HUDSON MIRACLE and CEASEFIRE At Last!Latest Bengali Novel DHANAPATIR CHAR as MIRROR of Nandigram and Singur! Marxist Appreciation of MODI and the ANITA EPISODE Involving CIA and UNITED States of America!Pranab says no to anti-land acquisition rhetoric in WB!
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 147
Palash Biswas
guardian.co.uk
NY plane to be lifted from river
BBC News - 3 hours ago
Recovery teams are preparing to lift the fuselage of a plane which crashed minutes after take-off into the Hudson River in New York City.
Last moments of stricken Flight 1549 Sydney Morning Herald
A Pilot Becomes a Hero Years in the Making New York Times
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Pakistan should act fast against LeT: PM
Times of India - 2 hours ago
MUMBAI: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has said he expects Pakistan to take quick and effective action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the prime accused in the Mumbai terror attacks on Nov 26, 2008.
'Action against Mumbai attackers should be made clear' Hindu
UPA's silence on Miliband's comment diplomatic disaster: BJP NDTV.com
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USA Today
Gaza crisis: key maps and timeline
BBC News - 2 hours ago
A day-by-day account of violence in Gaza and Israel since the offensive began on 27 December 2008. Gaza Strip: More than 50 air strikes are carried out in Gaza overnight, ahead of an expected vote by Israel's cabinet on a proposal for a unilateral ...
Abbas to hold talks with Egypt's Mubarak on Sunday Xinhua
Can Abbas survive after Gaza war? Aljazeera.net
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WELT ONLINE Gaza crisis: key maps and timeline
BBC News, UK - 3 hours ago
A day-by-day account of violence in Gaza and Israel since the offensive began on 27 December 2008. Gaza Strip: More than 50 air strikes are carried out in ...
UN official urges the world to investigate Gaza offensive outcome Xinhua
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Marchers calls for peace in Gaza BBC News
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Javno.hr
Want to boost your sexual performance?
Times of India - 4 hours ago
Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna found in their study that regular bouts of gentle weeding, digging and mowing can revitalise a man's flagging sex drive.
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Open discussion marks conclusion of HIV/AIDS consultation programme
KanglaOnline - 6 hours ago
IMPHAL, Jan 16: The two-day consultation programme on the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and children concluded today at the Manipur State Commission for Women, MSCW`s office complex at Lamphelpat.
Nature and Nurture responsible for increase of HIV among women MorungExpress
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Alcohol exposure in womb may lead to 'teenage' booze behaviour
Smash Hits - 15 Jan 2009
Washington, Jan 15 (ANI): Exposure to alcohol in the womb may make teenagers more attracted to the smell of liquor, according to a new study, conducted on rats.
Study shows mums' influence on alcohol use Fraser Coast Chronicle
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BBC News
Home minister is justifying mob violence: Citizens
Times of India - 14 hours ago
MUMBAI: State home minister Jayant Patil has come under fire from concerned citizens for tacitly supporting the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) action against Pakistani comedian Shakeel Siddiqui.
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My Childhood Friend Krishna`s death News from my native village basantipur has made me little upset as I could not lodge the latest Global Troubles for our people in general for the time being! HUDSON Miracle in USA shows the COMPETENCE of DISASTER MANAGEMENT which we lack in a country inflicted with genocide Culture. At the same time the disappearance of a PRIME WITNESS 26/11 connects the issue to Mischievous CIA connection which is underplayed by CENT PERCENT FDI Gifted Toilet media and the POLITY in general led by world bank GANGSTERS and planted IMPOSTERS!
Indus Valley Civilization is Downgraded!
Anita Uddaiya, the woman who saw the six terrorists involved in the November 26 terror attacks arrive in the city, claims she was taken to the US and questioned by investigating agencies there. The POLICE and US Ambessy in New Delhi contradict the claim. Media underplayed this news item about CIA Sovereignity overwhelming Indian sovereignity. Government of India is quite unaware of the activities of CIA in India, it is PROVED once again exposing National security, Public security and Geographical Integrity!
Flares and smoke are seen during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City ... Af ire at the UN building in Gaza City after Israeli strikes ...Israel’s Security Cabinet prepared to consider a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as its warplanes bombed dozens of targets!
US Airways captain the 'consummate pilot'!
CNN International reports :
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III was "the right guy at the right time at the right moment" to guide a jet safely onto the surface of the Hudson River, a neighbor and friend said.
It is a story of disaster management which we never feel in this part of the WORLD. Thus, Hudson Miracle never means for the Black Untouchables to be KILLED worldwide!
Shaibal Mitra, Amar Mitra, Anil Gharai, ABHIJIT SEN, Nabarun Bhattacharya and Bhagirath Mishra represented Bengali NOVEL after GINSBERG inflicted Americanised SUNIL Gangopadhyay GANG of brahaminical hegemony. The writers and poets rooted in SEVENTIES and the NAXAL Insurrection, rather focused on SOCIL REALISM in Grass Root Level and concentrated on Production system and productive forces. Barring Nabarunda, the readership out of Bengal miss miserably the writings of GRASSROOT Level COMMITTED Activism as the SUB CONTINENT misses the SUPER EXCELLENT works of Bangladeshi Novelist Akhtaruzzaman ILIUS. The PUBLISHERS and CRITICS Mafia Brahaminical did everything to marginalise the literature of seventies. rather it Glamourised UTTARADHIKAR, KAALDELA and KAALPURUSH Trilogy written by COMMERCIAL Samaresh Majumdar. All Bnegali Mainstream writers including the most revered Mahashweta DEBI, Opportunist Sunil Gangopadhyaya, Methodist Sandipan Bandopadhyaya, Powrful Samaresh Basu and the BULK of PET BONDED writers from ANANDA Bazar Patrika, From Taslima nasreen to Tilottama Majumdar, Gaurkishore Ghosh to Abul Bashar did their best to underplay the UPRISING of Peasants. Mahashweta Debi wrote an excellent Novel on MUNDA Insurrection, ARANYER ADHIKAR dealing with the RIGHT of the Aboriginal people to have the Natural Resources as an ingrident part of Production system indigenous. She wrote excellent novels depicting the TEBHAGA Movement as Manik Bandopadhyaya did. But Mahashweta DI failed to initiate basic Change as she never did oppose the RULING HEGEMONY! Rather she leads the Brahaminical Ressitance hegemony claiming CHANGE which is quite impossible without ANNIHILATION OF Caste and CLASS, without conseravtion of Nature, Natural resources and environment, without awakening and empowering the ENSLAVED Majority people with the DESTINY of inherent injsutice and inequality, without ensuring citizenship, civil and human right. Thus, the GENOCIDE Culture goes on.
Like the History of Bengal spanning from 7th century to 11th century remains DARK Age, in bnegali literature it happened with the Literature of seventies!
Amar Mitra in his latest NOVEL DHANPATIR CHAR, has dealt with the marginalised , faceless communities of Untouchable BLACK Fishermen using the Island temporarily created in the sea, for FISHING Purpose. The community does that professional fioshing for six month season and live a transitional life with woman sex partner for the period. It looks like NATURAL Society and Economy of Faceless peopel. But the RULING Hegemony interferes with all his agencies of Politics, Business, Money, Police and Bureacracy! The CAPTURE gane strarts. Amar Mitra as well as Shaibal Mitra has COMPCT STORY telling language and technique no less than any Sandipan bandopadhyaya. They can analyse and symbolise the Socity in specific case studies. But in this Novel COUPLATIOn and WOMAN TRAFIIC suside the Island as well as the Marginalised ISLAND. The Capture game is only a Rhetoric and it never happens to be an EXPOSURE or Insurrection! Above mentioned all West bengal writers barring Anil Gharai who is a HADI, belong to CASE HINDU class. The social background and SUBCONSCIOUS BRAHAMINISM compell them to DRIVE in Intense failure. While ILIUS, being a Bangladeshi, having no linc with Hegemony psyche succeed to post mortem BANGLADESH Liberation as well as NAXAL Insurrection in his Novels and short stories with Surgical Precision and READERS` DELIGHT!
The CREATIVE RHETORIC in Land Aquisition in West Bengal becomes out and out Hegemony affair Political as well as ECONOMIC, social as well as CULTURAL. IN GLOBAL senerio the Middle EAST saga and the MONOPOLISTIC aggression of ZIONIST US Imperialism is represented by no one elese than ISRAEL!
In KOLKATA, the KULIN BRAHMIN running the Ruling BRAHMINICAL Indian Hegemony System for US Corporate Imperialism, Global CORE ZIONIST Economy and RIGHTIST RSS BRANDED Hindu Fascism says no to anti-land acquisition rhetoric in WB! While, one among the Brahaminical Ideological Hypocrite FLOCK,CPM MP from Kannur, A P Abdullakutty, whose words of praise for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi did not go down well with the party, said on Friday that his remarks were made with a "good intention of sparking debate on development". In his reply to the explanation sought by CPM about his controversial comments giving "full marks" to Modi for his development model, Abullakutty said he stood by what he had said but made it clear he was "stiffly opposed to communal policies" of the chief minister. The two-time Lok Sabha MP's comments at a meeting of expatriates in Dubai last month created a flutter in the party circles and the district committee sought an explanation was sought from him.
Just see what happens even after nandigram and singur insurrections!Villagers give land to exorcise Nandigram ghost!
Egra (WB) Residents of a village not very far from Nandigram, which acquired notoriety for violent anti-land acquisition agitation, in a precedent-setting gesture gave away their land to help set up an Industrial Training Institute which faced a land hurdle.
The sanctioned project at Keya village in East Midnapore district was on the verge of being cancelled for want of a proper road linking the site.
Out of the 11 acres required for the ITI, seven acres were available and the remaining four acres were needed to build the road which meant taking over of cultivable land, ponds, gardens and residential houses belonging to very poor people.
The land could have been purchased outright, but the state's Finance Department came in the way. Neither could the administration think of acquiring the land keeping in mind the post-Nandigram sensitivity.
Then setting a rare precedent, the 30 villagers, who are all very poor to the point of being destitutes, came forward and submitted a memorandum to the block administration wishing to give away their land whose combined market value is not less than Rs 50 lakh.
Not only did they part with their land, the villagers also volunteered to dig earth and clear bushes to make the ITI a reality.
East Midnapore district magistrate D Choten Lama confirming the handover of the land said that initially Rs 1.5 crore had been sanctioned by the government out of a total estimated expenditure of Rs 10 crore.
Appreciating the gesture, the administration has decided to give them alternative plots on the side of the main road at Egra. A marketing complex would also be built to provide them with a means for living by allotting shops.
One of the villagers who gave up his land told this reporter that all of them wanted their children to get technical training in their own village.
CIA Role
"I was informed that the (US) officers who questioned me about the Mumbai attacks here earlier would take me to America. They came on Sunday morning and had taken me to America in a flight," Uddaiya said.
"I had lied to the police when I returned home stating that I went to Satara district as the officers told me not to disclose anything about my visit to America," Uddaiya said.
Uddaiya went missing on Sunday morning and returned to Mumbai yesterday at around 1.30 AM to her home.
She had seen the terrorists land in a rubber dinghy on the beach at the colony. But when she asked them where they had come from, she was told to mind her own business.
Giving details, she said on Saturday at around 10.00 PM, the investigating officers were supposed to come to her home.
"Since we were informed about Uddiaya's America visit, we sat with her throughout the night waiting for the American investigators. Nobody turned up till morning 5 AM. At that time, Uddaiya went to toilet from where she was whisked away by the investigators," said Madhusudhan Nair, president of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Nagar slum area where Uddaiya resides.
Uddaiya said four officers were inside the posh vehicle and one of them knew Hindi.
"First, I was taken to St George Hospital to see my husband Rajendra. I told him that I would return home in a couple of days," Uddaiya said.
Meanwhile,Retail food biz in India to grow by 400%, Govt claims!
Ahmedabad The Indian food retail industry is expected to grow by over four hundred per cent in next five years, and share of global trade in the sector has been projected to double by 2015, a Government official said.
"Food in grocery sector is about 154 billion USD which is 77 per cent of total retail sales. two-third of the food is in retail grocery, and the organised Indian food retail is just three per cent at 7 billion USD which is expected to grow by 400 per cent in next five years," Joint Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing India, Ajit Kumar said.
Kumar was speaking at the 5th annual Agri Business Summit organised at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.
Highlighting the estimated growth projection targets set by the Union Government, Kumar said the retail food industry is going to be at 20 billion USD by 2010 against the present 7 billion USD.
"We will have tremendous growth in food processing sector by 2015, increasing the level of processing of perishable from six per cent to 20 per cent, value addition which is only 20 per cent now to 35 per cent and share of our global food trade of 1.5 per cent to double by 3 per cent by 2015," Kumar said.
According to Kumar, government has taken several steps for promotion of food processing industry, including tax holidays and permission for repatriation of profits.
"The 100 per cent EOU units in SEZ can retain 50 per cent of the foreign exchange reciepts in foreign currency accounts, these are huge incentives for them," Kumar said.
No curb on freedom of media, says Manmohan
New Delhi After the proposed curbs by the government on TV channels over live coverage of incidents like Mumbai attacks was virtually put on hold, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday assured that nothing will be done to curb the freedom of the media.
The assurance was given by the Prime Minister during a meeting with a delegation of TV editors in New Delhi on Friday evening.
The editors had sought his intervention after they voiced serious objections to the planned curbs describing them as nothing but censorship.
CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, who had led the delegation of TV editors, told reporters after the meeting that "the Prime Minister has assured that he will do everything in his powers to ensure that news shown on TV is not compromised in any manner."
Sardesai added that the Prime Minister gave them a personal assurance that he would not allow anyone to control media as he believes in the freedom of press.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday had said that changes in the rules "will be made only after widest possible consultation with all stakeholders" giving some respite to the TV networks.
The statement said the Prime Minister had received several representations from media agencies regarding the proposed changes in the Cable TV Network Rules currently under consideration.
Expressing complete satisfaction with the meeting, Sardesai said that "all of us are satisfied with his personal initiative and hope that this dispute will end today".
The TV channel editors on their behalf assured the Prime Minister that they will follow the self regulation code formulated by News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and will further strengthen it.
Land Aquisition Rhetoric
Virtually opposing the agitations against land acquisition for economic projects in West Bengal, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Saturday that "industry, roads, railway lines could not be built in the sky".
"An atmosphere has been created against acquisition of land. But industry, roads, railway lines and ports cannot be constructed in the sky, it has to come up on land," Mukherjee told the Annual General Meeting of Bharat Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata.
In an obvious reference to agitation by main Opposition Trinamool Congress against land acquisitions in Nandigram and Singur, he said both ruling and opposition parties have a role to play in the development of an economy.
"Today's Opposition may be the ruling party tomorrow and the ruling party may be in the Opposition. They (Opposition) think when they come to power, they will solve everything with a magic wand. From my little experience, I can say it is not possible. We should not say anything where we have to eat our own words when we come to power," he said. Criticising such agitation, he said the prime minister had ordered the widening of NH 34, but even survey work could not be completed because of opposition to it.
Mukherjee said, "we cannot shirk our responsibility whether (we are) in the ruling or Opposition party. We are part of the same system."
On the industrial growth and opportunities in the state, Mukherjee said the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has a "positive approach" to industry.
Describing the city as a gateway to the 'Look East policy', he said the area would be immensely benefitted if there was greater interaction with ASEAN counrtries.
Mukherjee said China was emerging as the country's single largest trading partner, while trade with Bangladesh would also expected to increase. "We have to take advantage of opening border trade," he said.
MARXIST MP from Kerala, Abullakutty told the district party secretary that the media had focused only on what he had said about Modi's development model ignoring his firm rejection of the Gujarat chief minister's "communal policy".
Talking to a news channel later, Abdullakutty said he made the commonest with the good intention of sparking a debate on development at a time when the educated youth tend to vote for development.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's three consecutive victories proved this, he said. In sharp contrast, even educated tribals in Jharkhand might not have voted for Sibu Soren, he said.
Abdullakutty had earlier embarrassed the party by performing namaaz openly by turning up at a Idgah in Kannur with some family members and by calling for an introspection on mode of protests like hartals.
Bush a 'good guy', says Obama
Washington Returning the compliment to his predecessor who had called him ‘engaging’ and ‘charismatic’, US President-elect Barack Obama said he always thought George W Bush was a ‘good guy’ who had made the ‘best decisions’ that he could at times under some "very difficult circumstances".
At the same time, Obama maintained that the US has made a series of ‘bad choices’ over the last several years.
Obama, who had frequently slammed the "failed policies" of the Bush regime on the campaign trail, told CNN yesterday that "I think personally he (Bush) is a good man who loves his family and loves his country."
He praised Bush's team for helping with a smooth transition and said part of what America is about is being able to have "disagreements politically and yet treat each other civilly."
Obama said he thought Bush made "the best decisions that he could at times under some very difficult circumstances."
"That does not detract from my assessment that over the last several years, we have made a series of bad choices and we are now going to be inheriting the consequences of a lot of those bad choices," he said.
In an interview on Fox News on January 12, Bush had said he "liked" his successor and praised him as "engaging".
"The man's obviously a charismatic person ... and the man is able to persuade people that they should trust him. And he's got -- he's got something -- he's got a lot going for him," he had said.
Bush had also lauded Obama for placing a high priority on his family.
NIA team will be hand picked: Chidambaram
New Delhi The National Investigation Agency (NIA), set up in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks, will have members "hand picked" by its first chief R V Raju, who was appointed on Thursday.
"He (Raju) has been requested to join immediately and quickly begin the recruitments," Home Minister P Chidambaram, who recommended Raju's name for the post, told reporters in Delhi.
Chidambaram said Raju will hand pick his core group of investigation officers.
Asked how long it would take for the NIA to be functional, he said, "We will now recruit identified officers who have got a track record in doing very good work in investigation."
Chidambaram said Raju has been tasked with recruiting people and putting the infrastructure and logistics in place so that NIA can take up cases for investigation, should a situation arise.
He, however, said there was no case at present to be investigated by the NIA.
To a question, he said the Mumbai incident would not be probed by the NIA as investigation into it was already on.
"The Mumbai investigation is well on track. It has made considerable progress. There is no need for transferring it to NIA," he said.
Chidambaram said Raju had a vast experience in CBI.
A 1975-batch IPS officer, Raju will head the NIA till January 31, 2010, a Home Ministry order said. Raju is at present Special Director General of Police in Jammu and Kashmir.
Satyam's priority: Get CEO, CFO & funds
Hyderabad Ahead of the crucial board meeting of Satyam Computer Services here today, Kiran Karnik, one of the six members of the newly constituted board of the crisis-ridden IT firm, said they may discuss the issue of funding as well as the appointment of CEO and CFO.
"The most important issue is funding.... I do think that if we can tie up some funding then it will give great comfort to the employees and to the customers...," Karnik told a TV channel.
On the possibility of the company tapping banks for funds, he said, "We need a bank loan...as this is a viable commercial company. This is not a so called bailout".
Bank loan has certain complications too and we will try to resolve them as we move on, he added. Besides, the board is also likely to discuss the appointment of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.
"The other important thing is an operational one. The company is running... but we need to look what we want to do in terms of management. There is a leadership team, but very quickly we need to get the CFO and CEO," Karnik added.
On Thursday, the government had appointed CII chief mentor Tarun Das, noted chartered accountant and past ICAI president T N Manoharan and S Balkrishna Mainak of LIC – on Satyam's board, in addition to Deepak Parekh, Kiran Karnik and C Achuthan.
The board was given the tough task of protecting the interest of over 50,000 Satyam's employees and stakeholders following Raju's revelation of fudging accounts.
Osama's son, an al-Qaeda man, is in Pak: US officer
Washington A son of al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden, believed to be an operative of the terror network, is probably hiding in Pakistan, the chief intelligence officer of the United States has said.
US Intelligence officials consider Saad bin Laden to be a mid-level al-Qaeda operative who fled to Iran after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Two years later, Iran's Government placed him under what US officials call ‘permissive’ house arrest.
Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told reporters yesterday that Saad departed Iran in September and is probably hiding in Pakistan, where his father is also believed to be, the CNN reported.
McConnell did not say whether the younger bin Laden escaped detention or was allowed to leave Iran.
He indicated that he was not troubled by the move, suggesting the United States has a better chance of getting rid of Saad if he is in Pakistan, the report said.
"It is better in my world if they are in places where we have access," McConnell said.
Questions about Saad's whereabouts were prompted yesterday by a Treasury Department release that announced financial sanctions had been imposed on bin Laden's son and three other al-Qaeda members with ties to Iran. The statement said, "As of September 2008, it was possible that Saad bin Laden was no longer in Iranian custody."
The Treasury Department described Saad "as part of a small group of al-Qaeda members that was involved in managing the terrorist organisation from Iran."
17 Pak nationals detained in Guj by Coast Guard
Gujarat The Coast Guard has apprehended 17 Pakistani nationals from Keri Creek area in Kutch district on Thursday night.
The perpetrators were disguised as fishermen.
According to the Coast Guard sources, the offenders were nabbed as they entered Indian waters.
Following the recent disastrous Mumbai attacks, there is intense pressure on the security forces to maintain a strict vigil on borders adjoining Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Raju’s rubber-stamp secret
Minutes of board meeting show Satyam dodged probing questions
Satyam chairman B. Ramalinga Raju was cautioned by at least one director on December 16 — the fateful day when the board met to discuss the $1.6-billion acquisition of the Maytas twins — not to use the directors as a “rubber stamp to affirm… decisions already reached”. ... | Read..
Police case against US ‘airlift’ witness
The curious case of terror witness Anita Uddaiya, who claims to have been taken on a secret visit to the US, has got murkier with police today slapping a case against her ... | Read..
Vandal axe on bosses
Party bosses could be jailed if their workers burn buses or smash cars during a bandh or demonstration, provided the recommendations of a Supreme Court-appointed panel ar ... | Read..
Ranchi drifts to Delhi rule
Amid continuing political uncertainty in Jharkhand, Governor Syed Sibtey Razi is learnt to have sent a report today to the Centre saying there appeared to be little chance of ... | Read..
Clash despite clampdown order
Supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and an anti-Gorkhaland mob clashed today as both sides flouted prohibitory orders that has been in place since last night in Malbaz ... | Read..
http://www.telegraphindia.com/section/frontpage/index.jsp
Do any persons among you agree with the following quote from the article which has been recently circulated by the Hindu Council UK?
Quote: The Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilizations were only extensions of the Saraswati or Vedic Civilization, according to Prof Lal. "Since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro happened simultaneously in 1920, they are known as Harappan civilizations. But the Saraswati civilization is much older than that of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro," said Prof Lal.
Unquote:
The Indus Valley Civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro is sought to be downgraded in order to promote the primacy of the so-called Saraswati Civilization.
Can anybody prove that the Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilizations were only extensions of the Saraswati or Vedic Civilization?
Can the protagonists of the Saraswati Civilization tell us why the script of the Indus (Sindhu) Valley Civilization has still not been deciphered? Obviously, the Indus Valley script is different from the Devanagri script of Sanskrit. It is also clear that the Indus Valley script is much more ancient than even Devanagri. So how can the so-called Saraswati Civilization be older than the Indus Valley Civilization?
How many among you are ready to accept the claim that the Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilizations were only extensions of the Saraswati or Vedic Civilization? You should give a fitting reply to the protagonists of the Saraswati civilization.
Sincerely,
Ashok T. Jaisinghani.
Editor & Publisher:
www.Top-Nut.com
www.Wonder-Cures.com
www.Sindhikalakar.com
Note: Please forward this email to the important Sindhi
writers and leaders who are known to you.
Original Message -----
From: Hindu Council UK
To: HCUK Network and Associates
Cc: For Your Information
Sent: 18 Dec 2008 2:22 AM
Subject: Bindi and Namaste over 5,000 Year Old Traditions
Bindi and Namaste over 5,000 Year Old Traditions
Source: http://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97
GUJARAT, INDIA, November 16, 2008: The sindhur Bindi, or pottu by which it is known in Southern India, a unique marking on the foreheads of Indians, dates back to the third millennium BCE. Even during the early days of civilization people used to wear the sindhur Bindi or tilak on their foreheads, excavations along the now defunct Saraswati river have proved. "The Indian woman had adorned her forehead with sindhur as a symbol of marriage. This perhaps also indicated the existence of a structural family life in an orderly society," Prof B.B. Lal, former director general, Archaeological Survey of India told Deccan Chronicle.
We came across the sindhur in terracotta figurines from the sites along the states of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Carbon dating confirmed the fact that these terracotta figurines date back to the third millennium BC," said Prof Lal. "Similarly the practice of greeting one another with Namaste and the criss-cross pattern of furrows on farm lands, seen even today in Haryana and Rajasthan, date back to the Saraswati era," he said.
The Harappan and Mohenjo Daro civilizations were only extensions of the Saraswati or Vedic Civilization, according to Prof Lal. "Since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro happened simultaneously in 1920, they are known as Harappan civilizations. But the Saraswati civilization is much older than that of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro," said Prof Lal.
Indology Series
Hindu Council UK
Note : Hindu Council UK (HCUK) is the foremost and largest national
network of the Hindu temple bodies and cultural organisations
co-ordinating all different schools of Hindu theology within the UK.
HCUK is the representative umbrella body for the British Hindu issues
for which a UK wide mandate was received during a two year consultation
with the British Hindu public culminating in its launch in November 1994.
HCUK Admin Office:
Boardman House,
64 The Broadway,
London E15 1NG.
T: 020 8432 0400
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The Reserve Bank of India will be announcing the Third Quarter Review of Monetary Policy on January 27.
The Indian Merchants Chamber would like to submit recommendations to RBI before that.
What increasing problems do you see India facing, and how do you think RBI can play a role in tackling these?
Issues could be interest rates, inflation, bank transaction costs, availability of finances for businesses, non-implementation of RBI guidelines by banks, problems that banks create for customers, etc.
Please send to Dr. Samant, IMC, at gs1@imcnet.org with a cc to karmayog@yahoogroups.com for follow-up.
Regards
Vinay
http://www.karmayog.org/ -- better public policies throug public viewpoints
GAZA DAILY BULLETIN
January 16, 2009
Articles
End the Violence now
http://www.demandastance.com/gaza/ca
Tom Friedman Offers a Perfect Definition of 'Terrorism'
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/14-14
Gaza : The Tip of an Iceberg
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/01/16/gaza-the-tip-of-an-iceberg/
Moral Clarity in Gaza
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101780.html
Gaza : What "Moral Clarity"?
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/87590
Enough. It's time for a boycott
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/10/naomi-klein-boycott-israel
A TOUR AND NEWS REPORT IN THE UNITED NATION COMPOUND IN GAZA :
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/IsraeliBombsTargetedUnitedNationsInGaza
Israeli War: Water Crisis in Gaza
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/IsraeliWarWaterCrisisInGaza#
Israeli War: Bread Crisis
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/IsraeliWarBreadCrisis#
Israeli War: DESTRUCTION and Killing
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/IsraeliWarDESTRUCTIONAndKilling#
A day of War 1
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/GazaWar2#
Children playing despite bombings:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/ChildrenPlayingDespiteBombings#
A day of War 2
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/GazaWar3#
Day 21 of Israeli War on Gaza : Informative Report on Gaza War: Death toll 1150, wounded 5150
Breaking News: Massacre in east of Gaza as Israeli rockets killed 8 civilians in Shiajaya town.
Breaking News: Massacre in north of Gaza as Israeli rockets killed 4 women and children in Jabalia town.
By: Sameh A. Habeeb: A Photojournalist, Humanitarian & Peace Activist in Gaza Strip.
Day 21 of Israeli War on Gaza
1-Israeli air strike bombed a wedding hall in Rafah City .
2-Air strike hit the Khan Yonis Police station, no people wounded!
3-Israeli tanks invading Tal Al Hawa, western Gaza City , retreated to the mid areas.
4-Child Esa Ermilat, 14, killed and 6 children wounded in Rafah due to an Israeli artillery shells.
5-Four Palestinian children wounded in Dair Al Balah City.
6-A child killed in artillery shelling near Jabalia town, northern Gaza Strip.
7-Bombs destroyed al Qouqa' mosque eastern Gaza City .
8-Three Palestinian fighters killed in Israeli air raid northern Gaza Strip.
9-Two Palestinian fighters killed western southern Gaza , Tal Al Hawa, in Israeli air raid.
10-Israeli army destroyed many houses in Farta area, Bait Hanon, northern Gaza .
11-Two Palestinians killed mid of Gaza city.
12-Spardoic artillery shells eastern Gaza City .
13- A press conference for Arab and International doctors in Gaza confirmed that Israeli is using prohibited weapons in Gaza .
14-Massive devastation in Tal Al hawa area western southern Gaza City .
Hospitals, offices and charities beside houses destroyed yesterday.
15-Israeli tanks opened its heavy gun machine fire into the houses of people eastern Gaza City .
16-Israeli shelling targeted the northern areas of Gaza and no wounded reported.
17-A mother from al Batran family and five from her children killed, several wounded in Israeli strike central Gaza Strip.
18-Fire still ongoing in the UN stores in Gaza .
19-Severe shortages in medical stuff at Al Shifa' hospital.
20-Around 300 wounded still in critical conditions.
21-Israeli air raids on Rafah, tunnels area.
22-Heavy bombings echoed in the first evening hours in Gaza .
23-Water still hardly accessible for Gaza residents.
24-Humantarian needs still unavailable and monitors said that Gaza needs thousands of food trucks and permanent opened crossings to bridge the recent Gap.
25-Artillary shells rained down in southern Gaza Strip.
26-Medical sources: Around 25 Palestinian bodies were found dead in Tal al Hawa by Israeli fire yesterday.
27-Residents of Tal Al Hawa flee their houses despite Israeli tanks dropped out for 2 kilo meters.
28-Many ambulances were found destroyed today in Tal Al Hawa area.
29-Clashes arise again in east and north of Gaza .
30-Bombings from the gunboats targeted mid and western areas of Gaza .
31-Drones still hover excessively over Gaza .
32-Palestinian fighters launched some projectiles in Israeli leaving 5 people wounded and in Trauma.
www.gazatoday.blogspot.com
Events
*Public Screening: “OCCUPATION 101” The Voices of the Silenced Majority
In light of recent events in the Middle East and with aims of raising awareness of the current situation, the ICC will be presenting a thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’ Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions.
When: Saturday, January 17 2009
Time: 7:00 pm, Duration: 2:30
Where: Islamic Community Center (ICC) of South Shore , 5905 Grande-Allee Boulevard Brossard Quebec J4W-1A1
Contact Information: ICC
Tel: 450-656-9841 , administrator@iccbrossard.com , http://www.iccbrossard.com
info@fmc-cmf.com , www.fmc-cmf.com
*Several organizations are joining hands to hold the largest fund raising event to help people in Gaza , Palestine .
