Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Fidel Castro - Cuba
various LINKS to articles | April 14, 2002

Posted on 04/14/2002 4:36:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

This is a LINK to articles since April 21, 2001 about Cuba and the communist threat - CHILDREN'S CODE At this LINK is a LINK to many Elian articles. Below I will post similar articles since the FR format changed and locked posts to this LINK. Please add what you wish to this thread.

Eyes Wide Open--[Excerpts] The Los Angeles kids, chosen for their photographic skills and their ability to work with others, represented the Venice Arts Mecca, a nonprofit organization that brings volunteer artists together with youngsters from low-income families to nurture their creativity in areas ranging from literary arts to photography. They looked. They listened. They photographed. And they took notes for their journals.

…….Before embarking on their adventure, the kids--who were joined by two young people from Washington, D.C., and accompanied by adult mentors--studied the sociopolitical history of South Africa, including apartheid. All were Latino or African American or a mix of the two, and were encouraged to think about their own identity, their own experiences with racism.

……..Before embarking on their adventure, the kids--who were joined by two young people from Washington, D.C., and accompanied by adult mentors--studied the sociopolitical history of South Africa, including apartheid. All were Latino or African American or a mix of the two, and were encouraged to think about their own identity, their own experiences with racism.

…..At the conference exhibit hall, the L.A. kids mounted a photo exhibition showing the underbelly of America. There were bleak images of life on an Indian reservation, of the homeless in Los Angeles. It was an eye-opener to some South Africans, who thought everyone in America was rich. "They were absolutely shocked," said Lynn Warshafsky, executive director of Venice Arts Mecca.

In turn, the L.A. group was surprised at the degree of anti-American sentiment, something they had to process. "They had to ask themselves questions they'd never asked before" about how others see them, Warshafsky said.

……..For Eamon, the highlight was hearing Fidel Castro speak. "I had thought of him as seriously evil. I realized he's not evil, he's doing what he thinks is best. He has this sort of demeanor about him. Whether you like him or not, you respect him. It opened my eyes." [End Excerpts]


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Cuba; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: castro; castrowatch; communism; cuba; frlibrarians; latinamericalist
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 281-300301-320321-340 ... 761-766 next last
To: All
Cuban mother asks if son can stay in US*** ''I want him to stay with his father,'' Orozco told the lawyer Grisel Ybarra by telephone from Cuba. Ybarra said she wanted to avoid a repeat of the case of Elian Gonzalez, who became the subject of a tug-of-war between the Miami relatives of his mother, who died at sea, and his father in Cuba. ''The reason we're doing this is so that we don't have another Elian where'' President Fidel Castro of Cuba ''alleges that the parent wanted the child back,'' Ybarra told The Miami Herald.***
301 posted on 11/29/2002 3:00:02 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 300 | View Replies]

To: All
Venezuela's Chavez denies new leftist axis during visit to Ecuador-Castro rails against U.S. empire *** QUITO, Ecuador - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denied that a leftist front is taking shape in Latin America despite recent election victories of left-leaning politicians in Ecuador and Brazil.

"I would not call it a leftist axis because I do not believe it is about left or right," Chavez said early Friday in Ecuador, where he and Cuban President Fidel Castro were visiting to attend the inauguration of an art museum designed by a late leftist artist, Oswaldo Guayasamin. Rather, it is time for Latin America to leave behind 500 years of "domination, exclusion and inequality," said Chavez, whose leftist rhetoric has divided his nation.

Beside Venezuela and Cuba, Ecuador and Brazil will also be led by left-leaning governments with the election of Lucio Gutierrez, a nationalistic former coup leader, as president of Ecuador and leftist labor leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as leader of Brazil. ***

302 posted on 11/30/2002 1:13:55 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 301 | View Replies]

To: All
Lawmakers Want Reich's Reinstatement *** Reich, a Cuban-American and a strident anti-Communist, has irritated Democrats including former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), because of Reich's support for the Cuban economic embargo and the Nicaraguan Contra rebels in the 1980s, who fought against the Sandinista government which was later deposed.

