Returned Cubans desperate
Posted on Fri, Jun. 30, 2006
IMMIGRATIONReturned Cubans `desperate’BY ANDREA RODRIGUEZAssociated Press
HAVANA – One of 15 Cuban migrants sent home after reaching an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys said the group is growing desperate after three months awaiting final Cuban government approval to leave for good.
The migrants were returned to Cuba in January. But a deal allowing 14 of them to emigrate permanently was reached in March between U.S. District Judge Frederic Moreno in Miami and the U.S. government, which had argued that the U.S. Coast Guard acted correctly in sending the Cubans back. Now all they lack is the ”white card,” an exit permit Cubans must receive from the communist government to leave the island.
”All of us are desperate. They haven’t answered us,” Elizabeth Hernández said Wednesday in a phone interview from a town east of Havana in Matanzas province.
Fourteen of the 15 have humanitarian visas from the American government to emigrate to the United States. U.S. officials did not give a visa to the 15th, reportedly for giving them false statements.
The migrants have quit their jobs as instructed by Cuban authorities in preparation to go to the United States.
Under the United States’ ”wet foot/dry foot” policy, most Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to remain, while those intercepted at sea are generally sent home.
U.S. Coast Guard officials determined the old bridge in the Florida Keys did not qualify as dry land because parts are missing and it no longer connects to U.S. soil.
But the repatriations caused an uproar among South Florida’s Cuban exiles.
Cuba’s government has never publicly commented on the case. However, when asked about it earlier this year, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón criticized U.S. immigration policies that he said encourage Cubans to make the risky sea journey.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/14936708.htm
World Cup fever infects Cuban children
World Cup fever infects Cuban children
By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer
SANTIAGO, Cuba – Cuba, the land of baseball fanaticism, has caught World Cup fever. Children across the island are putting down their bats in favor of the ultimate foot game, turning patches of grass into soccer fields and using everything from basketballs to crumpled-up pieces of paper as balls.
In Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city after Havana and home to one of the island’s top baseball teams, informal soccer games fill the streets and plazas, despite tropical rainstorms and the Caribbean summer’s steaming temperatures.
“If they’re playing baseball on television, we play baseball. But if they’re playing soccer, we play soccer,” said Osniel Macias, 9, as he watched his buddies push around a slightly deflated ball on a patch of grass near their homes.
Actual soccer balls are rare on the island. So, too, are the sprawling fields with fresh-cut grass and sprinklers like those in suburban America. But like their resourceful parents who find creative solutions to combat scarcity, the kids skillfully incorporate their environment into the game, jumping up on curbs while passing and bouncing the ball off the park benches that jut into their makeshift fields.
Goal posts are rocks and tree trunks, and jerseys are bare backs. Many kids play barefoot. Some run the fields with one sneaker, sharing the other with a friend.
“I really like soccer,” said Omani Debro Guzman, 11. “I feel like I’m getting in good shape when I play — I can feel my muscles getting stronger. Soccer’s really good for the abs.”
The boy, however, said baseball is his favorite sport. His city’s team, Santiago de Cuba, was last year’s champion of the island’s National Series, and made it to the finals this year before being defeated by Havana’s Industriales.
In the World Cup, most Cubans are rooting for either Brazil or Argentina — Latin America’s regional powerhouses. But many say they think Germany will win. Games are transmitted — some live, others delayed — on radio and television. Shouts of “Gooooooolllll!” echo through the streets, competing with the repetitive strains of reggaeton coming from nearby homes.
“Ever since the World Cup started we’ve been playing soccer,” said Siukin Gongora, a 20-year-old accounting student playing at the Santiago waterfront. “It’s a type of fever that comes over us.”
Even Cuban authorities have caught the bug.
Jose Ramon Fernandez, president of Cuba’s Olympic Committee, said the government plans to launch an island-wide campaign to further develop soccer, overshadowed for decades by baseball. Cuba’s baseball team won the gold medal for baseball in theOlympic Games in 2004, 1996 and 1992; the last time the island’s soccer team even participated in the World Cup was in 1938.
But in the 1920s and 1930s, Fernandez said, soccer was even more popular in Cuba than baseball.
“It’s not about introducing something new, it’s about recovering something that’s been forgotten,” he told journalists in Havana this month. “I see the televised transmission of the World Cup as an incentive, along with the actions we take, to awaken the interest of the youngest Cubans, and the populace in general, in soccer.”