When: Saturday, January 17, 2009
Time: 7:00p.m.-10:00p.m.
Where: Masjid Al-Salaam, Burnaby , 5060 Canada Way , Burnaby , BC
Organized by British Columbia Muslim Association and Canadian Islamic Congress BC . For more info: sid.shniad@twu-canada.ca
* Edmonton Rally for Gaza
Saturday, January 17, 2009
1:00 p.m., Churchill Square
Protest against injustice! Bring signs, banners, flags, and your voice! Organized by ECAWAR in conjunction with the Canada Palestine Cultural Association.
Info: www.ecawar.org
* Hamilton Vigil & Leafleting:
Thursday, January 15 at 12:00noon
University Ave & Sterling, in front of Burke Science Building ,
McMaster University
Friday, January 16 at 4:00pm
King & James, in front of Jackson Square Entrance,
Downtown Hamilton
Gaza Fundraiser Cultural Night:
Sunday, January 18, 4:30pm to 8:00pm
Carmen's Paizza Banquet Hall, 230 Anchor Road , Hamilton
Includes: Live Entertainment, Art Display by the Palestinian Canadian Painter Esam Safi, Refreshments & Arabic Dessert, Poetry Readings , & More!
$25 tickets. All money raised will be sent to Gaza through the Canadian registered charity, Medical Aid for Palestine . Tax receipts are available.
Car pooling available from McMaster University . Contact us for details. Contact Info Email: palestineham-at-gmail.com
* Montreal : Manifestation: Mettez Fin à l'apartheid Israélien! Mettez Fin au blocus de Gaza !
Dimanche 25 Janvier
13h00 - Carrée Cabot
Angle St-Catherine | Atwater
(metro Atwater )
Montréal, Québec, http://www.tadamon.ca/post/2638
*NOVA SCOTIA
Halifax, Saturday, January 17 -- 1 pm
Weekly Rally and Public Forum at Victoria Park, corner of Spring Garden and South Park .
Stand in solidarity with Palestine . Bring placards, banners and your voice.
For information: Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Gaza 477-0470 or info@freepalestine.ca
* Ottawa : Stop Israel ’s Massacre! STOP CANADIAN COMPLICITY
Time: Monday 19 January at 12:00pm
Where: 125 Sussex , Foreign Affairs Ministry
Rally against the Canadian government’s unconditional support for Israel ’s wars.www.ottawapalestine.blogspot.com
ORGANIZED BY: The Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians (APAC), Independent Jewish Voices (IJV - Canada ) and the Ottawa Palestine Solidarity Network (OPSN). www.apacottawa.com, www.independentjewishvoices.ca, and www.ottawapalestine.blogspot.com.
* Toronto : Shame on Stephen Harper! Stand up for human rights. Stop Israel ’s war now. End the siege of Gaza .
Picket the constituency office of Conservative MP Peter Kent
Please join us for a picket at the constituency office of Conservative MP Peter Kent to tell Stephen Harper that the vast majority of Canadians support human rights, and want the war to end. Canada must stand for human rights, and not defend war crimes.
PICKET
Constituency office of Conservative MP Peter Kent
Saturday, January 17
11:00am to 1:00pm
7600 Yonge Street - assemble on the sidewalk
Thornhill ON (north of Arnold Avenue )
Buses to the picket will depart from the following locations:
Downtown Toronto
Buses leave at 10:15am
Meet at: 720 Spadina Avenue (TTC: Spadina)
To book a seat, please e-mail stopthewar@sympatico.ca
Suggested donation: $5 to $10 (or pay what you can)
Mississauga
Car pooling will be arranged by Palestine House - email info@palestinehouse.com in advance.
Picket called by: Not in Our Name – Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network Toronto, Independent Jewish Voices, Palestine House, Canadian Arab Federation, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, For more information, please email info@palestinehouse.com or phone 416-795-5863 or 905-270-3622 For more info see: http://www.palestinehouse.com/
* Winnipeg
Peace Alliance Winnipeg, the Canada Palestine Support Network (Winnipeg Chapter) and Canadian Muslims for Palestine will hold a rally at the corner of Water Avenue and Main Street (in front of the Canadian Grain Commission Building) on Saturday, at 2:00 p.m., to call on the Federal Government to work actively for a ceasefire and for peace in the Middle East. Rallies will be held at there every Saturday at 2:00 p.m. until further notice.
Where: Canadian Grain Commission Building ( Water Ave. and Main St .)
When: Saturday, Jan. 17 and each successive Saturday until further notice
Time: 2:00 p.m., For more info: www.peacealliancewinnipeg.ca
* SURREY RALLY TO END THE SIEGE ON GAZA & PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
1:30pm - 4:00pm
Holland Park , 13428 Old Yale Rd , Surrey , Right Across King George Sky Train Station
On facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=69572879128. hkawas@msn.com
Images
Please see attached
Videos
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FABqq_jjRRo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUFLpP9Prxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb1rmLAuvM8
Clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nn0HJNNOFk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQQoK-tmBsE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cCpX8lfCfc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGi7Eb4iJG0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYL8p4kdBW8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsGqzx6yctQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hnRU0W1hto&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPdKkx3DbcE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4dg6h0xiUo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTLOaD5lEzg&feature=related
Donations
*We are writing this letter to urge you to contribute to a special fund established by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) to help with the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza . All funds sent to the PGFTU GAZA AID will go to basic survival needs -- food, medicine, rudimentary shelter. TO CONTRIBUTE DONATIONS TO THE PGFTU FOR GAZA RELIEF BY CHECK: Make your check payable to the AAUMC (Arab American Union Members Council) and put PGFTU GAZA AID in the memo line. TO CONTRIBUTE DONATIONS TO THE PGFTU FOR GAZA RELIEF BY CREDIT CARD: On-line donations will be accepted by Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) at https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=1171.
Check off”Gift Information: I'd like to make this gift on behalf of" and fill in "PGFTU Gaza Relief" in the form. Where it says: "Please send acknowledgement of this gift to:" put " info@aaumc.org " as the email address. Donations made on-line are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law; however, such donations are reduced by the amount of processing fees.
Contact information: Arab American Union Members Council, http://www.aaumc.org
Israeli Assault Injures
1.5 Million Gazans
By Jonathan Cook
16 January, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Nazareth: This week the death toll in Gaza passed the 1,000 mark, after nearly three weeks of Israeli air and ground attacks. But surprisingly, no one has reported an even more appalling statistic: that there are some 1.5 million injured Palestinians in Gaza. How is is possible that such an astounding figure could have passed the world’s media by?
The reason apparently is that they have been relying on the highly unreliable statistics provided by official Palestinian sources. It appears that the Palestinian health ministry only records as wounded those Gazans who need to stay in hospital because of the severity of their injuries.
That means they only count the more than 4,500 Gazans who have suffered injuries such as severe burns from exploding Israeli phosphorus shells; shrapnel wounds from artillery rounds; broken or lost limbs from aerial bombardment; bullet wounds; physical trauma from falling building debris; and so on.
But in fact there is another, far more reasonable standard for assessing those injured, one that provides the far higher total of 1.5 million Gazans – or every surviving Palestinian in Gaza. The measure I am referring to is the one employed by Israel.
Here is an example of its use. In September 2007, the international media reported that 69 Israeli soldiers had been wounded when Palestinian militants fired a rocket into the Zikim army base near the Gaza Strip. The rocket struck a tent where the soldiers were sleeping.
It is worth noting the details of the attack. Israeli officials related that, of the 69 wounded, 11 had moderate or severe injuries and one was critically injured. A few more had light wounds. The rest, probably 50 or more, were injured in the sense that they were suffering from shock.
So, if we apply the same standard to Gaza, that would mean 1.5 million Gazans have been wounded. Or is there still some doubt about whether the weeks of bombardment of Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on earth, have left the entire civilian population in a deep, and possibly permanent, state of shock?
*********
Talking of Gaza’s civilians, where did they all go? Israel’s so-called “war” on Gaza must be the first example in human history of a conflict where there are apparently no civilians. Or, at least, that is the impression being created by the world’s leading international bodies, from the World Health Organisation to the United Nations. Instead they refer to a new category of “women and children”.
Thus, those 1,000-plus dead Gazans are broken down into percentages defined in terms of “women and children” and the rest. The earliest figures stated that about 25 per cent of Gaza’s dead were “women and children”, and that has steadily climbed close to the 50 per cent mark since Israel’s ground invasion got under way.
The implication – one with which Israel is presumably delighted – is that the rest are Palestinian fighters, or “terrorists” as Israel would prefer us to call them. It also suggests that every man in Gaza over the age of 16 is being defined as a non-civilian – as a combatant and, again by implication, as a terrorist. In short, all Gaza’s men are legitimate targets for Israeli attack.
This is not very far from the position recently attributed to Israeli policymakers by the daily Jerusalem Post. The newspaper reported that officials had come to the view that “it would be pointless for Israel to topple Hamas because the population [of Gaza] is Hamas”.
On this thinking, Israel is at war with every single man, woman and child in Gaza, which is very much how it looks. Maybe we should be glad that the category of “women and children” is still being recognised – at least, for now.
***********
The myths about the blockade of Gaza are so legion it is almost impossible to disentangle them. But let’s try tackling a few.
The first is that the blockade was a necessary response to the election of Hamas.
Tell that to John Wolfensohn, special envoy to the Quartet, comprising the US, UN, Europe and Russia, from May 2005. His job was to oversee the disengagement. Wolfensohn was succeeded by the far less principled Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.
In an interview with the Haaretz newspaper in 2007, Wolfensohn explained why he had resigned a year into his job, in April 2006. Shortly after the disengagement in summer 2005, he said, Israel and the US had violated the understandings made to ensure the border crossings into Gaza remained open after the Jewish settlers left. “Every aspect of that agreement was abrogated,” he said.
The economy collapsed as a result, as Gaza’s farmers saw their produce rot at the crossings, and unemployment and disillusionment among Gazans rocketed. “Instead of hope, the Palestinians saw that they were put back in prison. And with 50 per cent unemployment, you would have conflict.”
It was the closure of the crossings that Wolfensohn believes partly explains Hamas’ success in the subsequent elections, in early 2006. So, according to Wolfensohn, Israel’s blockade pre-existed Hamas’ rise to power and began when Fatah were still the rulers of Gaza.
The second myth is that the blockade was an attempt, if a futile one, to get Hamas to recognise Israel’s “right to exist”.
Tell that to Dov Weisglass, former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s fixer in Washington. It was he who suggested the true goal of the blockade, which Israel intensified immediately following Hamas’ electoral triumph. The policy would be “like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.”
In short, according to Weisglass, Israeli policy in Gaza was “collective punishment” inflicted on the civilian population for choosing Hamas – a policy that, should it need pointing out, is a grave violation of international law and a war crime.
The hope, it seems, was that Gazans would, as they sank into abject poverty, manage to summon up the energy to overthrow Hamas. It didn’t happen.
The third myth is that the blockade was designed to put pressure on Hamas to end the rocket fire into Israel.
Tell that to Ehud Barak, the defence minister, and Matan Vilnai, his deputy. This pair were plotting an invasion of Gaza throughout the six-month ceasefire with Hamas, and in fact much earlier.
In truth, they ignored every diplomatic overture from Hamas, including offers of indefinite truces, while they invested their energies in the coming ground invasion. In particular they worked on plans, noted in the Israeli media back in spring 2008, to “level” Gaza’s civilian neighbourhoods and create “combat zones” from which civilians could be expelled.
One aspect of the blockade that seems to have been overlooked is the way it has been used to “soften up” Gaza, and Hamas, before Israel’s attack. For three years Gaza’s population has been denied food, medicines and fuel.
Every general knows it is easier to fight an army – or militia – that is cold, tired and hungry. Could there be a better description of the Hamas fighters, as well as those “women and children”, currently facing Israel’s tanks and warplanes?
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest book is “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net
A version of this article appeared in Al-Ahram Weekly (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg), published in Cairo.
http://www.countercurrents.org/cook160109.htm
ET Headline
Satyam scam a blot: PM at ET Awards
17 Jan 2009, 1806 hrs IST, ECONOMICTIMES.COM
PM said the Satyam issue is a blot on corporate India and corporates must look in to accounting practices. ET Awards: Profiles of winners | Pics | Video | Full Coverage
PM's speech at the ET Awards
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AM Naik, Larsen & Toubro, Business Leader of the Year
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Karambir Kang, Special Awards-Corporate Citizen on behalf of Taj employees
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17 Jan 2009, 2116 hrs IST, PANKAJ MISHRA,ET Bureau
Roy confirmed to ET that he is among those being considered for the role, he declined to elaborate further. Satyam's Development Centres | New Satyam board
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/
Israel’s Security Cabinet prepared to consider a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as its warplanes bombed dozens of targets and Hamas lobbed rockets across the border in the 22nd day of the military offensive.
The pieces of a cease-fire are falling into place, an Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said in a phone interview. He cited the signing yesterday of an accord in which the U.S. will help stop arms smuggling into Gaza, and the results of negotiations between Egypt and Israel. Israel says smuggling has provided Hamas with weapons to attack its territory, and that the assault on Gaza has been necessary to end the rocket strikes.
Israeli forces hit 50 sites early today, the military said, while Hamas fired four rockets into southern Israel. Jets later bombed 70 tunnels used for smuggling arms along the Gaza border with Egypt, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman said. Air strikes were carried out on storehouses, minefields and two mosques used by Hamas fighters, he said. The United Nations said a UN school in Gaza was among the sites hit.
A unilateral cease-fire would ease international pressure on Israel, yet leave unresolved the issues of who will rule the Gaza Strip, whether it will remain sealed off from the outside world, and whether the offensive will lead to a revival of peace talks. Hamas vowed today to keep fighting until Israel pulls its forces from Gaza and ends a blockade of the Palestinian enclave.
A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said two children died when the school in northern Gaza, which was being used as a shelter, was struck by an Israeli tank shell. The dead children’s mother was among 14 people hurt.
Investigation Demanded
“The Israeli army knew the coordinates of this installation,” UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness said in a telephone interview. “There has been a direct hit on a UN school sheltering hundreds of people. There has to be an investigation for possible war crimes.” It was the first time a UN official has called for a war crimes investigation over Israeli attacks on its installations in Gaza since the military operation began.
There were no reports of Hamas fighters firing from the school, Gunness said. “Israel keeps giving that excuse. Their credibility hangs in rags,” he added.
An Israeli military spokesman said all alleged incidents of hits on such civilian installations are being investigated, and it will take time. The credibility of an investigation is more important than speed, he said.
‘Not War Crimes’
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told British Broadcasting Corp. television that Israeli forces haven’t “committed anything illegal, certainly not war crimes or anything else.” Hamas, he said, probably was fighting in or very near the school site.
“They are drawing fire to the area, which itself is a war crime,” Palmor added. “It is clear the army has the right to defend itself even when the gunmen are situated within a civilian facility.”
Mo’aweya Hassanein, head of emergency services in Gaza, said 1,195 people have been killed in the Israeli onslaught, which began Dec. 27. About half of them have been civilians, he said. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, nine in combat and four from rocket attacks, the Israeli army said.
A Hamas spokesman, Osama Hamdan, gave a televised news conference today in Beirut, where he echoed comments yesterday by Hamas political leader Khalid Mashaal. The Islamic party and militia that rules Gaza won’t back a cease-fire until Israel withdraws and ends the blockade, Mashaal told Arab leaders meeting in Qatar.
‘Against Hamas’
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the agreement with the U.S. would enable Israel to end its operation against Hamas as long as the group halts rocket attacks and new steps are taken to shut the smuggling tunnels. The cooperation of Hamas isn’t necessary for Israel to end its military operation, she said.
“This would be an agreement against Hamas, not with Hamas,” Livni told Israel’s Channel Two. Israel’s reaction will be “harsh” if there is further rocket fire, she said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded in the Lebanese Parliament today that Israel’s Security Cabinet declare the unilateral cease-fire when it meets today.
“We cannot wait for all the details, the mechanisms, to be conclusively negotiated and agreed,” Ban said, referring to Egyptian mediation efforts. “I demand an immediate cease-fire. Israel must end its offensive in Gaza and withdraw its troops.”
Aid groups have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Gaza Strip, where about 1.5 million people live in an area of 360 square kilometers (144 square miles).
Arab League
Ban addressed the Lebanese parliament as his weeklong Middle East diplomatic mission continued. He is scheduled to travel to Damascus tomorrow and then to Kuwait for an Arab League economic summit where the Gaza conflict will be discussed.
Ban called the violence in Gaza “unprecedented in recent decades.” The UN chief said he has demanded further assurances from Israel that UN facilities in Gaza won’t suffer more attacks.
The UN Security Council approved a resolution Jan. 8 calling for an immediate cease-fire leading to a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The vote was 14-0; the U.S. abstained. The UN General Assembly backed the resolution late yesterday.
Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and the European Union, refuses to recognize Israel or any peace agreements with the Jewish state. The group took full control of the seaside strip in June 2007 and ended a partnership government with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads Fatah. In January 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections, ousting Fatah.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Williams in Jerusalem at dwilliams41@bloomberg.net; Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City through the Jerusalem newsroomt .
Last Updated: January 17, 2009 11:19 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.Noo2Rt.Eds&refer=home
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Ynetnews Israeli DM says army close to Gaza operation goals
Xinhua, China - 1 hour ago
... Ehud Barak said on Saturday that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is nearing the goals set for its Cast Lead Operation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. ...
Israel 'very close' to Gaza goals: Barak AFP
ANALYSIS / Unlike Livni, Barak, Olmert is focusing on Gaza, not ... Ha'aretz
Barak: Israel very close to achieving Gaza op's objectives Ynetnews
Times of India - Xinhua
all 801 news articles »
TopNews UN chief in Lebanon to discuss Gaza siege
NDTV.com, India - 6 hours ago
Ban told reporters at Beirut airport that he was very concerned about the situation in Gaza and said he had been urging both Israel and Hamas to stop the ...
UN chief calls for durable, fully respected ceasefire in Gaza Xinhua
UN chief calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire AFP
Protests in Beirut as UN chief visits Hindu
International Herald Tribune - Haber 27
all 70 news articles »
Gaza violence escalates - 17 Jan 08
Two more Palestinians, including a woman, were killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza on Thursday. More than two dozen people have now been killed in the three days of military action. Al Jazeera's Davi...
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=hcnH3uTVshE
Gaza's Obama campaign
While US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads rival Hillary Clinton in the polls, Palestinians in Gaza are launching their own attempt to boost his campaign.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=21YF7ggCG6g
Humanitarian impact of Israel's blockade of Gaza - 21 Jan 08
Gaza's 1.5 million residents are struggling to cope without electricity and other basic necessities on the fourth day of an Israeli blockade. Hospitals have begun to run short of fuel for generat...
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=01hqVzViFTw
Al Jazeera English - What do you think?
Welcome to the Al Jazeera English channel on YouTube - tell us what you think of the news, the stories, the programmes and the coverage - send us a comment or better still, send us a video comment.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFrryFNfEA
Palestinians break out from Gaza seige - 23 Jan 08
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=TocjkugWEEc
Palestinians have poured into the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing through holes blown along the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from Gaza, wher
Friday, January 16, 2009
Did Anyone In Gaza Play Tennis Today?
Did anyone in Gaza play tennis today,
did anyone go for a swim?
Did anyone go for a walk down the street,
or shop in the mall at a whim?
Did anyone go to the mosque or to school,
or just wander around outside?
How bout doing the wash or watching the news,
instead of finding a place to hide.
No tennis or swimming or walking or shopping,
more important things to do today,
like surviving the bombs and calming the crying,
no time for idle play.
What food there is is not enough,
and the water is gone or going.
The only thing that's certain is
the bombing isn't slowing.
Hospitals can't cope with all the wounded,
the dying and the pain.
And all attempts to stop this slaughter
are until now, in vain.
What did ordinary people with ordinary lives do,
to create so much hate?
Are they supposed to think that this
is simply their fate?
No bombs or rockets or tanks or guns
can ever bring anyone peace.
The rage that's planted from obscenity like this
will simply never cease.
Has nothing been learned from the pain of the past
of the futility of war?
Or is man's inhumanity to man
something in everyone's core?
So now I weep for Gaza, the world's biggest trap
It has to be the most miserable place on this planet's map.
Karen
Mumbai attacks: Zardari vows to uncover 'full facts'
Islamabad President Asif Ali Zardari has said Pakistan is determined to uncover the ‘full facts’ behind the Mumbai attacks and needs India's cooperation for the trial of any suspects linked to the terror strikes.
Zardari, during a meeting with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband at the Presidency here late last night, said an elite Pakistani counter-terror team is conducting a probe into the Mumbai incident.
There was no official word on the meeting though TV channels quoted sources as saying that Zardari told Miliband that Pakistan is determined to uncover the full facts about the Mumbai attacks.
India's cooperation is needed for the proper trial of any suspects and that is why Pakistan wanted a joint probe to be conducted by the two countries, Zardari reportedly said.
The President echoed comments made yesterday by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who said full cooperation by India is necessary to ensure proper trial of any suspects.
Gilani also said Pakistan is serious about prosecuting suspects in the Mumbai attacks in accordance with its own laws in a transparent trial.
India's skies are secure, says IAF chief
Bangalore The Indian skies are secure and precautions have been taken to ensure no aerial intrusion takes place, Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal F H Major said on Saturday.
"We got all measures in place as far as aerial cover is concerned within the country. Air defence measures are in place which would be put into effect as and when required", he told the media responding to queries on the sidelines of the 'Air Chief Marshal L M Katre Memorial Lecture' in Bangalore.
"We have taken precautions to ensure that no intrusion takes place in our airspace. We are in a state of preparedness to prevent any threat to the country from air, sea or land. The armed forces are prepared for any eventuality", he said.
The IAF has foolproof arrangements to fortify its airspace and positioned itself for quick response, he said when asked about its preparedness in the wake of 26/11 terror strike by sea route on Mumbai.
Asked about possibility of a war with Pakistan, he shot back "such things are best decided by the government. The armed forces only execute the will of the government. We do not go to war on our own. There is political leadership. It is for the political establishment to decide on such matters. We are always in a state of preparedness", Major said.
Bolivia to take Israel to The Hague
http://www.presstv. ir/detail. aspx?id=82554§ionid=351020202
Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:57:08 GMT
Israel ignores international calls to end Gaza invasion.
Bolivia is seeking to take Tel Aviv to International Criminal Court over the brutal atrocities the Israeli forces have committed in Gaza.
The Andean state says it is intended to make regional allies take a unified stance against "the Israeli political and military leaders responsible for the offensive on the Gaza Strip" and make it to stand trial at the international body in the Hague, said Sacha Llorenti, whose portfolio covers civil society.
Moves to begin the legal process will begin "probably next week," Bolivia's deputy justice and human rights minister Wilfredo Chavez told journalists during the visit to Geneva, AFP reported on Friday.
Bolivia followed in the steps of its ally Venezuela and severed diplomatic ties with Israel over its massacre of the Gazans and snubbing the international calls for an 'immediate' and 'durable' truce, said the Latin American governments.
The Bolivian president Evo Morales told a group of diplomats in the administrative capital of La Paz that he will request the International Criminal Court (ICC) to file genocide charges against Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The ICC is competent to adjudicate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed after 2002.
Israel and its closest ally, the United States, are not among the 108 signatories of the Rome Statute creating the Hague-based court in 2000 to investigate and prosecute war crimes.
After 21 days of non-stop bombardment and aggression, the Israeli invasion of Gaza has left 1,133 Palestinians killed and more than 5,200 wounded.
Do political movements need to obey the law? What about Advani rath yatra, Modi’s Godhra outrage?’
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Posted: Feb 23, 2008 at 2152 hrs IST
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MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 22 Respected Sudheendra Kulkarniji,
I have read your open letter addressed to me in Loksatta. I am happy to read it. Leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (not all north Indians, only those from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) and all north Indian journalists have decided to label whatever I and my colleagues, my party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena do, as "goondagiri".
It is natural. They are furious because their inter-connected economic, cultural and political interests have been jeopardized. For the first time, their uncontrolled political and cultural dadagiri has been confronted!
With this backdrop, I was happy to read your letter because, for the first time, someone has shown a willingness to discuss and debate the issues raised by me. And it is not someone ordinary but one who has handled the country's politics and culture from the Prime Minister's Office.
Sudheendraji, you have made many points in your letter. I will start with the one on violence. But before that, I would like to inform readers that I have been in active politics for about 18-19 years. I hope you don't doubt my political knowledge and experience! But to state the fact, I and my party have not undertaken any illegal, unconstitutional agitation if you consider the backdrop of the political history of our country.
Forget the country, even in Maharashtra every political party has indulged in political violence and murder at some time or the other. The levels and layers may be different. Some parties have supported such incidents on moral grounds. Such allegations have been made against many people in the present cabinet. I have neither supported political violence nor have my workers killed their opponents.
I will give you just one example. Not even a single worker has offended –– physically or verbally –– any mediaperson, despite the fact that the entire media (especially Hindi and English media) was spewing venom of contempt for Maharashtrians, on me and my party.
I can give you many examples of the media being attacked by enraged workers of all four major political parties in Maharashtra in similar situations. Isn't our patience and conscience indicative of a principled stance?
I have already apologised for the death in Nashik during this agitation. But it should also be kept in mind that it was an accident, not a political murder!
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena does not believe in political murders!
Leaders involved in political murders across the country come to Maharashtra to teach me ahimsa and journalists follow them and address them as "sir" and brand me and my followers as goondas. This is such an irony. I am surprised that nobody is objecting to the dirty politics being played over the death of a person.
Now, the violence.
Isn't the outbreak of spontaneous outrage in a people's movement understood? Can anyone avoid the violence or damage to property even if it does not bring happiness? Wasn't Gandhiji forced to withdraw his agitation when a chowkie was burnt at Chauri Chaura?
Besides, even after all this, was the violence and damage to public property avoided in the 1942 agitation? When people become furious, their response is the same, whether it is the Congress or the African National Congress.
Sudheendraji, as you are a former communist, you must be aware of crores of deaths and political murders during communist movements the world over. People's movements are a repetition of history to some extent.
Besides, do political movements need to obey the law? Political history learnt by me tells me that breaking the law, getting arrested, braving lathis and getting jailed are symbols of a principled agitation.
In recent times, the rulers and opposition parties indulged in movements of political compromise, in which morchas are taken out, the share of benefits of the government and opposition parties are decided. Then the protesters and their companions go home and sleep peacefully! This is called todbazi (compromise). The word political movement is an equivalent word for breaking the law!
Tell me, Sudheendraji, was Bihari MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy not aware of Advaniji's Rath Yatra when he chose to criticise me on the grounds that my agitation was unconstitutional, destabilising for the nation, sectarian? How many people died then? How much was the violence?
But didn't Advani pursue his campaign to make his point? The Bihari babu in Rudy seems to have woken up. I don't remember Rudy mustering courage to register his protest during the Rath Yatra or with Narendrabhai Modiji when our Gujarati brethren were outraged after the Godhra incident.
It means that everyone wants MPs and MLAs from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to dance on the chest of Maharashtra. Because they know that Maharashtra's MPs and ministers in Delhi will not utter a word! The only thing remaining is Maharashtra government issuing an ordinance to compel every Maharastrian household to accommodate at least one bhaiyya from UP, Bihar and if not done, to brand such Maharashtrians as against the constitution!
Raj Thackeray and his party have become a hurdle in all this which is why they are ready to crush us. Sudheendraji, I have never opposed, do not oppose ordinary workers from U.P. and Bihari. Would I have spoken if chhatpooja was an ordinary religious pooja?
Gujaratis celebrate Garba in Maharashtra with a bang. We also enjoy it. Bengalis celebrate Navratri. We too participate in it. South Indians perform Ayyappa's rituals and Marathis pray there. But chhatpooja is not just a religious festival. At least it is not celebrated as one in Mumbai.
It is an akhada (wrestling ring) erected on Mumbai's chest by Bihari leaders to show their strength. There lies the root of our opposition. Sudheendraji, are you aware of any widespread chhatpooja being celebrated by Biharis living in Mauritius, Dubai or any country close to the sea?
How can you compare chhatpooja with Ganeshotsav? Ganesh is acknowledged nationally and internationally as Vighnaharta (the remover of obstacles). When Maharashtians living in other states celebrate Ganeshotsav, do they invite Pawarsaheb (Sharad Pawar), Munde (BJP leader Gopinath Munde), Balasaheb (Bal Thackeray), Vilasrao (Vilasrao Deshmukh) or Sushilkumar (Sushilkumar Shinde) to deliver fiery speeches?
Do Maharashtrians use Ganeshotsav to establish cultural and political supremacy in that state and make it a cultural vassal state? If any Maharashtrian is doing it, I object to that. But Maharashtrians never do it. Except people from U.P. and Bihar, migrants from other states do not indulge in such feudal activity.
States like Rajasthan, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana are also in the north. Maharashtra has no objection to them because migrants from these states behave responsibly. I agree with you that India is a country of bouquets with flowers of different states.
But if a flower of one colour is rubbed violently on the petal of another of a different colour, it will damage both. There will be no manomilan (amalgamation). Nobody should do it.
I and my party were not against the common man from U.P. and Bihar, but when this common man comes to Maharashtra to prove the dadagiri of leaders from U.P. and Bihar!
Well, what is the history of such leaders? We would have followed their model if they had made U.P. and Bihar progressive states and created paradise. But these leaders have exploited the poor man there and impoverished these states by bringing in a mafia culture. What are these leaders saying here? "Take action against Raj Thackeray because he is a goonda!"
Sudheendraji, how could you fall prey to the disinformation campaign of leaders and journalists from U.P. and Bihar?
I will give you just one example, after reading which you and the whole world will realise how these leaders and bhaiyya journalists indulge in false and poisonous propaganda.
You have said that I have blamed Amitabh Bachchan for singing the "Chhora Ganga Kinarewala" song from the film "Don". It is totally false.
Bhaiyya journalists from U.P. and Bihar, who address Amar Singh as "sir, sir" have spread this venomous story all over the country. Am I mad to blame Amitabh for singing this line in "Don"? If that were the case, I would have demanded his arrest for acting in "Don"!
If I had to indulge in something foolish, I would have stooped to Lalu Prasad Yadav's level. Do you know the truth, Sudheendraji? Amitabh Bachchan delivered a speech and I have the clipping. I can show it to you.
He said, "Mai Dilli raha, Calcutta raha, Mai Bambai (not Mumbai!) raha. Phir bhi meri pehchan, chhora Ganga kinarewala hi hai".