……….Sources told CNSNews.com that Bush will probably re-nominate Reich for his old job and he will probably win Senate confirmation when the 108th Congress convenes in January because of the new GOP majority. Reich has previously served as the assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development and as a special advisor to former Secretary of State George Shultz in the Reagan administration. During that time, he established and managed the interagency Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean. From 1986 to 1989, Reich was the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and received the State Department's Exemplary Service Award and Superior Honor Award.***

303 posted on 12/03/2002 11:07:33 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 302 | View Replies]

To: All
Paul Harvey praises Cuba's Fidel Castro: Radio legend compliments dictator***Expounding on Castro's remarks, Harvey overlooked the slaps at capitalism, highlighting only references to the manners of personal living. "He told them to leave the Cuban rum alone, and leave the Cuban cigars to the idlers and the parasites and the foreign buyers who want to self-destruct," Harvey said. "His appeal was to the morality of his audience - how they must be examples, how they must not contribute to the irresponsibility and the accidents resulting from drinking. He urged them to celebrate the New Year this year without rum. "As doctors, he urged them to serve the poor in rural areas which most doctors ignore. We Cubans will not rest, he said, until ours is the most humane, most just, most honest, most sober society that has ever been created.

"Fidel Castro has done a lot of growing up since we first met," concluded Harvey. "I hope we both have." It was unclear why Castro chose this year to fire a shot at rum consumption, but his call comes on the heels of a new book that claims Bacardi, the world's largest rum company, has been engaged for more than 40 years in clandestine attempts to overthrow the Cuban government by both violent and other means.***

304 posted on 12/05/2002 4:15:55 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 303 | View Replies]

To: All
Castro Celebrates Elian's 9th Birthday - Fatherland or Death! *** But few 9-year-olds have a museum dedicated to the fight for their custody - a struggle communist officials call "the battle of ideas." Few see the Cuban leader show up at their school and take a seat beside their father, as Castro did Friday beside Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Castro also appeared at Elian's 7th birthday. After a tumultuous, screaming greeting from the children, Castro joined the students in roaring with laughter at a troupe of clowns and sat solemnly as 11-year-old Cynthia Berrio read a welcome praising his "infinite tenderness" and ending with her echoing Castro's traditional cry: "Fatherland or death!"

The 76-year-old Castro, dressed in a military uniform, tossed an arm around her shoulder, questioned her about the school and gave students a brief history lesson of the sort Elian would not have received in Miami. When she said students were studying the history of colonialism, Castro broke in, "Colonialism or neo-colonialism?" Colonialism, he explained, was the 400-year era of Spanish rule in Cuba. "Then came neo-colonialism, when the neighbors to the north (Americans) ... made themselves owners of everything in their path," he told the children.***

305 posted on 12/07/2002 1:41:40 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 304 | View Replies]

To: All

DNC fundraising at Smith Bagley's house.

306 posted on 12/07/2002 2:12:27 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 305 | View Replies]

To: All
'Alternative parliament' of dissidents meets in Cuba *** HAVANA - About 50 Cuban dissidents held a meeting of what a leader called an "alternative parliament" on Tuesday in celebration of international Human Rights Day. Marta Beatriz Roque, who hosted the event in her home, said the Assembly to Promote Civil Society was meant to unite 341 small dissident groups across Cuba.

"This is the first time that the assembly has had a mass meeting," she said. "But the objective is to join the 341 organizations so that, in a democratic way, these associations elect someone to lead them." Roque estimated the groups together have about 5,000 members. The loosely organized gathering lasted a few hours, with people coming and going, and broke up around noon. Reporters saw about 50 people. Even at that size, it was an unusually large and public gathering of dissidents in Cuba. "It is an achievement to be able to gather such a large force of the opposition," Roque told reporters. ***

307 posted on 12/11/2002 2:27:38 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 306 | View Replies]

To: All
Cuban Dissident Says House Was Vandalized *** HAVANA - A Cuban dissident who is to receive a major human rights award next week said Friday that his house was vandalized overnight and he blamed the government.

