By Roberto Perez Betancourt
Havana, Sept 2 (AIN) Warmongering and national security are at the
core of the Bush electoral platform disclosed at the Republican Convention underway in New
York, said panelists on Havana’s "The Round Table" program Wednesday.
Analysts on the live TV and radio show pointed out that the issue of
security is addressed in 40 of the 93 pages of the republican program, superseding the
economy, traditionally considered the most decisive issue in US presidential races.
If reelected, the current administration pledges to continue its
strategy of preventive wars to maintain the US as the world leader. The document justifies
the invasion of Iraq, and promises economic support to the Military Industrial Complex.
The platform also devotes a paragraph to Cuba. It reiterates that
the island will be kept on the list of terrorist countries and that efforts will be
intensified to topple its revolution.
Eugene Godfried, a journalist from Radio Havana Cuba currently in
New York City, was interviewed by phone on the impact of the Republican Convention. He
noted that amidst a setting of panic and terror, the event exalts Bush as the
commander-in-chief of a country at war, while playing down social and economic issues
closer to the public interest.
Godfried added that the Bush administration is terrorizing the
public as a smokescreen, while ignoring the massive street protests against the war in
Iraq and its meddling in the affairs of Caribbean and Latin American and Caribbean
countries.
Since the republicans returned to the White House four years ago,
Americans have lost 1.1 million jobs. However, the campaign to reelect the president would
rather focus people’s attention on hypothetical terrorist attacks, said the
panelists.
News sources are calling attention to recent contradictory
statements voiced by President Bush. First he admitted on a TV program that the war on
terror might not be winnable, in open opposition of his party's platform.
However, he later recanted, and on a radio talk show said he had not
really meant to say that the war against terror could not be won.
The Republican Convention at Madison Square Garden has cost some 170
million dollars, plus another 80 million going for police protection. The event is being
attended by 5 thousand delegates, 45 thousand guests and 15 thousand journalists, among
them documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, whom Senator John McCain tried to provoke in a
speech.
But Moore, with his usual wit replied that George W. Bush had only
two months left in the White House.
Since last Thursday, a series of demonstrations in protest of the
Bush administration policies has swept Manhattan, with daily turnouts of over 250,000
people. Reportedly, some 1,800 people have been arrested.
Madison Square Garden and its surroundings are being patrolled by
40,000 policemen, 200 dogs, and over 10,000 security guards. The extreme measures being
used are being ridiculed by observers who note that even fruits and beverages are being
confiscated.
Participants on The Round Table program also called attention to the
speech delivered by the First Lady Laura Bush. She backed her husband's attack on Iraq and
never made reference to the thousands of people who have died or have been left maimed by
the invasion.
The First Lady also failed to mention the thousands of young
Americans dead or wounded in the war, without ever knowing what they were fighting for.
One journalist also cited the melodramatic intervention by
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played on his success in reaching the American
Dream after coming from humble Austrian roots.
Panelists on The Round Table pointed to the obvious intention of the
Republican Party to win over undecided voters through populist messages, which in fact,
have nothing to do with the right wing policies of the Bush Administration.
Recovery
from Charley Paves Way for New School Year
Havana, Sept 2 (AIN) The ongoing repair and reconstruction of Havana
area schools after the passing of hurricane Charley will make it possible for the new
school year to begin on September 6, as scheduled throughout the country.
Provincial education director, Jose Manuel Llera, made the
nnouncement during a meeting of municipal education authorities. The education official
evaluated the measures taken at the most damaged schools in Havana province, the rural
territory surrounding Havana city, and hich was the hardest hit zone by hurricane Charley
on August 13.
Only four pre-university schools are yet to be hooked onto the
ational power grid, though generators are expected tobe installed until service is back to
normal.
Maintenance and repair work are still underwa to get boarding
schools ready for the school year, as carpenters hustle to provide windows and other
necessary resources for schools in different municipalities.
A scarcity of drinking water is another shortfall in that rural
rovince, particularly in Batabano, a town that withstood the strongest winds of the
hurricane.
Boarding schools in rural Havana served as shelters to hundreds of
persons whose homes were damaged by hurricane Charley. Now, they will be transferred to
other facilities or the homes of relatives until their houses are repaired or rebuilt.
Cuban Family Continues to Demand Justice
By Maritza Padilla
AIN Special Service
While Panamanians are asking that President Mireya Moscoso be
investigated in connection with corruption, in the western Cuban province of Pinar del
Río a family still mourning the death of a loved one at the hands of Luis Posada Carriles
feels outraged over Moscoso’s releasing the terrorist and three of his accomplices.
"We were all appalled by the pardon granted by Mireya Moscoso
to this terrorist, a man responsible for the in- flight bombing of a Cubana Airlines
flight that killed so many young blossoming athletes like Nancy."
Maria Amalia’s voice cracks when she speaks of her sister Nancy
Uranga Romagoza, killed in that horrendous act of sabotage. But her voice isn’t
shaking when she angrily demands that those responsible for the murder be punished.
Maria Amalia says she cannot understand how President Moscoso was
capable of setting these four Cuban-born terrorists free when she was fully aware of their
conspiracy to assassinate President Fidel Castro at the University of Panama. She wonders
how Moscoso could call her action humane when in fact it was a public insult, especially
for the Cuban people.
We know -complains Maria Amalia- that although a head of state is
expected to put principles first, Mireya Moscoso put her greed above her principles.
Moscoso has hurt in an irreparable manner the many parents and relatives of Carriles’
victims in Cuba, she stresses.