Fernandez, also a vice president in Cuban PresidentFidel Castro’s cabinet, said he envisioned “thousands of people kicking the ball on any of the street corners where champions come from, just like in baseball.”
The concept is alive in Santiago’s streets.
But at least one local resident said it wouldn’t be long until attention is back on baseball.
“The second the World Cup is over, everyone will stop playing soccer,” said David Muniz, a 19-year-old physical therapy student. “Just watch.”
Associated Press correspondent Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060630/ap_on_sp_so_ne/soc_wcup_cuba_1
Report urges funding Castro foes
Posted on Fri, Jun. 30, 2006
CUBAReport urges funding Castro foesA new U.S. government report recommended creating an $80 million fund to boost opposition in Cuba and zeroes in on Cuba’s close ties with Venezuela.BY PABLO BACHELETpbachelet@MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON – The commission that steers Bush administration policy on Cuba is recommending creating an $80 million fund to boost opposition to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and tightening economic sanctions on the island, The Miami Herald has learned.
A draft of the commission’s report also recommends a major diplomatic effort to offset the ”Venezuela-Cuba axis” and identifies President Hugo Chávez as a key player whose oil wealth could help extend the communist system after Castro’s death.
The report summarizes the work of more than 100 officials from 17 government departments and agencies on behalf of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American.
The recommendations must be approved by President Bush, although he approved virtually all the items on the commission’s first report in May 2004. That led to tighter restrictions on travel to Cuba, especially by Cuban exiles.
Unlike the 2004 report, the current set of recommendations include an annex that will remain classified ”for reasons of national security and effective implementation,” according to the text. There was no immediate indication of what the annex might contain.
No major changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba are recommended, and the text repeatedly underscores that it is the Cubans, and not the U.S. government, who will decide the future course of their transition.
Government officials confirmed that the copy of the draft obtained by The Miami Herald is legitimate, but cautioned that some of its figures could change before the final text is presented to Bush. A formal unveiling is planned for next week.
The new report focuses on U.S. actions in the months that will follow the death or incapacitation of Castro, and calls for the creation of a two-year $80 million “Cuba Fund for a Democratic Future.”
The money is to “increase support for Cuban civil society, expand international awareness, break the regime’s information blockade, and continue developing assistance initiatives to help Cuban civil society realize a democratic transition.”
After the initial two years, the commission recommends adding at least $20 million annually to the fund “until the dictatorship ceases to exist.”
The draft recommends using $31 million of the fund to support ”civil society on the island”; $10 million to finance academic exchanges and a new scholarship program for Cubans to study abroad; $24 million to break the Castro government’s ”information blockade” by financing the transmission of anti-Castro broadcasts via satellite and distributing equipment on the island to receive international broadcasts; and $15 million to support international efforts to aid the opposition and plan for a post-Castro transition to democracy.
The report does not specify if the money is on top of the aid the U.S. government already provides for anti-Castro programs. Radio and TV Martí already get $35 million for their broadcasts to the island in 2006.
The draft also takes a conciliatory approach on hot-button issues such as the return of Castro-confiscated properties to their previous owners, many of whom live in the United States. The Cuban government criticized the 2004 report as a blatant disregard for Cuba’s sovereignty.
”It is a change in tone more than a change in substance,” said Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute who has read the draft copy. Saying that the previous report suggested people would be evicted, Peters added, “This report tries to reverse the political damage by placing property decisions in the hands of the Cuban government and urging Cubans to consider property claims in the context of national reconciliation.”
However, the text recommends ”vigorously” enforcing Title IV of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which gives U.S. officials the power to recall or deny U.S. visas to company managers whose firms invest in confiscated properties — a sanction that has been used only cautiously so far.
Companies investing in industries that provide the Cuban government with hard currencies like oil, tourism, nickel, tobacco and rum and will be especially targeted for sanctions, the report said.
The report also says there is growing evidence that ”senior elements of the regime” are hiding their financial assets overseas, including properties and bank accounts. It recommends tracking down these assets and returning them “for the benefit of a Free Cuba Government.”
According to the text, Castro and his inner circle ”have begun a gradual but intrinsically unstable process of succession” working with “like-minded governments, particularly Venezuela, to build a network of political and financial support designed to forestall any external pressure to change.”
Venezuela provides more than $1 billion a year in energy subsidies to the island, it said, and there are indications that Cuba is using money from Venezuelan President Chávez to “reactivate its networks in the hemisphere to subvert democratic governments.”