A flag and bumper stickers of the militant anti-Castro group Alpha 66 were tied and pasted to the house of Oswaldo Paya, who advocates nonviolent change of Cuba's socialist system. Scrawled on the bumper stickers were "Death to informers" and words that included "spy" and "traitor." Paya said he has not received the government exit visa needed to leave the country for a ceremony at which the European Parliament next week, where he is to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

"I interpret this (the vandalism) as the government response to my request to leave to receive the prize," he said. Paya is a lead organizer of the Varela Project, an island-wide signature gathering effort requesting a referendum asking voters if they favor guarantees for rights such as freedom of speech and private business ownership, broad electoral reforms and freedom for political prisoners. ***

308 posted on 12/14/2002 1:20:59 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 307 | View Replies]

To: All
U.S. asks Cuba to release hundreds cleared for emigration *** HAVANA (AP) - U.S. officials gave Cuba a list Tuesday of nearly 500 people they say have been refused permission to leave the island despite having been cleared for emigration to the United States. "We once again ask the Cuban government to grant these individuals exit permits," Kevin Whitaker of the U.S. State Department's Office of Cuban Affairs told reporters after a day of talks in Havana. The communist government's refusal to allow some Cubans to leave, even after they have received U.S. permission to legally emigrate, has been a constant complaint of American authorities at the migration talks, which are held twice a year. U.S. officials said the list was delivered following Tuesday's news conference, after Cuban representatives said they had not received the names.***
309 posted on 12/18/2002 2:00:47 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 308 | View Replies]

To: All
Boston Globe: The fall of Otto Reich*** OTTO J. REICH got a surprise when he returned from Brazil last month: He was no longer assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. The Bush administration moved him to a smaller office because his recess appointment expired when the congressional session ended. But the administration is not signaling its intention to seek Senate approval of his permanent appointment. That's good news for anyone who wants the United States to embark on policies toward Latin American that are devoid of the archaic, reflexive anticommunism of the 1980s.

Reich was shaped by his experiences in the Reagan administration and in Cuba as a boy when Fidel Castro's revolution forced his family into exile. He maintains the hard-line anti-Castroism favored by the Cuban expatriate community in Miami, but elsewhere in the United States many farmers want to sell their products to Cuba, and tourists want to visit the island. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who will become chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee next month, opposes Reich's appointment on the grounds that he lacks the range of experience required for the job. This should be the final blow to his chances. The need for fresh thinking on Latin American policy is evident in Venezuela, where protesters from the more affluent segments of society are attempting to unseat President Hugo Chavez.***

310 posted on 12/18/2002 2:44:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 309 | View Replies]

To: All
Cuba looks to genetic engineering to help save sugar crop ***If successful, Cuba would need much less cane to produce the same amount of sweetener and be able to fetch premium prices - a prospect so promising that Cuba obtained a U.S. patent five years ago on its process of engineering fructose into sugar cane. It's one of about two dozen U.S. patents the Cubans hold, obtained mostly to keep other non-embargoed countries from profiting from their inventions. In the case of fructose sugar cane, Cuba hopes its patent position will give it a commercial edge when it reaches the world market.

Enriquez said he's ready to plant his experiments outdoors - but getting such permission from Cuban regulators is a lengthy process and the fructose sugar cane is years away from supermarket shelves. Enriquez's mission is about more than economics. National pride is at stake. Sugar is still the country's No. 1 export, ahead of nickel and even tobacco, although tourism has replaced sugar as the biggest source of hard currency. The sugar industry employs about 400,000 workers. "This country is very sentimental about sugar," Enriquez said.

Closer to attaining the open field is sugar cane genetically modified to make it more pest resistant. About a dozen of these plants are growing in a greenhouse behind the Havana biotech center, promising to reduce growing expenses by requiring less pesticide. Others at the center are tinkering with sugar cane's genome to make it more resistant to weed killers and disease. Labrada also talks about using sugar cane to fuel electric generators, as a source of ethanol and even as a source for cancer-fighting drugs. But even if the Cuban scientists succeed with their biotechnology projects - Enriquez for one says he's close - they have other hurdles to clear. The European Union, the biggest market currently open to Cuba, has temporarily banned all new imports of genetically modified foods in the face of consumer resistance.***

311 posted on 12/19/2002 2:23:32 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 310 | View Replies]

To: All
Chavez bio-weapons lab in Venezuela for Saddam and Castro***Given the military liaisons between Cuba and Chavez, the biological warfare aspects of their mutual exchanges, their connections with Khaddafi and Saddam Hussein, and their connections to FARC, the outcome is chilling. Consider, as one Chavez insider has already done, how easily one could introduce a bioweapon to the US by contaminating cocaine. Just thinking about these implications made Major Juan Diaz Castillo walk out and join Venezuela's opposition in calling for free and democratic elections to remove Chavez from power. " - If Chavez stays, it will not just be dangerous for Venezuela," says Major Diaz Castillo. "It will be dangerous for the whole world."***
312 posted on 12/19/2002 1:09:08 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 311 | View Replies]