My only observation was that if such a great hero feels love for Uttar Pradesh despite what Mumbai gave him, then what is wrong if a small man like Raj Thackeray feels love for Maharashtra?
I have the clipping of my speech with me. Isn't this enough to prove that such venomous propaganda has misguided a media stalwart like you?
Which Maharashtrian does not love India?
This love is not limited to just bursting crackers after India wins a cricket match, but is as vast as the Sahyadri rushing to help the Himalayas whenever there is a shadow of foreign invasion. Have Maharastrians failed to think about the country?
In fact, Maharashtrians have always thought of the country first, before they think of their own region. My chest swells with pride whenever I say Jai Hind. But nobody should forget that my Maharashtra is a part of India. It has its own culture, its own identity.
Nobody should forget it.
A guest is welcomed if he adjusts himself to the host's house. But if he tries to change the host's house through dadagiri, we won't tolerate it. And no means no!
I am proud of my workers for their struggle! Please don't call it 'Rada' (hooliganism) by giving old and historic references. They hit the streets to protect their own language and culture. Police are visiting their houses again and again and beating them up like cattle to punish them for protecting their language and culture.
They are tolerating it quietly. For whom? For Maharashtra! For India! It is fashionable for intellectuals here to blame my party for the unsolved problem of Marathi identity. But am I or my party responsible for it?
And if it has not been solved, is it wrong to struggle for it? For several decades, the mind of Maharashtrians is struggling to solve the Belgaum border issue. There have been several struggles on several levels. But the problem is where it was. Now, are you going to suggest that Maharashtrians should keep quite by presuming that the problem has been solved?
Whether it is the question of Palestine or Tamils, European countries and dada countries like America and the U.N. have not been able to solve them for several decades. Have they given up their efforts to solve these problems? Or have they withdrawn by presuming that the problem does not exist?
And your last point, Sudheendraji. You have said that I was tempted to launch this agitation in order to get instant and wide publicity for my party. Some arrogant journalists and intellectuals have called it a political stunt.
Sudheendraji, frankly speaking, I am not interested in publicity, impact, political benefits and votes. Such success is easily got by political compromise. I don't speak to journalists for months together.
I organise meetings and study developmental issues. Journalists then ask 'has Raj Thackeray formed a political party or an NGO?' When I concentrate on organisational matters and ignore other immediate things, journalists ask 'is Raj Thackeray building a party or a house?' (which is my means of livelihood). Then, when I respond to my inner voice and hit the street, journalists say 'this is Raj Thackeray's stunt for publicity'.
Sudheendraji, I have learnt to digest all this. I only respond to my inner voice. You may call it anything.
Sudheendraji, I hope you are satisfied. I have selected Maharashtra as my area of work.
Some inherent deficiencies have to be removed to make Maharashtra magnificent and progressive. For constructing a new building, some soil has to be dug for laying the foundation.
From this very Maharashtra, a great man had challenged the Mughal empire with the help of 15-50 colleagues. (I don't intend to compare myself with Chhatrapati Shivraya, lest Maharashtra's intellectuals come down on me).
The grave of the powerful Mughal emperor -- Aurangzeb -- exists in Daulatabad in Maharashtra.
Riding on the storm created by his 15-50 companions, the great man laid the foundation of an empire. That was the Maratha empire.
I pray to Shivaji to lend me and my colleagues at the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena a fraction of himself. I am ending this informal letter with the hope that you will wish us well.
Jai Maharashtra
Raj Thackeray
(Translated by Rakshit Sonawane)
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Do-political-movements-need-to-obey-the-law-What-about-Advani-rath-yatra-Modis-Godhra-outrage/276266/
'Terrorism from Pak is a threat to the whole region'
Islamabad Stepping up pressure on Pakistan, Britain on Friday asked it to go "farther and faster" in taking action against those involved in the Mumbai attacks and root out terrorist infrastructure within the country.
"The whole international community wants Pakistan to go farther and go faster," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told a press conference here after meetings with Pakistani leaders including Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Miliband, who travelled to Pakistan after a visit to India, advocated a two-pronged approach comprising the prosecution of the people detained and "putting out of business" the terrorist infrastructure within Pakistan that can be used to launch further attacks outside the country.
"I want the Pakistan government to take action because British people have been hurt... because terrorism from Pakistan is a threat to the stability of the whole region," he said.
"It is vital that the detentions are turned into prosecution with charges, and if found guilty, for the persons to be punished," Miliband said, adding Pakistan must "rebuff" attempts for its soil to be used as a launching pad for attacks like those in Mumbai.
In the long term, Pakistan must use a combination of economic, political and security measures to root out terrorist infrastructure. For this, the country would need the support of the world community through steps such as the provision of financial aid by the International Monetary Fund and Friends of Pakistan, he said.
Miliband said it was "very clear" that the Mumbai attacks were carried out by the outlawed Lashker-e-Taiba group and had originated in Pakistan. "The terrorism which struck in Mumbai is the greatest threat faces Pakistan," he warned.
US retail giant Circuit City goes out of business
New York Economic downturn leading tightening of consumer spending has forced bankrupt second largest electronic retailer in the United States, Circuit City, to go out of business.
The company which had filed for bankruptcy protection in November in the hope of emerging as slimmer outfit apparently came to the conclusion that it is not possible and decided to close its stores across the United States and liquidate its assets.
The company announced the closure of all 576 of its stores after its efforts failed to even to find a buyer.
Reports said that most of its 34,000 employees would be laid off. It would put its merchandise on sale today and close its doors permanently by the end of March.
Analysts said this shows that uphill task that incoming President Barack Obama will face in his efforts to create hundreds of thousands job and some even questioned whether the stimulus package proposed by him could the do the trick.
"We are extremely disappointed by this outcome," said James A. Marcum, acting president and chief executive of Circuit City Stores. He called the liquidation "the only possible path" for the 60-year-old company.
"Regrettably for the employees of Circuit City and our loyal customers, we were unable to reach an agreement with our creditors and lenders to structure a going-concern transaction ... and so this is the only possible path for our company," he added.
The demise of Circuit City, while not surprising given its declining sales, is part of a radical shift taking place in retailing, the New York Times said, adding that weak chains unable to weather the freeze-up in consumer spending and choked by tight credit markets are closing.
The downturn comes after years of growth, when retailers responding to a flood of demand from consumers spending borrowed money opened thousands of stores. Now that the housing downturn and economic crisis have turned off the credit spigot and sent frightened consumers into hiding, it is becoming evident that many of those stores are not needed, the paper added.
Many more retailers are expected to follow suit as they run out of working capital or are unable to refinance their debt, the paper said.
Analysts said the sales during the holiday season were weak and the profits were still weaker as most the merchandise was sold on deep discount. They expect only discount stores to survive the downturn and say that those who survive could be assured of good business.
OPEN LETTER TO ALL INDIANS:INDIANS ARE A GLOBAL MENACE
By Stanley Perera from Melbourne
To: All Indians
The world opinion is that the Indians are the most un-reliable people in the world. So let us analyse in brief otherwise this write up will end up as a book.
UGANDAN INDIANS
Why did Idi Amin Kick all Indians out of Uganda? Because Ugandan economy was in the hands of Indians only treating Ugandan people as dirt.
FIJI INDIANS
Colonial masters imported to Fiji cheap as chips starving south Indians as coolies and sugarcane farm labourers. Indigenous Fijians being the owners of the land they refused to work under British regime. To-day the Indian population is built up to 51% of the total Fijian population and the country's economy is brought under the control of the Indians. The indigenous Fijians are treated like dirt in the same fashion as the Dalith people are treated in India. The political stability is non existent and in the past 15 years three military coups have toppled the democratically elected governments. Fiji Indians have brought the country into a chaotic situation.
SINGAPORE INDIAN TAMILS
When Singapore Indian Tamil became the leader of the opposition, Lee Kuan Lee saw him as a threat to him and framed some corruption charges and put him in jail.
MALAYSIN INDIAN TAMILS
Mohamed Mahathir kept the Malaysia's Indian Tamils in the right place with some concessions.
SRI LANKAN INDIAN TAMILS
Our Colonial masters brought into Sri Lanka ship loads of cheap as chips starving south Indians as coolies and plantation labourers to do the meanial jobs as the owners of the land native Sinhalese people refused to work under British regime. To-day these estate Tamils are playing pugs with the government while Filthy Indian Indira Gandi and South Indian M.G.Ramachandran created made in India Tamil Tiger Terrorists conducting terrorist activities murdering so far over 70,000 people causing a coloosal amount of damage to the public assets with full support of the South Indian Tamil nadu seenile political jokers. These Tamil Nadu jokers, Vaiko,Nedumaran, Kanimozi, Muthuvel Karunanidi are providing the proscribed LTTE Terrorists with starving men, women and children, fuel, food, arms and ammunition and other equipment necessary for the terrorist activitie.
Therefore it is fair to say that the filthy Indians are a global menace.
Yours faithfully,
Stanley Perera
Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items09/170109-7.html
--- In communist_news@yahoogroups.com, mark
Israeli fire kills 2 boys sheltering at UN school in Gaza
15:49
|
17/ 01/ 2009
GAZA, January 17 (RIA Novosti) - Israeli troops fired on a United
Nations school in Gaza on Saturday, killing two Palestinian boys, a
UN spokesman said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Saturday for an immediate
ceasefire from both sides in the conflict, describing the violence
as "unprecedented in recent decades."
The Israeli government is expected to consider later Saturday
calling a 10-day unilateral ceasefire, a move that has already been
dismissed by a Hamas representative in Lebanon.
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched
a major military offensive in Gaza on December 27 in a bid to put an
end to rocket attacks on Israeli territories from the Hamas-
controlled enclave.
Dozens of schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, set up in
1949 to help Palestinian refugees, are sheltering around 40,000 Gaza
residents due to the ongoing conflict.
Thousands more huddle in their homes, hoping to avoid stray bullets
and shrapnel by staying away from windows.
"Fifteen of us - three families with eight children - crowded into
our tiny kitchen. We sat like that through the night, in terrible
fear," said a Russian citizen in Zahra, south of Gaza City, which
had until now avoided Israeli military operations.
The Israeli Cabinet is expected to discuss on Saturday evening an
end to the attacks, with the move possibly coming into immediate
effect. However, troops would remain in Palestinian territory, and
Hamas rejected Israel's plan as "an attempt to break the Egyptian
plan to achieve a bilateral ceasefire."
"A unilateral ceasefire does not bring a withdrawal of the Israeli
forces," said Osama Hamdan, Hamas's representative in Lebanon,
warning that "confrontation will continue."
The UN secretary general said innocent civilians could not wait any
longer for a halt in the military conflict. "We need an immediate
ceasefire," Ban told the Lebanese parliament.
"We cannot wait for all the details, the mechanisms, to be
conclusively negotiated and agreed, while civilians continue to be
traumatized, injured or killed," he said.
"We have no more time to lose."
In communist_news@yahoogroups.com, mark
Lula urges Obama to respect Latin America
Rio De Janeiro (Xinhua): U.S. President-elect Barack Obama needs to
make "a gesture of transcendence towards Latin America" and respect
the sovereignty and democracy of the region, Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday.
Obama, who takes office next week, needs to maintain an egalitarian
relationship with Latin America, Lula added.
Lula also defended Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian
President Evo Morales' move to seek contact with Obama in order to
improve their relations with the United States.
The Brazilian leader also called for the lifting of the U.S.
economic embargo against Cuba.
Latin America has learnt to watch over its poor population and live
in democracy, and needs to be viewed from a development and
investments angle without prejudice, he added.
Lula is currently in Venezuela for a meeting with President Hugo
Chavez.
Connect with friends all over the world. Get Yahoo! India
Messenger at http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/?wm=n/
Killed by Israel, Eaten by Dogs
By Ola Attallah, IOL Correspondent
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1231760488574&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout
Nearly 300 children have fallen victim to the ongoing Israeli onslaught. (Reuters)
GAZA CITY - "Oh, God! I have never seen such a terrible scene," cried Kayed Abu Aukal.
The emergency doctor could not believe himself seeing the remains of what was days back Shahd, a full-fleshed 4-year-old Palestinian girl.
She died when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her home in the Jabalya refugee camp northern Gaza strip, where she was playing.
When her parents attempted to rush to the rescue of their kid, who fell to the ground amid a pool of her blood, rains of Israeli bullets kept them a distance.
For the next five days Shahd's which was left lying in the open left for dogs to tear out.
"The dogs did leave one single part of the poor baby's body intact," said a tearful Abu Aukal.
Gaza... New Sabra and Shatila
Israel Blocks Gaza Rescue Efforts: ICRC
"We have seen heart-breaking scenes over the past 18 days. We picked up children whose bodies were torn or burnt, but nothing like this."
For five days Shahd's brother, Matar, and cousin, Mohamed, tried in vain to reach her body. They were fired at by the Israeli occupation forces every time.
Seeing the body of the little angel torn to piece by the assaulting dogs, the two made one final attempt, and it was their last.
They were showered by Israeli bullets before they could reach Shahd's body, joining a long list of more than 920 Palestinians killed by Israel since December 27.
Deliberate
Omran Zayda, a young neighbor, said the Israelis knew very well what they were doing. "They chased her family and prevented them from reaching to her body, knowing that the dogs would eat it," he said.
"They are not just killing our children, they are intentionally doing so in the most heinous and inhuman ways." Zayda said words, and even cameras, can not describe the horrific scene.
"You can never imagine what the dogs have done to her innocent body," he said, fighting back his tears. Many Palestinians insist Shahd was not the first or only such case.
In Jabalya, when Abd Rabu's family was trying to bury three of its dead, the Israeli forces started firing at them, witnesses said.
They then released their dogs at the bodies, deserted by mourners who sought shelter from the Israeli gunfire, they added.
"What happened was awful and unthinkable," Saad Abd Rabu, the deceased uncle, told IOL.
"Our sons died before our eyes and we were even prevented from burying them," he cried. "The Israelis just released their dogs at their bodies, as even they have not done enough."
+++++++++
Gaza war rages as toll tops 1,000, 1/3 children
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200911423552104447.html
'Israel must end its criminal war and slaughter of our people'
My Message to the West
By Prime Minister Islami Haniyeh - Gaza
January 15, 2009
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id 679
(Originally published in the British Independent – independent.co.uk)
I write this article to Western readers across the social and
political spectrum as the Israeli war machine continues to massacre
my people in Gaza. To date, almost 1,000 have been killed, nearly
half of whom are women and children. Last week's bombing of the UNRWA
(UN Relief Works Agency) school in the Jabalya refugee camp was one
of the most despicable crimes imaginable, as hundreds of civilians
had abandoned their homes and sought refuge with the international
agency only to be mercilessly shelled and bombed by Israel. Forty-six
children and women were killed in that heinous attack while scores
were injured.
Evidently, Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 did not
end its occupation nor, as a result, its international obligations as
an occupying power. It continued to control and dominate our borders
by land, sea and air. Indeed the UN has confirmed that between 2005
and 2008, the Israeli army killed nearly 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza,
including 222 children. For most of that period the border crossings
have remained effectively closed, with only limited quantities of
food, industrial fuel, animal feed and a few other essential items,
allowed in.
Despite its frantic efforts to conceal it, the root cause of Israel's
criminal war on Gaza is the elections of January 2006, which saw
Hamas win by a substantial majority. What occurred next was that
Israel alongside the United States and the European Union joined
forces in an attempt to quash the democratic will of the Palestinian
people. They set about reversing the decision first by obstructing
the formation of a national unity government and then by making a
living hell for the Palestinian people through economic
strangulation. The abject failure of all these machinations finally
led to this vicious war. Israel's objective is to silence all voices
that express the will of the Palestinian; thereafter it would impose
its own terms for a final settlement depriving us of our land, our
right to Jerusalem as the rightful capital of our future state and
the Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes.
Ultimately, the comprehensive siege on Gaza, which manifestly
violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibited the most basic
medical supplies to our hospitals. It disallowed the delivery of fuel
and supply of electricity to our population. And on top of all of
this inhumanity, it denied them food and the freedom of movement,
even to seek treatment. This led to the avoidable death of hundreds
of patients and the spiralling rise of malnutrition among our
children.
Palestinians are appalled that the members of the European Union do
not view this obscene siege as a form of aggression. Despite the
overwhelming evidence, they shamelessly assert that Hamas brought
this catastrophe upon the Palestinian people because it did not renew
the truce. Yet we ask, did Israel honour the terms of the ceasefire
mediated by Egypt in June? It did not. The agreement stipulated a
lifting of the siege and an end to attacks in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip. Despite our full compliance, the Israelis persisted in
murdering Palestinians in Gaza as well as the West Bank during what
became known as the year of the Annapolis peace.
None of the atrocities committed against our schools, universities,
mosques, ministries and civil infra-structure would deter us in the
pursuit of our national rights. Undoubtedly, Israel could demolish
every building in the Gaza Strip but it would never shatter our
determination or steadfastness to live in dignity on our land.
Surely, if the gathering of civilians in a building only to then bomb
it or the use of phosphorous bombs and missiles are not war crimes,
then what is? How many more international treaties and conventions
must Zionist Israel breach before it is held accountable? There is
not a capital in the world today where free and decent people are not
outraged by this brutal oppression. Neither Palestine nor the world
would be the same after these crimes.
There is only one way forward and no other. Our condition for a new
ceasefire is clear and simple. Israel must end its criminal war and
slaughter of our people, lift completely and unconditionally its
illegal siege of the Gaza Strip, open all our border crossings and
completely withdraw from Gaza. After this we would consider future
options. Ultimately, the Palestinians are a people struggling for
freedom from occupation and the establishment of an independent state
with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees to their
villages from which they were expelled. Whatever the cost, the
continuation of Israel's massacres will neither break our will nor
our aspiration for freedom and independence.
- Ismail Haniyeh is the Prime Minister of the Palestinian government
in Gaza. (Originally published in the British Independent –
independent.co.uk, January 15
===
Hamas says no to Israeli-style truce
Fri, 16 Jan 2009
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=82562§ionid=351020202
Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal
Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal says the resistance movement refuses to
renew a Tel Aviv-style truce which would keep Gaza under siege.
"Gaza cannot die slowly with the siege or quickly with the firepower
of the Israeli military," said the movement's political chief at the
Doha summit on Gaza Friday.
On June 19, an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire was brokered between Hamas
and Israel, under which the Palestinian movement agreed to stop
firing rockets and Israel accepted to gradually ease its embargo on
the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli embargo, however, remains on the impoverished strip to
this day.
"We made a very normal request: Lift the siege off Gaza….Six months
past and the siege was not lifted," Mashaal added.
Israel launched Operation Cast Lead shortly after the temporary
ceasefire expired on December 27 to put an end to rocket attacks
against southern Israeli towns. At least 1,133 Palestinians have died
during the offensive, while some 5,150 others have been wounded.
The Hamas chief said, "The Israeli attacks were not launched because
the Palestinian resistance did not renew the truce…. This war was
imposed to destroy the resistance so Israel can impose its own
conditions for a settlement based on Israeli and American interests."
"Israel, after realizing that there is no solution without Al-Quds
(Jerusalem), and without the right of (Palestinian) return and
without withdrawing from the territories, without putting together a
true Palestinian state,…tried to create new rules for the game,
impose its own conditions for reaching a settlement and the
resistance proved an obstacle to this."
Reports indicate that Hamas fighters have prevented the Israeli
army's advance into the heart of Gaza City.
The Hamas chief asserted that the Israeli campaign would come to an
end because of Palestinian perseverance and that they have been
unable to break the will of the Palestinian people.
Mashaal reiterated the Palestinian demands that Israel end its
military campaign in Gaza, pull out its troops, lift the siege and
open the 'Palestinian-Egyptian' Rafah crossing before any talks can
be held.
===
Haniya salutes Gaza steadfastness, says Palestinians will emerge
victoriou
Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
Jan 13, 2009
Democratically-elected Prime Minister Ismael Haniya on Monday saluted
the "legendary steadfastness" of the people of Gaza in the face of
the 17-day Nazi-like Israeli onslaught against the coastal enclave
which has killed and maimed thousands of Palestinians, mostly
innocent civilians, and wreaked rampant havoc and
destruction.Speaking on the al-Aqsa satellite TV, Haniya said the
Palestinian blood spilled by the "criminals" would not go in vain.
"This blood, this pain, will deliver the Palestinian people and the
Arab-Muslim Umma (community) from this state of affair. It will be a
turning point leading up to new horizons of dignity and freedom for
our people."
Haniya described the steadfastness, resilience and fortitude of the
people of Gaza as "unprecedented in the annals of history."
He pointed out that the people of Gaza were still standing tall
despite the earth-shaking calamities that befell them, saying that
God was enabling the people of Gaza to withstand the genocidal
Israeli onslaught.
He recited heavily from the Holy Quran, reminding viewers that the
people of Gaza would at the end regain their freedom and retain their
dignity.
The elected Palestinian premier also made analogies between the early
life of the Prophet Muhammed, especially the wars waged on him and
his companions by the idolaters, and the current situation in Gaza.
"If God is with us, we have nothing to fear. Israel is not greater or
stronger than God."Haniya pointed out that Israel was carrying out
genocidal massacres throughout Gaza for the purpose of subjugating
and humiliating its people and imposing surrender on the Palestinian
people.
"They have murdered over 450 children and they have maimed thousands.
They thought they would break our will, but, nay, they never will be
able to subjugate us.
"Remember my brothers and sisters, victory comes with
patience."verily with hardship comes ease," said Haniya, quoting from
the Holy Quran.
He said the huge amount of blood spilled by the Judeo Nazis "will be
an eternal curse that will haunt 'these criminals' wherever they go."
The Palestinian Prime Minister said he was confronting the Israeli
holocaust against Gaza on two fronts:
First, the diplomatic front, saying that Hamas was dealing positively
with any genuine effort aimed at stopping the Zionist blitzkrieg.
Second, steadfastness in the face of the aggression.Haniya saluted
the freedom fighters, saying that they displayed a heroism unmatched
in recent history.
Haniya said Palestinians in Gaza would keep up the resistance until
victory.
"Gaza shall not fall, Gaza shall not fall, Gaza shall not fall."
Muslim woman, rabbis to pray at inaugural service
Jan 15, 2009
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK
Barack Obama's choice of clergy is under scrutiny like no other
president-elect before him, alternately outraging Americans on the
left and the right as he navigates the minefield of U.S. religion.
The Inauguration Committee has only released one clergy name so far
for the Jan. 21 National Prayer Service that caps the inauguration.
The Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first woman president of the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ), a Protestant group, will deliver the
sermon.
The Associated Press has learned additional details.
A prayer will be offered at the National Cathedral by Ingrid Mattson,
the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America,
according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to release the information. The Islamic
Society is the largest U.S. Muslim group.
Three rabbis, representing the three major branches of American
Judaism, will also say a prayer at the service, according to
officials familiar with the plans. The Jewish clergy are Reform Rabbi
David Saperstein, Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein and Orthodox
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, sources said.
NOTE: There is still time to pressure ISNA to insist on a less
insulting line-up. If there are to be three rabbis, there should be
three imams; one Shia, one Sunni, and one who represents the African
American community. - WVNS
Prosecutor shouts at judge in Cheney hearing
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer
RAYMONDVILLE, Texas -- A county prosecutor who won indictments
against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday
about special treatment for high-profile defendants as a routine
motions hearing descended into chaos.
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, who is accusing
the public officials of culpability in the alleged abuse of prisoners
in a federal detention center, asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales
to recuse himself. Guerra has complained about Banales' handling of
the case.
Attorneys for the vice president and other defendants leapt to their
feet in objection, as Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of
giving the defendants special treatment in allowing motions to quash
the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned. The
defendants, who were not required to be in court, were all expected
to waive arraignment, but the hearing never progressed that far.
"Now all of a sudden there is urgency," Guerra shouted at
Banales. "Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election."
The charges against Guerra were dismissed in October, but he had
already lost re-election in the March Democratic primary.
"Did you think, judge, my grand jury didn't take this seriously?"
Guerra said. "They indicted the vice president."
Banales called a recess to contact the chief justice of the state
Supreme Court for suggestions on how to proceed, and ordered Guerra
to remain in the courthouse.
"I will not obey that order," Guerra said. When Banales implied he
would take steps to keep Guerra in court, Guerra agreed to stay if
the judge asked him respectfully.
Banales adjourned until Wednesday.
Outside the courtroom, defense attorneys suggested Guerra was
unstable.
"What came out today was the mental state of the proscutor was
exposed to the court," said Tony Canales, co-counsel representing
private prison company The GEO Group. Canales was also communicating
the proceedings to attorneys for Cheney and Gonzales, who were not
represented in court Friday.
But that talk only incited Guerra, who said he's heard "the (district
attorney) is loco" before.
"I know exactly what I'm doing," Guerra said.
Unlike the initial hearing last Wednesday when Guerra was absent and
media and attorneys for the indicted appeared in equal numbers,
curious residents packed the well-worn pews of the Willacy County
Courthouse's only courtroom Friday.
Half of the indictments returned Monday are linked to privately run
federal detention centers in the sparsely populated southern Texas
county. The other half target judges, special prosecutors and the
district clerk who played a role in an earlier investigation of
Guerra.
Banales appointed a temporary prosecutor to handle the local
officials indicted along with Cheney, Gonzales and state Sen. Eddie
Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, because Guerra has sparred with them for
years and would be a witness in their cases.
It was Guerra's interest in the contracts to build and run a federal
detention center that led to some of his biggest successes - three
guilty pleas on bribery charges from former county commissioners in
2005. But he also believes it was the motivation for his own legal
battles.
He continued working for more than a year while under indictment on
charges of extorting money from a bail bond company and using his
office for personal business until Banales dismissed the indictment
last month.
Guerra ran the current investigation into alleged prisoner abuse with
a siege mentality. He worked it from his home, dubbed it "Operation
Goliath" and kept it secret from his staff, he said. He gave all the
witnesses biblical pseudonyms - his was "David" - and sometimes gave
false reasons for witnesses' appearances so as not to raise suspicion
in a courthouse he believed to be filled with political enemies. A
clerk and a judge who share the building were among those indicted
Monday.
The grand jury also charged Lucio with illegally profiting from his
position by accepting consulting fees from private prison comapnies.
The GEO Group Corp. was indicted on a murder charge for the death of
an inmate at a federal prison.
Cheney's indictment alleges that his personal investment in the
Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, gives him
culpability in alleged prisoner abuse. Guerra distributed a simple
flow chart alleging how Cheney profitted from the prisons.
Other indictments charge two district judges, two special prosecutors
and the Willacy County district clerk with abusing their powers in
investigating Guerra's office.
Will an Obama Administration Reverse the Tide?
Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse?
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10860
Most Serious Economic Crisis in Modern History
The October 2008 financial meltdown is not the result of a cyclical
economic phenomenon. It is the deliberate result of US government
policy instrumented through the Treasury and the US Federal Reserve
Board.
This is the most serious economic crisis in World history.
The "bailout" proposed by the US Treasury does not constitute
a "solution" to the crisis. In fact quite the opposite: it is the
cause of further collapse. It triggers an unprecedented concentration
of wealth, which in turn contributes to widening economic and social
inequalities both within and between nations.
The levels of indebtedness have skyrocketed. Industrial corporations
are driven into bankruptcy, taken over by the global financial
institutions. Credit, namely the supply of loanable funds, which
constitutes the lifeline of production and investment, is controlled
by a handful of financial conglomerates.
With the "bailout", the public debt has spiraled. America is the most
indebted country on earth. Prior to the "bailout", the US public debt
was of the order of 10 trillion dollars. This US dollar denominated
debt is composed of outstanding treasury bills and government bonds
held by individuals, foreign governments, corporations and financial
institutions.
"The Bailout": The US Administration is Financing its Own Indebtedness
Ironically, the Wall Street banks --which are the recipients of the
bailout money-- are also the brokers and underwriters of the US
public debt. Although the banks hold only a portion of the public
debt, they transact and trade in US dollar denominated public debt
instruments Worldwide.
In a bitter twist, the banks are the recipients of a 700+ billion
dollar handout and at the same time they act as creditors of the US
government.
We are dealing with an absurd circular relationship: To finance the
bailout, Washington must borrow from the banks, which are the
recipients of the bailout.
The US administration is financing its own indebtedness.
Federal, State and municipal governments are increasingly in a
straightjacket, under the tight control of the global financial
conglomerates. Increasingly, the creditors call the shots on
government reform.
The bailout is conducive to the consolidation and centralization of
banking power, which in turn backlashes on real economic activity,
leading to a string of bankruptcies and mass unemployment.
Will an Obama Administration Reverse the Tide?
The financial crisis is the outcome of a deregulated financial
architecture.
Obama has stated unequivocally his resolve to address the policy
failures of the Bush administration and "democratize" the US
financial system. President-Elect Barack Obama says that he is
committed to reversing the tide:
"Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything,
it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street
suffers. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one
people." (President-elect Barack Obama, November 4, 2008, emphasis
added)
The Democrats casually blame the Bush administration for the October
financial meltdown.
Obama says that he will be introducing an entirely different policy
agenda which responds to the interests of Main Street:
"Tomorrow, you can turn the page on policies that put the greed and
irresponsibility of Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of
men and women all across Main Street. Tomorrow you can choose
policies that invest in our middle class and create new jobs and grow
this economy so that everybody has a chance to succeed, from the CEO
to the secretary and the janitor, from the factory owner to the men
and women who work on the factory floor.( Barack Obama, election
campaign, November 3, 2008, emphasis added)
Is Obama committed to "taming Wall Street" and "disarming financial
markets"?
Ironically, it was under the Clinton administration that these
policies of "greed and irresponsibility" were adopted.
The 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) was conducive to
the the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. A pillar of
President Roosevelt's "New Deal", the Glass-Steagall Act was put in
place in response to the climate of corruption, financial
manipulation and "insider trading" which resulted in more than 5,000
bank failures in the years following the 1929 Wall Street crash.
Bill Clinton signs into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial
Services Modernization Act, November 12, 1999
Under the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, effective
control over the entire US financial services industry (including
insurance companies, pension funds, securities companies, etc.) had
been transferred to a handful of financial conglomerates and their
associated hedge funds.
The Engineers of Financial Disaster
Who are the architects of this debacle?
In a bitter irony, the engineers of financial disaster are now being
considered by President-Elect Barack Obama's Transition Team for the
position Treasury Secretary:
Lawrence Summers played a key role in lobbying Congress for the
repeal of the Glass Steagall Act. His timely appointment by President
Clinton in 1999 as Treasury Secretary spearheaded the adoption of the
Financial Services Modernization Act in November 1999. Upon
completing his mandate at the helm of the US Treasury, he became
president of Harvard University (2001- 2006).
