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Violent Clash Outside The Cuban Embassy in Paris
El Nuevo Herald ^
| April 25, 2003
| Pablo Alfonso
Posted on 04/25/2003 9:35:59 PM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
A cameraman from Televisión Española (TVE) as well as two directors from Reporters Without Frontiers (RWF) are among the injured in yesterdays 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 didnt 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 Castros 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 organizations director.
In a toned-down press release for todays 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.
TOPICS: Cuba; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: castro; cuba; wheresjimmy
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Wifes and mothers of jailed Cuban dissidents walk in silence in Havana April 27, 2003, after a mass in the church of Santa Rita to protest the emprisonment of their husbands and sons, recently sentenced to long prison terms in the harshest political repression in decades in Cuba. The jailing of the 75 dissidents, human rights activist and independent journalists, accused by Cuban government of conspiring with the United States to undermine Cuban revolution, brought an outpouring of international criticism. REUTERS/Rafael Perez
![](http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030427/i/1051471155.2617466968.jpg)
Wifes and mothers of jailed Cuban dissidents walk in silence in Havana April 27, 2003, after a mass in the church of Santa Rita to protest the emprisonment of their husbands and sons, recently sentenced to long prison terms in the harshest political repression in decades in Cuba. 'We are here to pray and protest the unfair jailing of our husbands and sons,' said Blanca Reyes (in the center of the picture), wife of poet and independent journalist Raul Rivero, sentenced to 20 years of jail. The jailing of the 75 dissidents, human rights activist and independent journalists, accused by Cuban government of conspiring with the United States to undermine Cuban revolution, brought an outpouring of international criticism. REUTERS/Rafael Perez
To: Luis Gonzalez
Cuban diplomats denied that the activists attempted to deliver a letter, and stated they did not solicit us at any moment.
Bing bong!
Yeeessss, What can I do for you?
I'm selling candy to help my poor father get out of a
repressive Cuban Prison. 200 pesos a box. very good.
Made by forced labor in Caracas......
NO, I don't think so, we......
Please Senor, all my father wanted was for me to go to college, but after I got out of the Young Pioneers, I got
recidivist tendencies, and started hanging with the wrong crowd. He tried to convince me to stay on the Revolutionary
path but I wouldn't listen.
Then I brought Jimmy Carter home with me from a meeting of
intellectuals and the next thing you know my father is in
prison. Please buy some candy.
How would you like to go to prison and be with your father
little girl? It can be arranged.
Bing Bong! Excuse me Ms Chirac, would you help......
42
posted on
04/27/2003 3:57:20 PM PDT
by
tet68
(Jeremiah 51:24 ..."..Before your eyes I will repay Babylon for all the wrong they have done in Zion")
To: Luis Gonzalez
Willful blindness shattered by Cuba's crackdown - Castro shows the brutal face of his regime***The wilful blindness to President Castro's repression has been underlined by the shock at the recent crackdown. The Pope, who insisted on his controversial visit to Havana five years ago that he had won significant human rights concessions, spoke of his "deep sorrow" at the executions and urged Señor Castro to consider a "significant gesture of clemency" toward those convicted. Perhaps the biggest shock was felt by the writers, poets and artists who have long defended Cuba and its autocratic ruler. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes called the country "a suffocating dictatorship", the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago said Fidel Castro "cheated his enemies"
and the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who once praised him as a "symbol of national dignity", acknowledged that the crackdown had fuelled opposition claims that he was a dictator. There have been demonstrations in Caracas and Madrid.***
To: Cincinatus' Wife
THE KING OF CUBA
HOW POLITICIANS ARE BOUGHT?
Alex Picarq
Evi Jimenez
Roberto A. Solera
Saddam's pal Galloway lived life of luxury as he two-timed his wife and lover with mistress
THE KING OF CUBA
The News of the World
London
U.K.
La Nueva Cuba
Abril 29, 2003
THE secret sex and money-soaked lifestyle of traitor MP George Galloway can be revealed today.
The high-living MP, accused of taking £375,000 a year from Saddam Hussein to promote Iraq's murderous regime, travelled to Cuba and strutted the dirt-poor streets of Havana with a wallet full of cash in his Hugo Boss suits.
Believing he was safe from the eyes of his constituents, he took a secret mistress and splashed out money like water.
That lover, Judy Lonchan Lopez, said last night: "George was very important in Cuba. I'm not surprised he was friends with Saddam, because he was close to Fidel Castro."
Back home in Britain he was still married to first wife Elaine and already seeing the woman who would become wife No.2striking Palestinian Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyadwe.
This week Galloway's political career will be officially terminated when he has the Labour Party whip withdrawn in the Commons for calling Tony Blair and George Bush wolves' over the attack on Iraq.
The move will mean he can no longer use Labour Party offices and speak from the Labour benches in the House of Commons.
Secret
It's not a moment too soon. For a News of the World investigation reveals the full depth of Galloway's disgrace.
Our dossier on the MP contains evidence from ex-lover Judy who last night revealed that Galloway:
MET dictator Fidel Castro three times and used his Cuba bolthole to meet a rich and powerful Arab contact.
BECAME so important in Cuba that secret police vetted his contacts.
SPLASHED OUT two thousand dollars (£1,250) on one visit to a cigar factory.
IMPORTED expensive evening gowns so his lover could change out of her Cuban clothes for dates.
LANNED to use his MP know-how to take his lover to Britain and instal her as his secret kept woman.
