Cuba: Proposed constitutional amendment defies U.S demands

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory"
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 2:08 AM
Subject: [107disc] Cuba: Initiative for a Constitutional Amendment



Permanent Mission of the Republic of Cuba to the United Nations
315 Lexington Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10016
(212) 689-7215 * FAX (212) 689-9073


PRESS RELEASE
June 11, 2002


INITIATIVE FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

THE PEOPLE OF CUBA,

-- a legitimate heir and upholder of the glorious traditions of struggle for
the nations's liberty, independence and sovereignty whose most beautiful
precedents can be found in the patricians who forged the national identity;

-- the patriots that during the liberation wars of 1868 and 1895 fought for
independence from Spanish colonialism but whose victory was snatched by the
U.S. military intervention;

-- the men and women who throughout more than fifty years fought against
oppression, Yankee imperialist domination, political and administrative
corruption, the absence of civil rights and freedom, racism, racial
discrimination, injustice, inequality and brutal repression;

-- those who gave their lives at the Moncada, in the mountains and the
cities for a just, humane and honorable destiny for our people, until
independence was finally attained on January 1st, 1959;

-- those who throughout these forty-three years have sacrificed their lives
in defense of the Socialist Revolution and its principles;

AWARE

-- that the sovereign power of the State lies with the people of Cuba,
therefore, it is with the people that the constitutional power of the nation
rests and is expressed in the existing Constitution whose original draft was
discussed and analyzed by millions of people that contributed their ideas
and suggested modifications to the text submitted to them; a Constitution
that was later approved in national referendum by 97.7% of the voters
through free, direct and secret ballot and proclaimed on February 24, 1976;

-- that the Socialist Revolution rescued Cuba from a humiliating imperialist
domination and turned it into a free and independent nation founded on the
close unity, the cooperation and the consensus of a learned and rebel people
of brave and heroic men and women that make up the force, the government and
the power of the Cuban nation, the same people that with their talents and
ideas have skillfully faced up to, and defended from, the aggressions of the
most powerful empire that the history of humanity has known;

-- that despite the tight blockade and the economic war imposed by the
government of the United States of America aimed at suffocating and
humiliating our people, the Cuban nation has risen to the challenge in these
glorious years of the Revolution to achieve high educational, cultural and
social indicators, with an illiteracy rate of 0.2%, a grammar school
attendance rate of 100%, a junior high school attendance rate of 99.7%, an
infant mortality rate of 6.2 per one thousand live births; with 590 doctors,
743 nurses and 630.6 hospital beds for every one hundred thousand people and
a life expectancy at birth of 76 years, all of these among many other
fundamental achievements that provide a healthy and dignified life with
justice for every citizen;

-- that the great transformations that have occurred in our society after
the Revolutionary victory have opened unexpected avenues for the people's
incorporation into the real leadership of a society in which they have
assumed a new and always growing protagonist role. It is on these bases that
new institutions and a new electoral system have emerged and are developing,
as provided in the Constitution of the Republic, to ensure the democratic
content of the people's active participation by recognizing that it is
solely the people who have the right to chose, nominate, elect, control and
recall their representatives. Moreover, they contribute to developing a
participatory culture that includes debating and making decisions about the
main problems affecting the country, channeled through the social and mass
organizations as well as the People's Councils, of which they are a part.
The people's massive involvement in the elections in numbers that exceed 95%
is but an expression of their endorsement and support of the Revolution.

-- The rude measures of further aggression against Cuba announced by the
President of the United States of America, Mr. George W. Bush--encouraged by
the Miami terrorist mob at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the
establishment of the Yankee neocolonial republic that resulted from the
imperialist war that snatched freedom from the Cubans--when he stated his
aspiration to overthrow the Cuban political system and destroy the work of
the Revolution;

WHEREAS,

-- exercising its sovereign power and the right accorded to it in Article 3
of the Constitution to defend the established economic, social and political
order; and making use of the basic right of every citizen to address
petitions to the authorities, as described in Article 63 of the Constitution
of the Republic;

PETITIONS

the National Assembly of People's Power, supreme body of the State's power
that represents and expresses the sovereign will of all of our people:

FIRST: To ratify our people's identification with each and every one of the
principles on which the Constitution of the Republic is founded,
particularly with its Economic, Social and Political Foundations consecrated
in Chapter I, underlining that:

"Cuba is an independent and sovereign socialist State of workers organized
by all its people for the well being of all, as a unitary and democratic
Republic, for the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, individual
and collective well-being, and human solidarity."

SECOND: To expressly set forth the will of the people that the economic,
political and social system consecrated in the Constitution of the Republic
is untouchable.

THIRD: To ratify that economic, political and diplomatic relations with any
other State will never be negotiated under aggression, threat or pressure
from a foreign power.

FOURTH: That the above-mentioned requests, once approved by the relevant
legal procedure, should be expressly included in the Constitution of the
Republic, as part of its set of rules and with the clarification that they
result in the annulment of any previous provision that may run in
contradiction or opposition to it.

In Cuba, on the 10th day of the month of June in the year 2002, "Year of the
Heroic Prisoners of the Empire".


Signed by:

* Pedro Ross Leal, Secreteary General of the Central Workers' Trade Union
(CTC);
* Orlando Lugo Fonte, Chairman of the National Association of Small Farmers
(ANAP);
* Juan Contino Aslan, National Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense
of the Revolution (CDRs);
* Miriam Yanet Martin Gonzalez, Chairperson of the Jose Marti Children's
Organization (OPJM);
* Juan Almeida Bosque, Chairman of the Association of Combatants of the
Cuban Revolution;
* Vilma Espin Guillois, Chairperson of the Cuban Women Federation (FMC);
* Hasan Perez Casabona, Chairman of the Federation of University Students
(FEU);
* Claudia Felipe Torres, Chairperson of the Federation of Middle Education
Students (FEEM).


Original: Spanish
Unofficial English Version

New York, 11 June 2002


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