Paul Volker was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the l980s
during the Reagan era. He played a central role in implementing the
first stage of financial deregulation, which was conducive to mass
bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, leading up to the 1987
financial crisis.
Timothy Geithner is CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,
which is the most powerful private financial institution in America.
He was also a former Clinton administration Treasury official. He has
worked for Kissinger Associates and has also held a senior position
at the IMF. The FRBNY plays a behind the scenes role in shaping
financial policy. Geithner acts on behalf of powerful financiers, who
are behind the FRBNY. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations (CFR)
Jon Corzine is currently governor of New Jersey, former CEO of
Goldman Sachs.
Larry Summers (left) and Timothy Geithner
At the time of writing, Obama's favorite is Larry Summers, front-
runner for the position of Treasury Secretary.
Harvard University Economics Professor Lawrence Summers served as
Chief Economist for the World Bank (1991–1993). He contributed to
shaping the macro-economic reforms imposed on numerous indebted
developing countries. The social and economic impact of these reforms
under the IMF-World Bank sponsored structural adjustment program
(SAP) were devastating, resulting in mass poverty.
Larry Summer's stint at the World Bank coincided with the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the imposition of the IMF-World Bank's deadly "
economic medicine" on Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics and
the Balkans.
In 1993, Summers moved to the US Treasury. He initially held the
position of Undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs
and later Deputy Secretary. In liaison with his former colleagues at
the IMF and the World Bank, he played a key role in crafting the
economic "shock treatment" reform packages imposed at the height of
the 1997 Asian crisis on South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia.
The bailout agreements negotiated with these three countries were
coordinated through Summers office at the Treasury in liaison with
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Washington based Bretton
Woods institutions. Summers worked closely with IMF Deputy Managing
Director Stanley Fischer, who was later appointed Governor of the
Central Bank of Israel.
Larry Summers became Treasury Secretary in July 1999. He is a protégé
of David Rockefeller. He was among the main architects of the
infamous Financial Services Modernization Act, which provided
legitimacy to inside trading and outright financial manipulation.
Larry Summers and David Rockefeller
"Putting the Fox in Charge of the Chicken Coop"
Summers is currently a Consultant to Goldman Sachs and managing
director of a Hedge fund, the D.E. Shaw Group, As a Hedge Fund
manager, his contacts at the Treasury and on Wall Street provide him
with valuable inside information on the movement of financial
markets.
Putting a Hedge Fund manager (with links to the Wall Street financial
establishment) in charge of the Treasury is tantamount to putting the
fox in charge of the chicken coop.
The Washington Consensus
Summers, Geithner, Corzine, Volker, Fischer, Phil Gramm, Bernanke,
Hank Paulson, Rubin, not to mention Alan Greenspan, al al. are
buddies; they play golf together; they have links to the Council on
Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg; they act concurrently in
accordance with the interests of Wall Street; they meet behind closed
doors; they are on the same wave length; they are Democrats and
Republicans.
While they may disagree on some issues, they are firmly committed to
the Washington-Wall Street Consensus. They are utterly ruthless in
their management of economic and financial processes. Their actions
are profit driven. Outside of their narrow interest in
the "efficiency" of "markets", they have little concern for "living
human beings". How are people's lives affected by the deadly gamut of
macro-economic and financial reforms, which is spearheading entire
sectors of economic activity into bankruptcy.
The economic reasoning underlying neoliberal economic discourse is
often cynical and contemptuous. In this regard, Lawrence Summers'
economic discourse stands out. He is known among environmentalists
for having proposed the dumping of toxic waste in Third World
countries, because people in poor countries have shorter lives and
the costs of labor are abysmally low, which essentially means that
the market value of people in the Third World is much lower.
According to Summers, this makes it far more "cost effective" to
export toxic materials to impoverished countries. A controversial
1991 World Bank memo signed by of Chief Economist Larry Summers reads
as follows (excerpts, emphasis added):
DATE: December 12, 1991 TO: Distribution FR: Lawrence H. Summers
Subject: GEP
"'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World
Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the
Less Developed Countries? I can think of three reasons:
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution
depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and
mortality.... From this point of view a given amount of health
impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest
cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the
economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest
wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial
increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always
though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-
polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low
compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts
that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries
(transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs
of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in
air pollution and waste.
3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health
reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. [the demand
increases when income levels increase]. The concern over an agent
that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer
is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people
survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5
mortality is is 200 per thousand.... "
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/summers.htm
Summers stance on the export of pollution to developing countries had
a marked impact on US environmental policy:
In 1994, "virtually every country in the world broke with Mr.
Summers' Harvard-trained "economic logic" ruminations about dumping
rich countries' poisons on their poorer neighbors, and agreed to ban
the export of hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD [developing]
countries under the Basel Convention. Five years later, the United
States is one of the few countries that has yet to ratify the Basel
Convention or the Basel Convention's Ban Amendment on the export of
hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries. (Jim Valette, Larry
Summers' War Against the Earth, Counterpunch, undated)
The 1997 Asian Crisis: Dress Rehearsal for Things to Come
In the course of 1997, currency speculation instrumented by major
financial institutions directed against Thailand, Indonesia and South
Korea was conducive to the collapse of national currencies and the
transfer of billions of dollars of central bank reserves into private
financial hands. Several observers pointed to the deliberate
manipulation of equity and currency markets by investment banks and
brokerage firms.
While the Asian bailout agreements were formally negotiated with the
IMF, the major Wall Street commercial banks (including Chase, Bank of
America, Citigroup and J. P. Morgan) as well as the "big five"
merchant banks (Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and
Salomon Smith Barney) were "consulted" on the clauses to be included
in the Asian bail-out agreements. [Note: These are 1997 denominations
of major financial institutions]
The US Treasury in liaison with Wall Street and the Bretton Woods
institutions played a central role in negotiating the bailout
agreements. Both Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, were actively
involved on behalf of the US Treasury in the 1997 bailout of South
Korea:
[In 1997] "Messrs. Summers and Geithner worked to persuade Mr. Rubin
to support financial aid to South Korea. Mr. Rubin was wary of such a
move, worrying that providing money to a country in dire straits
might be a losing proposition..." (WSJ, November 8, 2008)
What happened in Korea under advice from Deputy Treasury Secretary
Summers et al, had nothing to do with "financial aid".
The country was literally ransacked. Undersecretary of the Treasury
David Lipton was sent to Seoul in early December 1997. Secret
negotiations were initiated. Washington had demanded the firing of
the Korean Finance Minister and the unconditional acceptance of the
IMF "bailout".
A new finance minister, who happened to be former IMF and World Bank
official, was appointed and immediately rushed off to Washington
for "consultations" with his former IMF colleague Deputy Managing
Director Stanley Fischer.
"The Korean Legislature had met in emergency sessions on December 23.
The final decision concerning the 57 billion dollar deal took place
the following day, on Christmas Eve December 24th, after office hours
in New York. Wall Street's top financiers, from Chase Manhattan, Bank
America, Citicorp and J. P. Morgan had been called in for a meeting
at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Also at the Christmas Eve
venue, were representatives of the big five New York merchant banks
including Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Salomon
Smith Barney. And at midnight on Christmas Eve, upon receiving the
green light from the banks, the IMF was allowed to rush 10 billion
dollars to Seoul to meet the avalanche of maturing short-term debts.
The coffers of Korea's central Bank had been ransacked. Creditors and
speculators were anxiously awaiting to collect the loot. The same
institutions which had earlier speculated against the Korean won were
cashing in on the IMF bailout money. It was a scam. (See Michel
Chossudovsky, The Recolonization of Korea, subsequently published as
a chapter in The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order,
Global Research, Montreal, 2003.)
"Strong economic medicine" is the prescription of the Washington
Consensus. "Short term pain for long term gain" was the motto at the
World Bank during Lawrence Summers term of as World Bank Chief
Economist. (See IMF, World Bank Reforms Leave Poor Behind, Bank
Economist Finds, Bloomberg, November 7, 2000)
What we dealing with is an entire " old boys network" of officials
and advisers at the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the IMF, World
Bank, the Washington Think Tanks, who are in permanent liaison with
leading financiers on Wall Street.
Whoever is chosen by Obama's Transition team will belong to the
Washington Consensus.
The 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act
What happened in October 1999 is crucial.
In the wake of lengthy negotiations behind closed doors, in the Wall
Street boardrooms, in which Larry Summers played a central role, the
regulatory restraints on Wall Street's powerful banking conglomerates
were revoked "with a stroke of the pen".
Larry Summers worked closely with Senator Phil Gramm (1985-
2002),chairman of the Senate Banking committee, who was the
legislative architect of the the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial
Services Modernization Act, signed into law on November 12, 1999 (See
Group Photo above). (For Complete text click US Congress: Pub.L. 106-
102). As Texas Senator, Phil Gramm was closely associated with
Enron.
In December 2000 at the very end of the Clinton mandate, Gramm
introduced a second piece of legislation, the so-called Gramm-Lugar
Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which paved the way for the
speculative onslaught in primary commodities including oil and food
staples.
"The act, he declared, would ensure that neither the sec nor the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (cftc) got into the business of
regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would
thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation"
and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders
into the new century." (See David Corn, Foreclosure Phil, Mother
Jones, July August 2008)
Phil Gramm was McCain's first choice for Secretary of the Treasury.
Under the FSMA new rules – ratified by the US Senate in October 1999
and approved by President Clinton – commercial banks, brokerage
firms, hedge funds, institutional investors, pension funds and
insurance companies could freely invest in each others businesses as
well as fully integrate their financial operations.
A "global financial supermarket" had been created, setting the stage
for a massive concentration of financial power. One of the key
figures behind this project was Secretary of the Treasury Larry
Summers, in liaison with David Rockefeller. Summers described the
FSMA as "the legislative foundation of the financial system of the
21th century". That legislative foundation is among the main causes
of the 2008 financial meltdown.
Financial Disarmament
There can be no meaningful solution to the crisis, unless there is a
major reform in the financial architecture, implying inter alia the
freezing of speculative trade and the "disarming of financial
markets". The project of disarming financial markets was first
proposed by John Maynard Keynes in the 1940s as a means to the
establishment of a multipolar international monetary system. (See
J.M. Keynes, Activities 1940-1944, Shaping the Post-War World: The
Clearing Union, The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Royal
Economic Society, Macmillan and Cambridge University Press, Vol. XXV,
London 1980, p. 57).
Main Street versus Wall Street
Where are Obama's "Main Street appointees"? Namely individuals who
respond to the interests of people across America. There are no
labor or community leaders on Obama's list for key positions.
The President-elect is appointing the architects of financial
deregulation.
Meaningful financial reform cannot be adopted by officials appointed
by Wall Street and who act on behalf of Wall Street.
Those who set the financial system ablaze in 1999, have been called
back to turn out the fire.
The proposed "solution" to the crisis under the "bailout" is the
cause of further economic collapse.
There are no policy solutions on the horizon.
The banking conglomerates call the shots. They decide on the
composition of the Obama Cabinet. They also decide on the agenda of
the Washington Financial Summit (November 15, 2008) which is slated
to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a new "global
financial architecture".
The Wall Street blueprint has already been discussed behind closed
doors: the hidden agenda is to establish a unipolar international
monetary system, dominated by US financial power, which in turn would
be protected and secured by US military superiority.
Neoliberalism with a "Human Face"
There is no indication that Obama will break his ties to his Wall
Street sponsors, who largely funded his election campaign.
Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bill Gates' Microsoft
are among his main campaign contributors.
Warren Buffett, among the the world's richest individuals, not only
supported Barak Obama's election campaign, he is a member of his
transition team, which plays a key role deciding the composition of
Obama's cabinet.
Warren Buffett
Unless there is a major upheaval in the system of political
appointments to key positions, an alternative Obama economic agenda
geared towards poverty alleviation and employment creation is highly
unlikely.
Barack Obama. November 7 Press Conference.
Joe Biden (far left), newly appointed chief of staff Rahm Emanuel
(far right). Photo: Charles Dharapak
What we are witnessing is continuity.
Obama provides a " human face" to the status quo. This human face
serves to mislead Americans on the nature of the economic and
political process.
The neoliberal economic reforms remain intact.
The substance of these reforms including the "bailout" of America's
largest financial institutions ultimately destroys the real economy,
while spearheading entire areas of manufacturing and the services
economy into bankruptcy.
----------------------------------------------------------
The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
by Michel Chossudovsky
In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky's international best-
seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which
feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment,
generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and
undermines the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples
from all parts of the world show so convincingly, is a globalization
of poverty.
This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently
argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is
moving financially and economically.
In this new enlarged edition –which includes ten new chapters and a
new introduction-- the author reviews the causes and consequences of
famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial
markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation
resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of
Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization
(CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website
www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia
Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20
languages.
Published in 12 languages. More than 150,000 copies sold Worldwide.
Obama Urged to Take Bold Steps Toward Normalisation
By Jim Lobe
InterPress Service
January 14, 2008
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45415
WASHINGTON - A broad spectrum of groups and individuals is urging
President-elect Barack Obama to go beyond his campaign pledge to lift curbs
on travel and remittances to their homeland by Cuban Americans and launch a
much broader process of normalisation with Havana.
Several analysts contacted by IPS said they were encouraged by Tuesday's
testimony by Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, who took a more
hawkish position on Cuba during her own presidential campaign last spring,
when she was asked about Obama's plans.
"The President-elect is committed to lifting family travel restrictions and
the remittance restriction," she said.
"...We hope that the regime in Cuba -- both Fidel and (President) Raul
Castro -- will see this new administration as an opportunity to change some
of their typical approaches, let those political prisoners out, be willing
to, you know, open up the economy, and lift some of the oppressive
strictures on the people of Cuba, and I think that there would be an
opportunity that could be perhaps exploited."
In response to written questions, Clinton also disclosed that the incoming
administration planned to conduct a "review" of U.S. policy toward Havana
that, among other issues, would include consideration of increasing U.S.
agricultural sales to the island, bilateral cooperation on energy and the
environment, and whether or not Cuba should be dropped from the State
Department's State Sponsors of Terrorism List where it was first placed in
1982.
"Senator Clinton not only made clear that the Obama administration would
honor its commitment to restore Cuban-American family travel and financial
support," said Sarah Stephens, whose organisation, Center for Democracy in
the Americas (CDA) last week published a 100-page report on how the two
countries can normalise their relations in nine key areas, "but she also
left the door open to significant additional opportunities to engage down
the road."
What with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and nearly
200,000 U.S. troops deployed to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cuba is
unlikely to rank at the top of the new administration's foreign-policy
agenda.
But as a symbol of Obama's oft-stated willingness to engage -- rather than
isolate -- traditional foreign adversaries, Cuba, which has been treated by
Washington as an enemy state virtually since the elder Castro entered Havana
50 years and two weeks ago, could serve as a major touchstone, particularly
for the rest of Latin America.
"Obama can't change the tone in U.S.-Latin America relations while
continuing the same basic policy toward Cuba," said Dan Erickson, a
specialist with the Inter-American Dialogue (IAD) think tank and author of a
new book on the history of U.S.-Cuban relations, 'The Cuba Wars'.
"Ultimately, Cuba by itself is not that important to U.S. Latin America
policy, but it has become an obstacle to better relations with other key
Latin America countries, like Brazil and Venezuela, that have repeatedly
called for the U.S. to open up to Cuba," he said.
Erickson noted that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last month
"took the trouble of holding a whole Latin American summit for the purpose
of inviting Cuba, since it has been excluded [by the U.S.] from the
Organisation of American States (OAS)."
In her testimony, Clinton said the new administration would "return to a
policy of vigorous engagement throughout Latin America," and stressed
Brazil's importance, in particular, as a partner Washington needed to
actively engage.
During the presidential campaign, Obama took the most forthcoming position
on normalising ties with Havana of any of the major candidates, although his
pledge to repeal unpopular restrictions imposed by President George W. Bush
on the freedom of Cuban Americans to travel to their homeland and send money
to their family members there was carefully coordinated with the views of
the Cuban-American National Federation (CANF), a key lobby group that
remains strongly anti-Castro and continues to support the 47-year-old U.S.
trade embargo.
Indeed, in an appearance before CANF last spring, Obama promised to maintain
the embargo against Havana as "leverage" -- a word repeated by Clinton in
her written testimony -- to promote political and economic change in Cuba.
At the same time, however, he stressed that he would "pursue diplomacy" with
Havana "without pre-conditions", and that, "if (Cuba) take(s) significant
steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political
prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalising relations."
In his trip to Brasilia last month, Raul Castro offered to send some 200
prisoners cited by Washington and their families to the United States in
return for five Cubans who were convicted of espionage here and suggested
further that his government was prepared to "make a gesture for a gesture".
He subsequently said Cuba was "willing to talk with Mr. Obama, wherever and
whenever he decides, but under absolute equality of conditions, as equal to
equal."
The growing number of advocates for lifting the embargo, from the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce (USCC) to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA),
believe the moment is riper than ever to pursue that goal in earnest.
"Domestically, Obama owes far less to hard-line Cuban-Americans than did
President Bush," according to Erickson. "He won Florida without requiring a
majority of the Cuban-American vote and, in the end, he didn't even need
Florida to win the election. That gives him greater scope of movement."
"The political centre of gravity has shifted since the campaign, and there's
much more political space to repeal the ban on travel to Cuba for all
Americans and to engage in new and creative ways with the Cuban government,"
Stephens told IPS. "I expect Obama to seize these historic opportunities and
not shrink from them."
Indeed, since the Nov. 4 election, a number of organisations have called for
effectively dismantling the embargo. Two weeks after Obama's victory, a
blue-ribbon inter-American commission convened by the Brookings Institution
-- a number of whose associates are expected to get senior posts in the new
administration -- called for Cuba's immediate removal from the terrorism
list; the lifting of all curbs on travel to the island, an end to
restrictions on humanitarian aid, and the re-integration of Havana into
regional and global institutions, like the OAS and the World Bank from which
Washington has excluded it.
Two weeks later, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) released a letter
to Obama signed by the heads of virtually all of the biggest U.S. business
associations, including the USCC and the National Retail Federation, calling
for the "complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions on Cuba".
"We recognize that change may not come all at once, but it must start
somewhere, and it must begin soon," it said.
The NFTC also released a report on specific steps Obama could take to ease
travel and trade restrictions without seeking legislation from Congress,
some of which were also cited in the new CDA report released last week. It
identified nine areas -- among them, search and rescue, anti-drug
trafficking and other law enforcement activities, health, energy
exploration, and civil defence in dealing with natural disasters -- where
significantly enhanced cooperation would benefit both countries.
Last week, Freedom House, a strongly anti-Communist group that receives
substantial government funding, called publicly for the first time for
ending all restrictions on remittances and travel to and from Cuba.
From: Walter Lippmann
To: CubaNews@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 9:09 AM
Subject: GRANMA: Daniel Chavarria: Who's in charge in Cuba today? Fidel or Raul?
Fidel Castro, being so commanding a presence, his absence from the public
scene here in Cuba is causing endless confusion and anxiety among certain
circles...in Miami. There are those who've been predicting the end of the
Cuban Revolution - they usually refer to it as "the Castro regime" for so
long they must be getting exhausted by now. Andres Oppenheimer, to cite a
prominent example, is often given an ironic "promptness award" for his
seventeen-year-old compendium of supposed Cuban end-of-the-regime
rottenness, entitled, "Castro's Final Hour".
Here in Cuba, Fidel's absence is something to which Cubans are pretty much
"acostumbrado". It's been going on for so long now, in its third year, that
Cubans are simply used to it. Of course, people speak about his influence,
or note his absence in one way or another. But his daily presence, which to
some was like music while to some it was a troubling racket, is simply no
longer a part of daily life in this country. He hasn't made an appearance
in public since July 26, 2006. (I attended his Bayamo speech that day.)
Daniel Chavarria's darkly comic novels ADIOS MUCHACHOS and TANGO FOR A
TORTURER provide their readers with a sardonic look at contemporary Cuba
during these oddly-changing times, in a murder-mystery format. They're out
in English for those interested. Chavarria has lived here in Cuba for many
years and sometimes writes for the daily Cuban media, as here. Nothing
fictional in this essay, which answers the question quite eloquently.
Walter Lippmann
Havana, Cuba
=========================================================================
GRANMA
January 9, 2009
THE GOVERNMENT OF JOSÉ MARTÍ
Daniel Chavarría*
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2290.html
Throughout the past 15 years, several -mainly European- journalists
coincided in asking me what was going to happen when Fidel would no longer
be in command of the state. And I, who could never find the way to summarize
all that I would have been able to say on that subject, used to slip away
with the emphatic statement that, irrespective of who would govern,
everything would stay the same, according to the guidelines traced by Fidel.
But since the recent Rio Group summit at San Salvador de Bahia, I have found
an answer which seems more sensible to me. I was inspired by Fidel, when he
affirmed, while confronting his interrogators, that José Martí had been the
intellectual author of the attack on the Moncada Barracks.
A few days ago, in the course of a telephone interview for Uruguay Radio of
Montevideo, the journalist asked me whether it was Fidel or Raul who
governed in Cuba today, and it occurred to me to say that in Cuba, for the
past 50 years, it was José Martí who governed. Of course, to avoid the risk
of making people think that this was no more than a rhetorical phrase, I had
to go back into Cuban history and to explain that, when Cuban nationality
was still incipiently being forged, Spanish colonialism imposed shackles and
chains on a barely 16-year-old José Martí, and subjected him to forced labor
at a quarry in Havana, before deporting him to Spain. I further explained
that, ever since, the young patriot lived a life full of deprivation and
exiles, totally consecrated to the achievement of freedom for his beloved
island, and that, upon his return, when he was 42 years old, carrying his
vast humanistic culture, political insight and poetry upon his shoulders, he
gave his life in the course of a cavalry charge, being a short man devoid of
physical energy and military experience as he was.
The seed of courage and loyalty to the last consequence planted by him was
later reborn in Mella, Guiteras, Fidel, Raúl, the heroic women of the Sierra
Maestra, Frank País, Camilo Cienfuegos, Almeida and our Five Heroes who are
in prison, where they were sent by the empire; and today, 50 years after the
bases were built and the road was traced by Fidel's political genius, any
one of his faithful comrades can govern Cuba, because what is truly at the
helm is the already ancestral ethics that Martí forever planted. And there
is no rhetoric nor hyperbole in proclaiming that, since 1959, what is
governing Cuba is Martí's ideals of patriotism, justice, solidarity that
were inherited by Fidel and his followers, Raúl among them.
Anyone, Fidel himself included, might make mistakes, or his advisors might
make them; but not even the enemies of the Revolution question Raul's nor
Fidel's nor any of his comrade's honesty, bravery and patriotism. And in
these times, when the ideas of Marx and Lenin again come to life; and Hugo
Chávez, inspired competitor and interpreter of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar,
again proclaims the visionary Latin-Americanism of his teacher; and with Evo
and Correa, and with a clearer horizon in Southernmost South America, in
Central America and the Caribbean in this year 2008, there are more than
enough stimuli to welcome with hopes and happiness the anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution's half century.
Above all, we should celebrate the fact that, in spite of its geographical
smallness, its relative poverty and the brutal blockade that oppresses it,
Cuba has never submitted nor stopped giving examples of a selfless
solidarity that is unprecedented in the history of nations. A solidarity
that the brother nations of this continent acknowledge and thank nowadays;
and that is why the Group of Rio welcomed, with a unanimous enthusiasm, the
revolutionary island's incorporation to its bosom. Of course, imperialism,
the sell-outs who always exist and the media that honor the US dollar
continue their mercenary intrigues and their attacks against Cuba. The
nerve!
I explained to my Uruguayan compatriots the heroic and triumphal epic of the
Cuban military in Africa, that imperialism and its hirelings have tried to
ignore. But its numerous beneficiaries throughout the world increasingly
recall it, and nowadays vote at the UN, at a crushing ratio of 185 to 3, in
favour of Cuba and against the US.
And I have explained, for the benefit of Uruguayans, that 300 000 volunteers
took off from here to assist Angola's independence, that was threatened by
apartheid South Africans and the bands of Savimbi and of other vernacular
lackeys of the gringos. And Cubans also contributed to Namibia's
independence and, according to what Nelson Mandela has stated, without
Cuba's help it would not have been possible to defeat and to forever uproot
apartheid from southernmost Southern Africa. But Cuba did not profit from
its stay in Africa to create firms nor commercial agencies, nor did it bring
back even one diamond nor a gallon of oil. It only brought back, as Raúl has
said, the remains of over 2 000 compatriots. Many of them offered their
lives for their brothers, grandsons or great-grandsons of their very African
great-great-grandfathers.
I told them that Cuba is the only country that has been giving
free-of-charge healthcare to the children who were contaminated as a result
of the accident at the Ukranian thermonuclear plant of Chernobil in the
1980s. As regards democratic Europe and the USA, after promising the moon
and the stars and offering a ridiculous initial charity, they never
delivered anything. And I informed that Cuba is also responsible for the 35
000 doctors that it disseminated throughout the world, in the Guatemalan
jungles, on the slopes of the Himalaya, in African villages or the islands
of the South Pacific. Those are medical doctors that put their lives at risk
and cure without billing, by a simple impulse of solidarity with the human
species that José Martí taught them to feel. And I remembered them the
heroic deed of Operation Miracle (Operación Milagro) that is intended to
allow millions of poor people to recover their eyesight, and the teachers
that triumphed over illiteracy among the wretched of the earth with the
method I can (Yo sí puedo).
It would be endless to enumerate what Cuba has achieved with its scant
resources in educating at no cost whatsoever its brothers in Latin America
and the Third World, and in training doctors, engineers, athletes, art
instructors.
We must acknowledge that the blockade and -to a certain extent- nature has
prevented great economic achievements from being attained during these past
50 years, but to generate such a large number of internationalists of
solidarity is perhaps more important than immediate material results. For if
one man alone was able to plant the seed of so many goods, and another one
like Fidel was able to multiply them, you can imagine what the future
generations will receive from this growing legion of solidarity heroes
offering health, education and instances of the ethics of Martí nowadays
throughout the world.
* Uruguayan writer who lives in Cuba. After his first novel, Joy, considered
to be the best told detective story of the 1970s, he started a literary
career that would turn him into one of the major contemporary Latin American
novelists.
GRANMA
9 de enero 2009
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2009/01/09/interna/artic01.html
El Gobierno de José Martí
DANIEL CHAVARRÍA*
A lo largo de los últimos 15 años varios periodistas, en su mayoría
europeos, coincidieron en preguntarme qué iba a pasar en Cuba cuando no
estuviera Fidel al frente del Estado. Y yo, que nunca hallaba manera de
sintetizar lo mucho que habría podido decir sobre el tema, solía escurrirme
con la afirmación tajante de que gobernara quien gobernase, todo seguiría
igual, según las pautas trazadas por Fidel. Pero desde la reciente cumbre
del Grupo de Río en San Salvador de Bahía, he hallado una respuesta que me
parece más atinada. Me inspiré en Fidel, cuando afirmara ante sus
interrogadores que el autor intelectual del Asalto al Cuartel Moncada había
sido José Martí.
Hace unos días, durante una entrevista telefónica para Radio Uruguay de
Montevideo, la periodista me preguntó si en Cuba gobernaba Fidel o Raúl, y a
mí se me ocurrió decir que en Cuba, desde hacía 50 años, gobernaba José
Martí. Por supuesto, para que nadie supusiera que se trataba de una frase,
tuve que remitirme a la historia de Cuba y explicar que cuando la
nacionalidad cubana era todavía una forja incipiente, el colonialismo
español le impuso a José Martí, con apenas 16 años, grilletes y cadenas, y
lo sometió a trabajos forzados en una cantera de La Habana, para luego
deportarlo a España. Expliqué que desde entonces el joven patriota llevó una
vida de privaciones y exilios, consagrada por entero a conquistar la
libertad de su amada isla; y que a su regreso, a los 42 años, con su vasta
cultura humanística, videncia política y su poesía a cuestas, entregó la
vida en una carga de caballería, un hombre pequeño, sin energía física ni
experiencia militar. Esa semilla de valor y lealtad hasta las últimas
consecuencias, renace luego en Mella, Guiteras, Fidel, Raúl, las heroicas
mujeres de la Sierra Maestra, Frank País, Camilo Cienfuegos, Almeida y
nuestros Cinco Héroes presos del imperio; y hoy, a 50 años de sentadas las
bases y trazado el camino por el genio político de Fidel, cualquiera de sus
fieles compañeros puede gobernar Cuba, porque quien de verdad gobierna es la
ética ya ancestral que Martí sembró para siempre. Y no es retórica ni
hipérbole proclamar que desde 1959 en Cuba gobierna el ideario martiano de
patriotismo, justicia, solidaridad que heredaron Fidel y sus seguidores,
entre ellos Raúl.
Cualquiera, incluido el propio Fidel, puede cometer errores, o los pueden
cometer sus asesores; pero ni los enemigos de la Revolución dudan de la
honradez, valentía y patriotismo de Fidel, Raúl y sus compañeros. Y en esta
época, cuando reviven las ideas de Marx y Lenin; y Hugo Chávez, inspirado
émulo y exégeta del Libertador Simón Bolívar proclama otra vez el
latinoamericanismo visionario de su maestro; y con Evo y Correa, y con el
horizonte más despejado del Cono Sur, y de América Central y el Caribe en
este 2008, hay sobrados estímulos para saludar con esperanzas y alegría este
medio siglo de la Revolución Cubana. Sobre todo, debemos celebrar que pese a
su pequeñez geográfica, relativa pobreza y al bloqueo brutal que la oprime,
Cuba jamás se haya doblegado ni dejara de brindar ejemplos de una
solidaridad desinteresada y sin precedentes en la historia de las naciones;
solidaridad que los pueblos hermanos del continente hoy reconocen y
agradecen; y por eso el Grupo de Río saludó con unánime entusiasmo la
incorporación de la Isla revolucionaria a su seno. Por supuesto, el
imperialismo, los vendidos de siempre y la prensa genuflexa ante el dólar,
siguen en sus intrigas mercenarias y en sus ataques a Cuba. Qué descaro.
A mis compatriotas uruguayos hube de explicarles la heroica y triunfal gesta
de las armas cubanas en África, que el imperialismo y sus secuaces han
tratado de ignorar; pero sus numerosos beneficiarios del mundo entero la
recuerdan cada vez más, y hoy votan en la Asamblea de las Naciones Unidas
con cifras aplastantes, de 185 a 3, a favor de Cuba y contra EE.UU.