To: All
Leading Cuban opponents, Vladimiro Roca and Oswaldo Paya, propose wide reaching reforms *** HAVANA - Increased salaries and pension payments, the right to own a home and vehicle, and the chance to open a private business were among reforms leading government opponents proposed Thursday as ways to resolve Cuba's problems. The list of 36 proposed reforms were fashioned "taking into account the horrible economic, political, social and human rights situation the immense majority of our people suffer," leaders of the opposition group "Todos Unidos," or "Everyone United," said in a prepared statement.

"These proposals do not constitute a simple enumeration of desires but the basis of a permanent campaign to mobilize national public opinion in the face of the necessity for urgent reforms," said the statement, read by the group's acting spokesman, longtime activist and former political prisoner Vladimiro Roca. Roca was sitting in for Oswaldo Paya, a lead organizer of the Varela Project signature campaign, which seeks a referendum on guarantees for civil rights such as freedom of speech, along with other reforms. ***

313 posted on 12/20/2002 3:36:57 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 312 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Law's Cuban 'miracle' *** ''I met them in their church,'' he said, ''and I asked them to come here and sing about the real revolution, the revolution of Jesus Christ.'' Cardinal Law wasn't finished yet, though. As the security goons watched with jaws agape, the archbishop of Boston took these 20 kids up to one of the hotel's posh restaurants, stood them all to a dinner the likes of which they had never seen before, and walked them up and down the buffet, explaining in fluent Spanish to these wonderful, impoverished youngsters what the various dishes were.

The cardinal then encouraged them to sing again, sitting discretely nearby so that the goons wouldn't interfere. Everything simply stopped in its tracks. Guests, restaurant staff, and goons were serenaded for perhaps 20 minutes by songs about the love of Christ and the recently completed Christmas season. In the midst of this impromptu concert, I walked over to where Law was sitting and said, ''I'm not sure this is entirely accurate theologically, but I think you've performed a kind of exorcism here tonight.'' He smiled, and we shook hands, and knew that we were living a very special moment indeed - a kind of foretaste of heaven.***

314 posted on 12/22/2002 2:39:26 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 313 | View Replies]

To: All
Sour times for sugar industry "let Cubans grow own products ...but that means giving people freedom" *** Workers were able to use the trucks and trains that moved the sugar for personal needs. Food and supplies provided by the government intended for the cane cutters were shared among their families. Particularly in the early years of Mr. Castro's rule, sugar workers were celebrated as heroes to the nation. Now, with factories silent and the fields either overgrown or lying fallow, residents of the sugar centrals are feeling neglected. The government has stopped sending provisions, and the trucks and trains no longer run, stranding the workers.

"On the central, every aspect of life relied on sugar," says Tomas Fernández Tihert, a local dissident activist. "Now 10,000 people whose lives depended on this mill have no hope, and that can be said for dozens of other centrals across Cuba." Castro has promised that workers dislocated by the reform will be given new jobs, retrained, or sent back to school - a pledge that many workers regard with skepticism. "In these new schools, the teacher is only the most educated person in the central," says Mileidys Dias Beltrán, who lost her job in the Granma mechanical workshop. "It is sad to see skilled, talented workers with nothing to do but wait for further instruction."

The social consequences of Cuba's new sugar policy have not yet been calculated, but some predict urban areas such as Havana will swell with the former sugar workers, exacerbating the housing strain and contributing to a rise in crime. Others warn of a possible wave of attempted migration to the US by some of the 100,000 idled laborers. "In other societies, these former sugar workers would form a political opposition," says Oscar Espinoza Chepe, a dissident economist in Havana. "The Cuban workers are not yet that organized, but they could be." During three decades of Soviet patronage, Cuban sugar was bought within the communist economy at generous prices or traded for fuel and other provisions.

