Chávez and Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson are expected to sign an accord establishing the PetroCaribe initiative, Venezuela's proposal to supply petroleum to Caribbean countries under favorable financial terms, a Foreign Ministry statement said Monday.
The two leaders will meet in the northern resort town of Montego Bay, the ministry said.
Chávez, who was in Cuba following talks with Fidel Castro, will be joined by Venezuelan Foreign Trade Minister Gustavo Maraquez and Planning and Development Minister Jorge Giodani, the ministry said. …..***
We were talking about Fidel Castro's recurring crackdowns on those remarkably courageous Cubans who keep working to bring democracy to that grim island where dissenters, including independent librarians, are locked in cages, often for 20 or more years. Bradbury knew about the crackdowns, but until I told him, was not aware of Castro's kangaroo courts often ordering the burning of the independent libraries they raid, as in 451.
For example, on April 5, 2003, after Julio Valdés Guevara was sent away, the judge ruled: ''As to the disposition of the photographic negatives, the audio cassette, medicines, books, magazines, pamphlets and the rest of the documents, they are to be destroyed by means of incineration because they lack usefulness.'' Hearing about this, Bradbury authorized me to convey this message from him to Castro: ``I stand against any library or any librarian anywhere in the world being imprisoned or punished in any way for the books they circulate.
''I plead with Castro and his government to immediately take their hands off the independent librarians and release all those librarians in prison, and to send them back into Cuban culture to inform the people.'' Among the books destroyed through the years by Castro's arsonists have been volumes on Martin Luther King Jr., the U.S. Constitution and even a book by the late José Martí, who organized, and was killed in, the Cuban people's struggle for independence.
Whether or not the Cuban dictator ever heard of Bradbury's message to him, Castro is resolute in his repression of his people. As Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) reports: ''In a renewed government crackdown on dissidents in Cuba, authorities arrested at least 57 peaceful democracy and human rights advocates'' between July 13 and July 22. Three of those still imprisoned will be prosecuted under Castro's notorious Law 88, which mandates up to 20 years in prison and possible confiscation of property. .............