Posted on 01/07/2004 12:58:29 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba said on Tuesday U.S. officials canceled biannual migration talks and accused an "aggressive" Bush Administration of seeking to scuttle migration agreements between the two countries.
Washington has criticized the lack of progress at the migration talks, citing Cuban refusal to discuss a list of 200 Cubans, mostly professionals such as doctors, who Havana will not allow to leave even though they have U.S. visas.
U.S. officials also complain they have been allowed few visits since last March to the interior of Cuba to check on the well-being of boat people who the United States has returned to the island.
The migration accords of 1994 and 1995 are aimed at avoiding a repeat mass exodus from Communist-run Cuba to the United States by Cuban rafters. Migration meetings every six months are the only area where the two long-time ideological foes have regular conversations.
But Washington has put off the latest round of talks until Havana agrees to discuss issues on the U.S. agenda, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday night. Cuba had wanted to hold the talks on Thursday, it said.
"The government of the United States is entirely responsible for the cancellation of this round of migration talks," the statement said.
"These are merely new pretexts to aggravate tensions between the two countries," the foreign ministry said.
The Cuban statement said the Bush Administration was pandering to the anti-Castro exile community in Florida for electoral reasons, while ignoring the U.S. national interest of having orderly and legal immigration from Cuba.
Opponents of Cuban President Fidel Castro criticize the migration accords under which the U.S. Coast Guard (news - web sites) began to return Cuban boat people to the island when they were intercepted at sea trying to reach Florida.
Cuba accuses Washington of encouraging illegal migration and the hijacking of planes and boats with its "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy of granting those who reach U.S. soil almost automatic residence, while returning those caught at sea.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry said the Bush Administration has become more aggressive with Cuba in recent months to please a small group of Cuban exiles who want to "wreck" the migration accords and step up hostility against Cuba.
Earlier on Tuesday, the top U.S. official for Latin American affairs accused Castro of aiding attempts to destabilize democratic governments in the region and warned that he was being closely monitored.
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega told reporters in New York the Cuban leader was lending increasing support to anti-government groups in Latin America.
On Monday, a State Department spokesman expressed concern over reports that Castro and Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez were working together to promote and finance anti-government groups in the region.
Chavez appoints radicals to head Venezuelan passport agency - reports of Arabs otaining ID documents
Chavez looks like a typical steet thug in the photo. Which of course he is.
I'm technologically challenged so I would appreciate it if someone could find that article and post it.
Robert Duvall slams Spielberg 'I'll never work at DreamWorks again'
[Full text] LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Actor Robert Duvall probably won't be making any movies for DreamWorks any time soon.
In a CBS "60 Minutes II" interview set for broadcast Wednesday, the Oscar-winning performer sharply criticized filmmaker and DreamWorks SKG studio co-founder Steven Spielberg for visiting Cuba in November 2002.
"Spielberg went down there recently and said, 'The best seven hours I ever spent was actually with Fidel Castro.' Now, what I want to ask him, ... 'Would you consider building a little annex on the Holocaust museum, or at least across the street, to honor the dead Cubans that Castro killed.' That's very presumptuous of him to go there," Duvall told Charlie Rose, according to excerpts of the interview released by CBS.
The actor, who won an Academy Award for his role in the 1983 film "Tender Mercies," added, "I'll never work at DreamWorks again, but I don't care about working there anyway."
Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy, responded by issuing a statement saying the remark Duvall attributed to the director about his meeting with Castro is "totally false."
"He never said it, or anything like it," Levy said, adding Spielberg's trip to the Communist-ruled island had been authorized as a cultural exchange by the U.S. government.
Spielberg spent four days in Cuba, launching a showcase of eight of his movies, meeting with Cuban filmmakers and paying visits to Havana's largest synagogue and a memorial to Holocaust victims at the city's Jewish cemetery.
The Oscar-winning director of "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List" also dined with Fidel Castro, spending about eight hours with the Cuban leader discussing art, politics and history.
During his trip, Spielberg made headlines by calling for an end to the 40-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, saying it was time to bury old grudges from the Cold War and expand interactions between Americans and Cubans. [End]
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