"Nancy was pregnant when she died when the plane exploded
shortly after leaving Barbados. Terror deprived us of the happiness of ever holding her
child, seeing her child become an engineer or perhaps an athlete like Nancy herself, or
anything he or she would have wanted to be amid the possibilities available for young
people in Cuba," she lamented.
Maria Amalia says that while the pardoning of the terrorists by
Mireya Moscoso on orders from Washington, deepens her sorrow, she finds comfort in knowing
that Cuba will not cease in its demand for justice and its fight against terrorism.
A
Lesson for Mr. Bush on Prostitution in Pre-Revolution Cuba
By Angel Rodriguez Alvarez
AIN Special Report
Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, the president of the
United Status insists on accusing Cuba of promoting sex tourism, using that argument as a
justification to try and turn back the clock on the island to pre-revolution days.
In order to set the record straight, it is fitting to give Mr. Bush
a lesson on Cuban history and take a close look at one of the most serious social problems
faced by the country before 1959.
At the time, Cuba had a population of six million inhabitants and
the number of prostitutes was estimated at 100,000. There was barely a community or city
without one or more brothels. In the provincial capitals, and especially in Havana, so-
called ‘tolerance zones’ were sprawling.
Like the prostitutes, the whorehouses came in all categories from
the cheap joints located in business districts to the famous "Marina’s
Place," with top of the line merchandise reserved for the upper class and weekend
tourists from the United States.
However, among the women who sold their bodies there was one common
denominator: they were all from poor families, illiterate and often came from the interior
of the country.
Each of those girls had their sad story of disappointment and need,
abandoned by the government to their fate of misery and ignorance.
The hookers were the public face of networks involving matrons and
pimps, government and high ranking police officials, all vying for the biggest piece of
the take.
During this period, a number of morality campaigns took place
supposedly to rid the country of prostitution and the illicit business surrounding it.
However, these only served as a way to sell expensive protection to those in the business.
None of the supposed anti-prostitution crusaders every spoke about
eliminating its causes and the brothels were closed and reopened dozens of times.
Mid-ranking authorities imitated their superiors who had converted
official policy into the promotion of casinos, cabarets, tolerance zones and hotels,
combined to provide all the necessary infrastructure to fully exploit sexual tourism,
gambling, and drug trafficking on a grand scale.
The dictator Fulgencio Batista, "Washington’s man in
Cuba" on whom the Empire was propped up until the very last moment of his bloody
orgy, was the Grand Godfather of the US mafia. He was a man transformed by US economic
power and influence in Cuban political circles into the backbone and brains of a state
where crime flourished until the dawn of January 1, 1959.
The plan - undertaken up until 1957 by the four US mafioso families
that managed Cuba, with the approval of the US embassy - was to replicate a Las Vegas in
Havana.
The site envisioned for the implementation of the first stage of
this plan was to extend from the west end of Havana’s seafront to Santa Fe beach.
Various indications of that vast plan remain visible. One can point
to the Hotel Riviera, with its splendid casino, which was the shared property of the boss
Meyer Lansky and Fulgencio Batista; or the Marina Windward - today Marina Hemingway -
which served as a center for the unrestrained passage of yachts and other watercraft; it
is not difficult to imagine the nature of their shady traffic.
In addition, internationally-known casinos operated in the National
Hotel and the Capri Hotel, not to mention the Tropicana, Monmartre, Sans Souci cabarets,
among others.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision what the
future of the capital would have been: a splendid sequin-studded brothel built on the
foundation of human misery, frustration and exploitation. This parlor was to have been
enjoyed by the Cuba’s parasitic elite and their millionaire partners from United
States.
No one believes that the fortune and life of the country would have
benefited had Cuba proceeded along that course. All money filtered back to the United
States, leaving only moral decay on the island.
Batista was placed and maintained in power in return for the
political and military support to transform robbery, corruption and crime into official
policy. Those who put him there were not scandalized nor did they speak of
"transition."
Worse still, when the people took power and demanded justice, a good
portion of the murderers, high level criminals and pimps found safe haven in Miami. There
they have accumulated enormous power, to the point of becoming habitual White House
guests.
If Mr. Bush wishes to learn more of this history, he won't have the
least problem. On any of his repeated trips to Florida he can benefit from valuable
testimonies in Haialeah and Calle Ocho. There he can walk among the old Batistians, the
descendants of the famous matron Marina or Castillo, the infamous numbers racketeer, and
other "respectable" characters with the thick files of master pimps.
By Ángel Rodríguez Álvarez)
Cuban Pianist Chucho Valdes Wins Latin Grammy
Havana, Sept 2(AIN) Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes was granted a Latin
Grammy for the fifth time even though he could not took part in the awards ceremony held
Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Chucho Valdes won the Best Latin Jazz Grammy for his album "New
Conception," a mixture of popular and vintage music from the talented musician.
Valdes has previously won Grammies for other famous Afro- Cuban
albums, all enriched by his flavor of originality and the fusion of rhythms.
"I really enjoyed recording this album," said the Cuban
musician about the production that was largely promoted in Cuba.
Meanwhile, Chucho Valdes’ father, Bebo Valdes, took the Best
Traditional Tropical Album for "Lagrimas Negras," featuring flamenco singer
Diego El Cigala and labeled by many experts as the best album.
The also renowned Cuban salsa band Juan Formell y Los Van Van was
nominated for a Grammy for its album "Van Van live at the Miami Arena,"
resulting from a concert performed in Dade County, despite the anger and threats of the
Miami- based anti-Cuba mafia.
