CubaNews notes Saturday April 12, 2003

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

CubaNews notes Saturday April 12, 2003
by Walter Lippmann, Moderator

As the week draws to a close the cities of Iraq
are exploding in apparent orgies of rioting, looting
and a general breakdown of the Iraqi society.

Just yesterday, when asked about the orgy of
rioting, looting and killings which is occurring
all over Iraq now that Saddam Hussein's regime
has been overthrown and the US and British
are moving in to occupy the country, the US
Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, made
this incredible comment: "Freedom's untidy,
and free people are free to make mistakes
and commit crimes and do bad things."

Cuba continues to receive a steady stream of
largely negative publicity following the recent trials
and the long sentences for some key dissident
figures, and now the executions of three of the
hijackers of a Havana ferry boat which had fifty
passengers at the time it was seized.

It's not possible to understand these events isolated
from their broader context. This isn't simply the four
decades US blockade of Cuba. More directly we've
got to recall the Bush administration's announcement
a year ago of its "first strike" military policy. We might
better call it "pretaliation". Its escalated intervention in
the political life of Cuba through support for dissident
elements is both clear and very convincingly argued
in Perez Roque's press conference on Wednesday.

The international media coverage was extremely
inadequate with only two articles beginning to give
even a tiny amount of the facts of which were given
there. The media coverage has all said that these
people were arrested and imprisoned for their ideas.

The Cuban position is that they were arrested and
charged for specific violations of laws against
collaboration with the US Helms-Burton law. Both
Canada and the European Union have similar laws
which forbid THEIR citizens from collaborating with
Helms-Burton, for example. Doesn't Cuba have the
same right to protect its sovereignty as Canada and
the European Union?

Perhaps even more strikingly, since the transcript
has been put out in English and Spanish and the
US State Department has also had a chance to
see it, it's very significant, in my opinion, that
NOT A SINGLE ONE numerous documents and
facts presented by Cuba's Foreign Minister has
been challenged. Not by the US government nor
by any of the exiles or supporters of the accused.

If you haven't read through that detailed document,
I cannot urge you more strongly to do so. You'll see
the most precise facts and figures, showing amounts
of money paid to these people. He showed how some
of the most prominent of these individuals had been
given special access passes to the US Interests
Section in Havana where they could go at any time
of day or night! They had computer and internet
facilities, and much, much more. It's all been
extensively documented.

They further had their newsletters and magazines
printed there. And on and on in the most precise
detail. That's why it's important for people who are
interested to read through this presentation. Some
of these individuals were found with thousands of
US dollars in their homes when they were arrested.
No ordinary Cuban could ever amass such funds.

The second big issue this week flared up just
yesterday after Cuba's decision to execute three
of the hijackers of that Havana ferry boat from last
week. As I understand it, there have been no
executions in two years in Cuba (which maintains
the death penalty), until these three people were
put to death. As I've mentioned before, I do not
approve of the death penalty. Any death penalty.
In any country anywhere.

But while I don't approve of the death penalty as
a form of societal punishment, we ought to try
to understand what might be the considerations in
the minds of the Cuban government about this.

HIJACKINGS HAVE TO BE PREVENTED
As the Cuban Foreign Minister explained, there
have been SEVEN hijackings in the past year.

When the hijackers get to the United States, the
planes they have stolen are kept and sold off to
pay court judgements. Then the hijackers are
either welcomed publicly and treated as heroes,
or as in the last group, were granted bail. Elected
officials salute the hijackers and say they were
doing nothing wrong, just trying to leave the island,
and what's wrong with that, they tell the media.

In THIS context, it seems the Cuban government
must simply have decided they had to send out
a very strong and unambiguous message to any
people on the island who were contemplating
hijacking any other airplane, boat or whatever.

One might reasonably question the speed of the
trials and the rapidity with which the executions
were carried out, but the need to take the most
firm and decisive measures cannot be seriously
questioned. No one has questioned the guilt of
these hijackers. They did commit these acts.

It's a blunt, unmistakable message.The Cuban
authorities see that their very sovereignty as a
nation being at stake here. THIS seems to be
why they chose to take the action they did.

