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Cuba's Castro Says U.S. Is Provoking War
``In Miami and Washington they are now discussing where, how and when Cuba will be attacked,'' the Cuban president told a crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered for the celebration in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution. Bush wants to win Florida, re-election 2004.
Fidel Castro accused the United States of wanting to attack Cuba, speaking at a May Day celebration on Thursday that aimed to defend the island's socialist system against criticism from abroad.
``In Miami and Washington they are now discussing where, how and when Cuba will be attacked,'' the Cuban president told a crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered for the celebration in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.
``I want to convey a message to the world and the American people: We do not want the blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed in a war,'' he said.
The crowd responded with cries of ``Whatever it takes, Fidel!'' while waving handheld Cuban flags. One group hoisted an effigy of President Bush that read, ``Bush: Don't mess with Cuba.''
Castro spoke for less than two hours - brief for the 76-year-old president. He said U.S. officials ``provoke and encourage'' attacks like the recent hijackings of Cuban planes and boats.
There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently that ``there are no plans for military action against Cuba.''
The gathering came two weeks after the firing-squad executions of three men convicted of terrorism for trying to hijack a Cuban ferry full of passengers to the United States. No one was hurt in the hijacking - one of at least four over a few weeks.
The Bush administration - along with other governments and international human rights groups - condemned the quick trial and execution of the men.
Castro said the executions were necessary to halt the hijackings and stem a growing migration crisis.
But he said he respected the opinions of Pope John Paul II and some of his longtime supporters, including the New York Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., who have asked him to abolish the death penalty. The Cuban leader said he would consider their arguments.
``Cuba, you are a world leader in human rights and respect for human life,'' Walker told the crowd earlier in the morning. ``The death penalty demeans that.''
Walker, pastor of Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn, and executive director of New York-based Pastors for Peace is among Cuba's best-known American supporters.
``The day will come when we can accede to the wishes for the abolition of this penalty so nobly expressed here by Reverend Lucius Walker,'' Castro said. ``A wave of hijackings had been unleashed and was already in full development - it had to be stopped.''
Cuba also faces stern criticism for sending 75 dissidents to prison on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to destabilize the socialist regime. It was the island's harshest crackdown on opponents in decades, drawing condemnation even from leftist intellectuals traditionally sympathetic to Cuba.
Castro said he was disheartened with ``those friends of Cuba'' - such as Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes - who have ``attacked Cuba unjustly.''
He warned they would ``suffer infinite sorrow'' if Cuba were attacked and ``they realized their declarations were shamelessly manipulated by the aggressors to justify a military attack.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
``In Miami and Washington they are now discussing where, how and when Cuba will be attacked,'' the Cuban president told a crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered for the celebration in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution.
``I want to convey a message to the world and the American people: We do not want the blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed in a war,'' he said.
The crowd responded with cries of ``Whatever it takes, Fidel!'' while waving handheld Cuban flags. One group hoisted an effigy of President Bush that read, ``Bush: Don't mess with Cuba.''
Castro spoke for less than two hours - brief for the 76-year-old president. He said U.S. officials ``provoke and encourage'' attacks like the recent hijackings of Cuban planes and boats.
There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently that ``there are no plans for military action against Cuba.''
The gathering came two weeks after the firing-squad executions of three men convicted of terrorism for trying to hijack a Cuban ferry full of passengers to the United States. No one was hurt in the hijacking - one of at least four over a few weeks.
The Bush administration - along with other governments and international human rights groups - condemned the quick trial and execution of the men.
Castro said the executions were necessary to halt the hijackings and stem a growing migration crisis.
But he said he respected the opinions of Pope John Paul II and some of his longtime supporters, including the New York Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., who have asked him to abolish the death penalty. The Cuban leader said he would consider their arguments.
``Cuba, you are a world leader in human rights and respect for human life,'' Walker told the crowd earlier in the morning. ``The death penalty demeans that.''
Walker, pastor of Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn, and executive director of New York-based Pastors for Peace is among Cuba's best-known American supporters.
``The day will come when we can accede to the wishes for the abolition of this penalty so nobly expressed here by Reverend Lucius Walker,'' Castro said. ``A wave of hijackings had been unleashed and was already in full development - it had to be stopped.''
Cuba also faces stern criticism for sending 75 dissidents to prison on charges of collaborating with U.S. diplomats to destabilize the socialist regime. It was the island's harshest crackdown on opponents in decades, drawing condemnation even from leftist intellectuals traditionally sympathetic to Cuba.