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/14936681.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_nation
Hollywood Turns on Castro
Hollywood Turns on CastroBy Roger Aronoff | June 29, 2006Castro is not only a killer, like Zarqawi, but a rich one.
It’s hard to believe, but a new film has been produced about life before and after Castro that ends Hollywood’s long-time love affair with the Cuban dictator.
The very accomplished actor Andy Garcia, who left Cuba as a child, has gone outside the studio system to produce, direct and star in “The Lost City,” a film that took him 16 years to bring to the screen. The film got little attention, and we would be very surprised if it will be honored when the Golden Globes and Academy Awards come around. It is a beautiful and epic film, full of passion and music. But it takes the rare view in Hollywood that while Castro’s predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, ruled Cuba with a strong hand, Castro and his allies, including Che Guevara, were far worse.
Some critics praised its epic style and passion, but it was hard to find praise for its realistic and negative portrayal of life in the early years of Castro’s communist dictatorship. I did discover one such review, in the Philadephia Daily News, by Christine Flowers. She says, “Andy Garcia refused to make the communists look like the good guys.”
Alluding to the negative reviews, she wrote that “The reaction to Garcia’s film reminds me of how the chattering classes lobbed grenades at [Mel] Gibson’s ‘Passion,’ calling it everything from anti-semitic to—surprise!— ‘historically inaccurate.’” Flowers says that “Andy Garcia tells some uncomfortable truths about his homeland, and Hollywood won’t listen.”
With Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez taking center stage as the most anti-American ruler south of the border, the antics of aging Cuban dictator Castro get far less attention these days. His latest absurdity is to have called the U.S. airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a “barbarity,” saying he should have been put on trial. Castro accused the U.S. of acting as “judge and jury” against the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, who is blamed for thousands of deaths in Iraq. “They bragged, they were practically drunk with happiness,” Castro said about the news in the U.S. of Zarqawi’s demise. “This barbarity cannot be done,” said Castro. This is from the same Castro who murders or imprisons his political opponents, while almost one-tenth of the population of his Cuban island “paradise” has fled.
Castro is not only a killer, like Zarqawi, but a rich one. In May, Forbes magazine reported that Castro is worth an estimated $900 million. In an article titled “Fortunes of Kings, Queens and Dictators,” Forbes ranked Castro in seventh place, and nearly twice as rich as Queen Elizabeth II. He responded by saying that “All this makes me sick…Why should I defend myself again this rubbish.” While Forbes acknowledges that its calculations for all of the leaders are “more art than science,” there appears to be solid reasoning to support the finding.
Cuban-born journalist Humberto Fontova has studied Castro closely for many years, and believes Forbes to be only partly correct. In a recent article he wrote for Human Events, Fontova says Forbes lists only “the tiny tip of the Castro-wealth iceberg.” Castro has systematically nationalized and seized countless businesses since he seized power in 1959. Fontova describes how Castro ruthlessly controls his population, and how he has manipulated many Western journalists to treat him as the “Cuban Robin Hood,” who supposedly takes from the rich to give to the poor. What Castro has really done is make all people poor-except for himself and his close associates.
In an interview with FrontPageMag, he described the nature and extent of Castro’s gulag, and the sympathetic treatment Castro has received from many in Hollywood, Congress, and the media.
In terms of Congress, the news got buried by the liberal press, but the Center for Public Integrity did a review of congressional travel and raised enough questions about a Rep. Charlie Rangel trip to Cuba to force the congressman to disclose that the Castro regime helped pay for it. You can see a copy of Rangel’s check to the Cuban government, a reimbursement for some of the costs, on the center’s website.
Roger Aronoff is a media analyst with Accuracy in Media, and is the writer/director of “Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope.”
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/4673_0_2_0_C/
Aumenta represion de los disidentes en Cuba
Aumenta represión de los disidentes en Cuba
LA HABANA (ANSA). Un grupo opositor cubano alertó ayer sobre una “ola represiva” gubernamental de cara a la Cumbre de no alineados en La Habana en setiembre así como un aumento en los últimos meses de encarcelamientos por delitos de “peligrosidad” y “salida ilegal” del país.
Aida Valdés, de la declarada ilegal Coordinadora nacional de presos y ex presos políticos, afirmó en rueda de prensa que el gobierno de Fidel Castro redoblará las acciones contra la oposición -que La Habana desconoce por “mercenaria”- previo al Foro del Noal que del 11 al 16 de setiembre reunirá a unos 60 jefes de Estado y Gobierno.