This is all the more so in the aftermath of the
Iraq war, waged on the basis of a United States
announcement of its right to engage in war by
pre-emption. Cuba has the right to defend
itself and is doing what it deems necessary.

Recall also that the US Ambassador to the
Dominican Republic made this explicit link
between Iraq and Cuba just two days ago
and Fidel responded to him publicly.

Like probably every other country on earth, Cuba
adopted additional new and tough anti-terrorism
legislation after September 11. The executions
which occurred this week were pursuant to this
new legislation.

Prior to these executions, there have not been
any executions in Cuba for two years. And also,
there are other people on death row in Cuba.

So THESE particular executions which were
at THIS particular time seem very much to be
connected with the current wave of hijackings,
aiming to put an immediate stop to them.

Also, this latest ferry boat hijacking (recall
there were about fifty passengers aboard)
has another aspect worth keeping in mind.

A similar event took place nine years ago:

The event then took place on July 13, 1994.
At the time a tug boat was hijacked  and
41 persons perished as they tried to leave
Cuba to go to the US. The Cuban government
was denounced at the time for their deaths then.

In 1994 the boat sank seven miles north of the
port of Havana, when a collision took place with
at least another boat which was trying to
intercept it. As in the case, recently, there
were heavy seas. That history must have been
very much on the Cubans' minds as they faced
another situation with real similarities. Had the
Cubans not taken both prompt and decisive
action, far more could have been killed.

It's worth remembering a few other things about
these executions and those who condemn them
so loudly. The United States and China are the
two countries in the world which practice this
distinctive form of legalized punishment today at
the highest rate in the world. Yet we don't hear
anything from the United States about capital
punishment being practiced in China, a large
US trading partner. How could it, when the US
preaches and practices the death penalty itself?
The hypocrisy of all this takes the breath away..

Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been one of
those to speak out loudest on this issue, but
he has an active death row. Jeb has been busy
trying to speed up the executions and to cut
back on any appeals by death row inmates.

So who is he to criticize Cuba for carrying out
executions? When George Bush was governor
of Texas, he carried out scores and scores of
executions, so who is he to criticize? And what
makes THESE executions any worse than many
others?  We'll be sharing with you materials on
what Jeb Bush has done to support and extend
the death penalty in Florida, and to reduce any
appeals by death row inmates.

It's also been widely said that Cuba took the
actions it did during the Iraq war in hopes that
the world would pay no attention. I'm not at all
convinced that was the reason. This issue was
also discussed in the Perez Roque material so
you need to go there to read it. They've noted
a sharp increase in US political and financial
and other activities aimed at destabilizing and
overthrowing their society. "Regime change"
is, after all, US policy toward Cuba.

Also during this same time period, we've also
seen Israel having shot young activists THIS
week (one yesterday) from the International
Solidarity Movement who were completely
unarmed and trying to place themselves in
between Israeli tractors and tanks, and
Palestinian children in the Israeli-occupied
territories. They got some publicity because
the first was from the US, and one from the UK.
They were non-violent. They had no trials or
lawyers no appeals no nothing.

And yet there's been no outcry protesting any
of these killings from any of those who are now
leaping to condemn Cuba for its executions of
armed terrorists who hijacked a boat with fifty
people on it. So the protests have all been
very one-sided regarding Cuba's executions.

Read about the latest Israeli attack (the victim
is now said to be brain-dead) at Portside:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portside/message/4040

Self-determination means the right of a country
to its own form of government, its own social
system. That also means its right to make its
own decisions and for better or for worse.

Cuba needs to be seen as a whole, as a very
complex society, and not in terms of any single
event or occurrence. That's one reason why
at this CubaNews list a broad range of news
and opinion has been presented.

The best way to see and end to such trials and
sentences as we've seen this week the United
States would have to, at long last, fully accept
Cuba's right to choose its own form of social
and political organization. This would mean
the normalization of relations, and end to
the blockade, and so on. If Cuba didn't feel
threatened by its powerful northern neighbor,
many other options would be possible.

I don't expect that the Bush administration will
do anything like that, but in the long run, that
is the true basis for a calmer and better life in
Cuba, and elsewhere, in my opinion.

Thanks.


TRANSCRIPT OF PEREZ ROQUE PRESS CONF:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/files/