Y a los uruguayos les he explicado que de aquí partieron 300 000 voluntarios
para ayudar a la independencia de Angola, amenazada por los sudafricanos del
apartheid y las bandas de Savimbi y otros lacayos vernáculos de los gringos;
y los cubanos contribuyeron también a la liberación de Namibia, y según ha
proclamado Nelson Mandela, sin la ayuda de Cuba no hubiera sido posible
derrotar y extirpar para siempre del Cono Sur africano al apartheid. Pero
Cuba no aprovechó su estancia en África para fundar compañías, ni agencias
comerciales, ni se trajo un solo diamante, ni un galón de petróleo. Solo
trajo, como ha dicho Raúl, los cadáveres de más de 2 000 compatriotas.
Muchos de ellos dieron la vida por sus hermanos, nietos o biznietos de sus
mismos tatarabuelos africanos.
Les conté que Cuba es el único país que desde hace ya 20 años atiende
gratuitamente a los niños contaminados de Chernobil, la termonuclear
ucraniana accidentada en los años 80. Por su parte, la democrática Europa y
los EE.UU., tras prometer el oro y el moro y ofrecer una ridícula limosna
inicial, jamás cumplieron nada; y les informé que Cuba es también
responsable de los 35 000 médicos diseminados por el mundo, en las selvas
guatemaltecas, en las faldas del Himalaya, en aldeas africanas o islas del
Pacífico Sur; médicos que exponen sus vidas y curan sin cobrar, por la
simple solidaridad con la especie humana que les inculcara José Martí; y les
recordé la proeza de la Operación Milagro que se propone devolver la vista a
millones de indigentes; y a los maestros vencedores del analfabetismo entre
los pobres de la tierra con el método Yo sí puedo.
Sería interminable enumerar lo que Cuba ha logrado con sus escasos recursos
para educar sin costo alguno a los hermanos de Latinoamérica y el Tercer
Mundo, y formar médicos, ingenieros, atletas, instructores de arte.
Hay que reconocer que el bloqueo y en parte la naturaleza han impedido
grandes logros económicos en estos 50 años, pero generar tan gran número de
internacionalistas solidarios es quizá más importante que los resultados
materiales inmediatos. Porque si un hombre solo como Martí pudo sembrar
tantos bienes, y otro como Fidel multiplicarlos, figúrense lo que las
futuras generaciones van a recibir de esta creciente legión de héroes de la
solidaridad que hoy brindan salud, educación y ejemplos de ética martiana en
todo el mundo.
*Escritor uruguayo radicado en Cuba. Después de su primera novela, Joy,
considerada la mejor narración policíaca de la década 70-80, inició una
carrera literaria que lo convertiría en uno de los grandes novelistas
latinoamericanos contemporáneos.
========================================
WALTER LIPPMANN, CubaNews
Los Angeles, California
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraiso bajo el bloqueo"
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TEMAS no. 56: 29-37, octubre-diciembre de 2008.
Fifty Years of African Impact on Cuba:
By David González López
Amílcar Cabral Chair. University of Havana.
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2297.html
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Any accurate characterization of post-1958 Cuban society would have to include its extraordinary interaction with Africa. And this not only as a consequence of the strong contrast with respect to the republican decades prior to the of the revolution’s rise to to power –when official policies as well as the vested interests of the dominant social strata ignored and despised a continent that had made an enormous demographic and cultural contribution to Cuba. This is also due to the considerable renewed impact that the African continent has had on Cubans ever since, which has contributed to the formation of our present national and revolutionary profile in many ways.1
It is a well-known fact that in the almost four centuries of slave trade, Cuba experienced a strong human influx. The society built around slavery used blacks not only as a working instrument, but also –as Europe had also done— to construct in them the image of “the other” which would contribute to the strengthening of the white ego of the dominant classes, by attributing to Africans every defect and vice of which Europeans –and, to a lesser extent, their creole offspring— supposed themselves to be free by mere racial determinism. This did not prevent either the mixture of various colours nor the increasing closeness and, finally, the cultural fusion which occurred to create a new creole and racially-mixed reality. In certain cases it even produced the opposite effect and promoted this trend, due to the expectations and curiosities that the construct of the black myth would awaken.
The cultural fusion was to find its highest expression in the integration and convergence of ideals in our independence struggles of the 19th century which were to constitute –along the lines in which the Guinean revolutionary Amilcar Cabral defined this phenomenon a century later— the organized political expression of the culture of a struggling people, because it represented, on the one hand, a product or an act of culture and, on the other, a factor that would in turn produce, generate culture.
Nevertheless, with the frustration of the independence struggle following the US intervention in a war which creoles of different races, united, were already winning by far, the liberation ideals were also frustrated, starting out with those of building a republic of full racial equality. The so-called “little war” of 1912 signified a warning that blacks should accept their subordinate position, and everything black or emanating from some however far-away African origin would again become an object of rejection, contempt or mockery on the part of the dominant society. This was in spite, for instance, of its increasingly undeniable presence in the arts, literature and, most of all, music, and of the growing popularity –irrespective of racial barriers— of religious elements of African origin.
Although it is true that Africa practically did not exist as an independent political entity in the first half of the 20th century, it is also a fact that during the years of the frustrated republic formal diplomatic relations were established only with Ethiopia and, at a very late stage, with Egypt. Other developments closer to the grassroots cannot be overlooked, such as the return of a certain number of emancipated slaves to Africa, the popularity of Panafricanist ideas of the Garvey brand –with a greater influence, it is true, among Anglo-Caribbean immigrants— or meaningful albeit punctual events such as the mobilization of –mostly black and mulatto— intellectuals, led by historian José Luciano Franco, in reaction to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
The increasingly North-Americanized dominant culture reduced the image of Africa to what Tarzan films offered. A great many cultural contributions of African origin, such as the most popular forms of music, were despised or whitewashed by official culture or even simply banned, as happened most obviously in the case of many religious manifestations of the same roots, while overt and covert instances of racial discrimination tended to proliferate.
The policies which the triumphant revolutionary power began to implement after January 1959 would soon point in the direction of a redistribution of national wealth and, consequently, a remodelling of social –including racial— relations. The ambitious programs which were immediately put into effect, specifically in areas such as education, health, housing, employment, sports, etc., were to benefit, firstly, the poorest families, among which the black and mulato strata were over-represented in relation to their real demographic weight on the island. As for ethical principles, the new regime promoted the idea of a society directed by relations of solidarity among individuals, instead of the increasing mercantilization which had been the norm in pre-revolutionary society.
Those efforts in the sphere of internal policies were to find a perfect complement in the external projection of the revolutionary government. This was particularly in the inflexible defence of the principle of sovereign equality among nations, the extension of a constant and multi-faceted solidarity with underdeveloped countries, together with support for national liberation movements throughout the world. The deeply-rooted antagonism which successive US governments maintained toward Cuba had to do with the new Cuban project in internal policies as well as in its international actions, for which Africa would provide a privileged scenario for the following half century.
Many Cuban experts believe that one should not speak of a specifically post-1958 Cuban policy for Africa, arguing that what really exists is a wider policy encompassing the whole of the underdeveloped world. This has been expressed, for instance, in Cuba’s active participation Non Aligned Countries Movement–which is now chaired by Cuba for the second time since its inception in 1961.
Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons to support the view that there is a clear and precise Cuban policy for Africa. Firstly, there is the declared perception of the revolutionary leadership with respect to the role that Africans and their descendents have played throughout our history and, beyond, the coincidence in time and ideals of the triumph of the Cuban revolution and the first wave of African independence. Even though the proclamation of the Cuban process as the opening of the second wave of Latin-American liberation clearly defined the major terrain of action and association of the new government, the latter could not avoid contemplating with enormous interest the events occurring at the time –and which would become massive after 1960— in Africa. It was towards Africa, more particularly towards the Congo, that Che Guevara and a group of Cuban combatants moved a few years later to put internationalist ideals to the test, before departing for the Latin-American highlands of Bolivia.
When reviewing almost half a century of bonds established by revolutionary Cuba with Africa, several salient features emerge to characterize its African policy, among them three which have primary importance:
• Its coherence: that is, the correspondence which exists between Cuba’s official discourse and its concrete actions, or what is “said” and what is “done” throughout an extensive period of time; • • Its immutability: meaning the permanence of its basic principles throughout the years and in spite of certain adjustments and changes; • • Its adaptability: in other words, its capacity to operate in the changing scenarios and conditions that have affected Africa, Cuba and the world at large. • The praxis of Cuban foreign policy is predicated on its solidarity with the underdeveloped world, and even with humble social strata in the wealthy countries. The absence of profit or political, economic or other type of conditionalities when extending its solidarity has been one and the same for every region of the world. Nevertheless, the arguments which substantiate Cuban assistance to Africa have been clearly singled out by high Cuban officials. President Fidel Castro himself has argued in favour of “Cubans’ duty to compensate” Africa as a result of the crucial role played by Africans and their descendents in every independence and revolutionary war in the country, in their contribution to the construction of the Cuban nation and in the creation of wealth that successive generations of Cubans of various races have enjoyed. Therefore, years before African demands for compensation for centuries of slavery which they suffered began to gain momentum, Cuba –a small island which had not been among the colonial powers which extracted benefits from the extreme exploitation of African slaves— adopted a vanguard position with respect to that issue , setting an example which –up to now— no former metropolitan power has dared to follow.
Strikingly enough, the altruistic nature of Cuba’s African policy was an element that awakened a particular antagonism in the neo-conservative government of Ronald Reagan through most of the 1980s. The Reagan administration’s “roll-back” strategists did not challenge the Cuban commitment of only taking from Angola “the remains of our deceased” once a peace agreement was signed on the grounds that this could have been a lie; quite the opposite. They argued that it was precisely because Cuba did not have any national interests (one must read mines, factories, firms, railroads, etc.) to protect in Angola, its military presence in that country was “illegitimate” and therefore “subversive” vis-à-vis the established international order.
By contrast, a few years earlier, in one of the brief moments of rationality in the White House, during the Carter administration, the US representative to the UN, Andrew Young, publicly expressed the view that Cuban troops provided a “stabilizing” factor in Angola.
Cuba never offered Africa leftovers, but shared what it had, even when not in great abundance. One first instance that was to set a precedent occurred in 1963, when practically half of the six thousand doctors the small island-state had in 1959 had emigrated. It was a moment when the revolutionary government had just began to implement ambitious plans to extend health services to regions of the country which lacked them since day one. At the very moment, recently independent Algeria –suddenly abandoned by almost all French specialized medical personnel— requested Cuban help. Cuba did not hesitate to immediately dispatch a health brigade which offered its vital services free of charge.
The praxis of supporting peoples in their just independence struggles was frequently costly because to a certain extent it antagonized certain European powers with which Cuba hoped to have good relations as a balance against US hostility. For instance, this happened with France and Spain as a consequence of Cuban support to Algerian patriots and solidarity with the Saharawi combatants. There have even been cases in which revolutionary Cuba has overlooked fairly essential aspects of its foreign policy when its close relationship with Africa required it to do so. One example was manifested when (countering its longstanding policy of not breaking off relations under any circumstance with any country whatsoever, thus rejecting the use of the same weapon that the US had used against Cuba when promoting the isolation of the revolutionary government in Latin America) Cuba severed diplomatic relations with Israel to join a concerted move by African nations to condemn the occupation of African territory –the Sinai peninsula— by Zionist troops in the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.
Twenty-one years later, in response to a request by the African National Congress, and taking into account the very special merits of the case, the Cuban government (which had consistently refused to take part in international operations of ballot observation, considering that this was solely the right and duty of the country which organizes the electoral process) agreed to send a group of Cuban experts to joint the UN Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA) to supervise the first free elections in that country.
During its first decades, Cuban cooperation was, of course, more intense with a group of countries whose governments had greater political affinities with their Cuban counterpart. Nevertheless, since the final years of the 20th century a trend towards close cooperation with the whole continent became more apparent. At present there are very few African countries which have never received Cuban experts on their soil or returning nationals trained in Cuba.
Even the exit from power of African governments in countries which had a longstanding relationship of cooperation with Cuba did not mean the cessation of the flow of assistance: it usually continued without any hiccups (these were the cases of the People’s Republic of Congo in the mid-1960s, Guinea-Bissau in 1980 and 1999 or Zambia, Cape Verde and São Tomé e Príncipe in the 1990s) or was re-established after a brief period of readjustments (as in Ethiopia).
Until the later half of the 1970s, Cuban cooperation was extended free of charge to recipient countries, including travel costs to and from Africa for Cuban experts. But its growing popularity made the number of requesting countries enormously increase, and this led to a variant that was implemented as of 1977: recipient countries with the financial capability to compensate at least part of the costs –and Angola was at that time the only case due to its extraordinary incomes from oil production— would make that contribution in order to allow Cuba to extend its assistance to other countries which were not able to pay.(2) The new arrangement, however, was short-lived, because as soon as the Reagan administration took power in early 1981, the intensified war devastated Angola’s economy and Cuba returned to the old practice of paying practically the total costs of the missions of cooperation.
During the years elapsed since then, and as the African wars gradually receded and Cuban cooperation expanded to other beneficiaries with greater financial capacity, other cost-sharing arrangements were tried out. For instance, at the South Summit of the Group of 77 held in Havana in 2000, several African countries with relatively solvent economies committed their support for a fund which would allow for three thousand additional Cuban doctors to serve in Africa. In general, in every case, the costs of the assistance continued to be very low for the recipient countries. In the field of health, until early August 2008, there were 1886 Cuban experts in thirty African countries, only 660 of which –slightly over one third— were involved in the so-called compensated cooperation missions, for a total of ten African countries –one third of the recipient countries [4]— but in three of the latter (Angola, Ethiopia and Nigeria) we can find both variants of cooperation.
We have dwelled more on the sphere of health because it constitutes the most emblematic sector of cooperation with Africa, to the extent that it overshadows other areas of cooperation that have a huge importance. Generally speaking, towards 1998, which was a period in which Cuba continued to experience considerable economic limitations following the abrupt disappearance of its major trading partners with the changes occurred in the so-called Eastern bloc countries, some 2 809 Cuban experts were working in 84 countries of four continents, most of them (1 157) in Africa. Up to the year 2000, a total of 38 805 Cuban civilian cooperation personnel had worked abroad in the years of the Revolution, 76 771 of them (or 55%) in Africa.[5].
In 2004, Cuba had established relations of cooperation with 51 African countries, taken part in 46 bilateral intergovernmental commissions of collaboration with them and in only one year had reached the record figure of 22 sessions of said commissions. On that same year, it managed to undertake 86 projects in 31 African countries.6
Many Western academics usually wonder and speculate about the economic cost of Cuban assistance to Africa. Total figures vary according to the pattern of calculations. A 1992 study estimated the total cost of Cuban cooperation with the whole of the Third World from 1963 to 1989 at an approximate figure around US$ 1,5 and 2 billion per year.8 Any one of those two figures represent a very high percentage of the Cuban GDP. Even during the critical years of the Special Period, between 1990 and 1998, the island-state made donations valued around US$ 22,3 million.9
Cuba’s close political bonds with Africa are also evident in the fact that the country has diplomatic relations with 53 of the 54 countries that make up that continent, [10] with embassies in thirty of them [11] and hosts diplomatic missions at the highest level of twenty-two African nations in Havana.[12] This is an unprecedented fact not only for a Latin American country, but also for the immense majority of non-African countries of the world.
Cuban cooperation –a reflection of the historic national struggle to uphold its sovereignty vis-à-vis the hegemonic trends of successive US governments— has been totally de-linked from any political, ideological or economic condition. The reluctance to impose a particular “model” on recipient countries was obvious in the introduction of the curricula for thousands of –mostly African— foreign students on the Isle of Youth. Instead of including normal disciplines such as Cuban geography or history, it covered the need for the students to improve their proficiency in the official languages of their respective countries, together with lectures on the geography, history, etc., of their own nations, delivered by teachers of their own nationalities.
According to what we have been able to verify in polls undertaken by the Centre for Studies on Africa and the Middle East (CEAMO) among African graduates of diverse generations and countries— the majority of the former students feel deeply indebted to and identified with Cuba, its culture and its policies. There are even cases, such as that of the Ethiopians who graduated in Cuba, and who define themselves as “Ethio-Cubans” to underline their sympathies with respect to Cuba.
The functioning of the schools in the Isle of Youth represented a unique experience in the solidarity extended to Africa by any extra-continental country, as well as the interaction of large numbers of young Africans of either sex and diverse national origins with the Cuban population in a given area of the Cuban archipelago[12], even if that presence has been significantly maintained at centres of learning throughout the country in the most recent decades. One can not overlook the fact that between 1961 and 2007 no less than 30,719 students from 42 countries of sub-Saharan Africa have graduated in Cuba, 17,906 of them in intermediate levels and 12,813 in higher education, while another 5 850 have received training from Cuban experts during this period. [14]
Cuban-African educational cooperation gained momentum with the experience of the Isle of Youth, beginning with the transportation to Cuba of hundreds of Namibian children who had been orphaned as a consequence of a South African attack on the Cassinga refugee camp in southern Angola. The Luanda government lacked conditions to care for them at that juncture. Later on, one or several high schools, technical institutes or teachers’ training colleges were opened on the Isle of Youth for each of about a dozen African countries, where several thousand youths were trained. Many of them remained long years in Cuba, where they studied at secondary as well as university levels. Some even undertook post-graduate courses.
Cuban solidarity efforts with Africa has resulted in numerous contingents of African graduates in Cuba, among which it is not rare to find nowadays political leaders, ministers, businesspeople and other figures of national or even international stature in each country, as is the case of the Tanzanian Salim Ahmed Salim, who once held the post of Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The literacy program Yo sí puedo, designed by Cuban experts, is being implemented in five countries of sub-Saharan Africa [15], where over 73,000 people have graduated and over 7000 are attending classes. By simplifying the learning process, particularly when applied to very complex languages, and by shortening the required time for learning to read and write, this method significantly lowers the cost of literacy campaigns and makes the eradication of illiteracy accessible even to very poor countries with high levels of non-literate population.
In many nations of sub-Saharan Africa, a handful of Cuban experts can have an immediate impact on the social sphere. This has become apparent in the growing number of countries that have adopted the Integral Health Program (PIS, according to its Spanish acronym), designed and implemented first in Cuba. There are twenty-three countries that have followed suit [16], amounting to half of all those belonging to sub-Saharan Africa. There the Cuban medical presence quickly modifies the infant or maternal mortality indexes. The implementation of PIS allowed for the extension of health coverage to over 48 million people, almost 20% of the total combined population of those countries. The 5463 Cuban health experts applying PIS in Africa achieved, since they first arrived, over 42 million examinations. They undertook over six million field visits, attended to 600,000 births and 1.7 million surgical activities, administered over five million vaccines and saved over one million lives, or slightly over 2% of the population in their sphere of action
The Gambia offers one of the most dramatic examples, since the country counted barely on eighteen Gambian doctors –for a population of 1.8 million people— and twenty of other nationalities, practically all of them concentrated in the capital, until the arrival of the first Cuban medical brigade of 35 members. PIS went into full swing in The Gambia since June 1999 with 158 doctors and other Cuban health personnel. But, in general, the work of Cuban doctors had an immediate impact on –among other indicators— infant mortality, which dropped dramatically, from 121 per thousand live births in 1998 to 61 in 2001 [17]. By the year 2002, PIS had already extended to seven provinces, providing health coverage to 98% of the country’s population, with the presence of 246 Cuban health specialists, among them 193 doctors [18].
In this same sphere of health, the free ophthalmologic services of Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle) have also been recently extended to sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks to this, at a specialized clinic recently opened in Mali, 6247 patients from that country and 1065 Angolans have recovered their eyesight.
Cuban cooperation has two essential objectives which distinguish it from the type of assistance practiced by other countries: it avoids the brain drain once the foreign students have graduated in Cuba and, simultaneously, develops conditions to make that assistance unnecessary in the future. This has been constantly shown in both civilian and military cooperation, in which, for instance, the presence of Cuban troops has always been accompanied by the training of local forces. Intense medical cooperation made possible, from the first years of its implementation, the training of local health personnel and ultimately the opening of medical schools in which the teaching staff as well as the students alternate their classroom activities with the health services that they provide to the general population, just as it is Cuba.
Returning to the paradigmatic Gambian example, the creation of a small medical school with assistance from the World Health Organization (WHO) made it possible to begin the career training in that specialization of thirty young students. In other cases, they go to medical schools in Cuba: thus, although in August 2008 there were 167 Cuban health experts in Equatorial Guinea, around that same date twenty young Equato-guineans were studying at the Latin American Medical School (ELAM, according to its Spanish acronym); Mali, with 122 Cuban experts in the same sphere, had 51 students at ELAM.
The same can be said of education. The dispatch of Cuban teachers to Africa was undertaken simultaneously (or replaced by) programs for training local teachers in the recipient country. An important achievement in line with this policy was –again— the opening of a teachers’ training college, exclusively for Zimbabwean students, on the Isle of Youth.
In 1975, the bonds of solidarity between Cuba and Africa experienced a spectacular increase. Angola’s independence, obtained on November 11 of that year represented a watershed of a sort in terms of human exchanges with the continent, since at a given moment after that date one might have found over 50,000 Cubans in internationalist civilian or military missions in Africa at a given moment.[19]
The dominant world media emphasized, ever since, the Cuban military presence, around which they made a great fuss, ignoring the civilian aspect of Cuban cooperation and overlooking two basic elements of military cooperation. The first element is that the very important presence of Cuban combat troops in Angola and a couple of years later also in Ethiopia did not come out of the blue as something unprecedented.
As early as 1963, Cuba had sent combat troops to recently-independent Algeria (a presence that did not awaken much attention in world media at the time) in circumstances that were comparable to the later cases of Angola and Ethiopia. What changed the most was probably the scale of the operation, because the main objective continued to be the same: helping to repel an aggression from abroad against the territory of the recipient nation.
The second aspect is that Cuban civilian cooperation in Africa has been more constant and permanent, and extended to a larger number of countries and areas than its military counterpart. Although from early on, Cuban civilian cooperation programs aimed at a wide variety of objectives (agricultural assistance, road construction, airports, housing, factories, or, what is more difficult yet, reconstructing them after the ravages of war), those in greatest demand were the ones related to social spheres in which Cuba experienced outstanding progress from the very first years of the Revolution: health, education and, later on, sports.
This type of cooperation with the Third World had its starting point in the agreement signed between Cuba and the Republic of Guinea in 1960 [20]. The exchange of Cuban teachers and African students occurred shortly after the dispatch of the first health experts. The first brigades of Cuban collaborators worked in Algeria, Guinea and Tanzania. In the mid-1960s Cuban teachers could be found anywhere from Mali to Congo (Brazzaville). Not long afterwards, the first student interns arrived in Cuba, from Guinea, Congo (Brazzaville) and, later on, Angola [21].
Among the features which have distinguished Cuban cooperation with Africa from the cooperation extended by other countries of the world, we have already underlined its adaptability to local conditions, expressed in the modest way of living of Cuban technicians and specialists and the high level of integration and acceptance that they achieve among the local population. This capacity to adapt was put to a hard test in the difficult years of the so-called Special Period, when Cuba underwent a dramatic collapse of about 40% of its production.
In contrast to developments in Eastern Europe at the time –late 1980s and early 1990s—, when African and other foreign students saw their grants being cancelled overnight, in Cuba the curricula were gradually extinguished as each group of students graduated and returned home. On the Isle of Youth and at other places where they studied in Cuba, thousands of young Africans shared with the local population the shortages and limitations of basic products until they finished their courses. In some cases, such as that of the Zimbabwean Teachers’ Training College, the project was re-based in the students’ country of origin, where it continued to operate with Cuban teachers, a less expensive solution.
Since the mid-1990s, even though the difficult conditions of the Special Period continued to be felt in Cuba, collaboration with Africa experienced a new upturn and only a few years afterwards reached unprecedented levels. This striking development reaffirmed the solid base on which Cuban bonds with Africa stand.
One important and peculiar characteristic of these links has to do with the exceptional cases of the presence of military advisers and combat troops on African soil and it reveals clear, precise and permanent principles in its implementation. One of the most significant features is that military assistance has always been extended in answer to the request of a legally established government or a liberation movement recognized by the African continental organization –the OAU at the time.
It must be borne in mind that, between 1960 and 1963 (the year in which the OAU was founded) African countries stood divided basically in two groups: the Casablanca Group (composed of a small number of countries whose governments displayed more progressive or radical policies), and the Brazzaville Group, where the majority of less radical or openly neo-colonial governments could be found. It only seemed natural that young Revolutionary Cuba would feel an inclination towards the former group (which included by Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, Sékou Touré’s Guinea, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and Modibo Keita’s Mali).
Through those governments, Havana made contact with diverse national liberation movements, such as the ones organized by the freedom fighters of Algeria, South Africa and the Portuguese colonies among others. Nevertheless, when the OAU was founded and the precedent groups were disbanded, Cuban policy always took firmly and clearly into account the positions of that organization and extended a strong support to the unity efforts of the continent in the framework of the Third World and the de-colonizing and anti-apartheid struggles.
Cuban official discourse always expressed admiration and respect for the OAU, and frequently Cuban leaders lauded –in spite of its shortcomings— the absence, within this organization, of extra-continental and former colonial powers, in contrast with the case of the Organization of American States, in which the US presence turned the regional organization into a sort of ministry of colonies for Washington.
Another reason of admiration for the Cuban leadership was the unflinching support that the OAU extended to African liberation movements and the firm postures that it adopted vis-à-vis matters touching upon issues of sovereignty, non-intervention in the internal affairs of nations and other principles of international law. Shortly after the foundation of the OAU, and with the blessing of its Liberation Committee, Cuba began to extend active support to the patriots grouped in the Partido Africano para a Independência de Guinea e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) in Guinea-Bissau. By 1973, the extension of liberated territory to practically the whole country and the operation of a virtual struggling state in those areas determined the unprecedented development of its admission as full member of the United Nations.
Again, we must bear in mind that, when Cuba has sent troops to Africa at the request of a legally established government, the role of those contingents has been strictly limited to the defence of the country and not to be dragged into internal struggles nor counter-insurgency missions. When the aggression or threat of aggression has ceased, or when the recipient country would request it, Cuban troops have punctually returned home.
Ethiopia is a case in point, as Cuban troops defended the territorial integrity of the country against the Somali invasion, but were never caught in the complex web of civil conflicts to fight against internal rebel movements which later on took power and formed a government that today maintains excellent relations with Cuba and highly values the military support it extended to the Ethiopian nation in the past.
The historical links of solidarity that Cuba maintained with the Movimento Popular para a Libertação de Angola (MPLA) are paradigmatic. Although in Angola two other anti-colonial movements existed, MPLA was not only the closest to Cuba from an ideological viewpoint, but also the one that undoubtedly counted on the greatest amount of internal support and therefore was the most interested in competing with its two political adversaries in the ballot box and not on the battlefield.
But those adversaries, the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), militarily supported by Mobutu’s Zaire, and the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), with considerable South African backing, also knew this, and that is why they made the Alvor Agreements inoperable and opted for a military outcome. Thirty three years later and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths after November 11 1975, Angolan independence date, the multi-party elections held in Angola in October 2008 confirmed the MPLA in power with well over 80% of the popular vote, leaving tiny figures of votes going to the moribund FNLA and UNITA.
Cuban troops remained in Angola for fifteen years and only clashed with UNITA forces when these attacked Cuban contingents or fought alongside invading South African forces. During that decade and a half, the Cuban government permanently expressed its disposition to repatriate its military contingents as soon as South Africa evacuated southern Angola and offered solemn guarantees of never again attacking its territory.
Cuba never linked the presence of its troops to other extraneous matters (such as the independence of Namibia and/or the elimination of the apartheid system in South Africa), even though at one point during the most crucial stage of the war in the days of heroic resistance of its forces alongside Angolan troops in Cuito Cuanavale, the highest Cuban leadership declared the country’s disposition to have its troops remain in Angola to safeguard its independence, if it were necessary, until the very demise of apartheid.
It was in fact the US government of Ronald Reagan which established, as a condition for granting Namibia its independence, the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. However, the apartheid regime had become so weak in the final stage of the war, that the Agreements of South-West Africa, negotiated by Angola, South Africa, Cuba and the US, and finally signed in December 1988, opened the way for the speedy independence of Namibia and the beginning of substantive internal negotiations in South Africa even before the total withdrawal of Cuban troops. Slightly five years after the signing of the agreements, the 1994 general elections in South Africa marked the final collapse of the apartheid regime and the access to power of the African National Congress (ANC).
One final characteristic of Cuban policy for Africa that has been very seldom considered abroad has to do with the degree of internal support that said policy has enjoyed, among the Cuban population at large. Beyond the education around principles of solidarity and selflessness that the leading forces of the Cuban state have strived to convey to their citizens, a strong campaign was launched in every sphere of Cuban society to endow Cubans with a deeper knowledge of that continent.
During these years, Africa has occupied a place in the Cuban much more in accordance with what it deserves than in any other printed, radio or televised media in any other place of our sub-continent. Since the 1960s, African history emerged as an independent discipline in Cuban universities, and ever since, the number of institutions involved in the study or promotion of that continent have multiplied: just to mention two of them, CEAMO and the House of Africa of the Historian of the City of Havana.
>From very early on, Cubans have had a privileged access to the ideas of the greatest personalities of African politics, such as Amilcar Cabral, or African arts, such as South African singer Miriam Makeba or the National Ballet of Guinea, or even the best samples of African cinema. The installation in Havana of a Park of African Founding Fathers, to honour the founders of those young nations –an indispensable stopover for high level African visitors— is an unprecedented initiative in the world. The amount of literary works of that continent published in Cuba, most of them in first translations to Spanish, do not find an equal in any other Latin American country and even in many of the so-called First World. This explains why such outstanding personalities, such as Nobel Prize winners Wole Soyinka and Nadine Gordimer, to mention only two, manifest such a complete solidarity with Cuba.
Twenty-one years later, in response to a request by the African National Congress, and taking into account the very special merits of the case, the Cuban government (which had consistently refused to take part in international operations of ballot observation, considering that this was solely the right and duty of the country which organizes the electoral process) agreed to send a group of Cuban experts to joint the UN Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA) to supervise the first free elections in that country.
During its first decades, Cuban cooperation was, of course, more intense with a group of countries whose governments had greater political affinities with their Cuban counterpart. Nevertheless, since the final years of the 20th century a trend towards close cooperation with the whole continent became more apparent. At present there are very few African countries which have never received Cuban experts on their soil or returning nationals trained in Cuba.
Even the exit from power of African governments in countries which had a longstanding relationship of cooperation with Cuba did not mean the cessation of the flow of assistance: it usually continued without any hiccups (these were the cases of the People’s Republic of Congo in the mid-1960s, Guinea-Bissau in 1980 and 1999 or Zambia, Cape Verde and São Tomé e Príncipe in the 1990s) or was re-established after a brief period of readjustments (as in Ethiopia).