En el encuentro Cuba asumirá la presidencia de la organización que integran 116 naciones.
“Esperamos una verdadera ola represiva ante la próxima Cumbre que va a tener como sede a Cuba”, aseguró la mujer quien, dijo, estuvo encarcelada un total de 10 años en cinco oportunidades -la última en 1988- por su actividad opositora.
“Tenemos más que sobrados motivos para alertar a la comunidad internacional de una nueva y realmente gran ola represiva contra nosotros se está gestando”, añadió.
Valdés dio a conocer una Declaración en la que cifró en 347 los presos políticos en más de 315 cárceles de Cuba y denunció “el crecimiento de los presos por peligrosidad, las nuevas causas por el delito de salida ilegal” y la situación de los presos detenidos sin ser encausados.
“Sabemos que en distintos municipios están creciendo los juicios por peligrosidad y se están trasladando a los presos de La Habana a distintas prisiones” para que haya más espacio en los penales capitalinos, según la interpretación de Valdés.
El informe sobre el número de presos políticos coincide con el que hace años elabora y difunde semestralmente la Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación que coordina el opositor Elizardo Sánchez.
http://www.abc.com.py/articulos.php?pid=262411
Disidentes afirman que hay 347 presos politicos en Cuba
Posted on Fri, Jun. 30, 2006
Disidentes afirman que hay 347 presos políticos en CubaBy EFELA HABANA
La disidente Coordinadora Nacional de Presos y Ex Presos Políticos (CNPP) cifró en 347 el número de presos políticos en Cuba y advirtió de una ”gran ola represiva” contra opositores en los próximos meses, coincidiendo con la Cumbre de los No Alineados.
”En este corte del primer trimestre del año, podemos decir que tenemos 347 presos políticos”, indicó en conferencia de prensa Aida Valdés, portavoz de la agrupación, al presentar un informe sobre la situación de los presos y las 315 prisiones que, según la organización, hay en la isla.
En la rueda de prensa, a la que asistió un representante de la embajada de Polonia en La Habana, Valdés señaló que la cifra ”no es exacta”, ya que nadie tiene acceso a la totalidad de las causas y muchas veces no es posible ”definir” si se trata de procesos abiertos “por motivos políticos o no”.
La CNPP considera que de los 347 presos políticos, “121 son presos de conciencia y el resto, 226, son casos que en su mayoría pueden ser juicios amañados y/o encausados con cargos no probados”.
Por otra parte, la portavoz de la organización disidente advirtió de que se está gestando una ”gran ola represiva” contra los opositores en la isla ante la proximidad de la Cumbre de los No Alineados, que tendrá lugar en La Habana en septiembre.
”Tenemos más que sobrados motivos para alertar a la comunidad internacional de que una nueva y realmente gran ola represiva contra nosotros se está gestando”, afirmó Valdés, al dar lectura a un comunicado de la CNPP.
Según Valdés, el gobierno cubano busca ”callar” a los disidentes y evitar que mantengan contactos con gobiernos de los países que asistirán el foro internacional, pero anunció que han ”pensado” en ”algunas cosas” para realizar durante la reunión del NOAL.
De acuerdo a sus representantes, la CNPP, que no hace habitualmente este tipo de comunicaciones ni pronunciamientos públicos, agrupa a 85 organizaciones en Cuba y lleva realizando actividades desde la década de los 60.
Valdés justificó la presentación del informe que, según comentó, se elabora cada seis meses y habitualmente no se hace público, pero se envía a la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de Ginebra por ”medios que tenemos”, ante la necesidad de “alertar sobre esta situación”.
http://www.miami.com/mld/elnuevo/news/world/cuba/14933809.htm
Belgian woman given a 3 year sentence in Cuba for traffic accident
Belgian woman given a 3 year sentence in Cuba for traffic accident
Elke Willemsen, 3 years old, worked as a tourist guide in Cuba.While driving near Varadero a tire on her car exploded making her lose control of the car and in the ensuing accident a 73 year old Cuban man died.
That was the start of her ordeal.After first being convicted to 3 years in jail, on appeal she was now sentenced to a “conditional” sentence of 3 years. She is not to go to jail, but is not allowed to leave the country.
