostly on short-term credit, and credit offered by the providers."

It is peculiar that David Cameron has spent much of his tenure attempting to expand British markets abroad – in places such as China, India and the Middle East – but Cuba's potential remains untapped. Cuba's geographical location – as both a Caribbean and Central American nation – represents a strategic advantage whilst the Cuban market offers various long-term benefits. Cuba has a highly educated and literate population and there is an abundance of experienced and qualified employees. Brazil has already recognised the business potential in Cuba and has invested heavily to make Mariel Port the leading freight port in the Caribbean.

The UK should be applauded for repeatedly voting against the US blockade at the United Nations, but further action is required to normalise relations with Cuba and develop real, discernible trade and co-operation between our countries.

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign and the British trade union movement have worked tirelessly to promote the normalisation of relations and it is clear that real political will does exist. Early Day Motion 1171 supporting the strengthening of ties between the UK and Cuba was signed by 248 MPs whilst over 92% of candidates in the 2010 general election supported better relations. The examples of various EU countries – including Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands – demonstrate that the debilitating effects of the EU common position can be circumvented if perceptible political will exists. It is now crucial that we harness political will within the UK to turn this "paper" agreement into something more concrete.

Report on Chile's student protests

2011-08-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: RATB is not responsible for this article or its contents, but is simply sharing it with our supporters.

by Adrian Wright, Santiago, Chile.

As I walked out of the tercera comiseria (police station based in the centre of Santiago) it hit me what had transpired on this incredible day. All I could hear were the sounds of the cacerolazo, people beating pots and pans in protest, every street corner occupied by protesters who had erected barricades, lit bonfires and the the echo of the updated anti dictatorship song “y va a caer y va a caer, la educación de Pinochet” sounding through the streets. The police who spent most of the day throwing tear gas canisters and beating the shit out of people could only look on as the people took control of the streets. The central store of “La Polar”, a giant chain of department stores implicated in a massive fraud of investors and customers, had been burnt to the ground. Everyone over the age of 40 told me the same thing: “it’s like being back in the eighties”, referring to the epic street battles against the Pinochet dictatorship that took place between 1982 and 1986.

I’ll give you the background to the story.

Since May of this year, the campuses and schools of Chile have been epicenters of revolt and protest. Students are hell bent on overthrowing the neoliberal profit based education system currently in existence in Chile. At one point over 180 schools and university campuses were “en toma” (under occupation by students) and in some cases, students were violently evicted from their tomas by police and security forces only to then go on to reoccupy them. Every Thursday, tens of thousands of schoolchildren as young as 14 and university students have taken to the streets, facing down the pacos (cops) with their guanacos (water cannons), their tear gas and their batons.

The city centre has the semi permanent smell of tear gas and you can’t go far without seeing a school or university campus en toma. If you catch a bus, you are likely to see an “evangelista”, usually a teenager sent by a school en toma, board the bus and explain to the passengers with inspiring eloquence what they are fighting for, a high quality education system for all, free of charge, why it is possible and why it is necessary.

Natalia Alegria, a 14 year old who had been tear gassed, beaten by police and arrested (something that has become very unexceptional during this conflict) told me that “this generation is not like previous generations, a lot of us are vegetarians, we read and we think”. From the end of the anti dictatorship protests in 1986 to the pinguina – school student – revolution of 2006, there was a marked downturn in political struggle in Chile, but that period has been buried for the foreseeable future. The banner outside the Universidad de Chile law faculty says it all “Chile está despertando” – Chile is waking up.

The movement is diverse in its tactics, from a mass kiss-in for education to having the Marea Roja, the supporters of the Chilean National Football team unfurl a huge Chilean flag with “free education” written on it at the recent Copa America to putting up barricades and burning tyres in the middle of Santiago’s major road during morning traffic and fighting with the police. The main unifying factors of the movement are the non negotiable demand for a high standard education for all, free of charge along with a distrust of all political parties, up to and including the Communist Party, the party that traditionally dominates student politics.

The students are up against the government of one of Chile’s richest men, Sebastian Piñera, who last year became the first conservative president of Chile since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1990. The student movement has already claimed the head of education minister Joaquín Lavín, someone who ironically made his fortune as head of the supposedly non-profit Universidad de Desarollo. Ironic because he is precisely the sort of person the movement aims to remove from the education sector.

Prior to the most recent march, the government, sensing an opportunity to crush the movement, banned the march planned for the 4th of August. The Fech (Student Federation of La Universidad de Chile) announced that the march would go ahead regardless and Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter publically threatened the students the day before the march declaring that if anyone died or was injured, it would be the fault of Fech President Camila Vallejo.

The students stood their ground.

Tuesday 4 August will go down in Chilean history. Over 1000 police were deployed to the streets of Santiago with orders to prevent students from gathering around the planned route of the protest, along the Alameda, the main street of Santiago. Police even went as far as preventing anyone who looked like a student from taking the subway at key stations, and preventing them from leaving stations close to the route of the march. Near the Alameda, students were not allowed to pass and in many cases were beaten and arrested. Many onlookers were also beaten and arrested, in some cases modest workers who just wanted to see what was happening.

But the ever resourceful students, in groups of less than 10 managed to gather in great numbers around key points of downtown Santiago to face off with the police.

For 6 hours students and police fought pitched battles in several locations around the city centre. Students armed only with rocks held off the police, known colloquially as the ninja turtles for the green body armour they wear rained blows on students, threw canister after canister of tear gas but by 4pm had no choice but to agree to a ceasefire. Students even managed to occupy the headquarters of the national broadcaster, Chilevision.

The ceasefire lasted until 6.30pm but by that time the police were too demoralised to fight back effectively. By 8pm the police had had to retreat and cede the streets to the students and the large portion of the population that supported them.

It was a day you wait decades to see. The state had thrown everything it had at the students and lost. It is difficult to overestimate the psychological effect this has had on not just the students but the population at large.

No one can really tell what is going to happen from here. The government is in crisis. Only two weeks ago there was a massive reshuffle of the cabinet and Sebastian Piñera’s approval rating is down to 26%. The students are feeling confident and they aren’t the only ones.

For the last month Starbucks baristas have been on strike. For two weeks some of them have been on hunger strike. A week ago a group of commuters, mainly builders and domestic workers, sick and tired of 3 hour commutes to work, a wage as low as 160,000 Chilean pesos (US$320) per month and price hikes by the privately owned but publicly funded public transport network Transantiago, overran important bus stops and commandeered buses.

Only one thing is certain. In Chile, the laboratory of neo liberalism, the supposed land of prosperity and market solutions, the market is no longer welcome.

ELAM continues challenge

2011-08-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

ELAM in Cuba: The Challenge of Training Physicians
Source: Prensa Latina, 03 August 2011.
By Roberto Hernandez

The Latin American Medical School (ELAM) in Cuba continues the challenge of training physicians from many countries including the United States, with the ability to offer their services anywhere in the world.

That has been the path taken by the almost 10,000 graduates of the School, located on the western outskirts of Havana, including the 153 US citizens who have received their degrees there so far, mostly members of ethnic minorities and the poor.

All we ask of the young (17 to 25 years) students is that once they have graduated they go back to their villages or poor neighborhoods and practice what they have learned, said the academic vice-rector of ELAM, Midalys Castilla.

"We need doctors in the whole world, but especially doctors like the Cubans who are willing to work anywhere," said Helen Bernstein, one of the leaders of the US-Cuba Friendship Caravan, which recently brought more than 100 tons of aid to the island

We want doctors with a focus on human beings, capable of feeling and sharing their knowledge as many times as necessary, added Bernstein, who is also the acting coordinator of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO).

She made these observations during the graduation of 40 of her country folk as doctors, speaking on behalf of the New York-based Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), that since the beginning of this century offers in the U.S.A. scholarships for training in Cuba.

Beyond political motivations, the presence of the North Americans in the Caribbean nation has yielded dividends for the young people, nourished by a vision of preventive care, which is absent from most schools in the U.S.A.

Medical students in Havana, for example, are able to attend to people in places without electricity or running water, when high technology diagnostic equipment is not available.

One might think that these talents are not useful in the U.S., but there are poor communities there that do not have a single doctor and have come to resemble parts of the Third World.

The idea gained momentum especially after the disaster caused in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people and highlighted the problems of health care in that country.

Cuba began to train US medical students after members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with then President Fidel Castro in 2000.

Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi told Fidel Castro about the problems in areas of his legislative district that suffered an acute shortage of doctors.

The leader of the Revolution responded by offering scholarships to 500 US young people to attend the Latin American Medical School, founded in November 1999 to provide medical studies for youth of the region, an idea later extended to Africans and Asians.

To qualify, students would have to demonstrate ability and commitment to work in disadvantaged communities in the United States, the very country that for over 50 years has tried to defeat the Cuban revolutionary project.

Since 2001, the interfaith group IFCO, Pastors for Peace and its late leader Lucius Walker, drew up a plan to increase minority participation in medicine in order to augment the ratio of doctors to patients in disadvantaged areas.

The lack of these in the neediest communities in the U.S. is exactly what IFCO wanted to remedy, when it began recruiting for scholarships in Cuba.

Most students from that country in the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana are African Americans from New York or California; 85 percent are from minority groups and 73 percent are women.

EMERGENCE OF ELAM
Classes began in February 1999 with some 1,900 young people, many from Central America, then affected by Hurricane Mitch, which left some 19 thousand people dead or missing.

Initially all students were prepared in the facilities of ELAM, in an area of one million 200 thousand square meters.

That changed in 2005, when future graduates in their third year of study began to be placed in the 21 faculties of medical science in the country, where they share their training with Cuban colleagues.

At the present time about 10 thousand young people from 55 countries are studying medicine in Cuba. Seventy-five percent are children of workers and peasants, and 104 indigenous communities of Latin America are represented among them.

The idea that the Cuban government uses the school and its large number of graduates to make propaganda in favour of socialism is shattered by the existence of some 78,000 Cuban doctors trained to serve a population of 11.2 million.

Chile: Student protests rock the government

2011-08-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

Source: RevolutionaryCommunist.org
by Marcelo Diaz, Santiago de Chile, 08 August 2011.

On Thursday 4 August tens of thousands of secondary school and university students defied a government ban on protests to march in cities and towns throughout the country. The centre of the capital Santiago was closed off as riot police used water cannon, tear gas and horses in a vain effort to disperse the youth. Over 800 were arrested yet the police were completely unable to control the situation as barricades appeared on major intersections in Santiago. The students have overwhelming popular support, and through their actions are giving birth to a new movement. Billionaire President Sebastian Pinera has the lowest ratings ever for a president since General Pinochet relinquished power in 1990 with only 20% support.

The revolt has been led by students from the University of Chile, the largest and most important university in the country. The issues at stake are little different from elsewhere in the world: the level of student fees and the drive to privatisation. On top of this are five demands of the secondary school students which includes the nationalisation of the education system. In 1980, Pinochet had handed over control of secondary schooling to local municipalities which meant that richer areas provided a better education than poorer areas.

The demand for nationalisation is a demand for equity. On top of this are demands for free education and for a greater proportion of GDP to be spent on the education system as a whole from the 3.1% at present to the UNESCO-recommended level of 7%. The students are also calling for an end to government subsidies to private schools, for improved school lunches, and for the extension of transport subsidies. University students are supporting these demands, and an end to university privatisation, and for basic rights to student and worker organisation. To finance these developments they are insisting the government imposes a massive increase in the royalties paid on copper extraction by multinationals such as BHP Billiton which pays only 4% at present compared to 30% for similar extraction rights in Australia. This has been frustrated by the Pinera government and previous Concertation (centre-left) governments. The students and teacher unions are now insisting on putting all these issues to a referendum.

The government move to ban the 4 August demonstration – on the grounds that it would disrupt city life – completely backfired and its heavy-handed approach has consolidated popular support for the demands of the students. The leadership of the main student union, FECH, has refused to back down and called for further mobilisations for the evening of 4 August. Attempts to undermine the principal FECH leader Camila Vallejo because of her membership of the Communist Party have failed. On Sunday 7 August tens of thousands of people marched through Santiago again, and in the local municipalities people protested with pots and pans as they had done in the years of the Pinochet dictatorship. There are now calls for a general strike on Tuesday 9 August and a further mass demonstration in Santiago. It is not clear whether this will be allowed.

Gross: What happened between March and August?

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

by Arnold August

On August fifth it was announced that the fifteen-year sentence arising out of the March fourth Provincial Court trial against Alan Gross, a US AID contractor, was upheld by the Cuban Supreme Court. The American citizen appealed the decision of the Provincial Court in Cuba's highest level of the judiciary on June 22, the result of which was made public on August fifth.

Regarding this issue, since March fourth to date the international media, especially based in Miami, Washington and Madrid, are concentrating on Havana, the Gross trials and legal challenges.

For those who may be puzzled by the Supreme Court decision, it would be useful to examine briefly what has happened in the United States — not Cuba — between March fourth to date in order to perhaps shed some light onto the Supreme Court's confirmation of the lower court's resolution. In this five-month period, the Obama Administration has on many occasions repeated its policy of interfering in the internal affairs of Cuba under the guise of "democracy promotion". For example, the Congress has recently ratified once again the decision to spend 20$ million in the next year explicitly dedicated to subversion in Cuba, including the type of activities that Gross had carried out and for which he has been arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced. On many occasions the Obama Administration in collaboration with their mercenaries on and off the island did not reduce, but rather reinforced, their provocative activities against the sovereignty of Cuba, one of the legal principles violated by Gross as a US agent contractor.

While Obama visited Chile on March 21, 2011, not long after the original trial and sentencing of Gross, the US President spoke about the need to defend "democracy and human rights within our borders [USA and Chile], let us recommit to defending them across our hemisphere.... And yes, that includes the people of Cuba."

How do readers think that the Cuban government and judiciary had taken this? By adding insult to injury, Obama stated in an interview to a Chilean newspaper as a prelude to his visit to Santiago de Chile that "The Chilean experience, and more particularly its successful transition to democracy and its sustained, growing economy, is a model for the region and the world."

When the news was released on August fifth regarding the Cuban Supreme Court decision, it was the same day that those of us who follow the news through Telesúr and other alternative media were able to bear witness to how the Chilean police violently attacked the students and professors demanding education, economic and political rights. There were according to official sources 874 arrests and hundreds wounded. Is this the example that Obama meant of Chile being a model of democracy and economic development for Cuba? The scenes of Chilean state brutality resembled more the emblematic steps (Escalanita) of the University of Havana before the January 1, 1959 Triumph of the Revolution, when the US-backed Batista dictatorship unleashed their forces so many times against the youth, professors and workers. Many students were killed in these assaults in Havana, but so far at the time of writing in any case, there has been no deaths in Chile during the course of the current confrontations.