Until the later half of the 1970s, Cuban cooperation was extended free of charge to recipient countries, including travel costs to and from Africa for Cuban experts. But its growing popularity made the number of requesting countries enormously increase, and this led to a variant that was implemented as of 1977: recipient countries with the financial capability to compensate at least part of the costs –and Angola was at that time the only case due to its extraordinary incomes from oil production— would make that contribution in order to allow Cuba to extend its assistance to other countries which were not able to pay.(2) The new arrangement, however, was short-lived, because as soon as the Reagan administration took power in early 1981, the intensified war devastated Angola’s economy and Cuba returned to the old practice of paying practically the total costs of the missions of cooperation.
During the years elapsed since then, and as the African wars gradually receded and Cuban cooperation expanded to other beneficiaries with greater financial capacity, other cost-sharing arrangements were tried out. For instance, at the South Summit of the Group of 77 held in Havana in 2000, several African countries with relatively solvent economies committed their support for a fund which would allow for three thousand additional Cuban doctors to serve in Africa. In general, in every case, the costs of the assistance continued to be very low for the recipient countries. In the field of health, until early August 2008, there were 1886 Cuban experts in thirty African countries, only 660 of which –slightly over one third— were involved in the so-called compensated cooperation missions, for a total of ten African countries –one third of the recipient countries [4]— but in three of the latter (Angola, Ethiopia and Nigeria) we can find both variants of cooperation.
We have dwelled more on the sphere of health because it constitutes the most emblematic sector of cooperation with Africa, to the extent that it overshadows other areas of cooperation that have a huge importance. Generally speaking, towards 1998, which was a period in which Cuba continued to experience considerable economic limitations following the abrupt disappearance of its major trading partners with the changes occurred in the so-called Eastern bloc countries, some 2 809 Cuban experts were working in 84 countries of four continents, most of them (1 157) in Africa. Up to the year 2000, a total of 38 805 Cuban civilian cooperation personnel had worked abroad in the years of the Revolution, 76 771 of them (or 55%) in Africa.[5].
In 2004, Cuba had established relations of cooperation with 51 African countries, taken part in 46 bilateral intergovernmental commissions of collaboration with them and in only one year had reached the record figure of 22 sessions of said commissions. On that same year, it managed to undertake 86 projects in 31 African countries.6
Many Western academics usually wonder and speculate about the economic cost of Cuban assistance to Africa. Total figures vary according to the pattern of calculations. A 1992 study estimated the total cost of Cuban cooperation with the whole of the Third World from 1963 to 1989 at an approximate figure around US$ 1,5 and 2 billion per year.8 Any one of those two figures represent a very high percentage of the Cuban GDP. Even during the critical years of the Special Period, between 1990 and 1998, the island-state made donations valued around US$ 22,3 million.9
Cuba’s close political bonds with Africa are also evident in the fact that the country has diplomatic relations with 53 of the 54 countries that make up that continent, [10] with embassies in thirty of them [11] and hosts diplomatic missions at the highest level of twenty-two African nations in Havana.[12] This is an unprecedented fact not only for a Latin American country, but also for the immense majority of non-African countries of the world.
Cuban cooperation –a reflection of the historic national struggle to uphold its sovereignty vis-à-vis the hegemonic trends of successive US governments— has been totally de-linked from any political, ideological or economic condition. The reluctance to impose a particular “model” on recipient countries was obvious in the introduction of the curricula for thousands of –mostly African— foreign students on the Isle of Youth. Instead of including normal disciplines such as Cuban geography or history, it covered the need for the students to improve their proficiency in the official languages of their respective countries, together with lectures on the geography, history, etc., of their own nations, delivered by teachers of their own nationalities.
According to what we have been able to verify in polls undertaken by the Centre for Studies on Africa and the Middle East (CEAMO) among African graduates of diverse generations and countries— the majority of the former students feel deeply indebted to and identified with Cuba, its culture and its policies. There are even cases, such as that of the Ethiopians who graduated in Cuba, and who define themselves as “Ethio-Cubans” to underline their sympathies with respect to Cuba.
The functioning of the schools in the Isle of Youth represented a unique experience in the solidarity extended to Africa by any extra-continental country, as well as the interaction of large numbers of young Africans of either sex and diverse national origins with the Cuban population in a given area of the Cuban archipelago[12], even if that presence has been significantly maintained at centres of learning throughout the country in the most recent decades. One can not overlook the fact that between 1961 and 2007 no less than 30,719 students from 42 countries of sub-Saharan Africa have graduated in Cuba, 17,906 of them in intermediate levels and 12,813 in higher education, while another 5 850 have received training from Cuban experts during this period. [14]
Cuban-African educational cooperation gained momentum with the experience of the Isle of Youth, beginning with the transportation to Cuba of hundreds of Namibian children who had been orphaned as a consequence of a South African attack on the Cassinga refugee camp in southern Angola. The Luanda government lacked conditions to care for them at that juncture. Later on, one or several high schools, technical institutes or teachers’ training colleges were opened on the Isle of Youth for each of about a dozen African countries, where several thousand youths were trained. Many of them remained long years in Cuba, where they studied at secondary as well as university levels. Some even undertook post-graduate courses.
Cuban solidarity efforts with Africa has resulted in numerous contingents of African graduates in Cuba, among which it is not rare to find nowadays political leaders, ministers, businesspeople and other figures of national or even international stature in each country, as is the case of the Tanzanian Salim Ahmed Salim, who once held the post of Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The literacy program Yo sí puedo, designed by Cuban experts, is being implemented in five countries of sub-Saharan Africa [15], where over 73,000 people have graduated and over 7000 are attending classes. By simplifying the learning process, particularly when applied to very complex languages, and by shortening the required time for learning to read and write, this method significantly lowers the cost of literacy campaigns and makes the eradication of illiteracy accessible even to very poor countries with high levels of non-literate population.
In many nations of sub-Saharan Africa, a handful of Cuban experts can have an immediate impact on the social sphere. This has become apparent in the growing number of countries that have adopted the Integral Health Program (PIS, according to its Spanish acronym), designed and implemented first in Cuba. There are twenty-three countries that have followed suit [16], amounting to half of all those belonging to sub-Saharan Africa. There the Cuban medical presence quickly modifies the infant or maternal mortality indexes. The implementation of PIS allowed for the extension of health coverage to over 48 million people, almost 20% of the total combined population of those countries. The 5463 Cuban health experts applying PIS in Africa achieved, since they first arrived, over 42 million examinations. They undertook over six million field visits, attended to 600,000 births and 1.7 million surgical activities, administered over five million vaccines and saved over one million lives, or slightly over 2% of the population in their sphere of action
The Gambia offers one of the most dramatic examples, since the country counted barely on eighteen Gambian doctors –for a population of 1.8 million people— and twenty of other nationalities, practically all of them concentrated in the capital, until the arrival of the first Cuban medical brigade of 35 members. PIS went into full swing in The Gambia since June 1999 with 158 doctors and other Cuban health personnel. But, in general, the work of Cuban doctors had an immediate impact on –among other indicators— infant mortality, which dropped dramatically, from 121 per thousand live births in 1998 to 61 in 2001 [17]. By the year 2002, PIS had already extended to seven provinces, providing health coverage to 98% of the country’s population, with the presence of 246 Cuban health specialists, among them 193 doctors [18].
In this same sphere of health, the free ophthalmologic services of Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle) have also been recently extended to sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks to this, at a specialized clinic recently opened in Mali, 6247 patients from that country and 1065 Angolans have recovered their eyesight.
Cuban cooperation has two essential objectives which distinguish it from the type of assistance practiced by other countries: it avoids the brain drain once the foreign students have graduated in Cuba and, simultaneously, develops conditions to make that assistance unnecessary in the future. This has been constantly shown in both civilian and military cooperation, in which, for instance, the presence of Cuban troops has always been accompanied by the training of local forces. Intense medical cooperation made possible, from the first years of its implementation, the training of local health personnel and ultimately the opening of medical schools in which the teaching staff as well as the students alternate their classroom activities with the health services that they provide to the general population, just as it is Cuba.
Returning to the paradigmatic Gambian example, the creation of a small medical school with assistance from the World Health Organization (WHO) made it possible to begin the career training in that specialization of thirty young students. In other cases, they go to medical schools in Cuba: thus, although in August 2008 there were 167 Cuban health experts in Equatorial Guinea, around that same date twenty young Equato-guineans were studying at the Latin American Medical School (ELAM, according to its Spanish acronym); Mali, with 122 Cuban experts in the same sphere, had 51 students at ELAM.
The same can be said of education. The dispatch of Cuban teachers to Africa was undertaken simultaneously (or replaced by) programs for training local teachers in the recipient country. An important achievement in line with this policy was –again— the opening of a teachers’ training college, exclusively for Zimbabwean students, on the Isle of Youth.
In 1975, the bonds of solidarity between Cuba and Africa experienced a spectacular increase. Angola’s independence, obtained on November 11 of that year represented a watershed of a sort in terms of human exchanges with the continent, since at a given moment after that date one might have found over 50,000 Cubans in internationalist civilian or military missions in Africa at a given moment.[19]
The dominant world media emphasized, ever since, the Cuban military presence, around which they made a great fuss, ignoring the civilian aspect of Cuban cooperation and overlooking two basic elements of military cooperation. The first element is that the very important presence of Cuban combat troops in Angola and a couple of years later also in Ethiopia did not come out of the blue as something unprecedented.
As early as 1963, Cuba had sent combat troops to recently-independent Algeria (a presence that did not awaken much attention in world media at the time) in circumstances that were comparable to the later cases of Angola and Ethiopia. What changed the most was probably the scale of the operation, because the main objective continued to be the same: helping to repel an aggression from abroad against the territory of the recipient nation.
The second aspect is that Cuban civilian cooperation in Africa has been more constant and permanent, and extended to a larger number of countries and areas than its military counterpart. Although from early on, Cuban civilian cooperation programs aimed at a wide variety of objectives (agricultural assistance, road construction, airports, housing, factories, or, what is more difficult yet, reconstructing them after the ravages of war), those in greatest demand were the ones related to social spheres in which Cuba experienced outstanding progress from the very first years of the Revolution: health, education and, later on, sports.
This type of cooperation with the Third World had its starting point in the agreement signed between Cuba and the Republic of Guinea in 1960 [20]. The exchange of Cuban teachers and African students occurred shortly after the dispatch of the first health experts. The first brigades of Cuban collaborators worked in Algeria, Guinea and Tanzania. In the mid-1960s Cuban teachers could be found anywhere from Mali to Congo (Brazzaville). Not long afterwards, the first student interns arrived in Cuba, from Guinea, Congo (Brazzaville) and, later on, Angola [21].
Among the features which have distinguished Cuban cooperation with Africa from the cooperation extended by other countries of the world, we have already underlined its adaptability to local conditions, expressed in the modest way of living of Cuban technicians and specialists and the high level of integration and acceptance that they achieve among the local population. This capacity to adapt was put to a hard test in the difficult years of the so-called Special Period, when Cuba underwent a dramatic collapse of about 40% of its production.
In contrast to developments in Eastern Europe at the time –late 1980s and early 1990s—, when African and other foreign students saw their grants being cancelled overnight, in Cuba the curricula were gradually extinguished as each group of students graduated and returned home. On the Isle of Youth and at other places where they studied in Cuba, thousands of young Africans shared with the local population the shortages and limitations of basic products until they finished their courses. In some cases, such as that of the Zimbabwean Teachers’ Training College, the project was re-based in the students’ country of origin, where it continued to operate with Cuban teachers, a less expensive solution.
Since the mid-1990s, even though the difficult conditions of the Special Period continued to be felt in Cuba, collaboration with Africa experienced a new upturn and only a few years afterwards reached unprecedented levels. This striking development reaffirmed the solid base on which Cuban bonds with Africa stand.
One important and peculiar characteristic of these links has to do with the exceptional cases of the presence of military advisers and combat troops on African soil and it reveals clear, precise and permanent principles in its implementation. One of the most significant features is that military assistance has always been extended in answer to the request of a legally established government or a liberation movement recognized by the African continental organization –the OAU at the time.
It must be borne in mind that, between 1960 and 1963 (the year in which the OAU was founded) African countries stood divided basically in two groups: the Casablanca Group (composed of a small number of countries whose governments displayed more progressive or radical policies), and the Brazzaville Group, where the majority of less radical or openly neo-colonial governments could be found. It only seemed natural that young Revolutionary Cuba would feel an inclination towards the former group (which included by Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, Sékou Touré’s Guinea, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and Modibo Keita’s Mali).
Through those governments, Havana made contact with diverse national liberation movements, such as the ones organized by the freedom fighters of Algeria, South Africa and the Portuguese colonies among others. Nevertheless, when the OAU was founded and the precedent groups were disbanded, Cuban policy always took firmly and clearly into account the positions of that organization and extended a strong support to the unity efforts of the continent in the framework of the Third World and the de-colonizing and anti-apartheid struggles.
Cuban official discourse always expressed admiration and respect for the OAU, and frequently Cuban leaders lauded –in spite of its shortcomings— the absence, within this organization, of extra-continental and former colonial powers, in contrast with the case of the Organization of American States, in which the US presence turned the regional organization into a sort of ministry of colonies for Washington.
Another reason of admiration for the Cuban leadership was the unflinching support that the OAU extended to African liberation movements and the firm postures that it adopted vis-à-vis matters touching upon issues of sovereignty, non-intervention in the internal affairs of nations and other principles of international law. Shortly after the foundation of the OAU, and with the blessing of its Liberation Committee, Cuba began to extend active support to the patriots grouped in the Partido Africano para a Independência de Guinea e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) in Guinea-Bissau. By 1973, the extension of liberated territory to practically the whole country and the operation of a virtual struggling state in those areas determined the unprecedented development of its admission as full member of the United Nations.
Again, we must bear in mind that, when Cuba has sent troops to Africa at the request of a legally established government, the role of those contingents has been strictly limited to the defence of the country and not to be dragged into internal struggles nor counter-insurgency missions. When the aggression or threat of aggression has ceased, or when the recipient country would request it, Cuban troops have punctually returned home.
Ethiopia is a case in point, as Cuban troops defended the territorial integrity of the country against the Somali invasion, but were never caught in the complex web of civil conflicts to fight against internal rebel movements which later on took power and formed a government that today maintains excellent relations with Cuba and highly values the military support it extended to the Ethiopian nation in the past.
The historical links of solidarity that Cuba maintained with the Movimento Popular para a Libertação de Angola (MPLA) are paradigmatic. Although in Angola two other anti-colonial movements existed, MPLA was not only the closest to Cuba from an ideological viewpoint, but also the one that undoubtedly counted on the greatest amount of internal support and therefore was the most interested in competing with its two political adversaries in the ballot box and not on the battlefield.
But those adversaries, the Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA), militarily supported by Mobutu’s Zaire, and the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), with considerable South African backing, also knew this, and that is why they made the Alvor Agreements inoperable and opted for a military outcome. Thirty three years later and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths after November 11 1975, Angolan independence date, the multi-party elections held in Angola in October 2008 confirmed the MPLA in power with well over 80% of the popular vote, leaving tiny figures of votes going to the moribund FNLA and UNITA.
Cuban troops remained in Angola for fifteen years and only clashed with UNITA forces when these attacked Cuban contingents or fought alongside invading South African forces. During that decade and a half, the Cuban government permanently expressed its disposition to repatriate its military contingents as soon as South Africa evacuated southern Angola and offered solemn guarantees of never again attacking its territory.
Cuba never linked the presence of its troops to other extraneous matters (such as the independence of Namibia and/or the elimination of the apartheid system in South Africa), even though at one point during the most crucial stage of the war in the days of heroic resistance of its forces alongside Angolan troops in Cuito Cuanavale, the highest Cuban leadership declared the country’s disposition to have its troops remain in Angola to safeguard its independence, if it were necessary, until the very demise of apartheid.
It was in fact the US government of Ronald Reagan which established, as a condition for granting Namibia its independence, the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. However, the apartheid regime had become so weak in the final stage of the war, that the Agreements of South-West Africa, negotiated by Angola, South Africa, Cuba and the US, and finally signed in December 1988, opened the way for the speedy independence of Namibia and the beginning of substantive internal negotiations in South Africa even before the total withdrawal of Cuban troops. Slightly five years after the signing of the agreements, the 1994 general elections in South Africa marked the final collapse of the apartheid regime and the access to power of the African National Congress (ANC).
One final characteristic of Cuban policy for Africa that has been very seldom considered abroad has to do with the degree of internal support that said policy has enjoyed, among the Cuban population at large. Beyond the education around principles of solidarity and selflessness that the leading forces of the Cuban state have strived to convey to their citizens, a strong campaign was launched in every sphere of Cuban society to endow Cubans with a deeper knowledge of that continent.
During these years, Africa has occupied a place in the Cuban much more in accordance with what it deserves than in any other printed, radio or televised media in any other place of our sub-continent. Since the 1960s, African history emerged as an independent discipline in Cuban universities, and ever since, the number of institutions involved in the study or promotion of that continent have multiplied: just to mention two of them, CEAMO and the House of Africa of the Historian of the City of Havana.
>From very early on, Cubans have had a privileged access to the ideas of the greatest personalities of African politics, such as Amilcar Cabral, or African arts, such as South African singer Miriam Makeba or the National Ballet of Guinea, or even the best samples of African cinema. The installation in Havana of a Park of African Founding Fathers, to honour the founders of those young nations –an indispensable stopover for high level African visitors— is an unprecedented initiative in the world. The amount of literary works of that continent published in Cuba, most of them in first translations to Spanish, do not find an equal in any other Latin American country and even in many of the so-called First World. This explains why such outstanding personalities, such as Nobel Prize winners Wole Soyinka and Nadine Gordimer, to mention only two, manifest such a complete solidarity with Cuba.
Still much more could be achieved, it is true, but what has been done to the present time is indeed impressive, as well as its results in the familiarization that Cubans have acquired with respect to Africa. Furthermore, the practical bonds that developed between Cubans and Africans already constitute a crucial element of people-to-people contact. Almost half a million Cubans have lived in Africa for extended periods, in civilian or military missions of cooperation, an extraordinary figure and an unprecedented one for a non-African country of only eleven million inhabitants which never was a colonial power. Equally astounding is the figure of over 30,000 Africans graduated in Cuba during these five decades –counting only those of sub-Saharan Africa, because if we add those of North Africa, the total figure would approach 40,000.
Some people in the world wonder: What has Africa provided Cuba with during these past five decades? What has Cuba obtained or expected to obtain from Africa? Not much in the economic sphere, although there is a significant fact that the contribution of those countries that can pay for compensated medical services has allowed Cuba to extend assistance, free of charge, to others who cannot, and this has gradually increased the number of African beneficiaries of assistance in the field of health.
Because these are not rich countries, or have small scale economies, decisions such as those taken by Ethiopia when cancelling a Cuban debt for US$ 2.5 million [22], or the donations of Equatorial Guinea to the Latin American Medical School in Havana or, more recently, its contribution of € 2 million for recovery after hurricanes Gustav and Ike affected Cuba in 2008 [23], to mention only a few cases, are particularly appreciated in Havana.
Similarly, in spite of the fact that our economies are generally not complementary, there have been outstanding instances of experiments to increase bilateral trade. One of them was the barter exchange –early in the difficult 1990s— that was agreed to with Uganda, to receive Cuban drugs and other products in exchange for black beans: this agreement highlighted mutual confidence between the two countries, due to the fact that Ugandans did not consume nor had any experience in the cultivation of that type of beans.
The most evident asset that Africa has given Cuba in these past decades has been its enormous and increasingly constant and generalized solidarity, a contribution that is crucial for a country that suffers constant threats from the largest world power by far. Africa is probably the continent whose representatives vote in a firmer way in favor of Cuba in international fora, even if the majority experiments strong US pressures and frequently pays the cost of that solidarity in the form of some suspended credit or other facility.
Furthermore, cooperation with Africa has allowed Cuban technicians and professionals to learn to work in very difficult conditions of living and labor, and to be exposed to the roots and extreme consequences of colonial and neo-colonial exploitation. This constitutes a valuable contribution to the professional and political formation of the younger generation of doctors, teachers and other Cuban personnel, that thus to become better trained to confront difficulties when they return home and to put into practice the creativity which has been enriched by praxis during their sometimes-demanding African experiences.
Perhaps most importantly, Africa made it possible for Cubans to test the depth of their internationalist commitment and of their human values, as well as their spirit of solidarity, of sharing with other peoples and individuals in need.
In the late 1980s and the early 1990s Cubans experienced the profound and shocking unpleasantness of the collapse of the European socialist camp, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the severe consequences of both facts on the spheres of the economy and everyday life. Meanwhile, events around that same date were developing in Southern Africa which allowed for an important moral compensation, for we were able to contemplate the fruits of a longstanding effort of our military presence in Angola and we acknowledged ourselves as agents of a radical change in the course of history in a far-away region of the world.
>From the early 1960s and until 1989, 2289 Cuban men and women lost their lives while on military missions, and another 204 while on civilian missions in Africa. [24] Most of them –1426— were victims of diseases or accidents. All of them voluntarily opted to accomplish their internationalist duties, more pressing in the case of Africa, because they died convinced of the crucial role that Africans played –also at a very high risk for their lives— in the construction, consolidation and defence of our nation.
Africa has become an important passage in personal and family history, at the same time as national history. The African experience has allowed Cubans, once again, to close ranks around what has been, and still is, a monumental scale national project based on the recognition of the strength of moral values that have forever placed Cuba on the history books of other regions of the world.
Notes
1. The main ideas put forth in this text gradually developed through individual or collective works drafted mostly since the first half of the 1980s at the Centre for Studies on Africa and the Middle East (CEAMO), in particular: David González & Armando Entralgo, «Cuban Policy Toward Africa», in W. Smith & E. Morales, eds., Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-US Relations, Lynne Rienner, Inc., Boulder & London, 1988, pp. 47-57; «Cuban Policy for Africa», in Jorge Domínguez & Rafael Hernández, eds., US-Cuban Relations in the 1990s, Westview Press, Boulder, San Francisco & London, 1989, pp. 141-53; «Southern Africa and Its Conflicts: The African Policy of the Cuban Government», in L. A. Swatuck & T. Shaw, eds., Prospects for Peace and Development in Southern Africa in the 1990s, Centre for African Studies, Dalhousie University, University Press of America, New York & London, 1991, pp. 117-32; «Cuba and Africa: Thirty Years of Solidarity», in J. Erisman & J. Kirk, eds., Cuban Foreign Policy Confronts a New International Order, Lynne Rienner, Inc., Boulder & London, 1991, pp. 93-105; «Cuba et l’.Afrique: Quel Avenir?», Aujourd.hui l’.Afrique, n. 42, París, September 1991, pp. 16-19.
2. Edith Felipe, «La ayuda económica de Cuba al Tercer mundo: evaluación preliminar (1963-1989)», Boletín de Información sobre Economía Cubana, v. I, n. 2, CIEM, Havana, February 1992.
3. Angola (342 experts), Botswana (53), Burkina Faso (9), Burundi (8), Cape Verde (37), Eritrea (50), Ethiopia (11), Gabon (29), Ghana (185), Gambia (138), Guinea (12), Guinea-Bissau (35), Ecuatorial Guinea (167), Lesotho (12), Mali (122), Mozambique (126), Namibia (146), Niger (1), Nigeria (5), Rwanda
(31), São Tomé e Príncipe (9), Seychelles (22), Sierra Leone (4), South Africa (144), Sudan (1), Swaziland (20), Tanzania (13), Uganda (5), Djibouti (16) and Zimbabwe (133). These figures, as well as the others referred to cooperation and container in the present article were taken from the data summary of the Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX) on Cuban cooperation with countries of Sub-Saharan Africa for the month of August of 2008, except the cases in which a different source is indicated.
4. Angola (312), Cape Verde (37), Ethiopia (3), Mozambique (126), Nigeria (1), São Tomé e Príncipe (9), Seychelles (22), South Africa (144), Sudan (1) and Uganda (5).
5. Hedelberto López Blanch, «Cuba y África están eternamente unidas», Granma, Havana, 20 July 2008, p. 7.
6. «Cuba abre al mundo su corazón solidario», Weekly Publiction of the José Martí National Library, a. 1, n. 1, Havana, 9 January 2004.
7. Edith Felipe, op. cit.
8. Ivette García González, «Esencias, principios y práctica de la política exterior de Cuba», available on the net, in molinamiguel.webpress.com.
9. «Cuba y la cooperación internacional en ciencia y tecnología»,available in www.undp.org.cu.
10. Morocco is the only exception.
11. Angola, Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Democartic Republic of Congo, Ecuatorial Guinea, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the opening of several more is being considered.
12. Angola, Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Democratic Saharaui Arab Republic, Djibouti, Ecuatorial Guinea, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
13. There were also schools of Nicaraguan and Corean students, but due to their volume and national diversity the African schools were the ones that left the deepenst imprint on that island.
14. Hedelberto López Blanch, op cit.
15. , Ecuatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania. Conditions are being prepared for the program to begin in another four: Angola, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Swaziland.
16. Botswana, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ecuatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe continue to implement the program. It was implemented for some time in Chad and Liberia, but it was suspended due to various difficulties.
17. Patricia Grogg, «Ayuda cubana reduce mortalidad infantil en dos países», Asheville Global Report Online/ Noticias en Español, n. 84, Asheville, 24-30 August 2000.
18. «Cuba y la cooperación.», op. cit.
19. Ivette García González, op. cit., p. 6.
20. Eugenio Espinosa, «La cooperación internacional en las relaciones internacionales de Cuba», available on the web in www.redem.buap.mx.
21. «Cuba y la cooperación…», op. cit., p. 5.
22. David González, «Civilian Cooperation Between Cuba and Ethiopia (Summary)», in Muestra fotográfica y evento académico preparados en el marco de las jornadas de celebración por la amistad entre Etiopía y Cuba, bilingual Spanish-Amharic publication, AAU Printing Press, Addis Abeba, 2007, p. 34.
23. «Gobierno de Guinea Ecuatorial dona a Cuba dos millones de euros», Granma, Havana, 28 October 2008, p. 4.
24. «Total de caídos durante el cumplimiento de misiones militares y civiles, así como las causas de su muerte», Bohemia, v. 81, n. 50, Havana, 15 December 1989, p. 33.
US Rabbis Urge Obama to Push for Immediate Gaza Truce
By Natasha Mozgavaya and Haaretz Staff
January 15, 2009 by Haaretz (Israel)
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055463.html
A group of rabbis and other religious leaders bought advertising space in the New York Times this week to call for U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to push for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
The ad, placed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and claiming to represent more than 2,800 other religious, cultural and community leaders, urges Obama to convene an international Middle East peace conference to "facilitate a lasting and just settlement for all parties."
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, who convened the group, said the group had to buy the advertising space because the national newspapers would not make room for their perspective.
"They feel that AIPAC's choice is overwhelming, and there's no space left for empathy or objective coverage - the media, according to the group, simply ignored the voice of the Jewish opposition to war in Gaza," Rabbi Lerner said.
Eleven prominent British Jews, including Baroness Julia Neuberger, published a letter in The Observer newspaper last weekend expressing their "horror" at the Gaza conflict and calling on Israel to stop its military campaign.
Israel has been waging an offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip since December 27. The operation, launched in order to halt cross-border rocket fire, has come under heavy criticism for the high number of civilian casualties. [And this last line -- repeating the lie as to why Israel is carrying out this destruction now -- before the Obama administration takes office -- is a good indication why it was necessary for Lerner et.al. to buy advertising space. klw]
INTERVIEW WITH MARIELA CASTRO ESPÍN,
HAVANA, DECEMBER 18, 2008
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2294.html
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Spanish available:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2294-espanol.html
Radio Program "La Noche se Mueve"
Miami, 1210 am
www.lanochesemueve.us
Listen to the interview here:
http://lanochesemueve.us/La%20Noche%20Se%20Mueve%2012-23%20(Mariela%20Castro
)%20Permanente.mp3
Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.d
Host: Edmundo García
Symbols:
EG: Edmundo García
MC: Mariela Castro
EG: Interview with Mariela Castro Espín, Director of Cuba's National Center
for Sex Education (CENESEX). Mariela, thank you so much for accepting to
have this first conversation for 'La Noche se Mueve' and our audience in
South Florida.
MC: Thank you for this meeting.
EG: It's been a while since we last met, so I'd like to start by offering my
condolences for your mother's death. I know you loved her very much.
MC: Thank you very much.
EG: What did she mean to you and the woman you have become?
MC: Well, first of all she was a very sweet and affectionate mom who made
great contributions to our education. Despite her many obligations she
really looked after us and paid attention to our contradictions, because
we're all so different from one another. Now that I have three children
myself, I can't help wondering how she could devote so much time to every
one of us, and talk and listen to and help us in times of trouble, and
always with respect for what each of us was. Of course, like any other
mother, she would try to set boundaries, and as we grew up we would try to
set our own.
Her life story as a human being is really beautiful. As all children do,
when I was a girl I wanted to be like my folks, but I didn't have it in me
to be like her, because we had very different personalities and
temperaments. Still, she always taught me good things. We had the usual
fights children often have with their parents as part of domestic life, but
I always looked up to her as a human being, for she had qualities and
abilities as a woman that I could only have in my dreams. Not that I'm any
less worthy; it's just that we're so different. My current job has made me
go deeper into the history of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which
started the work I do now, and from the professional viewpoint I have to
know what they did in the past for the sake of continuity.
EG: Did Vilma ever get involved with the issues you deal with?
MC: Oh yes, absolutely. It's precisely because she started this work that
I've had to study what's been done so far, and I've found out they did incredible
things and she searched into rather uncharted subjects and fought tooth and
nail for the recognition of homosexual and transsexual rights, although she
had more success with the latter.
EG: So she kept up with those topics?
MC: Yes, she worked along those lines.
EG: It was never disclosed.
MC: Never. I knew very little myself until 1990, when I started in CENESEX
as an expert and interviewed Dr. Celestino Álvarez Lanjonchere to learn his
opinion on what was being done or should be done about gays and lesbians in
Cuba and all their suffering, and he described me all the things that I had
no idea my mother had done, even a document she had asked him to write in
general terms about homosexuality and homophobia, two unfamiliar concepts at
the time, to try and convince her fellow Political Bureau members of the
need to come up with a policy on homosexuals and the recognition of their
rights.
EG: Is there any record of what sort of reception the document got in the
Political Bureau?
MC: Not that I know of.
EG: Have you tried to find out?
MC: I'd like to, but I don't know where to begin.
EG: With your father.