Castro said he was disheartened with ``those friends of Cuba'' - such as Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes - who have ``attacked Cuba unjustly.''
He warned they would ``suffer infinite sorrow'' if Cuba were attacked and ``they realized their declarations were shamelessly manipulated by the aggressors to justify a military attack.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
For more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...
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A friend just passed along the URL for the MSNBC coverage of May Day in Cuba today, and was particularly bothered by the sidebar. I actually was surprised by some of what snuck into both the article and the 'bar, so here are some thoughts:
> Check out the 'who's who' and 'waiting in the wings' > section at the bottom of this page:
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/907941.asp
> These assholes. This is how it starts. The fucking
> media playing war games. Notice they only list
> opposition, not support.
Not quite, they just don't explain who Raul Castro, Ricardo Alarcon or Carlos Lage are. Interesting that they don't list Felipe Perez Roque at all. But Raul's Fidel's brother, and much more of a pure socialist than Fidel; Alarcon is very, very sharp and a lot of us think he'd be great. I don't think Lage has much of a chance, but I don't really know much about him - he's not one of the names you hear people on the island discussing.
One thing that's amazing about the current laws, they define who cannot stand as candidates in future Cuban elections. That's US laws, the renewed trade
sanctions, not Cuban laws. That's US support for democracy.
This article was helpful in that it explains a lot of why the response to the hijackings was so very harsh - Homeland Security'd has been telling the Cubans not
to let any more aircraft out of their airspace unpermitted. They had to really put the lid down sooner than later, or face a US military response of some sort. The overt warning came after the executions, but I'm sure they noticed radars lighting up and had gotten diplo traffic making the US position clear once the first planes took off. (Probably the US didn't understand why on earth the Cubans let one plane land at Jose Marti and then leave, rather than storming it and killing lots of people, like we did at Waco or the Rooskies did at the opera.)
> And their side bars things make it look like there's a
> non-stop stream of Cubans coming into the US.
Even they had to admit some interesting things, though.
"Miami, incorporated in 1896, becomes a hub for arms shipments to Cuban revolutionaries. Three years later, the U.S. wrests control of Cuba in the Spanish American War and establishes a provisional goverment "
That bit is about May 20 (though they don't name the day) - celebrated only in the Gusano community as having anything to do with Cuban independence...
"U.S.-sponsored "Freedom Flights," an airlift between Cuba and Miami, commence in 1965. Over 3,000 flights deliver 150,000 Cubans to the U.S. -- primarily Miami -- between 1965 and the programs termination in 1973. "
I honestly don't know which side stopped the flights in '73, but it may have been the US - at the time, hijacking planes to cuba was being done quite a bit. But that number, 150k in 8 years - that's close to the number of visas the US promised it would grant,
but is not in fact granting.
And here, the MSNBC sidebar openly admits the truth of Cuba's comments about US-sponsored terrorism:
"On Jan. 25, 1968, the first anti-Castro terrorist attacks occur in the United States. Two Miami-based shipping firms that send packages to Cuba are bombed. Between 1975 and 1983, Florida's Dade County experiences 57 terrorist bombings, most of which are carried out by members of Cuban exile groups. More than 250 acts of terrorism occur within U.S. borders over the next 25 years. One group, Omega-7, is linked to the assassinations of several Cuban diplomats and an array of bombings.
In 1976, Emilio Milian, a Miami-based radio news commentator and critic of the bombing campaign, is severely injured by a bomb. "
Okay, now they're flat out misleading people, of course:
"In April 1996 Cuban MIGs shoot down two civilian planes carrying members of Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue. Four are killed in the incident."
Not mentioned: the Brothers' planes had been repeatedly violating Cuban airspace. The Cubans had warned the Pentagon brass many times during those flights, which went on over a period of months, that they were getting ready to go to deadly force if they continued to have rogue aircraft in their airspace. We did nothing about the warnings. (Delivered via the interests section in DC and in meetings with top FAA and Air Force brass.)
"In September 1994, the United States agrees to accept a minimum of 20,000 Cubans per year. By 1998, more than 1.4 million Cuban-Americans live in the United States."
Amazing. They've already explained that there's been a large (300k before the Revolution) Cuban population in Florida for a long time, and that ~500k just in the numbers they've posted in their article had arrived since. So, if there's a group with 300k in it, and you add more than that many immigrants, *and* these people have children, you get your increase in
population over two generations, no problem.
But using the 1.4 M number lets them not mention that the US agreed to take 20k/year, but has only issued a few hundred visas a year - thereby encouraging criminal smugglers of people, and hijackings. How it is that Elian Gonzales' mother drowned, for instance.
