Friends of Fidel*** Louisiana rice and Illinois wheat producers should not assume that selling to Havana is synonymous with getting paid. U.S taxpayers should be wary. Mr. Castro desperately needs credits and subsidies, and Washington is being pressured to provide them. If the United States begins to subsidize trade with Cuba estimated at $100 million a year five years from now, U.S. taxpayers could be holding, or paying off, a $500 million tab. That´s real money.
Before extending Mr. Castro credit, grain growers should visit any street corner in Manhattan and observe a game played there. Called three-card monte, it consists of convincing the player that he knows exactly where the card carrying his money is. Until it disappears. In this game, the gambler takes his own chances. Where trade with Mr. Castro is concerned, the U.S. taxpayer will be left holding the losing card.***
Europe Excludes Cuba From Aid Funds [Full text] NADI, Fiji (AP) - The European Union has excluded Cuba from a multibillion-dollar pool of aid because of its poor human rights record and lack of democracy, a spokesman for a group of former European colonies said Friday. Cuba is a new member of the African Caribbean Pacific group, or ACP, which is holding a leaders' summit at a palm-fringed island resort near the Fijian town of Nadi. The 63 national delegations are trying to forge a single negotiating position ahead of trade talks with Brussels in September. Central to the talks is a 25-year pact signed by the EU and ACP in 2000, known as the Cotonou agreement, which promises $12.7 billion in aid to ACP states over the next five years if they show efforts to improve human rights and root out corruption.
As a latecomer to the ACP, Cuba has not signed Cotonou. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who is attending the summit, on Friday rejected overtures from ACP leaders to give Cuba quick access to the agreement, said ACP spokesman Hegel Goutier. The EU believes Cuba cannot satisfy basic principles of the agreement, especially with respect to democracy and human rights, said Billie Miller, deputy prime minister of Barbados, who heads the Caribbean grouping at the summit. Miller said she had formally appealed on behalf of Caribbean nations to the EU to fast track Cuba's inclusion. The head of Cuba's delegation, Ricardo Cabrisas, called the EU decision "a humiliation and slap in the face for Cuba," Goutier said. Lamy told delegates that the EU wanted to see more political reform from Havana, Goutier said. [End]
Crack down on Castro*** It doesn't end there. Cuba is working with Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to undermine America. In a meeting with Mr. Khamenei last year, Mr. Castro said that, in cooperation with each other, Iran and Cuba can destroy America. He added that "the United States regime is very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up." Senior State Department officials have discussed publicly the threat of Cuba's bioterrorism program. As we rush to protect our citizens from smallpox and anthrax, Mr. Castro is diverting the resources of his desperately poor economy to offensive biological-warfare research and development, and selling biotechnology to other rogue states. "We are concerned that such technology could support bioweapons programs in those states," says John Bolton, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
Even more than with al Qaeda terrorists based in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Somalia, Cuba's geographic proximity to the United States offers Mr. Castro's agents opportunities to infiltrate and gain access to U.S. territory and our critical infrastructure. In this connection, the current regulations on U.S.-Cuba travel are a crucial tool for law enforcement to prevent the use of bioweapons against the American people. This week, Congress will vote on legislation to lift aspects of the embargo on Cuba. Doing so at this time would be a grave mistake. The theory of the legislation is that more travel and trade with Cuba will liberalize the regime - but in reality, virtually all of the money that Americans might spend in Cuba will go to the government. Worse, a significant expansion of human traffic between our nation and Cuba would hopelessly complicate the job of Customs, the FBI and counter-terrorism officials who are trying to protect against the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction into the United States.***
Nothing else matters to our "leaders"
Exile pilots brave foul weather, mourn comrades
March 2, 1996
Web Posted at: 11:20 p.m. ESTKEY WEST, Florida (CNN) -- Braving harsh, stormy weather Saturday, 10 private planes flew over the area where two U.S. civilian aircraft were shot down by Cuban military jets last weekend.
Most of the planes were piloted by members of the Miami-based exile group, Brothers to the Rescue, which also organized Saturday's flotilla of two dozen small boats that eventually had to return home because of the foul weather.
Before heading back to Florida, the vessels held a brief memorial service for the four men who are presumed dead in the shoot-down.
The group had wanted to conduct its maritime service in the area where the planes were destroyed, which Brothers to the Rescue says is about 21 miles north of Havana.
But choppy seas with waves reaching 7 feet and winds at 17 mph forced the flotilla to hold the service about 23 miles short of its destination.
Pilots carried bouquets and funeral wreaths to be dropped in the ocean spot where the planes were thought to have gone down. A smoke flare was also to be tossed out of one of the airplanes to mark the area.
The U.S. Coast Guard accompanied the flotilla and provided a C-130 escort for the civilian airplanes.
Brothers to the Rescue leader Jose Basulto, who piloted a plane that survived last Saturday's shoot-down, said he was relieved that he had "the opportunity to say a last goodbye to my brothers."
Albright blasts Castro
Later in the evening, a community memorial service at Miami's Orange Bowl stadium was packed with some 45,000 anti-Fidel Castro exiles.
Many in the crowd cheered and wept as two Brothers' planes flew over the stadium. Waving U.S. and Cuban flags, the Cuban exiles banged on the bleachers and chanted, "Libertad! Libertad!"
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright, who spoke at the service, called the four downed pilots "martyrs" in the cause of freedom.
Albright addressed the crowd from a platform decorated with elaborate floral wreaths, a cross, and large photographs of the four men propped at her feet. The program included hymns, the Cuban national anthem, and prayers.
In a speech frequently broken by thunderous applause, Albright said America would protect its citizens in international waters and international skies. "We will tighten sanctions against the government of Cuba, but without harming the people we want to help.
" ... Castro has been tried and convicted in the court of world opinion for his outrageous and brutal crime," Albright said.
Brothers to the Rescue has said its two planes downed a week earlier by Cuban MiGs flying over international waters were on a routine mission to search for Cuban rafters.
Havana, however, said the planes were blasted out of the sky for violating its airspace and ignoring warnings to leave.
Castro told Time magazine in an interview this week he would not tolerate any infringement of his country's territory. Castro said the U.S. failure to discourage American flights from frequently flying over Cuba, dropping leaflets, and provoking civil unrest was creating a condition of "distrust."
CNN has learned that the Cuban government will present its side of the shoot-down to the International Civilian Aviation Organization in Canada.
A Cuban delegation is expected to arrive in Montreal on Wednesday to present its case. The organization consists of more than 180 nations, including Cuba and the United States, and is a specialized agency of the United Nations.