Despite the demands to Obama from around the world declared by Nobel Prize winners, individual parliamentarians, parliaments and personalities for the release of the Cuban Five, what has Obama done between March fourth and today? He has done nothing, and we are heading into a most crucial period for the soon-to-be concluded Habeus Corpus process for Gerardo Hernández Nodelo, with nothing yet positive in sight at this time. The Cuban Five are imprisoned since 1998 because they attempted to curb US-backed terrorist interference in the internal affairs of Cuba.

Given all these provocations and repeated confirmations from the White House and the US Congress that they have every intention to continue their program of attempting to subvert Cuba's constitutional order, how else can the Cuban government and judicial authorities react? They have no choice but to make it clear that they will continue to defend their sovereignty as it is the right of every country to do so, big or small.

Alan Gross and his family should blame their own government for their predicament. The White House got him into it in the first place. By carrying out the same policies against Cuba since March fourth to date, it has given no reason for the Cuban judiciary to decide otherwise.

US-backed candidates in Venezuela announce electoral strategy

2011-08-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

Source: Correo del Orinoco International, no 75, 04 August 2011.

President Chavez, who recently confirmed plans to run for reelection, called the opposition’s electoral strategy “a farce”, terming their coalition the “Roundtable of the United States”

This week Venezuela’s pool of opposition political parties announced plans to create a “unified electoral ticket” for next year’s presidential election in an attempt to garner enough votes to prevent Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from winning another six-year term (2013-2019).

The new opposition “strategy” was unveiled on Saturday when spokesman Ramon Guillermo Aveledo told reporters that the opposition’s Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) had decided it will use a “single unitary” electoral ballot in its attempt to defeat Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in next year’s presidential election.

The opposition’s decision is “a symbol” of the opposition’s “commitment to unity”, affirmed Aveledo, who went on to explain that each of the opposition’s major political parties is likely to maintain its own electoral ballot and that this “unitary compromise” does not apply to elections for mayor and/or governor also expected in 2012.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has yet to announce the exact date of next year’s presidential elections or the dates of next year’s elections for mayors and governors. Suggestions have been made that one single election will be scheduled, allowing voters to elect their national, regional and local representatives all on the same day.

“If a certain party wants to use its own symbols (emblems, colors, mottos) in support of the MUD, that’s fine; just like it’s fine for them to set those symbols aside and join the MUD ticket”, explained Aveledo. The MUD, which includes an atypical mix of extreme-right, traditional conservative, and frustrated leftist parties was formed in 2008 as an electoral tool aimed at confronting the pro-Chavez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in September 2010 National Assembly elections.

The PSUV, founded in 2007, is currently Venezuela’s largest political party with an estimated seven million members. To guarantee Chavez’s reelection in 2012, pro-Chavez forces have begun forming the Polo Patriotico, or Patriotic Pole, a coalition that includes the governing PSUV, the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), and numerous grassroots social movements.

WASHINGTON’S CANDIDATES
Cilia Flores, socialist assemblywoman and Vice President of the PSUV, responded to the MUD’s recent announcement by asserting that opposition forces are looking to disguise ongoing “infighting” with a “false show of unity”. The opposition’s electoral ticket, she said, “is not singular, nor unified. It’s not even one single ticket, but one more among many”.

According to Flores, the MUD presidential ticket is nothing more than another attempt to “show unity where none exists”. In a televised interview on Monday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister and PSUV Vice President Nicolas Maduro told viewers that opposition parties have one uniting force, “the sectors of transnational power, especially those in the United States” that finance their efforts. Maduro reiterated Flores’ assertions that the opposition seeks to “swindle its own voters” by creating “false illusions of unity” and added that the opposition’s “unity ends up being secured by the (US) embassy”.

The Foreign Minister pointed out that 14 of the opposition’s possible presidential candidates have already traveled to Washington “to ask for its (Washington’s) blessing before launching their presidential bids”.

Maduro went on to assert that Venezuelan President Chavez will win his reelection bid next year because Chavez is united with “the most humble of this country, those who had always been forgotten, those who have awoken as part of this Revolution and those who have now become incorporated into political power”.

DIRTY TACTICS
President Chavez, who recently confirmed he has every intent on running in, and winning, next year’s presidential elections, said the Venezuelan people must “unmask” the opposition’s plans for next year.

According to Chavez, the opposition “claims it’s us (socialists) that are divided” when in fact “they are the ones living through the night of the long knives”. Opposition forces, affirmed Chavez, “are attacking, stabbing each other in the back, as they define their candidates for governor in the states of Aragua, Bolivar, Carabobo, Miranda and Zulia”.

The President also said that opposition spokespeople have “already begun talking about Cubans manipulating the electoral registry, people’s identifications and voting machines”, as a way of trying to promote a perception of electoral fraud, in the likely event Chavez wins.

Beyond the “farce” announced last weekend, said Chavez, the opposition’s plans for next year’s elections include “taking to the streets, creating disturbances and chaos, discrediting the armed forces and claiming that Cubans are somehow in charge”.

“At the hour of our Bolivarian victory”, Chavez concluded, the opposition’s only real plan is “to cry fraud”. Chavez also pointed out that among his popular base in the PSUV, allied political parties, and grassroots social movements in both urban and rural areas, “we have unity, loyalty, a single political project and an ideology”.

The President also explained that he has already begun outliningnhis program for the 2013-2019 presidential term, a program which includes “transitioning away from capitalism’s perversity” and overcoming “the cultural, moral damage, the destruction of values, of nationality, of the self-esteem of Venezuelans” caused by capitalist relations of production, distribution and consumption.

In the country’s previous presidential election (2006), Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won 7,309,080 of the votes, or 62.84%, against the opposition’s Manuel Rosales, who garnered 4,292,466 votes (36.90%). The opposition’s Rosales later abandoned his post as mayor of Maracaibo and fled the country to avoid charges of stealing public funds, accepting bribes for public contracts and hoarding lands and capital using front names and companies. He currently lives in self-imposed exile in Peru, though he has suggested he might return to Venezuela to participate in the opposition’s presidential primaries set for February 2012.

Referring to possible opposition candidates, including Rosales, Maria Corina Machado, and Henrique Capriles Radonski, Chavez affirmed “those people are incapable of running the country. It would be the disaster of all disasters”.

“They aren’t unified”, affirmed Chavez. “The only thing they are is a threat to this country, and we take it upon ourselves to ensure that they don’t become that threat” by winning the election, said Chavez.

Venezuela has lowest social inequality in Latin America

2011-08-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

Venezuela: Lowest Percentage of Social Inequality in Latin America
Source: Correo del Orinoco International, 29 July 2011.

Venezuela has the lowest percentage (0.38 percent) of social inequality in Latin America, according a report released by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The President of the National Institute of Statistics, Elias Eljuri, said on Monday that the ECLAC report shows that extreme poverty in Venezuela was reduced from 21 percent in 1999, when the Bolivarian Revolution began, to 6.9 percent, with a tendency to continue decreasing.

The report, which was recently presented by ECLAC Executive Secretary, Alicia Barcena, also conﬁrms that Venezuela has been able to reduce the gap of income distribution per capita by almost 15 percent.

The report’s data conﬁrm ﬁgures issued by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), showing a 4.5 percent increase of GDP during the ﬁrst trimester of the year, thanks to the government’s boost to the public and private sectors.

Additionally, the ECLAC report highlights that the economy in Latin America and the Caribbean would increase by 4.7 percent this year.

During a radio interview, Eljuri also highlighted the increase of formal workers over the last 12 years, which stood at 46 percent and now reaches 57 percent.

Social policies of the Chavez government have been largely responsible for the decrease in poverty and increase in overall social well being in the South American nation. Using oil proﬁts, the Venezuelan state has invested heavily in healthcare, education and infrastructure to improve quality of life for all.

How South Africa benefits from Cuba

2011-08-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

How we benefit from Cuba
Source: Independent Online (IOL, South Africa), 15 July 2011.

- Cuba has freely educated and trained 264 South African medical doctors since 1998, with a further 400 currently still undergoing training in that country.

- Deployment of Cuban doctors to South Africa on an annual basis to assist in addressing shortages in rural areas.

Some 128 Cuban doctors currently work in South Africa - all with a good command of English as required by the Department of Health.

- Deployment of teachers and lecturers in schools and universities in South Africa.

- Deployment of Cuban health specialists, including surgeons, to state hospitals to plug the critical shortages due to the exodus of these specialists to other countries or the private sector.

- Future exchange programme on the cards to be included in the academic joint co-operation agreement currently in place.

- Expansion of training to allow South African doctors trained in Cuba to specialise in family medicine so that they can assist in preventive and primary health care.

Major differences between the two
- Medical universities offer only one curriculum while South Africa's medical school each has their own, with all having to meet requirements set out by the Health Professions Council of South Africa.

- Cuban medical students are not allowed to even touch a patient until their sixth year of study, while South African students are allowed that level of interaction from their third year.

- The Cuban approach is largely based on preventive care which is medical doctor based, while the South African system is largely based on the nursing profession.

- Cuba has eliminated a number of diseases through their public health immunisation programmes, resulting in a scarcity of diseases like TB and HIV. South Africa's rates are among the highest in the world.

Berta Oliva: 'The coup is intact'

2011-08-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net

By Raul Fitipaldi, 28 July 2011.

Any conversation about Human Rights in Honduras is a theme that never ends. The open wound from the Coup d’état perpetrated June 28, 2009 by the trio of the Oligarchy-Military-United States is bleeding and runs across Our America from North to South. Not only the 18 territorial provinces of Honduras, not just the 19th Department (as the Hondurans in the exterior are called, no inhabitant of the continent of Morazán, Bolivar and Artigas could have been at peace with this aggression, based in a style of intervention that seemed to have been laid to rest in the mid 1980’s in the region.

Two days before the assassination of another social communicator, Nery Geremias Orellana (26), the 14th (journalist) assassinated since the Coup and its “institutional continuation”, a manager of Radio Joconguera in Calendaria, close to the Honduran border with El Salvador, we met, via Internet, with Bertha Oliva, revitalizing the old virtual bridge between Honduras and Florianopolis, Brazil. To speak with Mrs. Bertha Oliva (55), founder of the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH) is undoubtedly an experience of peace, of love for the people, devoted to the truth and the constant memory of and homage to the past and present victims of all the coups that have lived in the history of Honduras. Bertha Oliva de Nativi, mother of two children, began on her path to justice paying homage to her husband, detained and disappeared in 1981 under the presidency of Policarpo Paz Garcia. Her husband was the political leader Tomas Nativi about whom she said in another interview: “He was a revolutionary who dreamed with children, bread and school. One day his dreams will be reality, but our country still continues being a republic that is used and occupied”.

Making an effort to try to always keep her in the center of our computer screen (for 50 minutes) using the small web camera on the computer of colleague Ronnie Huete, Bertha Oliva received us in COFADEH. From there she told us the following regarding the report of the official Truth Commission (Details of the report are below in the appendix) and about other aspects of Honduras more than two years after the Civic-Military Coup d’état that imposed the dictator Roberto Micheletti Bain (68) “as president” of the nation of Lempira:

- Desacato; What are your conclusions about the report of the Stein Commission?

-B. Oliva: The report by the Truth Commission sponsored by the government, strengthens impunity. In fact, we could not expect anything different. It is a report that worries me.

-Desacato: What is the profile of Jose Miguel Insulza, general secretary of the OAS on this theme?

- B. Oliva: Mr. Insulza is part of the impunity.

-Desacato: Is the report well done legally?

-B. Oliva: Technically it is well conceived, it even appears to be a complete report, but it is not. What happens is that the coup-makers and the dominant classes are in a hurry to close this matter.

-Descato: Is this a part of the agenda in the conversations of the transition president Profirio Lobo Sosa with the political parties?

-B. Oliva: It seems to me that the intention of Lobo and good part of the political party hierarchies is to continue forward with the old agreements. These, while crimes against humanity and crimes against the country have stayed hidden, under the rubble. This is the implementation of the line coming from Washington.

-Desacato: In the Stein report what is the character of the military forces that participated in the act?

-B. Oliva: They give guarantees to the military hierarchy and a process that seems to cleanse them of guilt in such a way that they can occupy strategic positions in national institutions and businesses, such as is the case with General Romeo Vasquez Velásquez who leads Hondutel (the national telecommunications company). What is definitely applied is a “justice” that is efficient for the golpistas, meanwhile for the rest, for those who opposed and oppose the Coup are persecuted.

-Descato: Like the cases of Enrique Flores Lanza, Father Tamayo, and Father Fausto Milla?

-B. Oliva: Look it makes one sad, it is painful to see Father Fausto Milla, an elderly man, leave the country under threats, with a suitcase, together with his assistant, Denia Mejia. It is possible that he will never be able to come back. Father Milla is from the National Commission of the True Commission, that has nothing to do with the commission of Stein, it is an independent international commission made up of, among others, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nora Cortiñas, Mirna Perla and many persons recognized in the arena of Human Rights. I feel the aggression against Fausto Milla is a way to attack and to intimidate the True Commission that is independent of the (State) power.

-Desacato: The President of the transition, Porfirio Lobo has used up a considerable amount of money on propaganda about Honduran peace and reconciliation.

-B. Oliva: The peace of the cemetery, the situation of defenselessness (in the face of violations) is tremendous and growing.

-Desacato: But you said that the Stein report is well done….

-B. Oliva: Technically yes, but, for example, it doesn’t say anything about the role of the State in the Coup.

-Desacato: What is the role of the Attorney General and Justice Ministry in general?
-B. Oliva: There is no separation of powers in Honduras. They have lowered the profile of Luis Alberto Rubi and they have not allocated anything to he special prosecutors. Even less has been assigned to the responsibility of Ramon Custodio, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the State. Furthermore only 10% of those who were interviewed come from the ambit of the Resistance, not even ex President Manuel Zelaya was interviewed.

- Desacato: From the Human Rights perspective how do you characterize this moment?

-B. Oliva: At this moment the coup d’etat is worse than before. It is more excused, more difficult to identify but it operates in a more brutal manner against the opposition. There are selective crimes in all areas of society that resist or demand their rights: leaders, professors, campesinos, students. The assassinations are disguised as a settling of accounts, of accidents and in many other ways.

-Desacato: Honduras returned to the OAS after fulfilling some aspects of the Cartagena Agreement; are you in agreement with the decision of the fraternal countries?

-B. Oliva: the situation confirms for us that Ecuador is right. Honduras should not have been reinserted into the OAS. The conditions are not there, nor are the guarantees in place for it. Furthermore, in this way, whatever the good will that one knows our fraternal countries have, with this measure they pulled the focus off of Honduras in the international media and the result is a greater vulnerability. There is a conspiracy to physically and morally liquidate those of us who are standing up and resisting. But we continue forward. Honduras requires that we build a Project for Liberty.

Postscript: One week after this [below] interview (July 19, 2011) Honduras awoke shaken by the news that the president of transition, Porfirio Lobo Sosa reported that there are plans for his assassination, supposedly among the oligarchy, because of a proponed law to create a tax to increase the security system.