And then the US goes to the Cubans and says "now, don't let a hijacked aircraft get fuel to defuse the situation. Matter of Imperial Security." Once the Cubans take our threats seriously, we say "oh, no, that wasn't it. We didn't mean it that way. Storm a plane, kill the hijackers and a few passengers in Havana. Then we can round up some comfortable intellectuals to criticise you for doing that. We certainly didn't mean to have you use a trial and your own laws - we intended you to go extrajudicial, so we could really pretend to be mad."
Jaysus. By the way, did the US ever say a peep when the SAS murdered those Irishmen in Gibraltar? Have we said boo when the Israelis decided to stop bothering to try and arrest people they accuse of being terrorists, and just started rocketing their buildings, killing the targets maybe, but others in the houses definitely?
> Check out the 'who's who' and 'waiting in the wings' > section at the bottom of this page:
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/907941.asp
> These assholes. This is how it starts. The fucking
> media playing war games. Notice they only list
> opposition, not support.
Not quite, they just don't explain who Raul Castro, Ricardo Alarcon or Carlos Lage are. Interesting that they don't list Felipe Perez Roque at all. But Raul's Fidel's brother, and much more of a pure socialist than Fidel; Alarcon is very, very sharp and a lot of us think he'd be great. I don't think Lage has much of a chance, but I don't really know much about him - he's not one of the names you hear people on the island discussing.
One thing that's amazing about the current laws, they define who cannot stand as candidates in future Cuban elections. That's US laws, the renewed trade
sanctions, not Cuban laws. That's US support for democracy.
This article was helpful in that it explains a lot of why the response to the hijackings was so very harsh - Homeland Security'd has been telling the Cubans not
to let any more aircraft out of their airspace unpermitted. They had to really put the lid down sooner than later, or face a US military response of some sort. The overt warning came after the executions, but I'm sure they noticed radars lighting up and had gotten diplo traffic making the US position clear once the first planes took off. (Probably the US didn't understand why on earth the Cubans let one plane land at Jose Marti and then leave, rather than storming it and killing lots of people, like we did at Waco or the Rooskies did at the opera.)
> And their side bars things make it look like there's a
> non-stop stream of Cubans coming into the US.
Even they had to admit some interesting things, though.
"Miami, incorporated in 1896, becomes a hub for arms shipments to Cuban revolutionaries. Three years later, the U.S. wrests control of Cuba in the Spanish American War and establishes a provisional goverment "
That bit is about May 20 (though they don't name the day) - celebrated only in the Gusano community as having anything to do with Cuban independence...
"U.S.-sponsored "Freedom Flights," an airlift between Cuba and Miami, commence in 1965. Over 3,000 flights deliver 150,000 Cubans to the U.S. -- primarily Miami -- between 1965 and the programs termination in 1973. "
I honestly don't know which side stopped the flights in '73, but it may have been the US - at the time, hijacking planes to cuba was being done quite a bit. But that number, 150k in 8 years - that's close to the number of visas the US promised it would grant,
but is not in fact granting.
And here, the MSNBC sidebar openly admits the truth of Cuba's comments about US-sponsored terrorism:
"On Jan. 25, 1968, the first anti-Castro terrorist attacks occur in the United States. Two Miami-based shipping firms that send packages to Cuba are bombed. Between 1975 and 1983, Florida's Dade County experiences 57 terrorist bombings, most of which are carried out by members of Cuban exile groups. More than 250 acts of terrorism occur within U.S. borders over the next 25 years. One group, Omega-7, is linked to the assassinations of several Cuban diplomats and an array of bombings.
In 1976, Emilio Milian, a Miami-based radio news commentator and critic of the bombing campaign, is severely injured by a bomb. "
Okay, now they're flat out misleading people, of course:
"In April 1996 Cuban MIGs shoot down two civilian planes carrying members of Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue. Four are killed in the incident."
Not mentioned: the Brothers' planes had been repeatedly violating Cuban airspace. The Cubans had warned the Pentagon brass many times during those flights, which went on over a period of months, that they were getting ready to go to deadly force if they continued to have rogue aircraft in their airspace. We did nothing about the warnings. (Delivered via the interests section in DC and in meetings with top FAA and Air Force brass.)
"In September 1994, the United States agrees to accept a minimum of 20,000 Cubans per year. By 1998, more than 1.4 million Cuban-Americans live in the United States."
Amazing. They've already explained that there's been a large (300k before the Revolution) Cuban population in Florida for a long time, and that ~500k just in the numbers they've posted in their article had arrived since. So, if there's a group with 300k in it, and you add more than that many immigrants, *and* these people have children, you get your increase in
population over two generations, no problem.