MC: What he always says is that my mom was right; that she fought hard to
that end and had to be very cautious because they were all very sexist men,
and it was already hard for a woman to be up there with them as it was. So
she was always careful and sweet and patient but managed to tough it out.
Even my dad tells me that I must follow her lead and be careful and patient
like her in order to succeed, but I remind him that we're two different
persons with different temperaments and from different times.
EG: You have done things in a different way and been a lot pushier than
Vilma when it comes to standing your ground for your ideas.
MC: Yes, because first of all my mom was a chemical engineer and I studied
psychology and pedagogy and became a professor, which makes you look at
things from another perspective and helps you discover and speak the right
language and feedback from what others have to say, in this case my
students, and you use that to review and revise your speech; that's what a
teacher does. Moreover, everything the FMC had achieved in thirty years
smoothed the way for me. Right now I'm writing a paper where I say the first
steps taken in Cuba in favor of equal rights for women made it so much
easier to break up the so-called gender stereotypes and thus anatomize the
heterosexist pattern. In short, all the earlier efforts for the good of
women and sex education laid the groundwork for me. I threw myself into the
task from the outset because the time was ripe and the circumstances were
favorable, so I put two and two together and decided it was the right moment
to do something.
EG: There have been setbacks.
MC: Many, at all times, and I know there will be many more!
EG: Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban Parliament, has great
affection for you and believes in your ideas. However, when we met in Canada
I asked him whether he would stand by your project on same-sex marriage or
side up with the Catholic Church against it, he made no comment. Is same-sex
marriage still a taboo subject, not to Alarcón perhaps, but to Cuban society
and/or its leadership?
MC: Well, I don't think Alarcón is prejudiced, but his post involves a great
deal of public responsibility and the obligation to be very careful and take
his time to think about what must be done. Besides, he has got letters from
a number of church leaders who oppose both same-sex marriage and adoption
and sex change operations.
EG: Speaking of religious leaders, I interviewed [Vicar-General of Havana
Monsignor] Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in Havana and he told me you two have
had long, heated conversations. What's your view on the position of the
Cuban Catholic Church now that its relations with the State are going
through a true honeymoon period?
MC: Look, I've never been against any religion, on the contrary, I think.
EG: But are you an atheist?
MC: I'm a nonbeliever, as they say.
EG: Don't you ever commend yourself to God?
MC: I don't know, I commend myself to someone's trust, for instance. I can
say I have faith, but in what I don't know.
EG: Alright, but do you have spiritual faith in something beyond material
life?
MC: I don't know whether my faith is material or not, but as a person I
believe in the circumstances and in people and in what happens around me.
EG: So how can you describe in general your conversations with Cuban
Catholic and Christian Church leaders?
MC: I don't really have any links with them, only with Carlos Manuel and the
people who work with him. Look, Carlos Manuel is a very wise man and a
beautiful person. I have faith in Carlos Manuel (laughter), I trust him. At
the beginning of the year I was very sad at my mother's decease and felt
like marrying again.
EG: Did you wed your husband again?
MC: I called it a second wedding, and asked Carlos Manuel to bless my
marriage.
EG: So you had a church wedding?
MC: Not a church wedding; it would have been too compelling and I'm not
willing to commit myself too much, I'm up to my ears with commitments.
Carlos Manuel suggested I should do it, but I told him what I needed was his
wonderful human and spiritual presence, as well as all what his own
spirituality entails from a cultural viewpoint. Since I was brought up in
the tenets of Christianity, I can feel them all the time in his speech and
constant educational messages. It was Fidel's habit of quoting the Bible in
his speeches what aroused my interest, especially in the Old Testament.
EG: The Old rather than the New Testament?
MC: That's right.
EG: What parts do you like best?
MC: It's been a while since I last read it, but I usually need to go through
a thing or two.
EG: I'm going to give you the New Testament as a gift.
MC: It's OK; I have it from priests who are friends of mine.
EG: Mariela, what does Carlos Manuel, held by some to be a liberal, think
about your support of same-sex marriage?
MC: He even wrote something in Palabra Nueva about marriage and family that
I liked, and he gave me some facts that I studied and kept in mind. He's
glad that I don't try to tear down as traditional an institution as
heterosexual marriage. Some concepts go a very long way in history and do no
harm; heterosexual marriage is one of them, and there's no need to dismantle
it. Others, such as the male and female stereotyping, must be dismantled,
since they cause a lot of problems, including violence, as men are taught to
find macho relish in violence to prove their manhood. They say women and men
are raised to live in harmony, but then we found ourselves in great
discord. Some things do need changing because they hurt, but it's not the
case of heterosexual marriage and what it means, which is fine and makes
many people happy. Therefore, we don't have to talk about same-sex marriage
as long as we can come up with other concepts and categories that make gay
and straight equally happy.
EG: Same-sex marriage as such is not on CENESEX's agenda then?
MC: It's not same-sex marriage what we're putting forward, but the inclusion
of provisions in the Family Code to grant homosexual couples living together
the same rights as heterosexual couples.
EG: But that's easy to approve.
MC: It's easy, but we want to make sure it's clear to everyone because many
people are prejudiced about us, thinking we're singing the praises of
same-sex marriage, since at first I said that if we want to eliminate all
forms of discrimination and homophobia we had to entitle both homo and
heterosexual couples to equal inheritance and personal rights.
EG: What made you change your mind?
MC: Seeing that people were reluctant, several homosexual couples who work
with us in CENESEX asked me to remove that obstacle, since they'd rather
live as unmarried couples without the restrictions binding on a civil
marriage today, which can even make you lose your house, just to give you an
example of something that must be changed.
EG: Does that still happen?
MC: Yes, it does.
EG: Can't it be prevented?
MC: Look, it's complicated, and the request comes from people who have had a
really rough time of it.
EG: Would you have to take the issue all the way up to the Parliament?
MC: To the Parliament, yes. Now we're designing a small publicity campaign
about our proposal of changes to the Family Code for Cuban families to grasp
the advantages of those amendments, a large number of them, and the benefits
they will bring. By January it should be ready for discussion with the Party
and the people, so there's some consensus of opinion by the time it gets to
the Parliament and more understanding about the need to change things. The
only thing we request regarding homosexuality is that same-sex couples
living together have the same inheritance and personal rights. Most likely
they won't be granted adoption rights, but these homosexual couples I know
keep telling me, 'Don't lock horns with them over adoption, for we can work
it out, or marriage, for it's not that important; getting married holds no
interest for us here.
EG: In other words, you should engage only in fights you can win.
MC: Exactly, but it hurt anyway. I thought if we did things like that we
would continue to be seen as homophobic, but if the main beneficiaries of
our work were the ones who gave me the clues to what mattered most to them,
so be it. And that's what we're proposing.
EG: Which doesn't mean these issues will be put aside forever, that is, they
could be taken up again sometime.
MC: Exactly, some other time, we'll probably leave it behind as our society
advances and people's attitude toward these things change. We must carry on
working in the meantime, talking to people and developing education and
communication strategies. Otherwise it will be like with racial
discrimination, which we thought abolished in Cuba but many people are still
racist, except that such attitudes are forbidden by law.
EG: It's also a cultural phenomenon.
MC: But the cultural phenomenon can be changed by means of education and
communication, and that's what we're doing.
EG: Mariela, in the specific case of the homosexual community, do you
champion the cause of their right to join any institution or association
that exists in Cuban society?
MC: I'm not sure what you mean.
EG: The homosexual community can take part in everything. It's a clear
question and I'm not going to beat about the bush. For instance, there was a
big debate in the U.S. during the Clinton years, concerning the presence of
gays and lesbians in the military, which ended up with the 'Don't ask, don't
tell' concept: don't say you're a homosexual and don't ask others about
their sexual orientation. It happened in a male chauvinist culture, inside
institutions seen as archetypes of machismo. What's your stance on the
presence of homosexuals in the Cuban Armed Forces?
MC: Well, I guess that as the Cuban society becomes less homophobic or
homophagous, I don't know which term is better, it will extend to all
institutions, but I think the essential thing is to start with the family,
where homosexuals and even transsexuals most suffer, as our studies and
programs have shown. Remember that in the case of transsexuals our work
covers not only their sexual orientation, but also gender identity issues.
EG: On the issue of transsexualism, which some people find so troublesome,
is it true Cuba performed a sex-change operation more than 20 years ago?
MC: It was in '88, and quite successful. The subject is very well.
EG: After that one-time experience, has that subject -whose identity remains
confidential- managed to lead a good life?
MC: Yes, without any problem. The subject has even got married and divorced
three times (laughter).
EG: Why do you laugh?
MC: Because she's a very joyful, fun-loving person.
EG: Mariela, I'm asking you this because I've seen cases, in the U.S. and
elsewhere, of people who have undergone surgery to change their sex and then
have become insane or committed suicide, and even cases of men who
transitioned to become females and then started to have sex with women, that
is, psychologically unbalanced.
MC: There's international consensus as to the steps to follow for diagnosis
and treatment.
EG: Is there a protocol?
MC: Yes, and it's applied worldwide. We have links with an International
Association where we do research and close contacts with some of its
doctors. [The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association]
meets every two years to discuss their scientific findings, reach
agreements, draw up documents and revise the protocols, and they establish
how to proceed from the technical-professional viewpoint. Of course, there
are places where economic interests prevail and they do it to anyone who
wants to change their sex and can afford the operation, and there's where
people get damaged.
EG: Cuba would never do that, right? My point is, the enemies and
out-and-out critics of this project, which is CENESEX's brainchild, say
they're trying to have the chance to perform these operations in Cuba at a
lower cost in order to turn it into a source of profit. Of course, your
answer is not for me, I'd just like to hear what you have to say about it.
MC: A resolution by the Ministry of Public Health legitimizes the work of
the National Commission for the Integral Care of Transsexual Individuals, a
multidisciplinary research group that I chair from CENESEX and whose first
studies were recently published in a book, as well as that of a Special
Health Care Center we have in a hospital under our methodological
supervision. This resolution states the service is free of charge and only
for Cuban citizens, not for foreigners. It's not a profit-making program.
EG: What if people from other countries go to Cuba to have surgery, some who
says, for example, 'I want to be a woman'?
MC: The resolution prevents us from operating on foreigners.
EG: It's important to hear you say that, because they talk about it in other
countries, and that's where my question came from. I think it's important
that you make clear there's no gender reassignment surgery available to
foreigners in Cuba.
MC: No, no, the resolution states it's a specialized free service for and a
right of the Cubans.
EG: So foreigners must refrain from going to Cuba for that purpose.
MC: It's a non-profit health service as yet unavailable to foreigners.
EG: What's the financial cost of one operation for Cuba, taking into account
that your country pays for the service after all?
MC: I've been asked before and I forgot to do the calculations, although an
estimate was made for the future, since the resolution issued this year gave
the go-ahead to resume surgery.
EG: No other operations so far?
MC: No, only partial reassignment surgery, that is, female-to-male
mastectomy for women and testicle removal in the case of men, but the final
touch of genital reconstruction is scheduled for next year. A medical team
is getting ready to that effect, working with very experienced, first-class
Belgian doctors who master these microsurgery techniques, more precise and
refined, which produce much better results and make it possible for the
patient to come through much better, even with a higher sexual response.
EG: Is this kind of surgery facing stronger moral opposition in Cuba than
same-sex marriage?
MC: Yes, our churches have been complaining about it very vigorously. When
you explain to the Cuban people that it's part of a treatment that will help
those patients feel happier and even get over their psychological problems
after so much anxiety and distress in their lives resulting from the
contradiction between their biological sex and gender identity, they do
understand. That's why the campaign we'll launch in 2009 will be against
homophobia from January to July and against transphobia from July to
December. People will learn about both concepts so they can understand it's
justified from the professional and humanitarian viewpoint.
EG: Do you think you're in the majority or the minority? Leaving aside the
Church, I think those programs don't enjoy great popularity in the Cuban
society as a whole.
MC: With regards to society's approval, I'm in the minority. That's why
we're engaged in this educational campaign to spread information. Like I
said, our people understand when we present them with facts and spell out
the big picture to them.
EG: So you don't know how much the operation costs...
MC: I can't remember now, but the Ministry of Public Health has the figures.
I can look for it and let you know some other time. Besides, the cost
changes from one country and health system to another.
EG: Are there many transsexuals waiting or is it a small percentage?
MC: Well, it's a very small percentage worldwide.
EG: You mean a minimal percentage compared to the world population at
large...
MC: Yes, it's a very small number. In Cuba we have twenty-odd cases awaiting
surgery.
EG: But only with the Commission's approval and recommendation?
MC: No, they've been already recommended; these are all proven transsexuals.
EG: By 'proven' you mean that psychologically speaking.
MC: Yes, they all passed every diagnosis and the only way for them is
forward.
EG: Mariela, when it comes to gay rights much is said and commented about
male same-sex couples, perhaps because they're less inhibited. Is female
homosexuality frowned upon more than male homosexuality in Cuba?
MC: Yes, because of machismo.
EG: So machismo rears its ugly head here too?
MC: Machismo is always around, never goes away; it simply changes its shape.
EG: Even among women themselves?
MC: That's right. Straight men and women all over the world are not as
disdainful of male homosexuals as they are of female ones, of whom they have
little or no understanding. Lesbians are more vulnerable than men
everywhere. Cuban homosexuals may be scorned and looked down on, but they're
not the victims of physical attacks. Judging by reports I receive from
organizations in this field, the number of women who are murdered worldwide
is sky-high, and it's even worse with lesbians. Some of them are even
victims of gang rape by men who pretend it's the only way to get it into
their head what they're supposed to do with their sex and other things
typical of the prevailing mindset in patriarchal societies.
EG: Do you work with both groups in CENESEX?
MC: Yes. Our focus on transsexuals is the result of a well-knit system that
set in motion in 1979.
EG: I mean male and female homosexuals.
MC: Let me explain. Our work with transsexuals is more systematized, and we
have included transvestites and other individuals from the rather broader
transgender spectrum. In 2004 we started a program called OREMI for about
sixty female homosexuals in Havana, who meet once a week at CENESEX, have
joined several of our programs and cooperate with us to implement various
strategies and research works. They have proved to be a very interesting
target group; some of them are being trained to become health promoters or
popular education methodologists in order to do a better job in our
communities.
We've been working twice a week with transsexuals and transvestites and
meeting with their families, and it's been wonderful. We have not done
anything yet with either homosexual women's families or homosexual and
bisexual men, who are more heterogeneous. More men are likely to come to the
Center now that we're starting to organize male support groups.
EG: In the case of bisexuals, who are the least mentioned even if I'm sure
you have figures too, how common are they compared to the homosexuals?
MC: Look, our studies on HIV/AIDS gave us an insight into the high rate of
bisexual men in Cuba, and I mean men who have sex with other men. I don't
have figures, nor do I know if there are any.
EG: Is there a bisexual female population?
MC: We have no data. In our ORAMI group we have lesbians, bisexuals and, to
quote their own definition, heteroflexible women.
EG: What's that?
MC: Women who identify themselves as heterosexual but have occasional
lesbian relationships.
EG: Isn't that bisexuality?
MC: They don't see themselves as either bisexual or lesbian persons.
EG: Is it because they do it only now and then?
MC: Exactly. Therefore they use that name in their group.
EG: Do you think we Cubans are a liberated nation? I read once that at least
5% of Cuban men have had male-male sex.
MC: Yes, it was the conclusion of a study about AIDS that the figure is
around 5%, and they say the number is between 5 and 10% worldwide.
EG: There are cultures like the Arabic where.
MC: Okay, but don't forget the Koran condemns homosexuality!
EG: Before you're married, but not so after that.
MC: I'm not so familiar with Arabic culture, but I've noticed contradictions
between what we know and what they say about their life and religion and the
various interpretations of the Koran. There's a great deal of inconsistency,
so I'd like to learn more about it one day.
EG: From your own experience, how do you see Cuba, and yourself, in 5 or 10
years? I ask you because I read what you write for the media. What changes
do you see in the future of the Cuban society?
MC: Well, I don't know whether this is how I see it or how I'd like it to
be. I recently said I'd like the socialist experiment to continue, but in a
more flexible way. I'd like a socialism that makes us happier, a more
glorious and dialectical socialism. From my professional position I work
toward that end, and I'd like to see a similar effort in other areas where I
have no business meddling in for lack of professional jurisdiction. I'd like
this socialism to be more dialectical so that it can be splendid.
EG: How do you see Mariela Castro Espín 5 or 10 years from now?
MC: I think I'll still be working in CENESEX.
EG: Any independent political vocation?
MC: No, none, I don't like politics, although my work has a major impact on
politics because we make proposals based on scientific research for the
development of social policies. That is, I care about politics as a citizen,
as a professional, as CENESEX director.
EG: Mariela, several times you have said to be in favor of lifting certain
restrictions or controls which prevent ordinary Cubans from travelling,
basically the so-called ´white card´. What's your opinion about that?
MC: What I've said is that I'd like that Cuban policy to be made more
flexible or modified. It was enforced for protection against unfriendly U.S.
policies on the Cuban people, mainly the Cuban Adjustment Act, which fosters
illegal immigration and trafficking in people; the economic and financial
blockade on the Cuban people's right to survive, and the violation of
migration agreements by not providing the promised number of visas every
year. As a result, people try to find other ways to leave. Immigrants have
travelled the Florida Strait back and forth since colonial times.
Furthermore, migration evolved from being just a legal figure to a matter of
human nature. The world was always populated by people who emigrated, as
human beings are constantly moving around in search of a place of their
choice where they can settle.
EG: That's the question: what would have to happen?
MC: I think if the U.S. -and some of its European allies- stop their hostile
policies, our emigration laws will surely change, as will the travel ban and
many other issues. And we need the Cubans who live in the U.S. to help bring
forth that change.
EG: Would a legitimate, respectful dialogue about those issues between
President Barack Obama and your father be fruitful for the aspirations and
preferences of the Cubans who live in the island?
MC: Absolutely. Should Obama and my father meet as presidents, on an equal
footing and with respect for each other's sovereignty, many things will
change for the benefit of all Cubans.
EG: Here and there.
MC: Here and there.
EG: Let's suppose, now that your father has stated several times his
willingness to meet with Obama even in a third country, that Obama takes him
up on his offer, but first decides to ask Mariela for advice, and he asks
her: 'How do you think I should start a conversation with your father, who
is the Cuban president? I mean, really!'?
MC: I wouldn't know how to chat him up (laughter), he takes great care to
ensure he doesn't speak out when I'm around.
EG: Why is that? Are you indiscreet sometimes?
MC: It's because I give many interviews.
EG: Is that a problem?
MC: Not really, we've talked about that.
EG: Do you ever get into arguments?
MC: Yes, all the time.
EG: Because of your interviews?
MC: That too, but we've learned to respect each other.
EG: Now that he's the President, do you talk with him and see him more
often?
MC: Less often.
EG: Do you miss him?
MC: Yes, I do.
EG: So do you get mad with each other now and then?
MC: Yes, since as far as I can remember.
EG: Who gets more upset, you or your dad?
MC: Both of us.
EG: So what would be your advice to Obama?
MC: That he should pay attention, if he cares of course, to the few things
my dad has said in some interviews. But first of all, that he should come. I
mean Obama, not the President of the United States. Just Obama.
EG: Impossible if he's the President. So that's Mariela's advice?
MC: But he can! Your job can entail a lot of pressure, but as a human being
you don't have to go by the book at all times. Presidents have wide-ranging
powers, but Obama is a smart person and I think he's good at getting along
and getting by in politics, complex though politics may be in the U.S.,
always under pressure. I'm sure he'll be the first U.S. president to come
closer to Cuba without making demands or being manipulative, but with
respect, because Cuba respects the U.S. and therefore the U.S. should
respect Cuba. So in case anybody wants to tell him, Mariela is asking Obama
to start by releasing the Cuban Five.
EG: Among the main causes of discord, say, the embargo, the Cuban Five, the
travel restrictions and so on, what do you think it should be the first
topic to start building a relationship with Cuba?
MC: As far as I and all Cubans are concerned, the Cuban Five. Set them free
and let justice be done. That's our foremost request, and let justice move
on as it should afterward, which would be wonderful even for the U.S. Such
is our No. 1 priority: keep the blockade if you will, but release the Cuban
Five.
EG: Let's go back to your professional life. I'd like you to tell me about
domestic violence in Cuba.
MC: Women everywhere, in all patriarchal societies, are the victims of
violence. I call it the pathology of power, since it's about exerting power
unevenly.
EG: In the U.S., if you raise your voice to your wife you can be taken to
court and issued a restraining order. How aware are Cuban men and women of
their rights? Is there a law against domestic violence?
MC: We have severe laws against domestic violence and very harsh sentences,
mainly for cases of sexually abused children.
EG: That would be an extreme, but domestic violence.
MC: Do you mean the more general gender-based violence?
EG: Like when a man who slaps a woman in the face.
MC: Men and women in Cuba are still unaware of the various forms of
gender-based violence. Research has it that psychological and verbal abuse
prevails over physical abuse, which is more obvious and easier to prove in a
court of law. We recently went to the TV program Diálogo Abierto, where we
described psychological violence as a drop of water that falls on you every
day and explained that if you're not conscious of the facts you'll never
learn to set limits on things, and there must be limits. Negotiation and the
mutual definition of limits are part of a couple's life.
EG: Will society mediate in cases of domestic violence reported by one of
the parties?
MC: Well, the law allows for that!
EG: But since it seldom happens, what's the cultural problem?
MC: It seldom happens for lack of knowledge. The FMC is launching more and
more information and education campaigns to increase public awareness,
especially among women, who are the main victims. But men are also victims
of their upbringing and the way manhood is portrayed all over the world,
which makes them very vulnerable and likely to become victimizers. So we
have a lot of work to do, because what we're doing is not enough.
EG: Is there a lot of domestic violence?
MC: According to reports, most cases seen by our Counseling Homes for Women
and Families are on the qualitative side, like women who come asking for
help or counsel and even legal advice. The problem is, very few ask for
counsel about the most frequent psycological violence.
EG: Are the older generations more prone to domestic violence than the
younger ones?
MC: It's more common among older people and decreasing among the younger
ones. However, many people hold that young people's relations are violent as
a rule, although they don't actually mean gender-based violence but simply
violence both between and within the two sexes. But much still remains to be
done in that field. We have made great progress, but not enough to be able
to at least make a few changes.
EG: Mariela, you have been to the United States on two occasions.
MC: Only once, in 2002.
EG: Wait a minute: did you travel to the U.S. with a visa granted by the
George W. Bush administration?
MC: Yes, it seems they didn't know me very well yet (laughter).
EG: Is that what you think? (Laughter)
MC: I don't know, they just gave me a visa. The first time I was going to a
Congress but the visa came too late. I got it later on and could attend a
Conference on Sexology in Los Angeles, but the only place I could see was
the hotel where I stayed because we had sessions the whole day long, as is
usual in these meetings. Then I did some work in Virginia and Washington,
D.C., where I had a great time.
EG: How long did you stay? Tell me about your American experience.
MC: I spent 12 days in the U.S. I didn't have to work too hard to
communicate because almost everybody spoke Spanish. Most people I saw were
Latinos, including many Cubans and Salvadorians. The sight of so many poor
and homeless people in the very capital city of the Empire was a real shock
to me, as I didn't expect to see that.
EG: Did you get to see the White House?
MC: Yes, I stood there, watching it.
EG: What was in the mind of Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Raúl and
niece of Fidel, when she laid eyes on the White House? Did you think of your
family at that moment?
MC: No, no, no, not my family. It was Cuba what came to mind, and I got so
mad. There were demonstrations in support of Palestine and other causes, and
I felt so much rage, the rage of the world, and the arrogance of the White
House. I was so annoyed!
EG: Mariela, what's left of that girl I once knew? I won't do the math, but
many years ago I met a girl who even thought of becoming a dancer, who was
in search of ways to express herself. I remember one day when we were
talking with Antonio Gades in [Cuban dancer Lorna's] place. Whatever
happened to that girl who loved going to the theater and dancing so much and
wanted to do performing arts?
MC: I really enjoyed it while it lasted. I almost gave up Sexology for
dancing, something our mutual friend [Cuban musician] Jorge Luis Prats
advised me not to do, so I listened to him and stuck to Sexology.
EG: Was it a good piece of advice?
MC: I think so, although I didn't give up dancing for good. I kept taking
dancing lessons with a retired professor, going to performances and flirting
with flamenco, which I never really learned, but I had fun with it and still
enjoy it very much, as I do rumba and Santeria dancing.
EG: Santeria too?
MC: I love it!
EG: Do you practice?
MC: No, no, but I like it.
EG: Has any Santeria priestess ever told you who your father is?
MC: Oshún. Another one told me I was also the daughter of Changó.
EG: Do you think you're related to Oshún?
MC: Yes, and also to Changó, to both of them.
EG: What do you have in common with Oshún?
MC: Ah, the fawning.
EG: And with Changó?
MC: The strength.
EG: Mariela, there are eight hundred thousand Cubans in Southern Florida,
maybe even one million.
MC: Scratch that out: from Oshun I got the honey, not the fawning
(laughter).
EG: You're every inch a Cuban but your husband is Italian. How come? How do
you manage to bring things into line?
MC: Well, he's Sicilian, and Sicily has something in common with Cuba.
EG: That you're all island creatures, maybe?
MC: That too, but also our Spanish ancestors. Spain was Sicily's last
important colonizer.
EG: What do you tell your Italian husband when you're angry?
MC: I'd rather not say (laughter).
EG: Mariela, again, there are seven or eight hundred thousand Cubans in
Southern Florida. Some of them don't want anything to do with Cuba anymore,
let alone the Revolution, Fidel and Raúl; they just dream of and live a
different history. However, there's a group of Cubans who favor
reconciliation despite their differences. What's your opinion about that
Cuban community unmarked by hatred toward Cuba? Will there be any room for
them in Cuba's future?
MC: Hey, it would be lovely if we could come together and live in greater
harmony! I wish they could find some room here, for I also believe that most
Cubans who live abroad have set up their own associations, which is a very
positive and beautiful attitude toward the reestablishment of cordial
relations. In my opinion, the more the tension between our two countries is
relieved, the better our reunion will be.
EG: Two years ago there was a debate in Cuba about what came to be known as
the "e-mail war" and eventually the so-called "gray decade" of Cuban
culture. But other things were discussed, such as the UMAP (Military Units
in Support of Production) and the views on homosexual behavior at that time.
Did all that have any impact on your struggle?
MC: Look, it was a chance to put my point of view. I always see
opportunities in times of contradiction, and I liked the fact that there was
a debate for people to speak their mind and get it all out, which they did.
EG: Did you talk about those problems with your dad then?
MC: Yes, we talked about it; he was paying careful attention.
EG: How do you think he was feeling about the debate?
MC: He kept up with what was going on and sometimes wanted to know my
opinion. I always told him I thought it was a good thing, since society
needed debate to move forward, and he paid attention. Never did I see him
worried, except for the smooth progress of a productive, nationwide
discussion that was part of a social project which concerned everyone, and
as such it should move in the right direction.
EG: What would you say were the reasons for the mistakes during that period
in this, your regular field of work?
MC: Well, everything I learned about it -keep in mind I didn't live through
those days- came from my mom and dad, who always said it was wrong to scorn
homosexuals. That's what I grew up hearing. I remember I would come home
from the university complaining about things I had seen in that process to
strengthen people's revolutionary principles which they used to have it in
for the homosexuals. As a Young Communist League leader in my school, I
managed to prevent any homosexual from being punished. Every time I made it
clear to them that I was against those procedures, they agreed that it was
the wrong thing to do.
EG: I asked you before about the presence of homosexuals in the military
because of the "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy we've seen in the U.S. But what
about political organizations like the Communist Party or the Young
Communist League?
MC: I believe the Communist Party should legitimize homosexual membership.
We all know there are homosexuals in its ranks, only they're still in the
closet. Some of the gay young men who collaborate with CENESEX are Party
leaders in their workplaces and quite respected by everyone.
EG: Is by any chance the 'don't-ask-don't-tell' compromise silently
happening in Cuba too?
MC: Well, some Party members don't mind being in the open and they still
work as leaders.
EG: But members-to-be are not questioned about it anymore, right?
MC: No, not anymore. Look, I'd like to propose the explicit inclusion in the
Party statutes that no one should be banned on account of their sexual
orientation.
EG: For the 2009 Party Congress to discuss?
MC: I'd love to, and I will put it forward.
EG: Finally, Mariela, would you send your regards in your own words to all
Cubans, regardless of where we live? Putting aside our ideological,
philosophical and conceptual differences, don't you think that our love for
Cuba can bring us together and overcome such differences?
MC: Yes, of course. Our message is 'unity in diversity'.
EG: So will we be able to live with our differences?
MC: We will overcome any difference as long as we ride together under the
fundamental principles of national sovereignty.
EG: Thank you, Mariela.
MC: Thank you. Oh, I forgot a very important thing. When we talked about the
Family Code, I said we're in favor of granting equal rights to both
homosexual and heterosexual consensual unions. I'm talking about legal
unions, not marriage.
EG: What do you mean by 'legal union'?
MC: A legal union is a same-sex marriage (laughter).
EG: Thank you very much, Mariela.
---ooOoo---
Final - INTERVIEW WITH MARIELA CASTRO ESPÍN,
HAVANA, DECEMBER 18, 2008
Radio Program "La Noche se Mueve"
Miami, 1210 am
www.lanochesemueve.us
Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Host: Edmundo García
Symbols:
EG: Edmundo García
MC: Mariela Castro
EG: Interview with Mariela Castro Espín, Director of Cuba's National Center
for Sex Education (CENESEX). Mariela, thank you so much for accepting to
have this first conversation for 'La Noche se Mueve' and our audience in
South Florida.
MC: Thank you for this meeting.
EG: It's been a while since we last met, so I'd like to start by offering my
condolences for your mother's death. I know you loved her very much.
MC: Thank you very much.
EG: What did she mean to you and the woman you have become?
MC: Well, first of all she was a very sweet and affectionate mom who made
great contributions to our education. Despite her many obligations she
really looked after us and paid attention to our contradictions, because
we're all so different from one another. Now that I have three children
myself, I can't help wondering how she could devote so much time to every
one of us, and talk and listen to and help us in times of trouble, and
always with respect for what each of us was. Of course, like any other
mother, she would try to set boundaries, and as we grew up we would try to
set our own.
Her life story as a human being is really beautiful. As all children do,
when I was a girl I wanted to be like my folks, but I didn't have it in me
to be like her, because we had very different personalities and
temperaments. Still, she always taught me good things. We had the usual
fights children often have with their parents as part of domestic life, but
I always looked up to her as a human being, for she had qualities and
abilities as a woman that I could only have in my dreams. Not that I'm any
less worthy; it's just that we're so different. My current job has made me
go deeper into the history of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which
started the work I do now, and from the professional viewpoint I have to
know what they did in the past for the sake of continuity.