Aspects of the Stein report (taken from the press on the date)

“Honduras: “What happened on June 28, 2009 was a Coup d'Etat”.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission denied that the exit of President Manuel Zelaya from power was a “constitutional succession”, as the coup makers, headed by Roberto Micheletti, claimed. None-the-less, it considers that the elections in which Porfirio Lobo Sosa was elected are “legitimate” because they were called for a month before the coup, and recommend a constitutional reform.

The Guatemalan, Eduardo Stein, president of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) divulged today the report titled, “So that the events do not repeat themselves” and it constitutes the store of what happened before, during and after the coup d’etat that took Zelaya from power.

The CVR concluded that the coup was the culmination of a grave political crisis and in particular the confrontation of the executive powers with the legislative and judicial powers in which the Armed Forces intervened in favor of the last two.

According to the commission, Zelaya “went against the constitutional norms to establish a “new regimen” for which the report recommended the creation of the figure of political judgment in the Honduran constitution among other measures to avoid new coup d’etats, given that the Carta Magna lacks a procedure for the destitution of a ruler.

The report also pointed out that the elections through which the president Porfirio Lobo Sosa was elected were “legitimate” in that they were convened a month before the coup d etat. Many governments refused to recognize Lobo as the ruler as they considered the elections to be the product of the coup d’etat. .

Equally, the CVR established that there were innumerable violations of human rights alter the coup d’etat and as a consequence up to 12 people died during the repression of the protests. “The Constitution of the Republic must be reviewed regarding the function of the Armed Forces, including the suppression of any mission of a political character for them”, says the report.

The Commission came out of the Guaymuras San Jose-Tegucigalpa Agreement, which was negotiated, by the overthrown Zelaya and the de facto president Micheletti under the mediation of the Organization of American Status (OAS) and the government of the United Status. The General Secretary of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza, traveled to Honduras to be present during the release of the report of the commission since it is supported by that continental organization. Insulza along with the government and the rest of the powers of the Honduran State received a copy of the report.

The CVR was made up of five members (two Hondurans, three foreigners), the rector and the ex-rector of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, Julieta Castellanos and Jorge Omar Casco; the ex vice president of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein; the ex ambassador of Canada in the United Status and Cuba, Michael Kergin and the ex Minister of Justice of Peru, Maria Amadilla.

Dance of millions against Cuba

2011-08-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

Source: The Prisma.co.uk

A study by the Center for Responsive Politics suggests the millions of dollars given by Political Action Committees (PACs) motivate members of Congress to influence U.S. policy against this island.

by Randy Saborit, 31 July 2011.

The study reveals that the anti-Cuba PACs have awarded upwards of three million dollars between 2009 and 2010 to finance the election campaigns of congressional Republicans or Democrats alike.

The biggest beneficiary was the Cuban-American democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, who received $112,500, according to the report of the nonpartisan independent organization based in the capital.

Menendez is the leading advocate on Capitol Hill for the allocation of an additional $20 million on top of the already approved 21 million to encourage subversion in Cuba under the cloak of USAID, a modality that some like Senator Jonh Kerry question because there is suspicion of corruption in the disbursement of those public funds.

According to the analysis, more than $100,000 from the PACs was also received by Representative Howard Berman of California, who presided over the House of Representative’s Committee of Foreign Affairs, and former Representative Isaac Skelton, of Missouri, who leads the Army Committee.

Meanwhile, Senator Chuck Grassley became the most favoured Republican, with 100 thousand dollars for his campaign in the 2010 legislative elections, the study asserted.

According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, the United States-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee alone had contributed 483 thousand dollars to candidates in the 2009-2010 legislative electoral campaign.

Democrat candidates received 284 thousand 500 dollars and Republicans 106 thousand, including the current chairman of the House of Representatives John Boehner, his old ally Dan Burton, Latin Texan Henry Cuéllar and Elio Engel, who until 2010 presided over the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs. In the Senate, the aforementioned PAC granted funds to its president, democrat Harry Reid, to Joseph Lieberman and to Cuban-American Marco Rubio, of Florida, among others.

Concerning pressure groups, attorney Ariadna Cornelio, states that these groups intervene in the formation of U.S. foreign policy, and sometimes ensure that their specific interests are taken into account, which reveals the falsehood of Washington’s democracy, pointed out Cornelio in an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina.

The author focused her study on the influence of four groups that exert pressure on Washington’s policies toward Havana: the Cuban American National Foundation, the Council for the Freedom of Cuba, the US-Cuba Democracy PAC and the Cuba Study Group.

To achieve their objectives, she specified, those organizations use methods aimed at influencing policy makers in committees and subcommittees of Congress and in Federal departments and specialized agencies of the Executive.

The researcher also referred to indirect methods such as media campaigns, conducting opinion polls, support for think tanks, building coalitions, boycotts and protests.

A PAC is an entity registered with the Federal Election Commission organized to raise and distribute funds to elect or defeat political candidates and mostly represent interests of business, union or ideological sectors.

Socialism and voluntary labour

2011-08-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Source: Venezuela: Translating the Revolution blog, 20 July 2011.

The following is an article from the Socialist Debate website about the role of voluntary labour in Venezuela's housing construction program, Mision Vivienda, launched in April this year to address the shortage of housing in Venezuela. It discusses the significance of voluntary labour in the transition to socialism.

Welcome socialism
By Neftali Reyes, Debate socialista
Translated by Owen Richards,

Practice has had the last word: this process is headed for socialism. The facts have already appeared on the social horizon. Reality has outstripped the Byzantine discussions of the philosophical pretenders who deny our socialism. They have their refutation from within the bowels of life itself.

An historic event has occurred in Venezuela: the oil workers were summoned to Voluntary Collective Labour in Mision Vivienda and arrived en masse. And the number exceeded fifteen thousand.

Voluntary Labour, where the worker goes off to work motivated by altruism, and committed to the society to which they belong and in which they feel wanted, is giving labour a new meaning: it is liberating it, experimenting with it, and prefiguring free labour. It is now done without the compulsion of survival.

Voluntary Labour is the “sharp tool” that must be used to build Socialism. It radiates to all of society the new ethics of the loving relations, and through it the working class leads the revolutionary process.

The massive surge of oil workers to Voluntary Labour means that the conditions for the flourishing of socialism exist in Venezuela. It’s indicative of the class struggle that socialism unleashes on the old world, against capitalism, a system that hangs on in a thousand ways. It unequivocally indicates that the Socialist battle takes place here in our midst, even though we sometimes misunderstand it.

Without a doubt, the Bolivarian Revolution has created conditions to build socialism as never before in our history. Socialism can arise in Venezuela because it expands and reinforces the state-administered Social Property. This form of property enables the fruits of labour to be the property of society as a whole, constituting itself thus as the basis of the Consciousness of Social Duty.

The workers become more and more aware of their power and their historical role, a role that goes beyond merely making demands; they’re committed to showing the way to the new world. This is the material basis for the advance of the process.

Furthermore, the government, political power, is in the hands of the Revolution, embodied in president Chavez. The call to socialism, to anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism that came down from the high command, unleashed the contradictions that generate movement and make the way toward socialism possible.

After years of struggle, favorable factors converge: Social Property administered by the state; a working class that is conscious of it historical role; Popular Power lead by Chavez – the most important Venezuelan revolutionary of the last hundred years in loving harmony with the masses; the Housing Mission as the auspicious setting for demonstrating the power of voluntary labour.

Centuries of hope, hope in the possibility of greatness, hope that we can defeat the deadening mediocrity, finds its concretion here. We are privileged: socialism is almost within our reach.

There’s no excuse to get lost in shortcuts or to use blunt instruments. We must have faith, break with custom, and follow the example set by the oil workers.

This is Socialism. Now we must pass beyond adversities, deepening socialism, nurturing it and extending it.

The country needed its best sons, and more than fifteen thousand patriots from within the heart of the oil industry stepped forward. The march to Socialism, which is the attempt to build a viable society, needed real action to demonstrate that humanity is able to surpass egoistic behaviour and to wholeheartedly build that other world that the Liberator dreamed of. The oil workers stepped forward and said, “present”.

Now they are the example and the promise, showing the way, they are the evidence that Socialism is more than a utopia; it’s a reality that’s taking shape before our very eyes.

They were called to Voluntary Collective Labour, invited to give of themselves to the Mision Vivienda, they gave themselves to society, to its Revolutionary Government, generously offering their most valuable possession: their labour power. And they came, without asking for explanations, and without hesitating, more than fifteen thousand good souls with a will to commit themselves to the future.

This act, which not by chance passes almost unnoticed, is one of the most important things that have taken place in the Bolivarian Revolution, placing it in a new dimension on the path.

Labour, always appropriated by the ruling classes, acquires with the gesture of these oil workers the condition of being an instrument of liberation, it’s the harbinger of a new world where exploitation - which is nothing but the appropriation of social labour on behalf of a minority - is overcome through the establishment of loving relations for the benefit of all.

What took place in Mision Vivienda with the Voluntary Collective Labour foreshadows the emancipation of labour, when labour will belong to society, to everyone.

The material and social foundations upon which to build a society where “to each according to his ability, to each according to his need” are established. In that world, exploitation, the appropriation of labour, robbery, will no longer be possible. It will no longer make sense. That is True Socialism.

Beyond the will of its protagonists, Mision Vivienda exposes the Revolution’s basic contradiction: the confrontation between capitalism and Socialism.

The capitalists, the anti-social, put a high price on their “collaboration”, they expect payment in cash, and, most harmfully, they do so with an egoistic consciousness.

Voluntary Labour is a socialist tool. It approaches the problem of housing with moral and spiritual vigour. By the end, we will have housing, but more importantly, we will have a conscious mass, a mass able to understand and confront the challenges along the road to Socialism. They will be a symbol of that which we struggle for. And an active, conscious vanguard will have formed, that has proved its effectiveness, its loyalty to Comandante Chavez, willing to step forward when called upon.

The challenge of the oil workers is great: now they have the responsibility to show the way, to guide the rest of society in the building of Socialism.

Let the gesture that these pioneers made be known throughout the country and around the world. Let their selflessness and their understanding of the historic moment be known.

The spirit of our nation’s heroes, of the Paso de Los Andes, of Carabobo, is embodied in this gesture of the workers. They are a prelude, a good omen of the successes we will have in the coming battles.

May society reward them, returning love for the love that they gave to all of humanity.

[For more information on Mision Vivienda, see: Venezuelanalysis.com]

RATB Reports: 26 July 2011 celebrations

2011-08-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend of 30-31 July 2011, Manchester Rock around the Blockade (RATB) held events to celebrate the anniversary of the storming of the Moncada Barracks in 1953, the birth of the 26 July Movement (M-26-7) and the Cuban Revolution.

On Saturday 30 July, we held a vibrant street stall in Piccadilly Gardens in the centre of the city. With Cuban music blaring out from our sound system we petitioned against the genocidal US blockade, distributed leaflets explaining the plight of the Cuban 5 and contrasted the achievements of the Cuban Revolution in health care and education to the growing attacks on working class living conditions in Manchester.

On Sunday 31 July, 20 people gathered to watch the RATB 2009 film, ‘Cuba: Defending Socialism – Resisting Imperialism’ and had a lively, informative discussion on the gains of the Cuban Revolution and its relevance for building a socialist movement here in imperialist Britain.

Viva Cuba!
End the blockade of Cuba!

Paypal wants to foist US Cuba embargo on Europe

2011-08-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

Source: e-CommerceFacts.nl, 28 July 2011

According to Golem.de, Paypal has requested various German online shops to remove Cuban goods from their inventory and threatened to block their accounts. The reason cited is that the trade embargo that the United States has levied against Cuba since 1962 is mandatory for PayPal's US-based parent company, eBay.

Among others affected by the move is the German company Rum&Co which was asked recently by Paypal to remove all Cuban products from its product range: "Remove any Cuban cigars from your website that contravene PayPal terms and conditions," stated the message from PayPal as reported by Rum&Co proprietor Thomas Altmann. After it failed to respond its accounts were frozen. Paypal showed a willingness to resume the contract, as long as it was consistent with its terms.

Rum&Co eventually decided to go with other payment service providers: "We supply customers within the European Union." I do not see why US American companies should be able to simply dictate to us", explained Altmann. PayPal would not comment on the incident.

This is not the first time that PayPal has made headlines concerning its cross-border application of the US embargo. In March, the website of the British Guardian reported that the Paypal account of a British foundation that accepts donations to support students to study medicine in Cuba had been frozen by Paypal. At the Guardian's request, PayPal stated that the accounts had been closed due to their "indirect links with Cuba." It was stated that as an American company, PayPal is bound to observe this embargo.

In Paypal's terms and conditions it states: "At our own discretion, we reserve the right to close accounts at any time," and "to limit payment sources and payments, access to an account and some or all account features." However the specialist solicitor Michael Terhaag, consulted in April by Golem, has his doubts. At that time, he argued that the terms and conditions were not compatible with German law and are therefore invalid.

At any rate it seems surprising that eBay's subsidiary, PayPal Europe, which is regulated as a financial organisation under the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg, should subordinate itself to American laws.

*Update*: Rum&Co has stated in an interview with amerika21.de to prepare a joint legal action aganst Paypal with 20 other German retailers. Details are yet to be disclosed.

RATB Reports: Celebrating the Cuban Revolution

2011-07-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

by RATB North East, 23 July 2011.

On Saturday 23 July Rock Around the Blockade (RATB) North East held a lively street celebration for the anniversary of the 26 July attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, which marked the beginning of the Cuban Revolution.

Grey’s Monument in the city centre of Newcastle was adorned with Che Guevara banners and Latin American flags. A sound system played Cuban, Venezuelan and British revolutionary music in between rousing speeches documenting the outstanding achievements of the Cuban revolution over the past 50 years.

Activists spoke against the illegal US blockade that has been in place since 1961 and others showed how Cuba is a beacon of hope, an anti-imperialist struggle that is driving movements across Latin America and beyond.

'The people united will never be defeated!' was the rallying call when 2 English Defence League (EDL) members attempted to sabotage the celebration by holding an English flag on the Monument.

The speakers pointed out how the EDL were playing the game of the ruling class, defending it’s wars abroad, dividing the working class to make us fight for the scraps from the table and backing the bank bail outs by attacking anti cuts protestors.

'The people united will never be defeated!' has been put into practice in socialist Cuba where for over 50 years the working class has been in power, driving out first the Batista dictatorship, then US imperialism to build a society which meets the needs of the whole population and, with health and education brigades, provides vital support to poor and oppressed people across the globe.

Socialist Cuba provides essential lessons and inspiration for anyone active in Britain today fighting racism and fighting the cuts.

Viva Cuba!
Viva Venezuela!
Hasta La Victoria Siempre!
Venceremos!

Healthcare in Cuba and US compared

2011-07-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

Health Care in Cuba and America - by Stephen Lendman, 05 July 2011.

read more...

Cuba condemns Norway attacks

2011-07-26T15:24:00.000-07:00

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba.
Source: Granma, 26 July 2011.

