Posted on 01/05/2005 1:34:11 PM PST by rightalien
Are there any tyrants the Europeans won't appease?
CUBA: DIPLOMATIC DEADLOCK WITH EUROPEANS OVER A thaw in the frosty relations between Europe and Cuba gathered speed after Cuba reopened official contacts with the embassies of eight European nations on Monday, including France, Britain and Germany, Reuters reported. Relations have been tense since the European Union began pressing Cuba to free dissidents jailed in March 2003. Last year the European embassies began inviting opponents of the government of Fidel Castro to their diplomatic cocktail parties, and Cuba cut off relations with them. Spain, which has extensive investments in Cuba, worked to broker a truce between Mr. Castro and European leaders. President Castro released 14 of the 75 jailed dissidents, and a European Union panel recommended this month that the practice of inviting dissidents to parties be dropped in favor of more discreet contacts. James C. McKinley Jr. (NYT)
CHILE: COURT UPHOLDS PINOCHET INDICTMENT The Supreme Court upheld a judge's ruling last month that Chile's former dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, is competent to stand trial on charges of murder and kidnapping stemming from his role in Operation Condor, a joint campaign set up by South America's right-wing military dictatorships in the 1970's. In 2001, General Pinochet, 89, was charged in connection with another case of human rights abuses but escaped a trial when his lawyers maintained he was mentally and physically unfit and the Supreme Court upheld that argument after doctors determined he was suffering from what they called "mild dementia," or senility. Larry Rohter (NYT)
No, not inviting dissidents isn't the greatest backstabbing in the world. But propping up Castro's fascistic regime with tourist money and investments as many EU countries and individuals do isn't too fabulous either is it?
Libya has oil, so we can forgive the perpetrator of PanAm 103 & the bombing of the La Belle disco.
Excuse me?
Not inviting political dissidents to cocktail parties is hardly the most heinous case of backstabbing the world has known
Ah, simplisme! You simple Amerwicain, you just do not grasp zee Nuances of sophisticated diplomacy! Dull-witted cowboy, you probably do not even have a visa to visit Monaco when you are on holiday!
"I don't see why I should feel like I'm betraying anyone by going there. Someone definitely has to explain that one for me."
Umm, lets see...your hard currency supports the most tyrannical and murderous regime in the Western hemisphere.
Whether that betrays anyone, I'll leave to the Cubans who are still incarcerated in their own homeland, their jailers funded by people like you, to answer.
Glad you found one of the last islands of the Gulag to be simply "fabulous." Stalin would be proud.
"It was American corporations and tourism in the fifties that supported the tyrannical and murderous regime of Batista.
Since then, Cubans have become freer, more prosperous and more independent, yet you evidently want its population of eleven million to starve, with or without Soviet subsidies.
"I have no idea where you got "murderous" from. In the last three years, I believe only three people have been executed in Cuba, for a terrorist hijacking of a ferry.
By way of contrast, about 200 people have been executed in the United States during this period, including at least one person under the age of 18.
"And I hope the Americans withdraw their Gulag from Cuba, too
I'll be. A gen-u-wine socialist kool-aid drinker. The Berlin Wall was built to prevent "economic interference" from the West too, right?
And of course the Jews want all the Pali's to starve, that's why they built that eeeevil wall, right? It is all about the Jews and their "corporations" after all, isn't it.
Yeah, I know you. All I need to know about you, that is.
Tell you what, Junior. Go read some of your countryman Paul Johnson on the 20th Century. You'll learn things you never dreamed before in your euro-trash cocoon.
Cheers.
I see you refuse to accept statistics that don't portray Cuba as a "workers" paradise. No matter, lets consider your talk of freedom:
Elections: non under Batista, non under Castro, Castro is life disctor with his brother heir apparant (really free eh?)
Human rights: bad under Batista, worse under Castro. AIDS patients in prison, homosexuals persecuted, hundreds of thousands feel the place is such a prison theyd rather escape on rafts through shark infested waters than stay
"Racism was rampant": yes, and it still is. Huey Newton - the Black Panther who took refuge in Cuba - compared communist Cuba's race relations to the Deep South of the US
"Press that didn't portray Cuba as a haven for foreigners was shut down": now its press that doesnt portray Cuba as a workers paradise
"Education was almost non-existent, and half of Cubans were malnourished": education is better today - despite the Marxist claptrap, but malnutrition came right back once the Soviets cut the handouts
"I have no idea where you got "murderous" from. In the last three years, I believe only three people have been executed in Cuba, for a terrorist hijacking of a ferry.
By way of contrast, about 200 people have been executed in the United States during this period, including at least one person under the age of 18."
This is good troll material. Once someone doesn't call a police state a police state, the game is up.
As a general indication, the prosperity of a country can be determined by interest in immigration TO that country in its foreign embassies, with proximity taken into account. For some strange reason, I don't see people lined up at the cuban embassy every day to ask for visas to live there. (you wouldneed to do tat since the government controls employment directly, as opposed to the british system)
BTW on a per-capita basis, is cubas execution rate higher or lower than the US?
"The wall is to make more permanent and clear the Israeli government's version of the border between the West Bank and Israel.
Lesser reasons would be the "land-grab" and to increase security by limiting freedom of movement."
Conquering territory from a defeated invading power isn't exactly new. "Land-grab" is a term for the losers to whine with, implying it is somehow unjust to actually lose parts of the border area with israel after they failed (twice) to defeat them militarily.
" 25% of Cuba is malnourished. A sure sign that the trade embargo is working."
Cuba can and does trade with the entire world minus one country. How is it that their exports (sugar tobacco, what else?) as well as their own food crops cannot tend to this matter?
Would you consider emigrating to cuba and living as a cuban national, as opposed to visiting as a european tourist?
What do you think of the elections in North Korea?
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