But when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Cuban sugar was forced into an unforgiving global commodities market. Average world sugar productivity hovers around 40 tons per acre, but Cuban productivity has slipped to about half that level over the past 10 years. And while global sugar prices have plunged, fuel costs have climbed making today's sugar crop even more costly. Cuban planners have contemplated the current reform for years, though they were reluctant to upset an industry that has gained an iconic status under the Castro regime. While officials insist that reform will not affect sugar output, experts say that Cuba will face a sub-par harvest next year.

Some Cuban observers complain that while the government has swiftly abandoned the sugar industry, it has been slow to articulate a new vision for the country's agriculture. "We agree that sugar production needs to be reduced," Mr. Tihert says, "but not like this, not without consulting the farmers or giving them some time and support to adjust."***

315 posted on 12/28/2002 3:16:46 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 314 | View Replies]

To: All
Terror Threat from Venezuela: Al Queda Involved***During the last few weeks, Chavez has moved to control the military high command with his closest acolytes. Gen. Luis Garcia Carneiro, who has been leading the Caracas-based 3rd Infantry Division in operations to disarm the metropolitan police, is now the effective head of the army. Arab terrorists and Colombian narcoguerrillas are being protected by DISIP, which has come under the control of Cuba's DGI, according to members of the Venezuelan security agency. European diplomatic officials in Caracas confirm that Cubans are operating DISIP's key counterterrorist and intelligence-analysis sections. According to a variety of sources, 300 to 400 Cuban military advisers coordinated by Havana's military attaché in Venezuela, navy Capt. Sergio Cardona, also are directing Chavez's elite Presidential Guard and his close circle of bodyguards. As many as 6,000 Cuban undercover agents masquerading as "sports instructors" and "teachers" also are reported to be training the Circulos Bolivarianos and even operating naval facilities.

"I quit my job when I got tired of doing dirty work for Chavez with the Cubans looking over my shoulder," Marcos Ferreira says, while showing proof that former Interior Minister Rodriguez Chacin and other presidential aides repeatedly pressured him to launder the identities of terrorists and narcotraffickers transiting through Venezuela. He also was ordered to deceive U.S. authorities on the activities of a Hezbollah financial network whose files were requested by the FBI following the Sept. 11 attacks. Chavez gave instructions to destroy records on 10 suspected Hezbollah fund-raisers conducting suspicious financial transactions in the islands of Margarita, Aruba and Curaçao, and the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia, according to Ferreira. The Venezuelan president then dissolved key military counterterrorist units by firing 16 highly experienced, U.S.-trained intelligence officers at the time of the terrorist plane attacks in New York City and Washington. Circulos Bolivarianos leader Lina Ron celebrated the event by burning an American flag in the center of Caracas.***

MORE from same article but in separate post - CLICK on one to read entire article.

REAL AXIS OF EVIL - Venezuela and CUBA*** The president's scheme also involves government-sponsored armed militias, or Circulos Bolivarianos, modeled on Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees. These militias are taking over police stations around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and invading the facilities of the state-run oil company, PDVSA. Indeed, the latter is presided over by an ex-communist guerrilla leader, Ali Rodriguez Araque. Following the blueprint that Castro drafted for Chile's Salvador Allende, a minority president who similarly imported thousands of Cuban paramilitaries to overthrow the constitution of Chile and establish a Marxist-Leninist regime there, Chavez is facing an internal rebellion against his plans. With 80 percent or more of the national revenues cut off by an oil strike, he is faced with difficult choices. Chavez may be forced to order his navy to take over some 20 oil tankers that are refusing to load. Since he cannot entirely rely on the loyalty of his armed forces, he is expected to bring in the Cuban advisers.

Cuba's Direccion General de Inteligencia (DGI) special-operations teams already are positioned at the port of La Guaira, according to Venezuelan navy sources, who report that Cuban undercover agents are using the local merchant-marine school. Sources say that they could be studying Venezuela's oil-tanker fleet as part of contingency plans to prepare for commandeering of some of the tankers by a U.S.-trained Venezuelan intelligence officer. A Cuban special-assault unit reported to be occupying the second and third floors of the Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira also could be part of the plans to break the strike and impose a terrorist dictatorship. During the last few weeks, Chavez has moved to control the military high command with his closest acolytes. Gen. Luis Garcia Carneiro, who has been leading the Caracas-based 3rd Infantry Division in operations to disarm the metropolitan police, now is the effective head of the army.