Cuba strongly condemns the acts of violence in Norway, on July 22, against the government complex in Oslo and against the young people gathered on the Isle of Utoya that have left so far 92 deaths [revised down to 77 - RATB].

The Cuban people, who have suffered from terrorism for more than 50 years, condemn the scourge in all its forms and manifestations.

The Cuban government and people, extend their condolences to the government, the Norwegian people and particularly to the families of the victims, for the loss of life and damage caused by these criminal actions, while expressing their solidarity and support.

Havana, July 23, 2011.
"Year 53 of the Revolution."

Lowkey puts Cuban anti-imperialism in the limelight

2011-07-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

by Anthony Bairstow for Rock Around the Blockade (RATB).

An engaging new music video against the US blockade on Cuba has been released by the UK rapper Lowkey. The song Too Much recognises Cuba’s achievements as a defiant force against anti-imperialism despite US aggression and the blockade.

The track, and its' video filmed in Cuba, focuses on capitalism and its perverse obsession with material things, most obviously money, over human values and the physical and emotional well being of people in society. The video shows life in Cuba, where although people are still affected by the crisis of capitalism, a new socialist society is being built which puts humanity at its centre.

This is the second video Lowkey has released that is filmed in Cuba. The first, My Soul, although not politically about the country, still touched on the socialist values embedded in to the revolutionary spirit.

Lowkey's new video Too Much comes at a good time in the British political scene, where so-called 'socialist' organisations, such as the Socialist Worker's Party (SWP) and Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), still refuse to recognise the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution.

Instead such organisations choose to spread lies and misinformation about the country, which often stem from anti-Cuban and pro-capitalist Miami sources. They even refuse to see Cuba as an example of anti-imperialist struggle for building an anti-imperialist movement in Britain today. The oppressed peoples of the world support Cuba, its fight for socialism, its humanity, its internationalism, education and healthcare, but that is not good enough for the SWP or AWL who call for their so-called 'socialist' movement inside blatantly imperialist Britain, without injecting the kind of anti-imperialist politics which we can learn from the Cuban Revolution.

Lowkey has made various tracks in the past highlighting anti-imperialist struggles, including his hugely popular track Long Live Palestine which has become something of a pro-Palestine theme tune, often blasted out of sound-systems at pro-Palestine protests across Britain.

The new video Too Much ends with a strong political statement from independent film-maker Pablo Navarrete about Cuba and the US blockade:

'The US government’s blockade against Cuba was first imposed in October 1960. It was introduced after the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro (which came to power in January 1959 after overthrowing the brutal US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista) nationalised property belonging to US citizens and corporations.

'Since 1962 the blockade has been tightened further and today represents the longest blockade in history. The cost to the Cuban economy has been catastrophic, estimated at more than 750 billion US dollars, in current prices. The UN General Assembly has voted every year for 19 years on a resolution condemning the blockade. Every year the condemnation is virtually unanimous.

'In the most recent vote in October 2010, 187 countries voted for ending the blockade. Only the US and Israel voted to continue with it. The criminal US blockade of Cuba has for over 50 years tried to suffocate the island; to teach its people and revolution a brutal lesson for standing up to US imperialism and daring to be free. With heroic sacrifices, Cuba continues to not only resist but to shine a light on the path to a fairer, more humane world.

'Cuba resists; Cuba lives; Viva Cuba!'

Lowkey has consistently proven himself to be a refreshing and cutting edge UK rapper with his finger on the pulse when it comes to the really important issues that surround the working class struggles both in Britain and the world. Lowkey's new track is taken from the highly anticipated album "Soundtrack To The Struggle" which we expect to be released later this year.

You can follow Lowkey's progress on www.twitter.com/lowkeymusic1

US seizes seven computers bound for Cuba

2011-07-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

US Officials Seize Seven Computers as Caravan Crosses US-Mexico Border

Dear Friends and Supporters,

At 12:20 PM on Wednesday, the 22nd Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba arrived at the US/Mexico border to break the US blockade against Cuba. The US border officials have again decided to interfere with our mission of breaking the US blockade, and have seized seven computers. More information is in the press release below. Although we are continuing on the caravan and taking the remaining 100 tons of aid to Cuba, our protest against the seizure continues! Your support is vital! We are asking you, our emergency response network, to spread the word:

Call your senators and congressional representatives, the White House, call your local media, and organize in your communities to demand that the US government:

- Return the 7 computers immediately!

- End the blockade and travel ban of Cuba now!

- Find your Congressional Representative here

Find your Senator here:

Contact the Whitehouse here

Now is the time for action against this criminal blockade and in support of the Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba!

You can support our work by making a donation here

Let us work together to end the blockade!

In solidarity,

IFCO-Pastors for Peace

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact: Janine Solanki (360) 250-0998 Lucia Bruno (212) 926-5757

July 21, 2011

US Officials Seize Seven Computers as Pastors for Peace Cuba Caravan Crosses into Mexico

US Customs and Border Patrol officers seized seven computers intended for Cuban hospitals, schools, and a veterinary clinic at the Pharr (TX) International Bridge on Wednesday.

The computers are part of the 100 tons humanitarian aid carried by the 22nd IFCO/Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba. Caravan participants observed officers X-raying and searching the vehicles. Customs officers then said that they were ‘detaining,’ not ‘seizing’ the computers, in order to determine whether the caravan needed to have a license to take them to Cuba. Three of the computers seized were the same ones that were taken from last year’s caravan in 2010, and were later returned to IFCO/Pastors for Peace.

While the brightly painted trucks and school buses were being searched, caravanistas chanted “Cuba is no threat to you; let our computers through!” and “Love is our license! Free the computers!” and held banners and signs reading “Cuba is not our enemy” and other slogans. Caravanistas then prayed and chanted together as they gathered around the pickup truck holding the seized computers.

Although IFCO/Pastors is protesting the computer seizure, we are continuing through the border to deliver to Cuba the 100 tons of aid that have crossed successfully through the border.

This year more than 100 North Americans and Europeans have joined the Caravan.

For updates check www.pastorsforpeace.org
and www.facebook.com/pastorsforpeace

Cuba graduates more doctors for the world: Class of 2011 includes 19 US physicians

2011-07-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Source: Meddicc.org, 23 July 2011.

Following stirring choral offerings ranging from Ave Maria to We Are the World, 19 US medical students were among those awarded their degrees at today’s graduation of physicians, nurses and allied health professions of the Medical University of Havana’s Dr Salvador Allende Health Sciences Faculty. The new US physicians are among 1396 international medical students graduating this week throughout Cuba who were enrolled in the full-scholarship Latin American Medical School (ELAM) program. They all completed a bridging course and another two years of basic sciences study at ELAM’s main Havana campus, before fanning out to health sciences faculties across the country for their final four clinical years.

Here in Havana, Allende is one of the faculties celebrating graduations today, 22 countries represented in its Class of 2011, including Cuba and the USA. In his remarks, Allende’s Dean Dr Jorge Jimenez called them “worthy young men and women ready to do battle for health anywhere in the world.”

ELAM Rector Dr Juan Carrizo noted that, since the first ELAM students received their degrees in 2005, the program has graduated over 9900 MDs from the Americas, Africa and Asia. He praised those who made their medical studies possible, including the students themselves, their parents and professors, and former President Fidel Castro whose idea founded the ELAM program. “We owe ourselves to our vocation,” he reminded the graduates in closing, “to see people as patients, never clients, and to apply our knowledge, skills and commitment to help them.” Dr Carrizo was among various speakers who paid tribute to the late Rev. Lucius Walker, director of the Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)/Pastors for Peace, whose work was vital to the US contingent of students, calling him a “courageous man of principles.”

MEDICC International Director Gail Reed was a guest at the graduation. She explained that MEDICC provides the ELAM program with latest-edition textbooks and carries out cooperation projects with students from Haiti, Honduras and the USA. MEDICC supports US graduates’ transition into medical practice through the MD Pipeline to Community Service, which awards fellowships to defray the costs of US board exams and preparatory courses, provides students and graduates with US physician mentors, coordinates clinical opportunities for students in US public hospitals and community health centers, and conducts outreach about ELAM to US residency programs. “Our heartiest congratulations go to these wonderful young people from across the United States,” she said. “And we want to let them know how much they are needed back home, where health disparities continue to plague our communities along lines of race, gender and income.”

Portraits of US Graduates, Class of 2011

Kereese Gayle, Atlanta, Georgia I’ve finally realized my dream; it’s the end of one journey. Now, I’m anxious to get back home and contribute to making change. In Cuba, I’ve learned perseverance; and my Cuban professors taught me by their example of heartfelt connection with their patients. I plan to apply for a residency in pediatrics.

	Mena Ramos, Chicago, Illinois and the Philippines The first thing I want to do is see family in Chicago, and then go to the Philippines to work with a community organization there. In Cuba, I learned how to create, to make opportunities in every situation, to find my own space. On the heels of my clerkship in Contra Costa County, California—which was an amazing learning experience—I plan to apply for a residency in family medicine.

Michael Woods, Atlanta, Georgia I’m going home to see family first—I have a sister and a nephew I don’t even know yet! Then I’ll finish the steps of the USMLE exams. In Cuba, I became a better person, and especially I learned to accept challenges that make you stronger. I learned not to run away, but to step up. I want to be a primary care physician, either in family medicine or pediatrics. The basic principle I’ll take with me is that we need to go back to those in need: medicine should be free, and I want to contribute ideas that can make that happen.

	Akira Jackson, Los Angeles (Compton), California My 9-month plan starts today: first, finish my exams and then apply for a residency. In Cuba, I learned that it is your community that makes you who you are. You find that in Cuba, where so many things are lacking, yet people are strong together and love life. It may sound corny, but that’s how I see it. My plan is to keep the memory of this health system in my mind to help me set up a mobile clinic in Los Angeles, to provide services such as HIV testing, immunization, and scanning for diabetes, with a new spin: accessible to everybody.

Keasha Guerrier, Long Island, New York I’ve passed all my USMLE steps; I want to become a family practitioner in the Deep South, in the Mississippi Delta region. In Cuba, I learned perseverance and dedication. It was a long, hard road sometimes but the end result is our degree that allows us to serve almost anywhere in the world, and have an impact on communities that need help. Before I do anything else, I’m going to Haiti for a few months to work with the Cuban doctors there—my father is Haitian. I had wanted to go as a student, but they asked me to wait until I’d graduated—and so now I’ve graduated, I have my degree, and that’s where I’m headed.

Photos: Eduado Añé

Pastors for Peace bring humanitarian aid to Cuba

2011-07-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

Pastors for Peace in Havana
Source: Granma, 23 July 2011.
by LEANDRO MACEO LEYVA

The 22nd US-Cuba Friendship Caravan arrived in Cuba Friday afternoon from Mexico, after touring 130 U.S. cities to multiply solidarity with Cuba. With over one hundred members, the peace activists came to challenge the economic, commercial and financial blockade in place for more than half a century in Washington, inspired by the ideals of their eternal leader, the Rev. Lucius Walker.

Helen Bernstein, interim coordinator of the organization, confirmed that the brigade is aware of the responsibility of continuing the legacy of Lucius, who for the first time did not physically accompany the caravan.

"Our commitment to solidarity with Cuba is forever," she said.

Leira Sanchez, head of International Relations of the UJC, welcomed the visitors, and thanked them for their show of perseverance and belief in the ideals they uphold.

The activists were met by Caridad Diego Bello, head of the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee, Kenia Serrano, president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, and the Rev. Raul Suarez, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Centre.

Pastors for Peace Bringing Humanitarian Aid to Cuba
Source: Granma, 22 July 2011

The twenty-second Caravan of Pastors for Peace has reached the port city of Tampico, Tamaulipas, from where it will sail to Cuba with more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid collected in 130 U.S. cities, announced Prensa Latina.

Upon arrival in Mexico, the group with more than 100 activists, upheld its challenge to the U.S. blockade against Cuba, and emphasized that love is our license in memory of the Reverend Lucius Walker Jr. The humanitarian aid includes medicines, computers, school supplies, portable solar panels and 14 vehicles.

After completing customs formalities, the peace activists held several meetings with Mexican organizations in solidarity with Cuba, as well as being received by students and employees of the University of North Tamaulipas.

According to Helen Bernstein, interim coordinator of the organization, the U.S. authorities only seized seven computers. For Bernstein, the seizure was not new, as last year also U.S. customs confiscated computers crossing to Mexico.

During the visit to Cuba, from July 22 to 30, the solidarity group will hold various exchanges with students, artists, scientists and farmers, besides participating in the graduation of 20 young Americans in the Latin American School of Medicine.

Venezuela has largest oil reserves

2011-07-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

OPEC: Venezuela Has Largest Oil Reserves, Surpassing Saudi Arabia
Source: Axis of Logic
By Les Blough and Arturo Rosales, 19 July 2011.

Venezuela's crude oil proven reserves exceeded those of Saudi Arabia last year according to OPEC's annual statistical report. In 2009, OPEC listed Saudi as having the highest reserves at 264.59 billion barrels or 25.9% of OPEC's overall reserves and Venezuela at 211.17 billion barrels or 19.8% of OPEC reserves.

According to OPEC's latest annual report, Venezuela's proven crude oil reserves reached 296.5 billion barrels in 2010, up 40.4% on the year and higher than Saudi Arabia's 264.5 billion barrels.

The data confirms statements by Venezuela's national oil company (PDVSA) which reported it had this level of reserves as early as January of this year. Venezuela began certifying its oil reserves in the Orinoco belt in 2007 and since then the corporate media accused PDVSA of exaggerating their estimates for political reasons and raising questions about how much of Venezuela's reserves are economically viable. At that time President Chávez predicted that Venezuela's commercial reserves would reach 310 billion barrels. Well that looks to be the case and the fact that Venezuela is pumping just over 3 million barrels a day is enough to keep the economy running nicely and replenish the international reserves.

The fact that PDVSA receives a good bill of health from Fortune, WSJ and Dow Jones suggests that the negative press in Venezuela and the western media is part of a campaign to discredit the company as it is being run with socialist ideals sending 82% of the generated profit directly to the Venezuelan people and not offshore or US banks, gaining interest for the Venezuelan ruling class as was before President Chavez took control of PDVSA after the oil strike and sabotage of December 2002 - February 2003.

PDVSA has the distinction of investing more in social programs ($21 billion) than any other single company in the world.

Read more...

Protests and repression in Chile

2011-07-24T15:25:00.002-07:00

Twenty Chilean Students in Hunger Strike
Source: Prensa Latina, 21 July 2011.

Another 12 high school students joined on Thursday the eight students on hunger strike protesting the lack of response by the government to the Chilean students´ demands. The pressure measure is in line with protests staged by students and professors for the last few months, with the support of families and different social sectors demanding a high quality public education.