When asked whether they felt their daughter got a fair trial in February, they replied:
“Absolutely not. A tourist in front of a court is a complete show in Cuba. The whole village came to see the spectacle. That has probably turned the judge’s head. Our daughter did have a decent lawyer, president of the local bar to no avail. Immediately after the accident a blood sample was taken which showed that our daughter had not been drinking. Witnesses also stated that the accident was not her fault. Notwithstanding this evidence the judge gave her such a harsh sentence: three years prison, though no fine. ”
On appeal this sentence has now been turned in to a “suspended sentence for three years”, but Elke is not allowed to leave the country during that period. She is a virtual prisoner on the island as the result of an accident that was in no way her fault.She is currently staying with friends near Varadero and is said to be depressed and suffering weight loss.
Local initiatives have been started to support Elke and her family including the launch of a CD the profits of which will go to Elke.
Another Belgian citizen, Nick Debuck, has also been detained in Cuba after a car accident.
Source: (Dutch)http://webnieuws3.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleID=GHMTV37I
Estudiantes universitarios seran enviados a controlar la distribucion de combustible
Estudiantes universitarios serán enviados a controlar la distribución de combustible
Según informaciones no oficiales, los estudiantes trabajarán a bordo de camiones cisternas, controlando el despacho de combustible y la ruta de los vehículos.
Agencias
jueves 29 de junio de 2006 12:39:00
Miles de estudiantes de la Universidad de La Habana participarán en el control de la distribución de combustibles, para lo cual fueron suspendidas las actividades docentes hasta septiembre próximo, informaron profesores y alumnos de la institución, informó la AFP.
“Se nos llamó a participar voluntariamente en una tarea de la revolución, para lo cual suspendieron las actividades docentes hasta septiembre”, dijo un profesora universitaria, quien prefirió no ser identificada. Están exceptuados los estudiantes en trabajos de tesis y fin de carrera, agregó.
Un estudiante afirmó a la AFP que, según el plan —que se iniciará la próxima semana— trabajarán a bordo de los camiones cisternas que distribuyen combustibles, controlando el despacho y la ruta de los vehículos.
“Las prácticas (profesionales) y algunos exámenes se aplazaron hasta septiembre. Al parecer esto es para que haya mayor control. Es voluntario”, manifestó otro alumno.
En octubre pasado el gobierno cubano comenzó una ofensiva contra la corrupción, el robo y el desvío de recursos, cuyo primer paso fue el control del despacho en las gasolineras, todas estatales, por “trabajadores sociales” movilizados por Fidel Castro con ese propósito.
Según explicó Castro, esa labor permitió ahorrar recursos y multiplicar la recaudación en divisas por venta de combustibles en todo el país que, de acuerdo con el gobierno, estaban siendo sustraídos y desviados al mercado negro.
La labor de los trabajadores sociales, unos 28.000, en las gasolineras duró hasta fines de abril.
Muchos estudiantes cubanos son enviados durante las vacaciones, julio-agosto, a realizar trabajos principalmente agrícolas.
Los universitarios tenían orientado para estas vacaciones trabajar en la sustitución de equipos electrodomésticos y visitar a estudiantes captados para carreras pedagógicas, según informó recientemente el diario oficialista Juventud Rebelde.
http://www.cubaencuentro.com/es/encuentro_en_la_red/cuba/noticias/estudiantes_universitarios_seran_enviados_a_controlar_la_distribucion_de_combustible
Apoyan opositoras a Damas de Blanco.
Apoyan opositoras a Damas de Blanco.
Por Shelyn Rojas
Bitácora Cubana, 30 de junio de 2006 – La Habana
A pesar del acoso de la policía política y las turbas paramilitares, cuatro activistas del Movimiento Liberal Cubano (MLC) y de los Derechos Humanos Claridad asistieron el domingo 25 de junio a la iglesia Santa Rita para apoyar a las Damas de Blanco.
Las activistas Leticia Careaga Galíndez, Marina Ortega León, Maria del Carmen Careaga Galíndez y Daysi Porras desafiaron los operativos montados en torno a sus viviendas para solidarizarse con las Damas de Blanco, informó José Lorenzo Pérez Fidalgo , vice -presidente del MLC.
Fidalgo que también se desempeña como coordinador de la Comisión de Atención a Presos Políticos y Familiares expresó, que continuaran su lucha pacifica por el cambio democrático en la isla.
http://www.bitacoracubana.com/desdecuba/portada2.php?id=2361
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