Possibly thousands of Arab terrorists as well as Colombian narcoguerrillas are being protected by DISIP, which has come under the control of Cuba's DGI, according to members of the Venezuelan security agency. European diplomatic officials in Caracas confirm that Cubans are operating DISIP's key counterterrorist and intelligence-analysis sections. According to a variety of sources, 300 to 400 Cuban military advisers coordinated by Havana's military attaché in Venezuela, navy Capt. Sergio Cardona, also are directing Chavez's elite Presidential Guard and his close circle of bodyguards, some of whom can't even sing the words to the Venezuelan national anthem. As many as 6,000 Cuban undercover agents masquerading as "sports instructors" and "teachers" also are reported to be training the Circulos Bolivarianos and even operating naval facilities.***

Colombian `peace lab' erupts into violence*** VISTA HERMOSA, Colombia -- Sensing a guerrilla ambush, the soldiers stealthily crept toward an abandoned sport utility vehicle parked on the outskirts of this southern Colombian town. Inside the SUV, they found the body of a 14-year-old boy. His throat had been slit, his body wrapped in explosives. "Those SOBs," says Maj. Oscar Fugueredo as he recounts the grisly discovery and shows photos of the teenager who had been slain by Marxist guerrillas. "They made a child bomb!" The killing was among 133 homicides that have been committed in Vista Hermosa and nearby towns since February, when Colombian troops reclaimed a 16,000-square-mile area from rebels after the collapse of peace talks. Officials believe most of the slayings were politically motivated.

Then-President Andres Pastrana pledged that government forces would protect the region's estimated 96,000 residents when he ordered the soldiers to move into the zone. But the hellish facts on the ground show that life in the area has become more perilous. The murder rate has jumped, and some peasant families have been uprooted from their lands. "Although the guerrillas committed numerous acts of violence ... when they controlled the region, the levels of violence have increased since the army retook the zone," says a recent report by Amnesty International, the independent human-rights group. "Civilians have been the victims of systematic attacks."

For more than three years, Vista Hermosa was part of a so-called "peace laboratory." The town sits in a vast region of jungle and plains that was ceded by the Colombian government to the nation's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in late 1998 in an effort to promote peace talks and end a civil war that began in 1964. The rebel-held area became known as the "despeje" -- Spanish for the "clearing" -- because Pastrana had ordered all government forces to withdraw. The zone was one of the few areas in Colombia free of combat, because just one side was in control.

But peace talks between the government and the rebels broke down in February, and Pastrana ordered the military to retake the region, which is roughly the size of Switzerland and covers about 4 percent of Colombia's territory. At the time, it was widely feared that outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups -- which, in addition to government forces, are fighting the rebels -- would move into the zone and go on a rampage against accused guerrilla collaborators. But in an odd twist, most of the 133 slayings reported in the region over the past 10 months have been blamed on the FARC. ***

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

316 posted on 12/29/2002 2:13:20 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 315 | View Replies]

To: All
Anti-Castro group claims shooting of spy in Cuba *** An anti-Castro paramilitary group claims it shot -- but did not kill -- a former spy who lived in Miami and was linked to the Cuban military's shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes. Rodolfo Frometa, director of Comandos F-4, said his group was involved in the Dec. 19 shooting of Juan Pablo Roque. He said Roque was in serious or critical condition at a Havana hospital, but the incident could not be independently confirmed.

Roque's bodyguard was killed, as was the gunman, identified as Ramón Sosa, 32, an operative in one of Comandos F-4's clandestine cells within the island, Frometa said. ''We are the only exile organization that has publicly declared being after Juan Pablo Roque to execute him for the crime he committed and for having laughed at this country,'' Frometa said. ``We have been following his paces. We know where he works, where he lives, who his lovers are, because our intention is to eliminate him.''***

317 posted on 12/31/2002 2:04:25 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 316 | View Replies]

To: All
Oil power to the people is priority for Rodríguez*** Cane in hand, Alí Rodríguez cuts a valiant but ghostly figure as he steps gingerly into the control room of the Puerto La Cruz oil refinery in eastern Venezuela. Inside, a dozen visibly exhausted yet determined technicians rise to their feet and applaud, momentarily turning away from monitoring the console that is ensuring Venezuela's only operational refinery continues to distill a trickle of fuel. As head of state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), Latin America's biggest company, Mr Rodríguez rallies the night shift. "The striking managers thought they were the only ones who can run this industry. But you are showing the world that they have failed. The workers are winning the battle now."

Such fighting talk is characteristic of the frail 65-year-old. He is a former guerrilla fighter, reputedly one of the last to lay down his arms at the end of Venezuela's small-scale leftwing insurgency of the 1960s. Forty years later, Mr Rodríguez faces perhaps his most challenging struggle: to restart what a month ago was the world's fifth-largest oil exporter but is now a virtually paralysed network of derricks, pipelines and oil terminals. "Armed guerrilla action is one form of combat I've left behind, but this is a war to save democracy," he says as he reaches up with his cane to tap the pilot's window of the executive jet on the runway of an abandoned airfield near the refinery. A long-time friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Mr Rodríguez likens the tightening economic noose that is the oil strike with the long-time US-imposed trade embargo on the Caribbean island.***

318 posted on 01/01/2003 2:01:45 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 317 | View Replies]

To: All
Castro, Chavez Attending Brazilian Inauguration - "Jan. 1 is no longer a Cuban monopoly" [Full Text] BRASILIA, Brazil - Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrived Tuesday in Brazil to attend the inauguration of Luiz Inacio da Silva, the country's first leftist president in 40 years. Castro, dressed in trademark green uniform, was driven in a motorcade to a Brasilia hotel amid tight security. "I am happy to be in Brazil, and happy to say that Jan. 1 is no longer a Cuban monopoly," Castro told reporters. Jan. 1 is the anniversary of the Cuban revolution that brought Castro to power. A serious leg infection kept Castro out of sight in Cuba for nearly two weeks in December, but he showed no difficulty walking as he entered the hotel.

Silva takes over Wednesday for outgoing president Fernando Henrique Cardoso in an inaugural ceremony expected to attract presidents from at least six other Latin American countries and 100,000 or more Brazilians. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was also expected to attend. But the four-week-old strike in Venezuela aimed at ousting him was expected to delay him. Earlier this month, Chavez said until the last minute that he would attend an economic summit in Brasilia, but never showed up. Silva, a 57-year-old former union leader, will govern Latin America's largest country and counts Castro and Chavez among his friends. [End]

319 posted on 01/01/2003 3:02:42 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 318 | View Replies]

To: All
Michael Kelly: 2003 Through the Looking Glass ***Carter Returns Nobel Peace Prize 'Too, Too Ridiculous,' Ex-Prez Says PLAINS, Ga., March 17 -- In a move that stunned veteran narcissistic personality disorder observers, a smiling Jimmy Carter today announced that he had decided to return the coveted Peace Prize awarded to him last year by the Nobel Committee. "I may be the most vainglorious, self-regarding, preachifying old coot since Henry Ward Beecher, but even I know when a joke has gone too far," said Carter. "Let's consider my contributions to world peace. In 1991, as the United States was on the very verge of war, I secretly lobbied the presidents of the United Nations Security Council nations, and also the heads of the Arab nations, to try to persuade them to scuttle my own country's efforts to build a coalition and defeat Iraq. Imagine if I had succeeded -- why, we now know Iraq was within months of building its first nuclear weapon when the war began!

"Then, I butted into Clinton's disaster in Somalia, to put together the surrender to that charmer Mohamed Farah Aideed after his boys killed 18 of our soldiers and dragged their beaten bodies through the streets. And we now know that the spectacle of the Great Satan knuckling under to a guy whose entire army consisted of 10 second-hand Jeeps directly encouraged Osama bin Laden to believe that America was ripe for capitulation on a much greater scale -- if you killed enough Americans.

"And the clincher -- Korea. Yep, I'm the boy who freelanced the 1994 agreement with the head-case of that horror show to stop his nuclear bomb program, in exchange for a whole bunch of aid from us. When reporters asked me then if it was really reasonable to expect Kim Il Sung to keep his word, given that he never had before, I said: 'This is something that's not for me to judge.' Well, of course, neither that nut-job nor his nut-job son honored the deal for one second. So now, eight years later, another American president has inherited another fine mess I got us in. "Please, take it back, and stop me before I negotiate again."***

320 posted on 01/01/2003 5:00:18 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 319 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 281-300301-320321-340 ... 761-766 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson