Re: [Marxism] Cuba to Obama: Drop Dead. [was: Castro offers to exchange dissidents for 'Cuban 5']

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Cuba made a series of further steps toward deeper 
integration into Latin America. US diplomats werenÂt
present. JoaquinÂs general comments on the summit
were good so I sent them out to the CubaNews list.

The entire region spoke out against WashingtonÂs
blockade, and the imperialist news media tried to
divert its readers attention from the main issue
which was the Latin American integration process.

This is normal for the imperialist news media. 
Below, another report on the Brazil meetings and
note in particular the final two paragraphs which
reflect WashingtonÂs selfgenerated isolation from
the entire region.


Walter Lippmann
Havana, Cuba
----------------------------------------------

US rejects Castro dissident-prisoner exchange offer

1 day ago

BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) â Cuba's offer Thursday to release jailed political 
dissidents in Cuba in exchange for five Cubans convicted of spying in the 
United States was rejected by the State Department and Cuban rights groups.

When asked in the Brazilian capital about Cuban political dissidents, President 
Raul Castro responded by proposing an exchange.

"Those prisoners that you talk about -- they (the United States) want them 
released? Let them tell us, we'll send them over there with families and all. 
Let them return our five heroes. It is gesture from both sides," Castro said.

The 77-year-old also said that improved ties with the United States would not 
happen only through "unilateral gestures," a month before Barack Obama takes 
over the US presidency.

The US State Department rejected the proposal shortly afterward.

"The issue of political prisoners held against their will, merely for making 
peaceful protests, is independent of the case of the five spies tried and 
convicted under due process of the US judicial system," the department's deputy 
spokesman Robert Wood told AFP.

The five Cubans were convicted of espionage conspiracy against the United 
States and sentenced in a Miami, Florida federal court to long prison terms in 
June 2001.

They include an aerodrome construction engineer, two international relations 
graduates, an economics graduate and a pilot.

The men had argued that they were monitoring Florida-based anti-Castro groups 
to prevent terrorist attacks on Cuba, and that their work was not directed 
against the US government.

In Cuba, there are 219 political prisoners behind bars, including 67 adopted as 
prisoners of conscience by rights group Amnesty, according to the illegal Cuban 
Commission of Human Rights and Reconciliation.

Castro did not state a number of dissidents which could be involved in a 
possible exchange for the five Cubans.

Cuban dissidents in Havana criticized the president's offer.

"It's vulgar blackmail because these men should never have been prisoners and 
that's why they can't be used as bargaining chips," said Laura Pollan, a leader 
of a group of prisoners' wives.

Castro spoke after a meeting with leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula 
da Silva, during a first official trip overseas since formally replacing his 
ailing brother Fidel in February.

Castro also said that Cuban officials were prepared to speak with Barack Obama 
"wherever and whenever he decides... in conditions of absolute equality."

After a weekend visit to Venezuela to see his chief ally President Hugo Chavez, 
Castro on Tuesday and Wednesday attended a meeting of 33 countries making up 
Latin American and the Caribbean that handed him a diplomatic victory over the 
United States.

The summit concluded with an appeal to Obama to end the 46-year-old US economic 
embargo imposed on Cuba, and the "immediate" scrapping of reinforced sanctions 
brought in by outgoing President George W. Bush over the past five years.

It also challenged Washington's longstanding effort to isolate Havana by 
formally welcoming Cuba into the Rio Group of Latin American nations.






,

=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Havana, Cuba
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu