Violent Clash Outside The Cuban Embassy in Paris

A cameraman from Televisión Española (TVE) as well as two directors from Reporters Without Frontiers (RWF) are among the injured in yesterday’s confrontation outside the Cuban Embassy in Paris, when members of the security detail of said Embassy attacked a group of protesters gathered there to deliver a letter to Cuban Embassador Eumelio Caballero, protesting the recent wave of oppression set loose in the island.

“The Ambassador did not want to accept the letter. They didn’t even open the gates. Then, some members of Reporters Without Frontiers chained themselves to the fence’, said Cuban author Zoe Valdés, currently residing in Paris.

In her telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald, Valdés indicated that Embassy personnel “who are obviously not diplomats, but rather oppressors”, exited the Embassy building carrying hammers and sledgehammers to break the protesters chains, whose hands and harms they beat, as well as striking several observers standing near by.

“The objective of delivering this letter, addressed to Fidel Castro, to the Ambassador was not achieved, but all the press present at the site bore witness of the violent attacks by these purported diplomats”, said Valdés.

Asides from Valdés, some 30 people congregated at the Embassy in an effort organized by Reporters Without Frontiers, among them, Cuban author Eduardo Manet, Spanish author and producer Fernando Arrabal, cinematographer Romain Goupil, as well as intellectual Pascal Bruckner, both French citizens.

In an early morning press release, the Cuban Embassy indicated that they had been the victim of an “illegal provocation”, and offered a different version of the events.

“A group of counterrevolutionaries of Cuban origin, affiliated with Miami based terrorist organizations, some members of Reporters Without Frontiers, and journalists from national and international press, organized (in an illegal manner) a provocation against the Cuban Embassy in France”, said the official press release.

Cuban diplomats denied that the activists attempted to deliver a letter, and stated “they did not solicit us at any moment.”

According to the account by Castro’s diplomats, the incident took place when the protesters chained several gates to the diplomatic compound shut, and themselves to the fence as a sign of protest.

The Cuban Embassy added that they alerted French police, who arrived at the place, but “limited themselves to observing from a distance, without intervening”, for which reason the functionaries from the diplomatic mission “felt obligated” to act and forcibly remove the activists.

More protests are scheduled for today, Friday, at 3:00 P.M in front of the diplomatic compound, organized by the Committee for Cuban Democracy and Freedom, an organization that unites Cubans of diverse political ideologies exiled in France, announced Lázaro Jordana, the organization’s director.

In a toned-down press release for today’s activities, the Embassy states that they “expect no repeat of illegal actions intended to disrupt the normal functions of the diplomatic delegation, and the physical integrity of its functionaries”.

A spokesperson for Reporters Without Frontiers pointed out that this was the first time any violent acts occur during one of its rallies. They are normally peaceful, such as the four-hour occupation, earlier this month, of the Cuban tourism office in Paris, protesting the wave of arrests of Cuban dissidents in the island.

Cuba stated that they had notified the French Ministry of the Interior that its diplomatic envoy and other Cuban interests in Paris have suffered “the ninth aggression in twenty days” at the hands of “this violent group”.

The French offices of TVE informed us that they would file a protest with the Cuban embassy over the incident, in which their cameraman, Christian Valdés was punched in the face.

Cuba countered by saying that the TVE film crew “also took part in the provocation” and that “they had not requested an interview” with Ambassador Caballero.

Meanwhile, Robert Ménard and Regis Bourgeat, Secretary General and Director of RWF respectively, required medical attention for cuts and contusions received during the incident.

The protesters wore T-shirts and masks bearing the likeness of the independent journalists jailed in Cuba, as well as signs reading “CUBA – PRISON”, or a quote from Raúl Rivero, Cuban poet and journalist, sentenced to twenty years in jail: “I do not conspire, I write”.

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Castro Defends Executions, Says US Provoking Conflict - Nothing A Little Freedom Wouldn't Cure*** "The sinister idea is to provoke an armed conflict between Cuba and the United States in the hope of ending the revolution," he said on a television program where he spoke for almost four hours. Cuba has allowed mass departures in 1980, when 125,000 people left from the port of Mariel, and in 1994, when 35,000 Cubans were picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, many taken to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Most ended up in the United States. Castro said the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, James Cason, was sent to Cuba last year with instructions to stir up opposition to his government and had overstepped the boundaries of diplomatic conduct.

The Cuban leader repeated his accusations that Cason was "a bully with diplomatic immunity" who had turned the U.S. mission into "an incubator of counterrevolutionaries" by allowing dissidents to openly hold meetings in his residence. Most of the 75 dissidents and independent journalists arrested and given stiff prison terms on charges of being on the payroll of the United States and conspiring to subvert the government were activists seeking peaceful reforms.***

Fidel Castro's friends in Ottawa***Engagement with Cuba has been the official line in Ottawa for decades. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was famously chummy with the Cuban dictator, and left-wing Canadian politicos have been sucking up to Havana ever since -- mostly as a means to demonstrate Canada's moral superiority to the United States. Indeed, Canada indirectly helps prop up Cuba's government in a number of ways. From 1994 to 1999, the federal Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) provided $34-million in development assistance to Cuba. Last November, CIDA pledged $750,000 over six years toward a University of New Brunswick project to help Cuba create a biomedical engineering education program. Last October, CIDA made a three-year, $2.9-million commitment to a training program for Cuban workers run by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Moreover, in the 2000-2001 fiscal year, Canadian taxpayers paid about $30-million to cover Canadian exports to Cuba that el jefe máximo could not or would not pay for. Canada has also granted Cuba what amounts to a $14-million line of credit to help pay for Canadian agricultural imports.

As noted above, Mr. Chrétien justifies propping up Mr. Castro's dictatorship under the theory that "it's better to be engaged because that's putting pressure." But in this regard, we'd like to direct the Prime Minister's attention to a brilliant piece of historical analysis published by Cuba expert Ann Louise Bardach in last Sunday's New York Times. As Ms. Bardach shows, it is exactly at those junctures when Cuba was most "engaged" with the West that Mr. Castro -- fearing glasnost might undermine his authoritarian rule -- took deliberate steps to cement his rogue status.***

Castro cannot quash all dissent - books not bombs put them in prison *** Owning ''books contrary to the socioeconomic process,'' an old computer and a video camera, and ''acting on behalf of a foreign power,'' were some of the charges the prosecution put forward during the 18-hour trial of independent journalists Maseda and Oscar Espinosa Chepe and the dissidents Héctor Palacios, Marcelo López and Marcelo Cano.

They were all sentenced to more than 15 years for not agreeing with the official or party line.

The blow that the government has struck against the peaceful opposition within the island (no home search turned up bombs or guns) shows that the dissidents were doing a good job.

To accuse them of ''subverting the established order'' demonstrates how feeble the administration's hold on power really is. Ideas cannot be smothered, even if those at the top think that they have eliminated all opposition.

………………….To complain in a soft voice on the bus, in the bread queue and at the grocery store are the are the only escape mechanisms for the bitterness of not being able to say what we are thinking.

My husband told me during the last visit that State Security agents tell him about me every day, with whom I meet and what I say. This is their way of putting the fear in him and make him understand that I, too, could go to prison.

That's the daily blackmail at State Security headquarters. It's the blackmail of those who fear the power of humble but firm words with which some of us dare call a spade a spade.

Maybe some more of us will still be stuffed into a cell in a Cuban prison, but I'm positive that they won't be able to smother ideas.

In the world beyond, Castro does not have absolute power.

Claudia Márquez Linares is an independent journalist in Cuba. Her husband is among a group of peaceful dissidents recently rounded up and sentenced to prison terms in Cuba.

In her telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald, Valdés indicated that Embassy personnel “who are obviously not diplomats, but rather oppressors”, exited the Embassy building carrying hammers and sledgehammers to break the protesters chains, whose hands and harms they beat, as well as striking several observers standing near by.

April 24, 2000 - Useful Idiots Hard at Work*** On April 15, at the Cuban Diplomatic Mission in Washington, DC, America got a glimpse at how Juan Miguel's hosts deal with dissent. Annoyed by a crowd of Cuban-American protestors, a group of fifteen men inside the mission ran outside and pummeled the demonstrators so severely that several required treatment at a local hospital. According to the Associated Press, US Secret Service agents, who are charged with guarding the mission, had to strike the attackers with batons to subdue them.

Now that's a "state of imminent danger" to one's "physical and mental well-being." Not that Dr. Redlener will take note. Like Janet Reno and Greg Craig, he is a diligent minion of Castro's totalitarianism-a useful idiot, as Lenin once called his Western accomplices. For Elian Gonzalez to stay in the US, he will have to overcome a vast force of useful idiots-starting with the contingent that occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.***

A crowd of several hundered demonstarators, many of them Cubans, rally in Madrid, Spain Saturday April 26, 2003 to protest Cuban President Fidel Castro's recent crackdown on dissent and the execution of three hijackers. Cuba has come under heavy world criticism in recent weeks for sentencing 75 dissidents to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years and for the firing-squad executions of three men convicted of hijacking a ferry. Main banner reads 'End the Cuban Tragedy'. (AP Photo/Paul White)

A demonstrator holds up a banner in central Madrid April 26, 2003, during a protest against the April 11 execution of three men who commandeered a Havana commuter ferry in a bid to reach U.S. soil. Cuban President Fidel Castro defended the firing squad executions as a deterrent to a mass exodus that he said the United States was seeking to provoke in communist-run Cuba. The executions, which followed the arrests of 75 dissidents in the worst political repression in Cuba in decades, prompted an outpouring of criticism worldwide and lost Castro some close friends among left-wing intellectuals, such as Portuguese Nobel prize winning writer Jose Saramago and Uruguayan journalist and author Eduardo Galeano. REUTERS/Andrea Comas

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