Director Stone shows human side of Cuba's Castro - "…even our prostitutes are university educated"

BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. film director Oliver Stone said Friday he hoped his new Fidel Castro documentary would create a more balanced view of the Cuban leader who heads one of world's last communist states.

"Is it bad to be a dictator?" asks Castro toward the end of Stone's film, which will be shown on U.S. television on May 11.

The controversial and acclaimed director followed the Cuban leader, then 75, over three days in February 2002. His 30 hours of interviews were cut down and combined with documentary footage to produce the 90-minute "Commandante."

Stone said he hoped the film would have some influence on Americans' opinions of Castro and contested charges that he had been too soft in his questioning of the Cuban leader, who bubbles with warmth and charm in the film.

"I hope people cast aside their prejudices, not be pro- or anti-Castro, just look at it," Stone told a news conference after his film was shown at the Berlin film festival.

"America would probably take the attitude that the film was propaganda. It is easy to say Oliver Stone is asking soft questions," said Stone, who has won Oscar awards for best director for his bleak Vietnam war movie "Platoon" and its post-war sequel "Born on the Fourth of July."

Stone noted that he did ask Castro about allegations of torture in Cuba, which Castro denies, as well as the country's oppression of homosexuality, which Castro side-steps. And he said Castro admitted to having shortcomings as a father.

"In America, he is caricatured with a big beard and a cigar. I'm trying to get at the human beneath ... He's the oldest living revolutionary. We should get him on film before it's too late."

In "Commandante," Stone covers a lot of ground, from Castro's views on shaving and sport to his love of films. Castro admits to having seen "Titanic" and "Gladiator" before declaring his admiration for screen stars Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot and Charlie Chaplin.

Throughout, Castro wears his trademark green fatigues, but when the camera pans to his shoes it shows how times have changed: even a veteran revolutionary sports the ubiquitous Nike swoosh.

He discusses key moments in history from the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 to the collapse of Iron Curtain, expresses doubts about the lone gunman theory in President Kennedy's assassination, and takes pride in increased Cuban literacy.

"I say it is one of the achievements of the revolution that even our prostitutes are university educated," Castro says.

Stone's next project will be about Alexander the Great starring Colin Farrell. But he is set to court controversy again with another project, "Persona Non Grata," a film about Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, set to air in June in America.

After Castro, Stone said he could imagine interviewing another U.S. enemy, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"I would try to get on with him in the same way ... Who knows who he is. The American media makes him into a monster."

Like other stars and directors in Berlin, Stone criticized Washington's build-up to war in Iraq and the media's role.

"The media has loaded the question as to when we go to the inevitable war, not as to why," the Vietnam war veteran said.

"I have no idea why we're fighting Iraq. I'm all for the war against terror. I think the war we have is against al Qaeda ... Containment of Iraq has worked for better or worse." Reuters/Variety

Did you see the WSJ. Editorial after four Cubans pulled one of Castro's patrol boats up to the Dock in Key West this week?

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Flight From Cuba

Early Friday, four Cuban Coast Guard officers tooled their patrol boat across the Florida Straits, pulled up to the Hyatt Marina in Key West and surrendered to local law enforcement officials.

"My impression is that it was a last-minute decision," said the officer who interviewed them. "They were patrolling, talking about living at the poverty line when they said, 'You know what, the United States is only 90 miles that way.' So they set the heading on their boat, terminated communication with Cuba and headed straight here."

Forty-four years of Castro dictatorship have produced thousands of escape stories, many more sensational than this one. Cubans have fled on inner tubes and shaky rafts, in commandeered MiG jets and government owned bi-planes and in airplane wheel wells, just to name a few. One tall, muscular athlete dressed in drag to walk past guards at the airport.

Yet the bolt for freedom even on a seaworthy vessel was far from sure. Each of the men on the Coast Guard boat had to face a risk common to all Cubans: the risk of trusting one another. It is a chance many defectors are not willing to take. "Not even my family could know," said New York Yankee baseball pitcher Jose Contreras about his decision to escape during a road trip to Mexico four months ago. That these men found a way to trust each other is a testament to their desire to flee their homeland.

By now escape from Cuba is a dog-bites-man story. But the very fact that it has become routine should also serve as a reminder of the grim existence of most of Cuba's 11 million people. Fidel-philes want us to believe that while Cubans may be poor, they are happy. But the daring flights of so many, year after year, tell a much different story. February 11, 2003

Key West Says No to War with Iraq ~ Useful Idiots Alert

International educators conference held in Cuba [Full Text] HAVANA - President Fidel Castro told a group of educators from around the world that education can create a better world by helping to resolve social problems, such as the nagging racial discrimination that still exists in Cuba. Closing the international educators conference here on Friday night, Castro told hundreds of participants that over four decades his socialist government can boast high marks for its primary school programs. But he said secondary education here needs serious improvement.

Beginning in early 2002, Cuba launched a campaign to improve conditions at its primary schools, but reforms for the older students are still pending. Cuba's secondary school program will be radically improved, Castro declared. "The future developing of our education will have enormous political, social and human connotations," the Cuban leader said.

Despite the huge changes that the 1959 revolution made in Cuban society, some social problems have not been completely eliminated, including racial discrimination, Castro acknowledged. "While science shows unquestionably the real equality that exists among human beings, discriminations lives on," especially among the island's poorest groups, Castro said. [End]

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Four Cuban border guards arrive in Keys undetected *** KEY WEST - Four armed defectors from Cuba's border guard, clad in green camouflage and black boots, walked onto Key West's main drag after arriving undetected early Friday -- the same day that the U.S. attorney general put the nation on a heightened state of terrorist alert. The men tied their 30-foot go-fast boat behind the Hyatt Key West Resort and Marina, stashing it within a short distance of the Coast Guard station, which failed to spot their 4 a.m. arrival. Police found two AK-47s and eight magazines of ammunition inside the Cigarette speedboat. The incident occurred six days after five Cuban fishermen in a large rickety boat landed on U.S. Naval property close to a cruise ship. The controls of the boat that arrived Friday were in English. Federal authorities suspect Cuban authorities confiscated the craft from a botched smuggling mission and turned it into a state-operated patrol boat. A big metal canopy and blue police lights had been added to the vessel, which still flew a Cuban flag when authorities found it.

Friday's defectors, who are believed to have worked from a station in Bahia Honda on the island's northwest coast, told authorities the Cuban government obtained the boat in 1996. Federal investigators lined up Friday to interview the men and to confirm their identities. ''We do believe they are military people. We think they are Cuban border guards, and we think that they did plan this outing,'' said Keith A. Roberts, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman. ``This is something I haven't seen in my 11 years being here. It truly is an anamoly.'' Roberts said border officials were keeping the imported weapons ``locked away very safely in our inventory.'' The arrivals, who wore Cuban Ministry of the Interior patches on their shirts, made it about two blocks from where they landed -- down a wooden dock, past the hotel pool, past an outdoor Jacuzzi -- before flagging down a Key West police officer. Soon after, one turned over a Chinese-made handgun.

'FRUSTRATED' MEN The men told a Spanish-speaking officer that they were frustrated with life on the island and decided to embark on the trip, which, with the boat's twin 200-horsepower engines, took three hours. ''They stated that they were basically tired of the impoverished conditions and frustrated with not being able to own their own homes and their own cars and that type of thing and that's why they left,'' said Tara Koenig, a Key West police officer. Then the men asked if they could call relatives in Miami. The men, who said they were with Cuba's Tropas Guardafronteras -- Border Guard Troops, identified themselves as Yoadris Rodríguez Camajo, Egar Raúl Batista Gamboa, Ofil Lara Corria and Rodisan Sugura López.***

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Castro got his boat back. I hope it will be used for more escapes.

A reminder on the gift of democracy*** Maria had once told me that before leaving Cuba, she had been forced into two years of hard labor by the government when it found out that she wanted to leave the country. She never said much about it, and I didn't question her. Maybe it was the sweetness of the drink that brought her back to the beauty of Cuba that she loved. When Maria talked, though some of her words seemed dark and shocking, she withdrew in silence, and in the background of a solitude of mind I had never witnessed before, she related images and landscapes of hope and promise that saved her from the devastation of the terrible experience.

She told me that the officials would bring workers, including many women, to different labor camps every day. One particular day began with the usual slice of bread (often trodden upon by rats before it was finally served), and guava. The rain had been severe and the ground was thick with mud. Their job was to fertilize seedlings. In the background, Maria heard women crying. Their cries were devastating, and through cruel means of control, the officials told the women that their fate was better than turning to prostitution for a living.***

Stone: Castro's Charm Doesn't Affect Film - "…one of Earth's wisest people.." [Full Text] BERLIN - Oliver Stone says the charms of Fidel Castro did not cause him to lose his objectivity when filming a documentary of the 76-year-old Cuban president.

Nevertheless, the three-day encounter left a deep impression. "We should look to him as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult," Stone said at a press conference after "Comandante" was screened Friday at the Berlin Film Festival.

"The film is an attempt to portray the human figure," Stone said of the HBO documentary in which Castro talks about Che Guevara and the assassination of President Kennedy, and offers a rare glimpse into his private life.

Stone, director of "Platoon" and "Nixon," also was keen to point out the achievements of the Castro regime, such as providing schooling and basic services lacking elsewhere in Latin America, and said he hoped the film might prompt a change in U.S. policy.

"I believe the embargo is outdated," he said. "There is a difficult lobby in Miami and Washington which prevents us breaking this barrier. It points to the power of vengeance and obsessiveness." [End]

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