BOOZED 100 dollar bottles of wine on an island where the average monthly wage is 10 dollars.
Judy, 26, said: "He met Fidel three times for dinner that I was aware of. I know one was in a restaurant and the others at official buildings."
Judy added that the dinners were business rather than pleasure, though she did not know the exact nature of that business.
"Fidel even gave him a painting by a Latin American artist as a present," she added.
"It was very important to George and he had it sent back to England, he was delighted with his present and told me it was very special."
Galloway's association with both the Iraqi and Cuban regimes goes back to the early 90s.
In 1994, a year before he met Judy, the MP was photographed in Baghdad presenting Saddam with a pennant.
According to documents said have been found bombed-out Iraq, by Boxing Day 1999 Galloway was getting a cut of "10 to 15 cents per barrel" on three million barrels of oil every six months.
This week Galloway threatened to sue for libel over kickback allegations. But no matter where the cash came from, Judy loved every minute.
"George also had a load of clothes brought over from England and when we went out he wanted me to wear them rather than Cuban clothes," she said. "He would insist I wore evening dresses when we were out in Havana for dinner. "He would get a secretary in England to send clothes to me. He wanted me to get into the English way of dressing.
" He'd wear Hugo Boss suits and was very smart and I would wear dresses from Mango and other labels. He would also spend his money buying me perfumes by Givenchy."
Bizarrely, she added that she originally thought Galloway must be in the paper business because he would often bring in large donations of paper, including fax rolls "to help the people of Cuba."
Speaking through an interpreter, Judy went on: "I had not heard from George for a while and tried to contact him without success, but a few days later I got a visit from two men from the Technical Department of Investigations (Cuban secret police).
"They wanted to know what my relationship was to George. They said he was a very important person. I didn't know if George had sent themhe may have done."
Galloway has a £250,000 villa in Portugal with 10 acres of land and a three-storey detached house in Streatham, south London. He paid £220,000 for it in 1996. It is now estimated to be worth around £800,000.
Judy was just 18 when she began a 14-month affair with Galloway. He was 42 at the time. They met when she worked as a promotions girl at the a hotel in Havana.
Their affair began in 1995 and ended in 1997. During their time together, Galloway also introduced Judy to a young man he described as an Arab prince who was visiting Cuba. She said: "One day we were in a market and the Arab man spent 600 dollars on a papier maché elephant. The prince was very friendly with George."
Describing the first time she and George made love, she has said: publicly: "He took me to dinner in a restaurant where only tourists are allowed and after that we went to a friend's house and had sex.
"He desired me and I respected him. He was very passionate. He had learned some Spanish and he would say things like, I adore your body', and, You make me fly like a bird when I touch you'."
The rest of the time they communicated through his hand-held computerised translator. Judy was devastated when Galloway finally broke off all contact.
When he flew off the island he left behind a fax machine and political books in Judy's house. The fax was programmed with Labour Party and House of Commons telephone numbersand even had a Glasgow sticker on the side.
Judy added: "I was told by the landlord of the house I was living in that as George had not come back I would have to move out," she said this weekend. "I had to go back to live with my mother."
Judy has since married a Cuban and is eight months' pregnant and living with mum.
It is a far cry from the hopes she once had to come to the UK. She said that Galloway had even begun preparing the paperwork. "He told me that when I came to England no one must know about us as it would cause him trouble," she added
Yesterday, Galloway denied having a sexual relationship with Judy, describing the allegation as "completely false."
He refused to make any detailed comment on our dossier of his lavish spending, but said: "I have never been given a painting or any other present from Fidel Castro."
Judy added forlornly: "I was looking forward to a life with George. I would like to see him again to ask him why he left me."
IS THIS WHERE THE IRAQI MONEY DISAPPEARED?
GEORGE Galloway loves the high life and lays out huge sums of money on luxuries. He has denied his spending power is funded by secret kickbacks from Iraq and said this week: "I have never solicited, nor would I have accepted had I been offered, any financial assistance of any kind from the Iraqi regime."
But all his mistress Judy knew was she was seeing more money than she could ever have imagined.
"George told me he would give me US dollars which everyone needs to survive here," she said. "One night at a restaurant he bought two bottles of wine that cost together almost 200 dollars." The average wage in Cuba is around 10 dollars a month.
Judy also recalled how Galloway paid for a lovenest and groomed her for a new life in Britain and said he dealt with a landlord called Orestes Aguirre.
He told us: "Senor Galloway came here with his Cuban girlfriend Judy. They said they wanted a place where they could be alone together.
Senor Galloway, he told me, She is the most beautiful girl in all Cuba'. At first I only wanted to rent him a room for maybe 600 dollars a year but he insisted he wanted the house. Senor Galloway gave me 5,000 dollars in 100-dollar bills."
This week, Galloway was said to have received £375,000 a year kickbacks from the UN's "oil for food" programme. The programme dates back to 1995. But the papers do not say from what year Galloway is alleged to have received payments.
The papers hint that these payments could have begun after the MP appointed businessman Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat to the MP's Miriam campaign, which began in 1998.
Any high finance was lost on Judy.
"I remember George went to a cigar factory and spent 2,000 dollars on cigars to take back to Britain," she said. "
And he knew how to treat a woman. Our favourite place for dinner was the El Floridita. The waiters liked George, Nothing was ever too much."
44
posted on
04/30/2003 10:02:50 AM PDT
by
Dqban22
To: Dqban22
SO touching.
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