The students also demand that education be not-for-profit, a constitutional reform that guarantees education as a right, and a return to the State of the high schools given to the municipalities in 1986 during the Augusto Pinochet military dictatorship. According to Biobio radio station, the protest is part of the intensification of the movement that the students threatened if their demands were not met.

Chilean Mapuche Community Resume Demonstrations for Ancient Lands
Source: Prensa Latina, 20 July 2011.

Mapuches of the Temucuicui traditional community, in Ercilla village, in the Araucania region, announced on Wednesday that they will resume mobilizations to claim 1,800 hectares they consider part of their ancient lands.

Members of the community already set up camp at the private La Romana country estate, marking the start of their struggle, reported Biobio Radio. The "werken" or messenger of the Temucuicui traditional community, Mijael Carbone, confirmed the resumption of mobilizations, a decision taken in agreement with the Mapuche Territorial Alliance.

State authorities' failure to comply their commitment to solve the Mapuche's land claims prompted these indigenous people to resume their protests, he said. He said the mobilizations will continue until what they consider their ancestral lands are restored. These lands include areas in the hands of private owners and forestry enterprises

Chilean Quake Victims Protest Delayed Reconstruction
Source: Prensa Latina, 21 July 2011.

Occupants of one of the largest camps created in the Biobio region after the 2010 quake left thousands homeless continue to protest the slow pace of reconstruction.

Refugees in Molino, Dichato, a coastal town of Tome municipality, affirm that authorities are not keeping their promises. Camp dwellers blocked the route linking Dichato with Tome yesterday to attract the government's attention, Radio Biobio reported.

Very early today, after launching teargas, about 100 police using water cannons charged at demonstrators near El Molino. Demonstrators defended themselves with stones, thus leading to a new clash.

The quake and tsunami of February 2010 destroyed 80 percent of Dichato. A poll by the Corbiobio Studies Center revealed that 69.7 percent of residents from the Eighth Region believe reconstruction has taken longer than expected.

Venezuelan forces respond to prison violence

2011-07-24T15:25:00.001-07:00

Venezuelan Forces respond to gang violence, disarm prison
Source: Correo del Orinoco International, no 69, 24 June 2011.

State response to the current prison crisis in Venezuela has been based on a premise of respecting human rights and not engaging lethal violence, despite deadly force employed by some prisoners

In response to a confrontation last week between rival gangs in Venezuelan prison El Rodeo I, the Venezuelan government has sent state security forces to disarm gang members and “preserve the lives of other prisoners” in both El Rodeo I and El Rodeo II penitentiaries. The altercation – which left 22 prisoners dead and over 50 injured – has prompted the government to initiate a series of measures in order to take the Revolution into the nation’s jails and regain control of the country’s prison system. Vice-President Elias Jaua described the intervention by state forces as a ‘necessary’ measure and emphasized the government’s commitment to safeguardingthe prisoner’s human rights. “This undertaking isn’t to massacre prisoners, it is to protect their lives from a small group that have wrested control of the internal management of the prison and have committed a massacre in the past few days - resulting in 21 deaths (now confirmed at 22)”, said Jaua. Combining both direct and ‘humanizing’ measures in order to address the problem, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez last week also approved 413 million bolivars ($96 million) in order to completely reform the penitentiary system.

The Vice-President also highlighted that the government isaddressing the problem from a systematic point of view - “we are working so that our people have the best material conditions so that their children can move forwards and don’t end up in prison. In that exclusionary system, only the poor are sentenced”, he explained.

PRISONS EVACUATED, WEAPONS SEIZED
Thousands of inmates were evacuated to other detention centers throughout the country when gangs put up violent resistance to the operation and a fire broke out in El Rodeo I. So far the total number of inmate casualties is unknown - two officers have lost their lives as a result of the violence. Vice-Minister of Prevention and Citizen Security for the Ministry of Interior Relations and Justice, Nestor Reverol, confirmed that the fire broke out in an ‘empty area’ of the prison and that no inmates were burned – as some sectors of the Venezuelan opposition have claimed.

There are currently around 1000 prisoners remaining in each of the two prisons – with gang leaders in El Rodeo II refusing to cooperate with the Venezuelan authorities despite days of sustained dialogue. Friday los “Pranes” and el “Carro” – the two principal gangs in the prison - have attacked officers and held other inmates hostage as they fight to keep control of the penitentiary. Venezuelan Human Rights Official Gabriela Ramirez confirmed that 90% of the prisoners that remain in El Rodeo II are under intense pressure from gang leaders and reported that rescued inmates stated they “wanted peace”. Calling on the leaders to abandon their violent attitudes and to turn themselves over to authorities, Ramirez reassured them that their human rights would be respected. “Please boys, we are waiting for you here, with hand on heart, for the lives of each one of you. We don’t even want you to scratch yourselves! We want you to come out in a decent condition and without any trauma”, she said to the prisoners.

Following 6 hours of dialogue with inmates, Commander General of the Bolivarian National Guard, Motta Dominguez, confirmed that his forces had confiscated a total of; 7 semi-automatic guns, 5 shotguns, 20 pistols, 8 hand grenades, 45 kilos of cocaine, 5000 ammunition cartridges, 100 mobile phones and 12 kilos of marijuana the operation began on Friday. Venezuelan Defense Minister General Carlos Mata specified that Venezuelan forces had acted within the “framework of the law” to “guarantee the human rights of the inmates” and uphold the fundamental right to life. Reports suggest that the situation is calm in both detention centers, but that a hostile atmosphere prevails in El Rodeo II. The Bolivarian National Guard now has complete control over El Rodeo I.

OPPOSITION AND PRIVATE MEDIA EXPLOIT SITUATION
The National Assembly has confirmed this Monday that it will launch an investigation in response to allegations made by prisoners in El Rodeo against human rights organizations. Following their evacuation, some prisoners have asserted that certain NGOs - in collaboration with private media outlets - deliberately and strategically fomented the violence within the prison. In a televised interview with state channel VTV, one of the prisoners – who wished to remain anonymous – stated that many opposition NGOs are communicating with ‘El Carro’ and informing them what steps to take in order to create a “crisis”. “The directions that they receive in the prisons come from a lot of opposition human rights groups, what they want is to create chaos in order to provoke a penitentiary emergency at a national level”, revealed the prisoner. Maria Mercedes Berthe, Director of Fundamental Rights for the Public Ministry, communicated that at this stage the government couldn’t categorically state whether these allegations held truth or not. “They are making these declarations in their capacity as witnesses. On the basis of this, we will keep investigating in order to find out the truth of these events”, announced Berthe.

The Venezuelan opposition and their private media channels have received strong criticism for exploiting the situation for political gain and releasing inaccurate information surrounding the operation in an attempt to destabilize and discredit the government. Vice-President Elias Jaua condemned the inappropriate behaviour of some members of the opposition outside the penitentiary as an insult to the Venezuelan people. “There they are, taking photos and giving false hugs to the poor women agonizing over their sons inside El Rodeo...Wretches! Don’t play with the Venezuelan people’s pain”, implored Jaua. Venezuelans gathered at 10 am last Saturday morning in Plaza Madariaga, Caracas, in order to manifest their support for the Bolivarian National Guard and their actions in El Rodeo.

As of today, the tense situation persists in El Rodeo.

Behind the Venezuelan prison riots: the state of Venezuela’s prisons today

2011-07-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com
by Juan Reardon, 21 June 2011

One week into a deadly prison riot at one of Venezuela’s most notorious urban prisons, government officials are continuing their efforts to bring the riot and kidnapping to a close through dialogue. Having already transferred the majority (2,500) of El Rodeo Prison’s inmates to nearby prisons, authorities said they are negotiating directly with the Pranes prison gang in an attempt to secure the release of the remaining 1,000 prisoners. Since clashes began late last Thursday night, the official death count includes one prisoner and two members of the National Guard. In addition, 38 people have been wounded- 18 prisoners and 22 members of the security forces. According to a National Guard spokesman, 36 inmates were “rescued” from “violent prisoners” on Monday afternoon, though gunshots were reported late Monday night. Another 39 were rescued on Tuesday. At midday Tuesday, the names of the 2,500 transferred prisoners were made public so as to calm uncertainty among prisoner’s families.

PRISON VIOLENCE
According to the International Center for Prison Studies (ICPS), the 43,461 people currently held in Venezuelan prisons place the country’s prison population rate at 149 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. Countries in the region with higher prison population rates (based on the same per 100,000 figure) include the United States (743), Chile (305), Guyana (284), Brazil (253), Mexico (200), and Colombia (181). While Venezuela’s per capital prison rate is lower than some in the region, violent clashes are commonplace; with figures from an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) hearing that refer to 476 dead and 967 wounded in 2010 alone. A year earlier, the Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP), which receives funding from the US government, published their 2009 report placing the total number of prisoners killed and wounded that year at 366 and 635, respectively. While these figures are troubling, they can be considered an improvement if compared to prison violence in 2008 (422 dead, 854 wounded) and 2007 (498 dead, 1,023 wounded). Overcrowding appears to be a major factor triggering Venezuela’s levels of prison violence. According to InsightCrime.com, Venezuela has the capacity to house 14,500 inmates in a total of 34 prisons nationwide, but with almost 44,000 prisoners the country is nearing three times as many prisoners as capacity to house them.

El Rodeo I and II, for example, were originally designed to house 750 prisoners, one fifth of the actual 3,500 they were holding at the time riots began on Thursday. In late April of this year, prisoners at El Rodeo also took 22 officials hostage in what they claimed was a protest against a tuberculosis outbreak in the prison. Earlier this month, clashes between gangs at El Rodeo left 22 prisoners dead, and the recent spat of violence is said to have begun after government forces began a search and seizure operation to unarm El Rodeo’s prison population.

The high prison populations reflect government attempts to satisfy the general population’s frustrations with elevated crime rates across the country, especially in urban centers. The current government is making more of an effort than previous governments to combat corruption in the security forces and state institutions, as well as violence against women, and street violence. Meanwhile, it is also implementing a “prison humanization” program which includes a prison orchestra, cultural classes, job training, and allowing non-risk prisoners to leave prisons during the day.

It is also encouraging community policing, with an emphasis on crime prevention. Unfortunately though, changes have been slow in coming.

CONTEXTUALIZING PRISON VIOLENCE
In April this year, Venezuela’s National Assembly unanimously passed a new Penitentiary Code bill aimed at reducing violent crime in the country’s prisons. According to Correo del Orinoco, the newly enacted legislation has four core principles: respect for human rights, the classification of inmates, the establishment of sanctions for those who violate accepted norms in the treatment of those serving time, and the development of alternative sentences related to conditional freedom, study and work. Blanca Eekhout, vice president of the National Assembly, called for an end to gang-related prison violence, affirming that the current Venezuelan government’s efforts to “humanize prisons” are only possible if authorities are able to dismantle the “prison gangs that have become an institution within prison walls, a drama throughout the continent and throughout our history”.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Venezuelan National Assembly president Fernando Soto Rojas put the current prison violence into context. Referring specifically to El Rodeo, Rojas said, “What is happening in our prisons is not separate from a concrete, historical reality, above and beyond the responsibilities the revolution has” in bringing the current prison violence to a halt. “We want to know how these weapons, including weapons of war, entered the prisons, and this question must be investigated in depth, no matter who might fall (politically) as a result”, he said.

OPPOSITION OPPORTUNISM
Eekhout also accused the Venezuelan opposition of “opportunism” surrounding the El Rodeo prison violence, saying that opposition statements to the press have served only to heighten tension among prisoners’ families and are part of an “irresponsible, permanent attempt to destabilize” the country. Members of the Venezuelan opposition have jumped at the opportunity to highlight the suffering of poor and working families – the Chavez government’s base of support – people who have relatives confined in overcrowded prisons.

These “opportunists,” she said, “are the vultures of Venezuelan politics. They have never respected the country, never believed in the capabilities of our people, and would love nothing more than to see another massacre against prisoners…like what we all saw in Catia (1992)”. On 27 November 1992, under the government of then president Carlos Andres Perez, Venezuelan authorities stormed El Reten de Catia – a Caracas prison built to temporarily house 700 prisoners but held 4,000 at the time – killing somewhere between 63 and 200 prisoners.

According to Amnesty International, “the National Guard is alleged to have entered the prison [El Reten de Catia] firing indiscriminately”. Venezuelan Vice-President Elias Jaua went even further, calling opposition spokespeople who have in recent days visited the perimeters of El Rodeo “a miserable lot”. “There they are…taking their photos, giving fake embraces to the impoverished women who are living a great deal of anxiety, waiting to get information about their sons locked up in El Rodeo Prison”, he said. Jaua speculated that if a prison riot of this nature had occurred during “the 4th Republic” (1958-1998), “hundreds of prisoners would have already been killed, since the security forces would have been sent in at once to massacre prisoners”.

Commentaries from Cuba on Sixth Congress of the PCC

2011-07-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

The Congress' political balance
Source: Progreso-Weekly.com
by Jesús Arboleya Cervera, 20 April 2011

With the enthusiastic support of Fidel Castro, the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba has just ended.

Not by happenstance, the date chosen for the meeting coincided with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the victory of Playa Girón, an event that had enormous repercussions for the Cuban revolutionary process, not only for its military significance but also because it defined the Revolution's socialist character and instilled in the masses an awareness of their own strength that translates into the political capital necessary for the preservation of the Revolution.

On a symbolic level and also explicitly, this adherence to the continuity of the Cuban socialist project set the tone for a Congress that at the same time was characterized by the promotion of substantive changes in the country's economic model.

Aside from the fact that the content of the Economic and Social Guidelines can be later analyzed to determine the extent of the changes and their consequences, the strategic sense of their proposals is obvious.

The decentralization of the administrative apparatus, including greater authority and autonomy for the enterprises and regional economies, the emphasis on production efficiency and its control through funding mechanisms, the empowerment of the contracts as a rule for the relationship between the producers and the traders, the expansion of work in cooperatives and self-employment and its adequate relationship with the state's economy, the strengthening of the tax system as the regulator of social income distribution, the improvement of the legal system and the economic rationalization of social benefits are measures, among others, that seek to give value to labor and to establish its correspondence with the standard of living of people, abandoning excessive egalitarian criteria, which, as the country's leaders argued and Congress ratified, limit the development of productive forces.

In many cases, they are not even new initiatives but are part of established policies that were violated in the practical management of the economy. Therefore, more than reforms, they are, in the words of Raul Castro, ways to perfect an institutional system that works with “order, discipline and exigency” at a pace that matches the domestic objective situation and the international reality.

Such a statement does not exclude the fact that important changes are coming in the life of the country. So much so that, from my point of view, this call to improve the nation's economic and political organization is the basis of the social consensus around these proposals, irrespective of specific disagreements with the Guidelines and the real fears of many people regarding their implications for specific sectors of the population.

On the other hand, helping to articulate that consensus was the democratic will demonstrated in the assembly process prior to the Congress, where virtually the entire population participated, s well as the purposes and standards established for the functioning of the leading organizations at all levels. Outstanding in this regard are the policies for better racial and gender representation, the progressive access of young people to leadership positions and the term limits on the performance of these positions.