EG: Did Vilma ever get involved with the issues you deal with?
MC: Oh yes, absolutely. It's precisely because she started this work that
I've had to study what's done so far, and I've found out they did incredible
things and she searched into rather uncharted subjects and fought tooth and
nail for the recognition of homosexual and transsexual rights, albeit she
had more success with the latter.
EG: So she kept up with those topics?
MC: Yes, she worked along those lines.
EG: It was never disclosed.
MC: Never. I knew very little myself until 1990, when I started in CENESEX
as an expert and interviewed Dr. Celestino Álvarez Lanjonchere to learn his
opinion on what was being done or should be done about gays and lesbians in
Cuba and all their suffering, and he described me all the things that I had
no idea my mother had done, even a document she had asked him to write in
general terms about homosexuality and homophobia, two unfamiliar concepts at
the time, to try and convince her fellow Political Bureau members of the
need to come up with a policy on homosexuals and the recognition of their
rights.
EG: Is there any record of what sort of reception the document got in the
Political Bureau?
MC: Not that I know of.
EG: Have you tried to find out?
MC: I'd like to, but I don't know where to begin.
EG: With your father.
MC: What he always says is that my mom was right; that she fought hard to
that end and had to be very cautious because they were all very sexist men,
and it was already hard for a woman to be up there with them as it was. So
she was always careful and sweet and patient but managed to tough it out.
Even my dad tells me that I must follow her lead and be careful and patient
like her in order to succeed, but I remind him that we're two different
persons with different temperaments and from different times.
EG: You have done things in a different way and been a lot pushier than
Vilma when it comes to standing your ground for your ideas.
MC: Yes, because first of all my mom was a chemical engineer and I studied
psychology and pedagogy and became a professor, which makes you look at
things from another perspective and helps you discover and speak the right
language and feedback from what others have to say, in this case my
students, and you use that to review and revise your speech; that's what a
teacher does. Moreover, everything the FMC had achieved in thirty years
smoothed the way for me. Right now I'm writing a paper where I say the first
steps taken in Cuba in favor of equal rights for women made it so much
easier to break up the so-called gender stereotypes and thus anatomize the
heterosexist pattern. In short, all the earlier efforts for the good of
women and sex education laid the groundwork for me. I threw myself into the
task from the outset because the time was ripe and the circumstances were
favorable, so I put two and two together and decided it was the right moment
to do something.
EG: There have been setbacks.
MC: Many, at all times, and I know there will be many more!
EG: Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban Parliament, has great
affection for you and believes in your ideas. However, when we met in Canada
I asked him whether he would stand by your project on same-sex marriage or
side up with the Catholic Church against it, he made no comment. Is same-sex
marriage still a taboo subject, not to Alarcón perhaps, but to Cuban society
and/or its leadership?
MC: Well, I don't think Alarcón is prejudiced, but his post involves a great
deal of public responsibility and the obligation to be very careful and take
his time to think about what must be done. Besides, he has got letters from
a number of church leaders who oppose both same-sex marriage and adoption
and sex change operations.
EG: Speaking of religious leaders, I interviewed [Vicar-General of Havana
Monsignor] Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in Havana and he told me you two have
had long, heated conversations. What's your view on the position of the
Cuban Catholic Church now that its relations with the State are going
through a true honeymoon period?
MC: Look, I've never been against any religion, on the contrary, I think.
EG: But are you an atheist?
MC: I'm a nonbeliever, as they say.
EG: Don't you ever commend yourself to God?
MC: I don't know, I commend myself to someone's trust, for instance. I can
say I have faith, but in what I don't know.
EG: Alright, but do you have spiritual faith in something beyond material
life?
MC: I don't know whether my faith is material or not, but as a person I
believe in the circumstances and in people and in what happens around me.
EG: So how can you describe in general your conversations with Cuban
Catholic and Christian Church leaders?
MC: I don't really have any links with them, only with Carlos Manuel and the
people who work with him. Look, Carlos Manuel is a very wise man and a
beautiful person. I have faith in Carlos Manuel (laughter), I trust him. At
the beginning of the year I was very sad at my mother's decease and felt
like marrying again.
EG: Did you wed your husband again?
MC: I called it a second wedding, and asked Carlos Manuel to bless my
marriage.
EG: So you had a church wedding?
MC: Not a church wedding; it would have been too compelling and I'm not
willing to commit myself too much, I'm up to my ears with commitments.
Carlos Manuel suggested I should do it, but I told him what I needed was his
wonderful human and spiritual presence, as well as all what his own
spirituality entails from a cultural viewpoint. Since I was brought up in
the tenets of Christianity, I can feel them all the time in his speech and
constant educational messages. It was Fidel's habit of quoting the Bible in
his speeches what aroused my interest, especially in the Old Testament.
EG: The Old rather than the New Testament?
MC: That's right.
EG: What parts do you like best?
MC: It's been a while since I last read it, but I usually need to go through
a thing or two.
EG: I'm going to give you the New Testament as a gift.
MC: It's OK; I have it from priests who are friends of mine.
EG: Mariela, what does Carlos Manuel, held by some to be a liberal, think
about your support of same-sex marriage?
MC: He even wrote something in Palabra Nueva about marriage and family that
I liked, and he gave me some facts that I studied and kept in mind. He's
glad that I don't try to tear down as traditional an institution as
heterosexual marriage. Some concepts go a very long way in history and do no
harm; heterosexual marriage is one of them, and there's no need to dismantle
it. Others, such as the male and female stereotyping, must be dismantled,
since they cause a lot of problems, including violence, as men are taught to
find macho relish in violence to prove their manhood. They say women and men
are raised to live in harmony, but then we found ourselves in great
discord. Some things do need changing because they hurt, but it's not the
case of heterosexual marriage and what it means, which is fine and makes
many people happy. Therefore, we don't have to talk about same-sex marriage
as long as we can come up with other concepts and categories that make gay
and straight equally happy.
EG: Same-sex marriage as such is not on CENESEX's agenda then?
MC: It's not same-sex marriage what we're putting forward, but the inclusion
of provisions in the Family Code to grant homosexual couples living together
the same rights as heterosexual couples.
EG: But that's easy to approve.
MC: It's easy, but we want to make sure it's clear to everyone because many
people are prejudiced about us, thinking we're singing the praises of
same-sex marriage, since at first I said that if we want to eliminate all
forms of discrimination and homophobia we had to entitle both homo and
heterosexual couples to equal inheritance and personal rights.
EG: What made you change your mind?
MC: Seeing that people were reluctant, several homosexual couples who work
with us in CENESEX asked me to remove that obstacle, since they'd rather
live as unmarried couples without the restrictions binding on a civil
marriage today, which can even make you lose your house, just to give you an
example of something that must be changed.
EG: Does that still happen?
MC: Yes, it does.
EG: Can't it be prevented?
MC: Look, it's complicated, and the request comes from people who have had a
really rough time of it.
EG: Would you have to take the issue all the way up to the Parliament?
MC: To the Parliament, yes. Now we're designing a small publicity campaign
about our proposal of changes to the Family Code for Cuban families to grasp
the advantages of those amendments, a large number of them, and the benefits
they will bring. By January it should be ready for discussion with the Party
and the people, so there's some consensus of opinion by the time it gets to
the Parliament and more understanding about the need to change things. The
only thing we request regarding homosexuality is that same-sex couples
living together have the same inheritance and personal rights. Most likely
they won't be granted adoption rights, but these homosexual couples I know
keep telling me, 'Don't lock horns with them over adoption, for we can work
it out, or marriage, for it's not that important; getting married holds no
interest for us here.
EG: In other words, you should engage only in fights you can win.
MC: Exactly, but it hurt anyway. I thought if we did things like that we
would continue to be seen as homophobic, but if the main beneficiaries of
our work were the ones who gave me the clues to what mattered most to them,
so be it. And that's what we're proposing.
EG: Which doesn't mean these issues will be put aside forever, that is, they
could be taken up again sometime.
MC: Exactly, some other time, we'll probably leave it behind as our society
advances and people's attitude toward these things change. We must carry on
working in the meantime, talking to people and developing education and
communication strategies. Otherwise it will be like with racial
discrimination, which we thought abolished in Cuba but many people are still
racist, except that such attitudes are forbidden by law.
EG: It's also a cultural phenomenon.
MC: But the cultural phenomenon can be changed by means of education and
communication, and that's what we're doing.
EG: Mariela, in the specific case of the homosexual community, do you
champion the cause of their right to join any institution or association
that exists in Cuban society?
MC: I'm not sure what you mean.
EG: The homosexual community can take part in everything. It's a clear
question and I'm not going to beat about the bush. For instance, there was a
big debate in the U.S. during the Clinton years, concerning the presence of
gays and lesbians in the military, which ended up with the 'Don't ask, don't
tell' concept: don't say you're a homosexual and don't ask others about
their sexual orientation. It happened in a male chauvinist culture, inside
institutions seen as archetypes of machismo. What's your stance on the
presence of homosexuals in the Cuban Armed Forces?
MC: Well, I guess that as the Cuban society becomes less homophobic or
homophagous, I don't know which term is better, it will extend to all
institutions, but I think the essential thing is to start with the family,
where homosexuals and even transsexuals most suffer, as our studies and
programs have shown. Remember that in the case of transsexuals our work
covers not only their sexual orientation, but also gender identity issues.
EG: On the issue of transsexualism, which some people find so troublesome,
is it true Cuba performed a sex-change operation more than 20 years ago?
MC: It was in '88, and quite successful. The subject is very well.
EG: After that one-time experience, has that subject -whose identity remains
confidential- managed to lead a good life?
MC: Yes, without any problem. The subject has even got married and divorced
three times (laughter).
EG: Why do you laugh?
MC: Because she's a very joyful, fun-loving person.
EG: Mariela, I'm asking you this because I've seen cases, in the U.S. and
elsewhere, of people who have undergone surgery to change their sex and then
have become insane or committed suicide, and even cases of men who
transitioned to become females and then started to have sex with women, that
is, psychologically unbalanced.
MC: There's international consensus as to the steps to follow for diagnosis
and treatment.
EG: Is there a protocol?
MC: Yes, and it's applied worldwide. We have links with an International
Association where we do research and close contacts with some of its
doctors. [The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association]
meets every two years to discuss their scientific findings, reach
agreements, draw up documents and revise the protocols, and they establish
how to proceed from the technical-professional viewpoint. Of course, there
are places where economic interests prevail and they do it to anyone who
wants to change their sex and can afford the operation, and there's where
people get damaged.
EG: Cuba would never do that, right? My point is, the enemies and
out-and-out critics of this project, which is CENESEX's brainchild, say
they're trying to have the chance to perform these operations in Cuba at a
lower cost in order to turn it into a source of profit. Of course, your
answer is not for me, I'd just like to hear what you have to say about it.
MC: A resolution by the Ministry of Public Health legitimizes the work of
the National Commission for the Integral Care of Transsexual Individuals, a
multidisciplinary research group that I chair from CENESEX and whose first
studies were recently published in a book, as well as that of a Special
Health Care Center we have in a hospital under our methodological
supervision. This resolution states the service is free of charge and only
for Cuban citizens, not for foreigners. It's not a profit-making program.
EG: What if people from other countries go to Cuba to have surgery, some who
says, for example, 'I want to be a woman'?
MC: The resolution prevents us from operating on foreigners.
EG: It's important to hear you say that, because they talk about it in other
countries, and that's where my question came from. I think it's important
that you make clear there's no gender reassignment surgery available to
foreigners in Cuba.
MC: No, no, the resolution states it's a specialized free service for and a
right of the Cubans.
EG: So foreigners must refrain from going to Cuba for that purpose.
MC: It's a non-profit health service as yet unavailable to foreigners.
EG: What's the financial cost of one operation for Cuba, taking into account
that your country pays for the service after all?
MC: I've been asked before and I forgot to do the calculations, although an
estimate was made for the future, since the resolution issued this year gave
the go-ahead to resume surgery.
EG: No other operations so far?
MC: No, only partial reassignment surgery, that is, female-to-male
mastectomy for women and testicle removal in the case of men, but the final
touch of genital reconstruction is scheduled for next year. A medical team
is getting ready to that effect, working with very experienced, first-class
Belgian doctors who master these microsurgery techniques, more precise and
refined, which produce much better results and make it possible for the
patient to come through much better, even with a higher sexual response.
EG: Is this kind of surgery facing stronger moral opposition in Cuba than
same-sex marriage?
MC: Yes, our churches have been complaining about it very vigorously. When
you explain to the Cuban people that it's part of a treatment that will help
those patients feel happier and even get over their psychological problems
after so much anxiety and distress in their lives resulting from the
contradiction between their biological sex and gender identity, they do
understand. That's why the campaign we'll launch in 2009 will be against
homophobia from January to July and against transphobia from July to
December. People will learn about both concepts so they can understand it's
justified from the professional and humanitarian viewpoint.
EG: Do you think you're in the majority or the minority? Leaving aside the
Church, I think those programs don't enjoy great popularity in the Cuban
society as a whole.
MC: With regards to society's approval, I'm in the minority. That's why
we're engaged in this educational campaign to spread information. Like I
said, our people understand when we present them with facts and spell out
the big picture to them.
EG: So you don't know how much the operation costs...
MC: I can't remember now, but the Ministry of Public Health has the figures.
I can look for it and let you know some other time. Besides, the cost
changes from one country and health system to another.
EG: Are there many transsexuals waiting or is it a small percentage?
MC: Well, it's a very small percentage worldwide.
EG: You mean a minimal percentage compared to the world population at
large...
MC: Yes, it's a very small number. In Cuba we have twenty-odd cases awaiting
surgery.
EG: But only with the Commission's approval and recommendation?
MC: No, they've been already recommended; these are all proven transsexuals.
EG: By 'proven' you mean that psychologically speaking.
MC: Yes, they all passed every diagnosis and the only way for them is
forward.
EG: Mariela, when it comes to gay rights much is said and commented about
male same-sex couples, perhaps because they're less inhibited. Is female
homosexuality frowned upon more than male homosexuality in Cuba?
MC: Yes, because of machismo.
EG: So machismo rears its ugly head here too?
MC: Machismo is always around, never goes away; it simply changes its shape.
EG: Even among women themselves?
MC: That's right. Straight men and women all over the world are not as
disdainful of male homosexuals as they are of female ones, of whom they have
little or no understanding. Lesbians are more vulnerable than men
everywhere. Cuban homosexuals may be scorned and looked down on, but they're
not the victims of physical attacks. Judging by reports I receive from
organizations in this field, the number of women who are murdered worldwide
is sky-high, and it's even worse with lesbians. Some of them are even
victims of gang rape by men who pretend it's the only way to get it into
their head what they're supposed to do with their sex and other things
typical of the prevailing mindset in patriarchal societies.
EG: Do you work with both groups in CENESEX?
MC: Yes. Our focus on transsexuals is the result of a well-knit system that
set in motion in 1979.
EG: I mean male and female homosexuals.
MC: Let me explain. Our work with transsexuals is more systematized, and we
have included transvestites and other individuals from the rather broader
transgender spectrum. In 2004 we started a program called OREMI for about
sixty female homosexuals in Havana, who meet once a week at CENESEX, have
joined several of our programs and cooperate with us to implement various
strategies and research works. They have proved to be a very interesting
target group; some of them are being trained to become health promoters or
popular education methodologists in order to do a better job in our
communities.
We've been working twice a week with transsexuals and transvestites and
meeting with their families, and it's been wonderful. We have not done
anything yet with either homosexual women's families or homosexual and
bisexual men, who are more heterogeneous. More men are likely to come to the
Center now that we're starting to organize male support groups.
EG: In the case of bisexuals, who are the least mentioned even if I'm sure
you have figures too, how common are they compared to the homosexuals?
MC: Look, our studies on HIV/AIDS gave us an insight into the high rate of
bisexual men in Cuba, and I mean men who have sex with other men. I don't
have figures, nor do I know if there are any.
EG: Is there a bisexual female population?
MC: We have no data. In our ORAMI group we have lesbians, bisexuals and, to
quote their own definition, heteroflexible women.
EG: What's that?
MC: Women who identify themselves as heterosexual but have occasional
lesbian relationships.
EG: Isn't that bisexuality?
MC: They don't see themselves as either bisexual or lesbian persons.
EG: Is it because they do it only now and then?
MC: Exactly. Therefore they use that name in their group.
EG: Do you think we Cubans are a liberated nation? I read once that at least
5% of Cuban men have had male-male sex.
MC: Yes, it was the conclusion of a study about AIDS that the figure is
around 5%, and they say the number is between 5 and 10% worldwide.
EG: There are cultures like the Arabic where.
MC: Okay, but don't forget the Koran condemns homosexuality!
EG: Before you're married, but not so after that.
MC: I'm not so familiar with Arabic culture, but I've noticed contradictions
between what we know and what they say about their life and religion and the
various interpretations of the Koran. There's a great deal of inconsistency,
so I'd like to learn more about it one day.
EG: From your own experience, how do you see Cuba, and yourself, in 5 or 10
years? I ask you because I read what you write for the media. What changes
do you see in the future of the Cuban society?
MC: Well, I don't know whether this is how I see it or how I'd like it to
be. I recently said I'd like the socialist experiment to continue, but in a
more flexible way. I'd like a socialism that makes us happier, a more
glorious and dialectical socialism. From my professional position I work
toward that end, and I'd like to see a similar effort in other areas where I
have no business meddling in for lack of professional jurisdiction. I'd like
this socialism to be more dialectical so that it can be splendid.
EG: How do you see Mariela Castro Espín 5 or 10 years from now?
MC: I think I'll still be working in CENESEX.
EG: Any independent political vocation?
MC: No, none, I don't like politics, although my work has a major impact on
politics because we make proposals based on scientific research for the
development of social policies. That is, I care about politics as a citizen,
as a professional, as CENESEX director.
EG: Mariela, several times you have said to be in favor of lifting certain
restrictions or controls which prevent ordinary Cubans from travelling,
basically the so-called ´white card´. What's your opinion about that?
MC: What I've said is that I'd like that Cuban policy to be made more
flexible or modified. It was enforced for protection against unfriendly U.S.
policies on the Cuban people, mainly the Cuban Adjustment Act, which fosters
illegal immigration and trafficking in people; the economic and financial
blockade on the Cuban people's right to survive, and the violation of
migration agreements by not providing the promised number of visas every
year. As a result, people try to find other ways to leave. Immigrants have
travelled the Florida Strait back and forth since colonial times.
Furthermore, migration evolved from being just a legal figure to a matter of
human nature. The world was always populated by people who emigrated, as
human beings are constantly moving around in search of a place of their
choice where they can settle.
EG: That's the question: what would have to happen?
MC: I think if the U.S. -and some of its European allies- stop their hostile
policies, our emigration laws will surely change, as will the travel ban and
many other issues. And we need the Cubans who live in the U.S. to help bring
forth that change.
EG: Would a legitimate, respectful dialogue about those issues between
President Barack Obama and your father be fruitful for the aspirations and
preferences of the Cubans who live in the island?
MC: Absolutely. Should Obama and my father meet as presidents, on an equal
footing and with respect for each other's sovereignty, many things will
change for the benefit of all Cubans.
EG: Here and there.
MC: Here and there.
EG: Let's suppose, now that your father has stated several times his
willingness to meet with Obama even in a third country, that Obama takes him
up on his offer, but first decides to ask Mariela for advice, and he asks
her: 'How do you think I should start a conversation with your father, who
is the Cuban president? I mean, really!'?
MC: I wouldn't know how to chat him up (laughter), he takes great care to
ensure he doesn't speak out when I'm around.
EG: Why is that? Are you indiscreet sometimes?
MC: It's because I give many interviews.
EG: Is that a problem?
MC: Not really, we've talked about that.
EG: Do you ever get into arguments?
MC: Yes, all the time.
EG: Because of your interviews?
MC: That too, but we've learned to respect each other.
EG: Now that he's the President, do you talk with him and see him more
often?
MC: Less often.
EG: Do you miss him?
MC: Yes, I do.
EG: So do you get mad with each other now and then?
MC: Yes, since as far as I can remember.
EG: Who gets more upset, you or your dad?
MC: Both of us.
EG: So what would be your advice to Obama?
MC: That he should pay attention, if he cares of course, to the few things
my dad has said in some interviews. But first of all, that he should come. I
mean Obama, not the President of the United States. Just Obama.
EG: Impossible if he's the President. So that's Mariela's advice?
MC: But he can! Your job can entail a lot of pressure, but as a human being
you don't have to go by the book at all times. Presidents have wide-ranging
powers, but Obama is a smart person and I think he's good at getting along
and getting by in politics, complex though politics may be in the U.S.,
always under pressure. I'm sure he'll be the first U.S. president to come
closer to Cuba without making demands or being manipulative, but with
respect, because Cuba respects the U.S. and therefore the U.S. should
respect Cuba. So in case anybody wants to tell him, Mariela is asking Obama
to start by releasing the Cuban Five.
EG: Among the main causes of discord, say, the embargo, the Cuban Five, the
travel restrictions and so on, what do you think it should be the first
topic to start building a relationship with Cuba?
MC: As far as I and all Cubans are concerned, the Cuban Five. Set them free
and let justice be done. That's our foremost request, and let justice move
on as it should afterward, which would be wonderful even for the U.S. Such
is our No. 1 priority: keep the blockade if you will, but release the Cuban
Five.
EG: Let's go back to your professional life. I'd like you to tell me about
domestic violence in Cuba.
MC: Women everywhere, in all patriarchal societies, are the victims of
violence. I call it the pathology of power, since it's about exerting power
unevenly.
EG: In the U.S., if you raise your voice to your wife you can be taken to
court and issued a restraining order. How aware are Cuban men and women of
their rights? Is there a law against domestic violence?
MC: We have severe laws against domestic violence and very harsh sentences,
mainly for cases of sexually abused children.
EG: That would be an extreme, but domestic violence.
MC: Do you mean the more general gender-based violence?
EG: Like when a man who slaps a woman in the face.
MC: Men and women in Cuba are still unaware of the various forms of
gender-based violence. Research has it that psychological and verbal abuse
prevails over physical abuse, which is more obvious and easier to prove in a
court of law. We recently went to the TV program Diálogo Abierto, where we
described psychological violence as a drop of water that falls on you every
day and explained that if you're not conscious of the facts you'll never
learn to set limits on things, and there must be limits. Negotiation and the
mutual definition of limits are part of a couple's life.
EG: Will society mediate in cases of domestic violence reported by one of
the parties?
MC: Well, the law allows for that!
EG: But since it seldom happens, what's the cultural problem?
MC: It seldom happens for lack of knowledge. The FMC is launching more and
more information and education campaigns to increase public awareness,
especially among women, who are the main victims. But men are also victims
of their upbringing and the way manhood is portrayed all over the world,
which makes them very vulnerable and likely to become victimizers. So we
have a lot of work to do, because what we're doing is not enough.
EG: Is there a lot of domestic violence?
MC: According to reports, most cases seen by our Counseling Homes for Women
and Families are on the qualitative side, like women who come asking for
help or counsel and even legal advice. The problem is, very few ask for
counsel about the most frequent psycological violence.
EG: Are the older generations more prone to domestic violence than the
younger ones?
MC: It's more common among older people and decreasing among the younger
ones. However, many people hold that young people's relations are violent as
a rule, although they don't actually mean gender-based violence but simply
violence both between and within the two sexes. But much still remains to be
done in that field. We have made great progress, but not enough to be able
to at least make a few changes.
EG: Mariela, you have been to the United States on two occasions.
MC: Only once, in 2002.
EG: Wait a minute: did you travel to the U.S. with a visa granted by the
George W. Bush administration?
MC: Yes, it seems they didn't know me very well yet (laughter).
EG: Is that what you think? (Laughter)
MC: I don't know, they just gave me a visa. The first time I was going to a
Congress but the visa came too late. I got it later on and could attend a
Conference on Sexology in Los Angeles, but the only place I could see was
the hotel where I stayed because we had sessions the whole day long, as is
usual in these meetings. Then I did some work in Virginia and Washington,
D.C., where I had a great time.
EG: How long did you stay? Tell me about your American experience.
MC: I spent 12 days in the U.S. I didn't have to work too hard to
communicate because almost everybody spoke Spanish. Most people I saw were
Latinos, including many Cubans and Salvadorians. The sight of so many poor
and homeless people in the very capital city of the Empire was a real shock
to me, as I didn't expect to see that.
EG: Did you get to see the White House?
MC: Yes, I stood there, watching it.
EG: What was in the mind of Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Raúl and
niece of Fidel, when she laid eyes on the White House? Did you think of your
family at that moment?
MC: No, no, no, not my family. It was Cuba what came to mind, and I got so
mad. There were demonstrations in support of Palestine and other causes, and
I felt so much rage, the rage of the world, and the arrogance of the White
House. I was so annoyed!
EG: Mariela, what's left of that girl I once knew? I won't do the math, but
many years ago I met a girl who even thought of becoming a dancer, who was
in search of ways to express herself. I remember one day when we were
talking with Antonio Gades in [Cuban dancer Lorna's] place. Whatever
happened to that girl who loved going to the theater and dancing so much and
wanted to do performing arts?
MC: I really enjoyed it while it lasted. I almost gave up Sexology for
dancing, something our mutual friend [Cuban musician] Jorge Luis Prats
advised me not to do, so I listened to him and stuck to Sexology.
EG: Was it a good piece of advice?
MC: I think so, although I didn't give up dancing for good. I kept taking
dancing lessons with a retired professor, going to performances and flirting
with flamenco, which I never really learned, but I had fun with it and still
enjoy it very much, as I do rumba and Santeria dancing.
EG: Santeria too?
MC: I love it!
EG: Do you practice?
MC: No, no, but I like it.
EG: Has any Santeria priestess ever told you who your father is?
MC: Oshún. Another one told me I was also the daughter of Changó.
EG: Do you think you're related to Oshún?
MC: Yes, and also to Changó, to both of them.
EG: What do you have in common with Oshún?
MC: Ah, the fawning.
EG: And with Changó?
MC: The strength.
EG: Mariela, there are eight hundred thousand Cubans in Southern Florida,
maybe even one million.
MC: Scratch that out: from Oshun I got the honey, not the fawning
(laughter).
EG: You're every inch a Cuban but your husband is Italian. How come? How do
you manage to bring things into line?
MC: Well, he's Sicilian, and Sicily has something in common with Cuba.
EG: That you're all island creatures, maybe?
MC: That too, but also our Spanish ancestors. Spain was Sicily's last
important colonizer.
EG: What do you tell your Italian husband when you're angry?
MC: I'd rather not say (laughter).
EG: Mariela, again, there are seven or eight hundred thousand Cubans in
Southern Florida. Some of them don't want anything to do with Cuba anymore,
let alone the Revolution, Fidel and Raúl; they just dream of and live a
different history. However, there's a group of Cubans who favor
reconciliation despite their differences. What's your opinion about that
Cuban community unmarked by hatred toward Cuba? Will there be any room for
them in Cuba's future?
MC: Hey, it would be lovely if we could come together and live in greater
harmony! I wish they could find some room here, for I also believe that most
Cubans who live abroad have set up their own associations, which is a very
positive and beautiful attitude toward the reestablishment of cordial
relations. In my opinion, the more the tension between our two countries is
relieved, the better our reunion will be.
EG: Two years ago there was a debate in Cuba about what came to be known as
the "e-mail war" and eventually the so-called "gray decade" of Cuban
culture. But other things were discussed, such as the UMAP (Military Units
in Support of Production) and the views on homosexual behavior at that time.
Did all that have any impact on your struggle?
MC: Look, it was a chance to put my point of view. I always see
opportunities in times of contradiction, and I liked the fact that there was
a debate for people to speak their mind and get it all out, which they did.
EG: Did you talk about those problems with your dad then?
MC: Yes, we talked about it; he was paying careful attention.
EG: How do you think he was feeling about the debate?
MC: He kept up with what was going on and sometimes wanted to know my
opinion. I always told him I thought it was a good thing, since society
needed debate to move forward, and he paid attention. Never did I see him
worried, except for the smooth progress of a productive, nationwide
discussion that was part of a social project which concerned everyone, and
as such it should move in the right direction.
EG: What would you say were the reasons for the mistakes during that period
in this, your regular field of work?
MC: Well, everything I learned about it -keep in mind I didn't live through
those days- came from my mom and dad, who always said it was wrong to scorn
homosexuals. That's what I grew up hearing. I remember I would come home
from the university complaining about things I had seen in that process to
strengthen people's revolutionary principles which they used to have it in
for the homosexuals. As a Young Communist League leader in my school, I
managed to prevent any homosexual from being punished. Every time I made it
clear to them that I was against those procedures, they agreed that it was
the wrong thing to do.
EG: I asked you before about the presence of homosexuals in the military
because of the "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy we've seen in the U.S. But what
about political organizations like the Communist Party or the Young
Communist League?
MC: I believe the Communist Party should legitimize homosexual membership.
We all know there are homosexuals in its ranks, only they're still in the
closet. Some of the gay young men who collaborate with CENESEX are Party
leaders in their workplaces and quite respected by everyone.
EG: Is by any chance the 'don't-ask-don't-tell' compromise silently
happening in Cuba too?
MC: Well, some Party members don't mind being in the open and they still
work as leaders.
EG: But members-to-be are not questioned about it anymore, right?
MC: No, not anymore. Look, I'd like to propose the explicit inclusion in the
Party statutes that no one should be banned on account of their sexual
orientation.
EG: For the 2009 Party Congress to discuss?
MC: I'd love to, and I will put it forward.
EG: Finally, Mariela, would you send your regards in your own words to all
Cubans, regardless of where we live? Putting aside our ideological,
philosophical and conceptual differences, don't you think that our love for
Cuba can bring us together and overcome such differences?
MC: Yes, of course. Our message is 'unity in diversity'.
EG: So will we be able to live with our differences?
MC: We will overcome any difference as long as we ride together under the
fundamental principles of national sovereignty.
EG: Thank you, Mariela.
MC: Thank you. Oh, I forgot a very important thing. When we talked about the
Family Code, I said we're in favor of granting equal rights to both
homosexual and heterosexual consensual unions. I'm talking about legal
unions, not marriage.
EG: What do you mean by 'legal union'?
MC: A legal union is a same-sex marriage (laughter).
EG: Thank you very much, Mariela.
---ooOoo---
========================================
WALTER LIPPMANN, CubaNews
Los Angeles, California
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraiso bajo el bloqueo"
========================================
Palash Biswas
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