But using the 1.4 M number lets them not mention that the US agreed to take 20k/year, but has only issued a few hundred visas a year - thereby encouraging criminal smugglers of people, and hijackings. How it is that Elian Gonzales' mother drowned, for instance.
And then the US goes to the Cubans and says "now, don't let a hijacked aircraft get fuel to defuse the situation. Matter of Imperial Security." Once the Cubans take our threats seriously, we say "oh, no, that wasn't it. We didn't mean it that way. Storm a plane, kill the hijackers and a few passengers in Havana. Then we can round up some comfortable intellectuals to criticise you for doing that. We certainly didn't mean to have you use a trial and your own laws - we intended you to go extrajudicial, so we could really pretend to be mad."
Jaysus. By the way, did the US ever say a peep when the SAS murdered those Irishmen in Gibraltar? Have we said boo when the Israelis decided to stop bothering to try and arrest people they accuse of being terrorists, and just started rocketing their buildings, killing the targets maybe, but others in the houses definitely?
Progressives need to be consistent re: the death penalty. We cannot say because the US or Britain or Israel did something , therefore we must compromise our principals to say its ok Cuba does it. a week to convict and execute with no appeals sounds very suspicious. If we say it had deterrent effect against future hijackings, they we constradict our own argument against the death penalty that it does not deter crime.
The inconsistancy lies with the US govt. It condemns others for what it itself does.
I notice Bassman posting anti-Cuba and pro-Israeli comments on many the imc sites, like it's a full time job . . . .
Maybe it is his full time job.
I have a full time job. I am not pro-Israel, just anti racist and anti death penalty whther in the US or Cuba. Why give your opponents ammunition--so if you want to march against the death penalty in the US, they can say but you support it in cuba. I hate the anti Jewish racisn I see on Indymedia.
this bassman's an idiot.
Did you not see the AP story you're following up to? Lucius Walker was in Cuba and on May Day, in front of a million people, told Cuba that it needed to abolish the death penalty.
He did this coming as someone who is fundamentally opposed to the death penalty and as someone who has spent years doing work with Cuba.
Castro did not ignore the remarks, nor was he angry about them; he described them in his speech as indeed what Cuba struggles toward.
The problem for US progressives in criticizing other nations laws in this instance is that our death penalty is so very much more broadly - if slowly - applied. There have been no executions in Cuba for years.
Is there a national progressive group urging a boycott of products and services from all states that have the death penalty? Urging a travel boycott? Urging a residency and tax boycott? Perhaps there is, and I simply haven't heard about it. But we have an immense plank in our own eye to attend to before we start looking at the motes in our neighbors', and we flat aren't doing it.
Sure, we're marching now and again against the death penalty here, and groups like AI are strong and consistent in their opposition. But there was virtually no censure of Clinton for killing a retarded man during the primary to clinch the Southern votes. Hell, there was almost no discussion of it.
Where are the articulate, anti-death penalty leaders of national stature that progressives are advancing through US politics, using a combination of moral suasion and grassroots politicking, day in and day out? Doing real, hard work to change the agenda?
What's that? Nowhere? It's yet another issue the progressives like to cluck their tonguges about occasionally and do nothing about?
Fidel was polite enough not to make these points; I'm not. Of course, Fidel was addressing someone who really does do politics a lot of the time and works for change, and I'm not. I'm reading black and white pronouncements of absolutes from a comfy US liberal.
Did you not see the AP story you're following up to? Lucius Walker was in Cuba and on May Day, in front of a million people, told Cuba that it needed to abolish the death penalty.
He did this coming as someone who is fundamentally opposed to the death penalty and as someone who has spent years doing work with Cuba.
Castro did not ignore the remarks, nor was he angry about them; he described them in his speech as indeed what Cuba struggles toward.
The problem for US progressives in criticizing other nations laws in this instance is that our death penalty is so very much more broadly - if slowly - applied. There have been no executions in Cuba for years.
Is there a national progressive group urging a boycott of products and services from all states that have the death penalty? Urging a travel boycott? Urging a residency and tax boycott? Perhaps there is, and I simply haven't heard about it. But we have an immense plank in our own eye to attend to before we start looking at the motes in our neighbors', and we flat aren't doing it.
Sure, we're marching now and again against the death penalty here, and groups like AI are strong and consistent in their opposition. But there was virtually no censure of Clinton for killing a retarded man during the primary to clinch the Southern votes. Hell, there was almost no discussion of it.