Raúl's call to eliminate discriminatory political practices that impede the access of non-Party-members to administrative positions or religious people to the ranks of the party demonstrates the existence of a will far more inclusive in the articulation of a national front where everyone feels equally represented.

To rectify the proper functioning of the party has been set as the objective of the conference to be held on Jan. 28, 2012. To strengthen internal democracy, eliminate bureaucratic methods and dogmatic views, change the policy of promotion of the leaders, and strengthen the role of the press by eliminating “secrecy,” “triumphalism” and lack of objectivity are some of the expressed purposes with a view to change a “mentality” that obstructs journalism's influence in society.

Clearly, these are not new purposes. Such principles have been part of the revolutionary political discourse since its inception. The question is: what guarantees that these negative trends will not be repeated? and the obvious answer is that only practice will show otherwise, although it is also true that there is nothing more practical than a good theory.

Once, a friend told me that Cubans are sublime only in extreme situations. If that is true, we are bound to be sublime, because we have no alternative.

Perhaps the Congress' most important political balance has been to understand this reality and prepare to break the inertia to face the reality, as Raúl said, “without haste and improvisation and with our feet and ears glued to the ground.” Amen.

Twenty years are really something
Source: Progreso-Weekly.com
by Luis Sexto, 20 April 2011

Between the Fourth and the Sixth congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, which have so many similarities, there was an interval of exactly 20 years.

Also a logical numerical break, because you cannot leap between them without skimming the back of the Fifth. But in political terms, the 1997 Congress, between the 1991 and 2011 Congresses, which logically should have been a step forward following the rules of order and the dialectics of development, was a step backward to earlier views and concepts.

I keep noticing that judging what happened is less complicated than predicting what will happen. But I retain the experience of both the Fourth and the Fifth congresses. I witnessed them as a journalist.

If the Congress held at the Heredia Theater in 1991 was basically an attempt to readjust, to transform the socialist model that had just passed away without violence in the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, it did not require very keen eyes to realize that 1997 saw the legitimization of a trend that asked for the removal of the reforms sought six years earlier, expressed in its allegations that the Fourth Congress had paved the way to lead Cuba to a mixed-economy society.

From the 1991 debate emerged the direct election of provincial and national deputies, the right of religious believers to be active in the Communist Party, and the designation of the Constitution as secular.

In the economic field, the debate brought us the acceptance and expansion of foreign investment, the decentralization of foreign trade, the legalization of individual work and small businesses, such as the paladares [home restaurants], and the leasing of state-owned farms to labor collectives for cooperative usufruct. It was not so much what that Congress approved as the space that its theories foreshadowed.

In the early years, our optimism was based on the certainty that real socialism – that is, everything Cuba had built from the failed Soviet socialism – would disappear through the search for a Cuban path. The new era, which began with the implosion of the Soviet Union, began in Cuba with two blockades: the U.S. blockade, which worsened opportunistically, and the blockade that developed upon the disappearance of the so-called socialist camp, the basic source of Cuban trade.

The Fifth Congress tightened the third blockade: the internal one. And things began to travel back in time. The government over-centralized economic management, strengthened the bureaucracy and with it corruption. Above all, the Congress adopted a line that dispensed with thought because it dispensed with intellectuals. One paragraph of the Fifth Congress' economic resolution was emphatic in stating that “the changes will be aimed at maintaining the preeminence of socialist state property [...] as an element inherent to socialism.”

But it is still too early to write history. The “fog of yesterday” is not yet dense enough to judge the immediate past with nuances and from multiple angles. The present and its problems and difficulties, acknowledged by President Raul Castro, as “teetering on the brink,” suggest, however, that today's mud is the result of yesterday's dust.

The Sixth Congress made the inevitable and overdue correction. Why nine years after schedule, according to the statutes of the Cuban Communist Party? This commentator believes that the celebration of a political congress requires an examination of what was done and a decision to overcome old and new errors, and to move ahead by taking advantage of the dialectical force of change.

It appears that, in the past decade, there was no internal consensus to adopt strategies for improvement, not even when Fidel Castro, in November 2005, warned us about the possible collapse of the revolution, a victim of the mistakes of the revolutionaries. History tells of revolutions that devoured their children, and children who devoured their revolutions, because some revolutionaries were skilled at gaining power but less able to defend it and make it grow.

The Sixth Congress arrived with a handicap. When making policy, arriving too early may be a mistake; so is arriving too late. Reality tells us that the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba has had to start from zero, i.e., from an accumulation of problems and economic distortions, cracks and breaks, so the strategy adopted needs to go farther in less time than the Fourth Congress, precisely for the reason already indicated: more than a decade of immobility.

Therefore, it will be necessary, despite official caution, to diversify ownership almost at one blow, to use market resources, to issue tax rules, to cut social security and articulate a process of decentralization.

The guidelines approved involve some radicalness, whose understanding by the people is not unanimous after so many years of fearing the specter of the market without distinguishing between the constructive and the demonic, so many years of authoritarian and paternalistic relations and restrictions on the individual citizen, although the guidelines came to the Congress tempered to a great degree by the opinions of the citizenry.

Notwithstanding any defects or excesses, this strategy is superior to the alternatives coming from the right and left. The former, entrenched in Miami thanks to the federal funding of subversion, only uses the 19th-Century rhetoric of freedom, democracy, private property and free assembly. It never refers to equality, without which freedom is not possible, or to brotherhood, social justice, or political independence.

The leftist strategies, some extreme or naive, propose an untested socialist organization that would make Cuba, in the midst of internal swirling and world chaos, a kind of laboratory of theories that so far exist only in dreams.

The Sixth Congress, in short, will need to gestate enough consensus to protect national unity, enough consensus to move ahead, never to persevere in a Numantine effort whose strategy involves stopping. Instead, the nation's ability to generate general welfare, justice and participatory democracy on the basis of an emergency-proof institutionality will be the main defense of the ideals of the revolution, so maligned and so fought with so many weapons – almost never with the truth.

The Sixth Congress will be remembered not only because of the economic changes it approves, but also because of those that will be approved in the future, and above all because of the political decisions that will create a wider democratic space and restrict the role of a bureaucracy accustomed to using distortion with impunity.

Cuba and the Number of "Political Prisoners"

2011-07-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

Source: HuffingtonPost
by Salim Lamrani, August 24, 2010.
Translated by David Brookbank.

The question of the number of "political prisoners" in Cuba is subject to controversy. According to the Cuban government, there are no political prisoners in Cuba, rather they are people convicted of crimes listed in the penal code, particularly the act of receiving funding from a foreign power. In its 2010 report, Amnesty International (AI) describes "55 prisoners of conscience,"(1) of whom 20 were released in July 2010, followed by another six on August 15, 2010 after mediation by the Catholic Church and Spain, and later another two.(2) Thus, according to AI, there are currently 27 "political prisoners" in Cuba. Finally, the Cuban opposition and, more precisely, Elizardo Sánchez of the Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CDHRN) put the number at 147 political prisoners, minus the 6 recently freed, in other words, 141.(3) The Western media favor this latter list.

First, before raising the question of the exact number of "political prisoners" in Cuba, it is worth clarifying one aspect of this issue, i.e., the existence or non-existence of financing of the Cuban opposition by the United States.

This policy, carried out clandestinely from 1959 to 1991, is now public and confirmed by many sources. Indeed, Washington has acknowledged this fact in various documents and official statements. The 1992 Torricelli law, in particular section 1705, states that "the United States Government may provide assistance, through appropriate nongovernmental organizations, for the support of individuals and organizations to promote nonviolent democratic change in Cuba."(4) The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 provides in Section 109 that "the President [of the United States] is authorized to furnish assistance and provide other support for individuals and independent nongovernmental organizations to support democracy-building efforts for Cuba."(5) The first report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba proposed the development of a "solid support program that promotes Cuban civil society."(6) Among the measures envisaged was funding, totaling $36 million dollars, destined to "supporting the democratic opposition and strengthening an emerging civil society." The second report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba proposed a budget of $31 million to further finance the internal opposition.(7) The plan also provided for "the training and equipping of independent print, radio, and TV journalists in Cuba." (8)

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana -- the U.S. Interests Section (USINT) -- has confirmed this in a statement: "The U.S. policy has long been to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, specifically to families of political prisoners. We also allow private organizations to do the same." (9)

Laura Pollán, of the dissident group "Ladies in White", admits receiving money from the U.S.(10): "We accept help, support, from the extreme right to the left, without conditions."(11) The opposition leader Vladimiro Roca admits that Cuban dissidents are subsidized by Washington, claiming that the financial assistance received is "totally and completely legal." For the dissident René Gómez, financial support from the United States "is not something that has to be hidden nor that we have to be ashamed of."(12) Similarly, government opponent Elizardo Sánchez confirmed the existence of U.S. financing: "The key point is not who sent the aid, but what is done with the aid." (13)

The Western press admits this reality. Agence France-Presse reported that "the dissidents, for their part, appeal for and accept such financial assistance.(14) The Spanish news agency EFE refers to "opponents paid by the United States."(15) According to the British press agency Reuters, "the US government openly provides federally-funded support for dissident activities, which Cuba considers an illegal act."(16) The U.S. newsgathering agency Associated Press says that the policy of manufacturing and financing internal opposition is not new: "Over the years, the U.S. government has spent many millions of dollars to support Cuba's opposition".(17) It states, "Part of the funding comes directly from the U.S. government, whose laws promote the overthrow of the Cuban government." (18)

Wayne S. Smith is a former diplomat who was head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana from 1979 to 1982. According to him, it is completely "illegal and unwise to send money to the Cuban dissidents".(19) He added that, "No one should give money to the dissidents, much less for the purpose of overthrowing the Cuban government" since "when the US declares its objective is to overthrow the government of Cuba and later admits that one of the means of achieving that goal is to provide funds to the Cuban dissidents, these dissidents finds themselves de facto in the position of agents paid by a foreign power to overthrow their own government." (20)

Let's recall now the position of Amnesty International. The organization speaks of 27 "political prisoners" in Cuba as of August 15, 2010. Nevertheless, at the same time AI recognizes that these individuals were charged for having "received funds and/or materials from the United States government in order to engage in activities the authorities perceived as subversive and damaging to Cuba".(21) Thus, the organization found itself in a contradiction, in that international law considers the financing of the internal opposition in another sovereign nation to be illegal. Every country in the world has a judicial arsenal establishing the illegality of such conduct. U.S. and European laws, among others, strongly sanction the act of receiving funds from a foreign power.

The list put together by Elizardo Sánchez is longer and includes all sorts of individuals. Among the 141 names, ten were freed due to health, leaving a total of 131 people. With regard to these 10 individuals, Sánchez explained that he keeps them on the list because they could be jailed again in the future. Another four individuals served their sentences and left prison. Thus 127 people remain. Another 27 people are to be released prior to October, according to the agreement signed between Havana, Spain, and the Catholic Church.

Of the 100 remaining individuals, about half were imprisoned for violent crimes. Some carried out armed incursions into Cuba and at least two of them, Humberto Eladio Real Suárez and Ernesto Cruz León, are responsible for the deaths of various civilians in 1994 and 1997 respectively.(22)

Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban Parliament, emphasized these contradictions, "Curiously, our critics talk about a list... Why don't they explain that they are asking for freedom for the person who murdered Fabio di Celmo?" (23)

The Associated Press (AP) also emphasized the dubious nature of Sánchez's list and indicates that "some of those would not normally be seen as political prisoners." "But a closer look will find bombers, hijackers and intelligence agents." The AP points out that among the 100 people, "about half were convicted of terrorism, hijacking or other violent crimes, and four are former military or intelligence agents convicted of espionage or revealing state secrets." (24)

For its part, Amnesty International confirms that it can not consider the people on Sanchez's list to be "prisoners of conscience" because it includes "people brought to trial for terrorism, espionage and those who tried, or actually succeeded, in blowing up hotels", according to the organization. "We certainly would not call for their release or describe them as prisoners of conscience." (25)

Miguel Moratinos, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who played a pivotal role in the agreement for the liberation of the 52 prisoners, also has called into question the validity of Sánchez's list and has underscored its imprecise character: "They don't say that 300 must be freed, because there are not 300. The Cuban Human Rights Commission's own list, a week before I arrived there, spoke of there being 202. The day before I arrived in Cuba, the Commission said there were 167." (26)

After the freeing of the other 27 persons included in the June 2010 agreement, there remained only one "political prisoner" in Cuba, Rolando Jiménez Pozada, according to Amnesty International. The Associated Press for its part points out that in fact this individual is "jailed on charges of disobedience and revealing state secrets." (27)

Curiously, the list developed by Sánchez, which is the least reliable of the lists and which has been criticized from all sides due to the inclusion of individuals convicted of grave acts of terrorism, is favored by the western press.

The Cuban government has made a notable gesture by proceeding to free prisoners considered to be "political prisoners" by the U.S. and some organizations, such as Amnesty International. The primary obstacle to the normalization of relations between Washington and Havana -- from the point of view of the Obama government -- no longer exists. That being the case, it is up to the White House to make a reciprocal gesture and put an end to the anachronistic and ineffective economic sanctions against the Cuban people.

Notes
1 Amnesty International, «Rapport 2010. La situation des droits humains dans le monde», May 2010. http://thereport.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_FR.pdf (website consulted June 7, 2010), pp. 87-88.

2 EFE, «Damas piden a España acoger a más presos políticos», 25 de julio de 2010; Carlos Batista, «Disidencia deplora 'destierro' de ex presos», El Nuevo Herald, August 15, 2010.

3 EFE, «Damas piden a España acoger a más presos políticos», July 25, 2010.

4 Cuban Democracy Act, Title XVII, Section 1705, 1992.

5 Helms-Burton Act, Title I, Section 109, 1996.

6 Colin L. Powell, Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, (Washington: United States Department of State, May 2004). www.state.gov/documents/organization/32334.pdf (website consulted May 7, 2004), pp. 16, 22.

7 Condolezza Rice & Carlos Gutierrez, Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, (Washington: United States Department of State, July 2006). www.cafc.gov/documents/organization/68166.pdf (website consulted July 12, 2006), p. 20.

8 Ibid., p. 22.

9 Associated Press/El Nuevo Herald, «Cuba: EEUU debe tomar 'medidas' contra diplomáticos», May 19, 2008.

10 Associated Press, "Cuban Dissident Confirms She Received Cash from Private US Anti-Castro Group", May 20, 2008.

11 El Nuevo Herald, «Disidente cubana teme que pueda ser encarcelada», May 21, 2008.

12 Patrick Bèle, «Cuba accuse Washington de payer les dissidents», Le Figaro, May 21, 2008.

13 Agence France-Presse, «Prensa estatal cubana hace inusual entrevista callejera a disidentes», May 22, 2008.

14 Agence France-Presse, «Financement de la dissidence: Cuba 'somme' Washington de s'expliquer», May 22, 2008.

15 EFE, «Un diputado cubano propone nuevos castigos a opositores pagados por EE UU», May 28, 2008.

16 Jeff Franks, "Top U.S. Diplomat Ferried Cash to Dissident: Cuba", Reuters, May 19, 2008.

17 Ben Feller, "Bush Touts Cuban Life after Castro", Associated Press, October 24, 2007.

18 Will Weissert, «Activistas cubanos dependen del financiamiento extranjero», Associated Press, August 15, 2008.

19 Radio Habana Cuba, "Former Chief of US Interests Section in Havana Wayne Smith Says Sending Money to Mercenaries in Cuba is Illegal", May 21, 2008.

20 Wayne S. Smith, "New Cuba Commission Report: Formula for Continued Failure", Center for International Policy, July 10, 2006.

21 Amnesty International, Cuba: Five years too many, new government must release jailed dissidents, March 18, 2008. http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/cuba-five-years-too-many-new-government-must-release-jailed-dissidents-2 (website consulted April 23, 2008).

22 Juan O. Tamayo, «¿Cuántos presos políticos hay en la isla?», El Nuevo Herald, July 22, 2010.

23 José Luis Fraga, «Alarcón: presos liberados pueden quedarse en Cuba y podrían ser más de 52», Agence France-Presse, July 20, 2010.

24 Paul Haven, "Number of Political Prisoners in Cuba Still Murky", Associated Press, July 23, 2010.

25 Ibid.

26 EFE, "España pide a UE renovar relación con Cuba", July 27, 2010.

27 Paul Haven, "Number of Political Prisoners in Cuba Still Murky", op. cit.

Salim Lamrani is a university lecturer at the University Paris-Sorbonne-Paris IV and the University Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée and a French journalist, specialist on the relationship between Cuba and the United States. Lamrani has just published Cuba. Ce que les médias ne vous diront jamais (Paris: éditions Estrella, 2009). It is available in bookstores and on Amazon: For specific requests, contact him directly at: lamranisalim@yahoo.fr , Salim.Lamrani@univ-mlv.fr

Ricardo Alarcón Launches New Book on the Cuban Five

2011-07-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Source: Cuba News Agency (ACN), 14 July 2011.

The president of the Cuban National Assembly (Parliament), Ricardo Alarcón, participated on Wednesday in Havana in the launch of a new book on the five Cuban antiterrorists who remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States since 1998.

‘Forbidden Heroes: The Untold Story of the Cuban Five’ is a compilation of 16 articles written by Alarcon, which were previously published by CounterPunch magazine.

The book was launched at the venue of the Association of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC) in Havana with the presence of intellectuals and relatives of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez —internationally known as the Cuban Five—, who were arrested and given harsh sentences for monitoring anti-Cuba extreme right-wing groups in South Florida that were planning and carrying out terrorist actions against the Caribbean nation.

In these texts, Alarcón exposes solid arguments and evidence of the responsibility of the U.S. Government not only in trying to silence this unjust case, but also in trying to promote terrorism against Cuba and to protect those who plan and carry out such actions.

“One after another, we have run out of options to release them through court action. A writ of habeas corpus is all that is left,” said the president of the Cuban legislative body.

“In order to free them, we need to mobilize many people, a ‘jury of millions’ as Gerardo has called it,” Alarcón noted. “The full innocence of our comrades is explicit in the official records of the U.S. Government and courts,” he pointed out.

Argentina: ex-military pay for their crimes

2011-07-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Ex-military chiefs punished by Argentinean court.
Source: South Journal, 15 July 2011.

Two ex-military officers were given life terms on Thursday for their crimes at an illegal prison known as “El Vesubio” where some 156 people were victimized during the last dictatorship that ruled Argentina.

The Buenos Aires Federal Court Four punished Hector Gamen (84) with life term; he is a retired brigadier general who was second commander of the Infantry Brigade during the dictatorship (1976-1983). Gamen was charged with 76 illegal imprisonments, torture and 16 homicides.

A similar sentence was given to Hugo Pascarelli (81), retired colonel and chief of the military wing of the “El Vesubio”. Pascarelli was processed under charges that included 15 illegal imprisonments of people, torture and two homicides.

These sentences coincided with the punishment demanded by the prosecution, the Argentinean Human Rights Secretariat, the Center of Legal and Social Studies, and two plaintiffs.

No punishment was imposed on Pedro Duran Saenz, ex-chief of the illegal prison, who was accused of 14 murders and 63 illegal imprisonments, because he died this year.

The court also sentenced Roberto Carlos Zeolitti to 18 prison years; Ricardo Martinez and Ramon Erlan to 20 and a half years; Diego Salvador 21 years and six months, and Jose Maidana to 22 years and sixth months. All these men were ex-penitentiary agents.

The “El Vesubio” illegal prison operated since august 1975, before the last dictatorship that began to rule the country in March 1976, and up to 1978. The jail was located in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, within the jurisdiction of the 1st Army Corps.

Some 2 500 people were taken to that prison, most of whom disappeared. The trial also addressed the disappearance of writer Haroldo Conti, writer Hector Oesterheld and movie maker Raymundo Gleyser.

The court heard the testimonies of 280 witnesses, 75 of whom are survivors of the El Vesubio. Some 30 000 people disappeared in Argentina during the last military dictatorship.

Cuba and China sign oil agreements

2011-07-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Chinese oil company signs offshore agreement
Source: CubaStandard.com, 09 June 2011.

After at least two years of ‘false alarms’ from U.S. politicians about Chinese oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, Chinese state oil company CNPC on June 5 agreed to contract five blocks in Cuban waters. Chinese involvement in offshore drilling in Cuba near U.S. waters is a politically sensitive issue in Washington.

CNPC will expand cooperation with CubaPetróleo (Cupet) in “exploring and developing new onshore and offshore oil blocks in Cuba,” CNPC said in a terse press release, without providing any details.

According to observers close to the negotiations, a framework agreement between CNPC and Cuban state oil company CubaPetróleo (Cupet) signed by the CEOs of both oil companies June 5 in Havana, in the presence of Vice President Xi Jinping and Raúl Castro, includes the contracting of blocks N19, N20, N21, N22 and N30 at the western edge of Cuba’s economic exclusive zone, adjacent to the maritime border with Mexico. China’s blocks are next to four blocks leased by Petrovietnam, and four blocks Angolan state company Sonangol is negotiating.

In addition to new exploration CNPC, under the “expanded cooperative framework agreement,” will provide help in reducing operating costs and raising output and recovery rates at existing on-shore oil fields.

The agreements also include a memorandum of understanding on “cooperation in engineering construction,” according to the press release. CNPC subsidiary China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corp. agreed to be the contractor for the $6 billion expansion of a refinery in Cienfuegos, Reuters reported on Sunday. CNPC’s engineering construction may “help facilitate Cuba’s economic development and social progress,” the CNPC press release said, without providing any details.

The CNPC agreement is part of billions of dollars worth of economic support China agreed to provide during a visit of Vice President Xi Jinping to Havana. Xi is expected to be the next president of China.

China to play major role in Cuban oil development
Source: Reuters, 08 June 2011.

by Jeff Franks (Havana)

China looks ready to play a major role in the development of Cuban oil, including the island's soon-to-be explored fields in the Gulf of Mexico, after the signing of energy-related accords during a visit this week by Vice President Xi Jinping. The text of the agreements has not been disclosed, but they appear aimed at making China a significant oil partner with its fellow communist-run country, which is likely to raise eyebrows in the nearby United States.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp said on Wednesday the accords committed the company to make "full use" of its oil expertise to help Cuba raise its oil output and "to expand cooperation with (state-owned) Cubapetroleo in exploring and developing new onshore and offshore oil blocks in Cuba."

Whether the agreement means CNPC has leased Gulf of Mexico blocks for exploration was not immediately clear.

But Jorge Pinon, a visiting fellow at Florida International University and expert on Cuban oil, said the Cubans have previously said they were discussing the leasing of five of their 59 offshore blocks to the Chinese. "All the pieces of the puzzle are finally falling into place," he told Reuters.

Those pieces include two other accords that commit the two countries to negotiate contracts for a major expansion of a Cuban oil refinery in the city of Cienfuegos, and the construction of a liquefied natural gas project, including a regasification plant, at the refinery.

Sources have said the projects would cost $6 billion, most of which would be provided by China and backed by oil from Venezuela. Socialist ally Venezuela and China are, respectively, Cuba's number one and two top trading partners.

NOT IDLE PROMISES
Signatories to the three accords included Jiang Jiemen, the president of CNPC, indicating they were not idle promises. Xi and Cuban President Raul Castro attended the ceremony on Sunday in Havana. Xi is widely expected to succeed Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2013.

The agreements with China, which also is a major creditor to Cuba, come as Cuba awaits the arrival of a Chinese-built rig contracted by Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF to conduct the first full-scale exploration in Cuba's part of the Gulf of Mexico.

The high-tech Scarabeo 9 rig is expected to arrive in Cuban waters in late September or early October and start drilling the first of a series of wells planned by companies including Repsol, Malaysia's Petronas PETR.UL and a unit of India's ONGC.

Repsol's first well will be about 60 miles (100 km) from Florida, which is twice as close as drillers can get to the state's west coast in U.S. waters, due to a federal ban. Cuba says it may have 20 billion barrels of reserves, but the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated only 5 billion.

The prospect of Cuban drilling has touched off opposition from Florida lawmakers who say it threatens the state's environment and helps the Cuban government so hated by many in Miami, the center of the Cuban exile community.

They have filed bills in Washington attempting to thwart the drilling by punishing foreign companies and individuals who take part in Cuba's exploration. U.S. oil companies cannot work in Cuba due to the longstanding U.S. trade embargo against the island.

Repsol representatives met with U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week to assure him they have solid safety plans in place should there be a blowout like that at the BP well last year off the Louisiana coast.

"It sounds as if the (U.S.) administration is trying to figure out how to work cooperatively with Repsol, and that is definitely in the U.S. national interest," said Cuba expert Phil Peters at the Lexington Institute think tank in Arlington, Virginia.

"Florida wants high standards of environmental protection in the gulf and Florida also doesn't want the U.S. to talk to Cuba. You can't have it both ways," he said.

Chinese involvement in Cuban waters would add a new element to the U.S. debate over relations with Cuba. Former Vice President Dick Cheney mistakenly said in 2008 that China was drilling in Cuban waters 60 miles (96 km) from Florida, and used it to argue the U.S. should step up its own drilling.

But China's presence also might be used by lawmakers who want to justify a hard line against Cuba's exploration plans. In 2005, the Chinese National Offshore Corp. tried to buy California-based oil company Unocal, but there was strong opposition in the U.S. Congress on grounds of national security. CNOOC withdrew its bid and China learned a lesson, Pinon said. "China learned how sensitive this country is to China's activities," he said. "China is a good political whipping boy."

Chavez returns: The battle continues

2011-07-12T05:39:00.000-07:00

Source: RevolutionaryCommunist.org
by Sam McGill, 12 July 2011.

“ I swear to you that we will win this battle...we'll win it together. The battle for life, the homeland and the revolution!”

With these words, Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, addressed 100,000 Venezuelans from Miraflores presidential palace, Caracas as part of a civic-military parade to mark 200 years of Independence from Spanish rule. His return to Venezuela muffled frenzied media speculation surrounding his health and ability to lead the Bolivarian Revolution, for now.

Chavez had been visiting Latin American and Caribbean countries in advance of the founding meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CELAC). Whilst in Cuba, Chavez was unwell and underwent emergency treatment in early June to remove a pelvic abscess. Thanks to the high standard of Cuban healthcare and medical attention, repeated checks on Chavez's health by Cuban doctors uncovered a small cancerous tumour which was then removed. Adding to Cuba's reputation as a leading healthcare provider, Chavez was able to return to Caracas just in time for the bicentennial independence celebrations on 5 July.

Media speculation:
True to form, Venezuela's opposition media and its international lackeys in the New York Times, CNN and the BBC, seized on the opportunity to attack Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. Their aim was to create a climate of uncertainty about Venezuela's future, claiming that Chavez's absence was unconstitutional, and even spreading rumours that Chavez was in a coma or dead!

On Saturday 25 June, the Miami-based Spanish-language newspaper, El Nuevo Herald, published an article stating that Chavez was in a ‘critical’ and ‘serious’ state, according to comments supposedly made on Friday to the newspaper by ‘United States intelligence sources’. The paper quoted no other sources, nor did it explain how the US sources got this information.

Furthermore, on 26 June, a group called Wikileaks Argentina, not associated with the document-leaking organisation Wikileaks, put out a tweet saying that an Argentinian embassy cable had confirmed that Chavez had died of a heart attack in Cuba. The tweet prompted a range of articles, blog entries, and speculation, but was later revealed as a hoax and the twitter account was deleted.

This led the New Statesmen paper to headline with ‘Hugo Chavez: not dead’ and the BBC with ‘Absence of Ill Hugo Chavez sparks speculation’. During his time in Cuba, Chavez addressed Venezuela regularly by telephone, most notably on 10 June, then again on 30 June. Chavez participated in several working meetings with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s Vice-president Elias Jaua and the Head of Venezuela’s National assembly, Fernando Soto Rojas. Despite this the opposition and international media attempted to create confusion and panic.

Adding to international media attacks, on 3 July in the Observer, Rory Carroll paraded quotes from an interview with Noam Chomsky, claiming that Chomsky had turned on his ‘old friend’ Chavez. As usual Carroll selected his quotes carefully to portray Chomsky as accusing the socialist leader of ‘amassing too much power’ and of making an 'assault' on Venezuela's democracy. The tactic backfired as Chomsky publicly complained about the article, stating Carroll had been ‘quite deceptive’ and ‘dishonest’ in his portrayal of the interview. Chomsky demanded the news outlet print the interview in full and the Guardian was forced to highlight his complaints and publish the whole transcript. Although on this occasion Rory Carroll was exposed for his manipulative and biased journalism, the media affair adds to the barrage of attacks on Venezuela and Chavez.

To read the full story see ‘Chomsky Says UK Guardian article ‘Quite deceptive’ about his Chavez Criticism’.

Moreover, when Chavez signed accords and enacted a law from Cuba, the opposition crowed that this was unconstitutional and Chavez's absence and health required he step down from the presidency. One opposition legislator, Julio Borges, went so far as to say the President is prohibited from governing outside of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. This would imply that a Venezuelan president lost his powers once stepping outside the boundaries of the capital district, a ridiculous concept.