Where are the articulate, anti-death penalty leaders of national stature that progressives are advancing through US politics, using a combination of moral suasion and grassroots politicking, day in and day out? Doing real, hard work to change the agenda?
What's that? Nowhere? It's yet another issue the progressives like to cluck their tonguges about occasionally and do nothing about?
Fidel was polite enough not to make these points; I'm not. Of course, Fidel was addressing someone who really does do politics a lot of the time and works for change, and I'm not. I'm reading black and white pronouncements of absolutes from a comfy US liberal.
Rouge, you do not make sense. There were 3 executions last week in Cuba. If Castro struggles toward abolishing the death penalty, he can do it by fiat.In America, we have electoral politics and a court and an appeals court system, and 50 state legislatorsand governors. One person does not have the power to abolish the death penalty. We can struggle and vote for those who represent are position and lobby to have it abolished. In Cuba, one man holds that power--Fidel.
wow, it is his fulltime gig.
> There were 3 executions last week in Cuba.
The first in how many years?
> If Castro struggles toward abolishing the death
> penalty, he can do it by fiat.
Really. Been to Cuba? Know much about their legal system beyond what you read in the pig press?
> In America, we have electoral politics and a court
> and an appeals court system, and 50 state
> legislatorsand governors.
"In America." assmaster, you ignorant slut. There are a more than 50 states in North America alone.
> One person does not have the power to abolish the > death penalty.
Okay, so where is the movement to enact an amendment to the Constitution defining the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment, following the logic of the brief abolition of it in the 70s by 5 of the 9 members of the Supreme Court?
That would get us around that lovely states rights logic that underpins your argument.
States rights - ah, yes, the right to crush labor, the right to impose poll taxes, the right to hold slaves. Lots to be bursting with pride over in making a states' rights argument. Even more to be proud of when you hadn't realized you were making one, as no doubt you'll come right back and say you weren't.
> We can struggle and vote for those who represent
> are position and lobby to have it abolished.
Sure "we" can - but do *you?* Or do you prefer to be an internet passivist?
Hey, is there any more beer at your house? I'd love to come over and get a nice Fox Lobotomy <tm> with you. Then I'd all those complex things like other nations and history and stuff would just plain evaporate into the Bushian Black And White for me. I'd swallow that idiot pablum from sixth grade civics, the whole nine yards of it.
It'd be *swanky* to be a gamma.
> There were 3 executions last week in Cuba.
The first in how many years?
> If Castro struggles toward abolishing the death
> penalty, he can do it by fiat.
Really. Been to Cuba? Know much about their legal system beyond what you read in the pig press?
> In America, we have electoral politics and a court
> and an appeals court system, and 50 state
> legislatorsand governors.
"In America." assmaster, you ignorant slut. There are a more than 50 states in North America alone.
> One person does not have the power to abolish the > death penalty.
Okay, so where is the movement to enact an amendment to the Constitution defining the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment, following the logic of the brief abolition of it in the 70s by 5 of the 9 members of the Supreme Court?
That would get us around that lovely states rights logic that underpins your argument.
States rights - ah, yes, the right to crush labor, the right to impose poll taxes, the right to hold slaves. Lots to be bursting with pride over in making a states' rights argument. Even more to be proud of when you hadn't realized you were making one, as no doubt you'll come right back and say you weren't.
> We can struggle and vote for those who represent
> are position and lobby to have it abolished.
Sure "we" can - but do *you?* Or do you prefer to be an internet passivist?
Hey, is there any more beer at your house? I'd love to come over and get a nice Fox Lobotomy <tm> with you. Then I'd all those complex things like other nations and history and stuff would just plain evaporate into the Bushian Black And White for me. I'd swallow that idiot pablum from sixth grade civics, the whole nine yards of it.
It'd be *swanky* to be a gamma.
Rogue, if you are so unhappy with the US, move to Cuba or Europe or any so called utopia you can find on this earth. In fact, Id be more than happy to buy you a ONE WAY ticket. All Im saying is be consistent. If one is against the death penalty in the US, why not Cuba or Saudi Arabia. Three is too many. You are like a lot of loony far left wingers. If you got in power the due process, free speech and rights you take for granted would vanish in the gulags and firing squads that people like you set up in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, China and your socialist paradise Cuba. I do work. I am a very successful studio musician and recording and touring artist. I am anti racist, pro Union, and anti death penalty whether in the US or any other country including Cuba.
Way to go, bassman. Whenever we conservatives don't have a valid argument, we can always resort to the trusty "love it or leave it." It has served us well. Great job!
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