Article 234 of Venezuela's constitution stipulates that the country’s President can be temporarily absent for a total 180 days without having to delegate presidential powers to the Executive Vice-President. After an initial absence of 90 days, a second period of 90 days can be granted if approved by the majority of the National Assembly. Chavez has rarely had time off in the 12 years he has been President of Venezuela. This is in stark contrast to US president George Bush who in 2005 took a five week holiday. Bush is also known for having taken a month holiday just before the 11 September 2001 attacks, in the first year of his administration. By August 2006, he’d spent over a year of his presidency at his ranch, for an average of 9 weeks per year. In the US, the President frequently makes executive decisions while travelling abroad or away from the White House. President Obama even authorized the military attacks against Libya while on a visit to Brazil in March 2011 and just last month signed the extension of the controversial Patriot Act from France using a method called the “auto-pen”. The “auto-pen” is an automated signature issued without the presence of the President.

The media uproar is symptomatic of the opposition's obsession with demonizing Chavez and any progressive changes in Venezuela. As Eva Golinger, Venezuelan lawyer and author of ‘Postcards from the Revolution’ blog, rightly points out:

‘When he’s here, the opposition wants him gone, and has attempted everything from coup d’etats, economic sabotages, assassination attempts and even calling for foreign intervention, to get him out. When he’s temporarily absent, they want him back. When photographs and video images were shown of him from his recovery location in Havana, opposition spokespeople and media demanded he make a speech. When he’s in Venezuela making speeches and talking on television, they want him silenced.’

Venezuela: with or without Chavez:
During the bicentennial independence celebrations, Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution showed itself to be evermore determined to continue its path towards socialism and independence, with or without Chavez.

Elias Sanchez, communal council spokesperson in Merida affirmed, ‘Right now we're called on to reflect deeply and to double all our efforts for the transformation of society, that's how I feel right now. Rather than this fight for a just and sovereign country being over, now is when there is a people that is conscious of its responsibilities. We mustn't lose sight of our final objective, nothing should distract us. I want to say to Chavez, thank you for kindling the revolutionary flame, thank you for giving us the tools to make a revolution, thank you for broadening our collective memory and making us aware of our rebellious past…’

Elba de Alastra, of the San Antonio communal council in Coro, Falcon, added, ‘Although one day, there will have to be someone else, because he’s not immortal...No, no sir, this won’t stop our revolution...it will drive it forward. Look at me, I’m retired, but am I at home? No. I’m out working for my community, the community that Chávez gave to us – we didn’t have this before - now the communities have the power, the communities make decisions. Last night it made us stronger, to see him there [following Chavez’s TV appearance from Havana on 30 June] and know that he is going to come out of this. We are more united than ever.’

Although it is clear that Chavez is key in driving the Bolivarian revolution forward, 12 years of struggle and progression has awakened a Venezuelan people who are determined to preserve the gains they have made. The millions of people who have benefited from free healthcare and education for the first time, the communal councils able to organise to meet the needs of their communities for the first time, Venezuela's indigenous populations whose rights, land and languages are enshrined in the constitution for the first time - this is a population who will fight to the bitter end against any return to the misery and poverty inflicted by decades of US domination.

Viva Venezuela! Viva Chavez!
Socialismo o Muerte!

Honduras: political statement of FARP

2011-07-12T05:32:00.000-07:00

Political Statement of the Broad Front of People’s Resistance (FARP)
Source: ResistenciaHonduras.net, 11 July 2011.

Frente Amplio de Resistencia Popular - FARP

We want reconciliation but do not find any will; we demand freedom for political prisoners and an end to persecution.
We want JUSTICE; we are going to sue the material and intellectual authors of crimes against humanity.

The violent rupture of constitutional order produced on June 28, 2009 by undemocratic and oligarchic sectors with external support, that opposed the legitimate request from the former Constitutional President of the Republic, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, known as the "the fourth ballot," interrupted a healthy process of evolution and transformation of electoral democratic culture to a participatory and sovereign democracy.

The immediate creation of a National Front of Resistance Against the Military Coup and its pacific struggle over two years across the country, produced a new political identity involving grassroots, democratic, progressive and revolutionary movements who fought throughout this period for the establishment of true democracy.

That instrument of the people which began as a response to the outburst of the sectors that led the coup, became the National Front of People's Resistance (FNRP), that in addition to sustaining the political demands for the return of exiles, Justice for those who were abused by the coup plotters, constituted the main trench of complaints against the constant violations of human rights and the rapid retreat of the workers victories during the last 50 years, mainly affecting the nation’s teachers, peasant farmers and the workers.

With the return of the 2006-2010 Constitutional President of the Republic and National Coordinator of the People's National Resistance Front, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales ,which occurred thanks to the Agreement for National Reconciliation subscribed by President Porfirio Lobo Sosa as Head of State of Honduras, and the Presidents Manuel Santos of Colombia and Hugo Rafael Chaves Frias of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. These new developments in the country oblige us to reaffirm our demand for due compliance of the people’s demands; the establishment of a National Constituent Assembly and the punishing violators of Human Rights.

During its recent National Assembly the Front decided to create the Broad Front of People’s Resistance for political participation in all electoral processes in the country, precisely with the intention to continue to show signs of the will for national reconciliation in the framework of peaceful rule and democracy for which the people of Honduras have been struggling during the last two years, demanding justice in the polls.

However, this reconciliation process has had serious obstacles to be immediately overcome in order to enable us to continue along that path of reconciliation. The case of political persecution of Lawyer Enrique Flores Lanza, former Minister of the Presidency in the government of “Citizen’s Power” and member of the Political Commission of the National Front, Rebecca Santos, prisoner in her own home country, as well as death threats to Father Fausto Milla of Copan and his assistant Denia Mejia, members of the coordination of the National Front, as well as the sustained denial of Honduran nationality to Father Andres Tamayo member of the Political Commission, are illustrations of actions that the Front is facing in this process of dialogue . Political will should be expressed precisely in the realm of actions and not only in statements convenient in the face of the international community.

On Thursday July 7, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission ”, created by the government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, acknowledged that the events of June 28 constituted a coup.

In an extensive document, the Commission recommends to the State of Honduras:

"1. In Honduras the constitutional reform faces the problem that, paradoxically, because of the wording of Articles 373 and 374 of current Constitution, it seems impossible to reform the constitution so that it supports a comprehensive review of the text through a national constituent assembly, as this could be understood as a modification of the "unchangeable articles."

To find a solution to this dilemma, the Commission proposes to follow the parameters set by modern constitutional doctrine that defends the meta-juridical and meta-constitutional of the original power of a constituent assembly. "

Therefore, as it is established by the Constitution, all acts of “de facto” government that replaced the legitimate government are null. Beyond that, the demand is made of the State's obligation to compensate the victims and to punish the murderers, and the obligation to convene a National Constituent Assembly that leads to the creation of a New Constitution to guarantee the constitutional order of the Republic . As well as it has been said by the “True Commission”, which for over a year has fought against impunity and indifference, and whose views deserve to be incorporated in the opinion of the Commission.

We are in complete disposition to contribute to the processes of national reconciliation in the republic and the convening of a Constituent National Assembly provided that is recognized and undertaken upon the need to fully implement the reconciliation agreement signed by the President Lobo as head of the state.

Tegucigalpa July 9, 2011, Tegucigalpa MDC.

Translated by Political Organization Los Necios and FNRP's translators group from here.

Punishment for perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Honduras

2011-07-12T05:29:00.000-07:00

Source: Prensa Latina, 09 July 2011.

Berta Oliva, General Coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), demanded punishment for those who committed crimes against humanity in Honduras.

Oliva said that the lack of punishment to those who committed crimes against humanity is strengthening impunity remains the Hondurans divided. Oliva's statements on Friday came a day after she presented the final report of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CRV). "I believe that forgiveness comes after knowing what happened, of knowing the facts and truth, open trials, because if they are not prosecuted and punished those who committed crimes against humanity and against the country we are strengthening what we have in this clash: impunity", she affirmed. She added considered that a National Constituent Assembly would assess these institutions to see if it works or not, which otherwise would be closed.

Cuba's anti-malaria program in Ghana

2011-07-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

Cuban Anti-Malaria Program Brings Positive Results in Ghana
Source: Prensa Latina, 07 July 2011

Efforts by specialists from the Cuban laboratory and pharmaceutical company Labiofam have reduced the rate of malaria by 75 percent in this capital, according to the Labiofam director.

Ghanaian Health Ministry authorities termed very positive the work carried out in this country by 22 Cuban cooperation workers from that institution, Labiofam director Jose Antonio Fraga told Prensa Latina.

Before leaving for the Republic of Congo, Fraga also stated that the objective of his stay in Ghana was to work with local authorities to assess the state of the Cuban anti-malaria program.

"We also discussed the possibility of expanding the plan nationwide," Fraga noted.

Fraga and his accompanying delegation met with Ghana Health Minister Joseph Yieleh Chireh and other officials to discuss the development and difficulties of the anti-malaria plan, the control of vector-borne diseases, and other issues. In the Republic of Congo, the Labiofam delegation will meet with a group of World Health Organization directors for Africa.

President Mills meets Cuban doctors in the Castle Gardens, June 2010.

President acclaims Cuban Medical Brigade for excellent job
Source: Ghana News Agency (GNA), 10 June 2010.

President John Atta Mills on Friday expressed appreciation to the Cuban Medical Brigade for their invaluable services to deprived communities.

He appealed to the Ghanaians doctors who were unwilling to serve in needy communities for various reasons to take a cue from their Cuban counterparts. He said the Cuban example was a demonstration of deep love for the people, and that should make an impression on Ghanaian health professionals to accept postings to the interior parts of the nation.

President Mills gave the commendation during an interaction with the a delegation of the Cuban Medical Brigade, Labiofam Entrepreneurial Group and Cubans lecturing Spanish at the University of Ghana and the Ghana Institute of Languages at the Osu Castle. Labiofam Group is engaged in a mosquito and malaria control programme in the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions on pilot basis.

President Mills commended the large presence of the Cuban medical doctors, saying: “Your dedication and commitment to duty impresses me most.” He said Cuba had been a friend to Ghana for years. President Mills promised that his Administration would strengthen the already strong relations between the two nations during his term of office. “Whatever challenges you face, we’ll sit down and look at them, so that we’ll able to remove the impediments for the success of your operations,” President Mills said. Dr Miguel Perez Cruz, Cuban Ambassador, announced that his country was prepared to increase the number of Cuban doctors from 200 to 250. He said steps were being taken for the construction of a factory for biolarvacide in Tamale.

Dr Cruz said a total of 1,179 Ghanaian students had graduated from Cuba at different levels of education, including 540 at the university level and 630 as technicians. In the present academic 33 Ghanaian students are studying medicine, 13 in other universities, and three at the International Sports School. Dr Phillipe Delgado, Leader of the Brigade, said the only problem the members faced in their assignments was that they miss their families back home.

COFADEH denounces corruption over murdered teacher Ilse Velásquez

2011-07-12T04:35:00.000-07:00

Urgent Action From COFADEH
Source: HondurasResists, 16 June 2011.

The Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) and the Velásquez Rodríguez family speak out to the national and international community to denounce the actions of the Public Ministry related to investigations initiated in the case of the violent death of teacher Ilse Ivania Velásquez Rodríguez on March 18, 2011.

As you will remember, on March 18, 2011, Ilse Ivania Velásquez Rodríguez, together with her children and son-in-law, also a teacher, participated in the teachers protest held in front of the INPREMA[1] headquarters, Boulevard Centroamérica in Tegucigalpa. Teachers were peacefully protesting peacefully the institutional crisis in Honduras which has impacted the teaching sector. Suddenly, repressive forces began launching dozens of tear gas bombs from different angles, creating a state of confusion. The quantity of smoke generated and the concentration of gas impeded visibility, provoked asphyxiation and confusion among the people and blocked the forced evacuation. The Velásquez family ran in different directions. Ilse was hit in the head by a tear gas bomb. The impact of the bomb knocked her to the ground, falling face down onto the pavement of the Boulevard Francia. While lying unconscious on the pavement, her body was subsequently hit by a vehicle[2].

We know that the Public Ministry’s Special Prosecutor for Human Rights has begun a process of closing the case of the teacher, Ilse Ivania Velásquez Rodríguez, arguing that she died due to a traffic accident. According to the Forensic Medical Report, dated May 2, 2011, the impact from the car to her hip made her fall to the ground. The impact of the fall would be the cause of death. This version is contradicted by testimonies of people present at the protest and demonstrates the lack of thorough forensic analysis.

The Special Prosecutor for Human Rights of the Public Ministry has not investigated the use of force on the part of state agents on that day. According to witnesses, newspaper reports and videos, the protest which was totally peaceful – with protestors raising their arms in the sign of peace – was heavily repressed by the police and military. Indiscriminate and disproportionate force was used against protestors exercising their legitimate right to assemble peacefully which is clearly guaranteed under the law and international human rights treaties to which Honduras is a signatory [3].

Because a person was killed under circumstances in which state agents are implicated, the Public Ministry has the obligation to thoroughly investigate the events described and begin a judicial process to determine those responsible according to the law.

On April 7, 2011, COFADEH and the Velásquez Rodríguez family presented a complaint to the Public Ministry against Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who exercises the Executive power, Oscar Arturo Álvarez Guerrero Security Minister and Marlon Pascua, Secretary of Defense. Despite the complaint, the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights has not only failed to initiate an impartial and exhaustive investigative process but intends to close the case, resulting in impunity in this case, denying the family of the victim the right to truth and to justice.

COFADEH and the Velásquez Rodríguez family request the national and international community to demand that the State of Honduras conduct an exhaustive investigation into the circumstances that caused the death of teacher Ilse Velásquez Rodríguez. We request that the actions of state agents be investigated in the context of protests during the month of March 2011; in other words, the abuse of authority and indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force on the part of the Honduran police and military. Those responsible should be punished according to the law and the State of Honduras must guarantee the right of the people of Honduras to peaceful assembly as recognized by Honduran and international law.

Please make calls to the following authorities:

Jorge Alberto Rivera Avilés
Presidente de la Corte Suprema de Justicia
Tel (504) 2269-3000 2269-3069
Mail: cedij@poderjudicial.gob.hn

Luis Alberto Rubí
Fiscal General de la República.
Fax (504) 2221-5667
Tel (504) 2221-5670 2221-3099
Mail: lrubi@mp.hn
suazog@mp.hn

Send copies to:

Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (COFADEH)
Barrio La Plazuela, Avenida Cervantes, Casa No. 1301
Apartado Postal 1243
Tegucigalpa, HONDURAS
Fax:+504 2220 5280 (solicite: "tono de fax")
Mail: berthacofadeh[at]yahoo.com

If you speak Spanish there are numbers to call and you can send a note to the COFADEH email to let them know that you called. If you do not speak Spanish you can write in English to the email addresses of the government officials listed and send a copy to COFADEH.

Please also send copies to Honduran diplomatic representatives accredited in your countries.

[1] Instituto Nacional de Previsión del Magisterio.
[2] Denuncia presentada al MP el 07 de abril de 2011.
[3] Artículo 78 y 79 de la Constitución de la República; Artículo 20 de la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos; Artículo 21 del Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos; Artículo 15 de la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos; Artículo 21 de la Declaración Americana de los Derechos y Deberes del Hombre.