There was no immediate response from Castro's government to the move. Asked by reporters in April about the campaign, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said he doubted it will succeed and he accused its organizers of being on the U.S. government payroll. Campaign coordinator Oswaldo Paya of the Christian Liberation Movement and two other men, identified as Antonio Villa Sanchez and Andres Regis Iglesias, entered the offices of the National Assembly shortly before 11 a.m. with two white boxes filled with the petitions. The words "Citizen Petition" could be seen on the side of the boxes.
Paya, who says the project has received no money from any government or group outside Cuba, has said state security agents have harassed the petition drive, particularly as the campaign was near its goal. He said agents had confiscated several thousand signatures, but volunteers had gone out and collected more. Carter, who arrives Sunday at Castro's invitation, plans to meet with Cuban activists to discuss human rights and religious matters next Thursday, his staff has said. A visit with the organizers of Project Varela is considered likely.***
May 15, 2002 -Bush holds firm to Cuban embargo, readies tough new policy against Castro ***WASHINGTON - The White House rejected pleas by former President Carter and farm-state lawmakers to lift the trade embargo against Fidel Castro 's Cuba on Wednesday, pledging an even tougher U.S. policy to undermine "one of the last great tyrants left on earth."
President Bush will hew to a hard-line stance against the Castro government while seeking ways to ease hardships on the Cuban people when he spells out the policy next week, advisers said. The president hopes to curb what aides concede is growing momentum to ease restrictions against Cuba. "The president believes that the trade embargo is a vital part of America's foreign policy and human rights policy toward Cuba, because trade with Cuba does not benefit the people of Cuba - it's used to prop up a repressive regime," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.***
May 29, 2002 - Coddling Castro***America's continued embargo of Cuba is not, as the CSG and its allies contend, a "failed policy." Quite the contrary; the sanctions have caged in Castro, limiting his financial resources. His communist government was forced to do something our Congress hasn't done in a very long time: cut the public payroll. The Cuban regime had massive layoffs in the early 1990's, precisely because Castro didn't have access to American cash. The laid-off workers, estimated at 250,000, created a new self-employed class of cab drivers and home-based restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts, though the government tightly restricted growth factors such as capacity and total volume. When the self-employed sector started to become too successful, Castro put the squeeze on through more red tape and punitive taxes. Cuban officials now brag that they managed to pare back the self-employment rolls by some 100,000 people.
Looking at the experience of the self-employed, it is easy to foresee that if the Cuban people did manage to benefit from booming trade and travel, Castro would respond immediately and put a stop to it, just as he has done time and again. In the 1980's, crop shortages were wreaking havoc on the Cuban economy. Acting as any economist would, Castro allowed farmers to sell off excess crops, a move clearly designed to spark increased production. It worked--a little too well. Some of these farmers were turning excess production to "exotic" crops, such as garlic. Many of these co-op farmers became filthy rich, at least by Cuban standards. Castro brutally shut down what he termed "Garlic Millionaires," and the policy abruptly ended in 1986.
With Castro getting up there in years, the last thing America should do is to institutionalize communism. Whoever succeeds Castro will have a very difficult time without Castro's cult of personality or access to American capital. Our policy should be predicated on the desire for tyranny in Cuba to die with Castro, something recognized by President George W. Bush.***
May 30, 2002 - Bush is focused on Cuban freedom***Reasonable people can differ on the efficacy of the embargo, but surely all Americans ought to be able to agree that Castro's reign is an affront to human decency and a blot on the Western Hemisphere. So why is it that so many critics of the administration's position expend far more energy denouncing the US embargo than calling for an end to Castro's repression? The abuse of Cuban dissenters doesn't seem to anger them nearly as much as the loss of business opportunities caused by the US ban. What really motivates the antiembargo lobby? A yen for liberty - or for profits?
A few days before Bush's speech, 14 members of the congressional Cuba Working Group held a press conference to discuss their views of US policy toward Cuba. My transcript of the event runs to 12 pages of single-spaced type. It is a revealing document. All 14 congressmen spoke, yet not one expressed outrage over the way Castro suffocates the Cuban people. Not one denounced the lack of free speech or the elaborate network of government informers or the misery that drives countless Cubans each year to risk death in an effort to escape Fidelismo. Oh, there was a passing reference now and then to democracy or human rights, but on the whole the Cuba Working Group seemed to get passionate only when the topic turned to the quantities of dried beans and chicken legs that Cuba is supposedly keen to import. Would 14 members of a South Africa Working Group in the 1980s have called a press conference and neglected to express their revulsion for apartheid?
At one point Representative James McGovern of Massachusetts saluted former president Jimmy Carter for ''having the guts to go to Cuba, for standing before the Cuban government and speaking the truth about human rights.'' But when I asked McGovern the other day whether he was equally proud of Bush for speaking the truth about human rights, he pronounced himself ''very disappointed with the president's speech. It was precisely the opposite of what the dissidents have asked for.'' It is true that some Cuban dissidents call for an immediate end to the US embargo. But others call for it to remain in force until Castro leaves. And still others want what Bush wants - an end to economic sanctions but only in exchange for irrevocable democratic reform.
McGovern says the promotion of democracy and human rights is the very raison d'etre of the Cuba Working Group. Perhaps so. But while he and his colleagues persist in talking about the embargo, Bush is reminding the world that the real issue is freedom. The polestar of his Cuba policy is liberty, not chicken legs. When the Cuban people are free at last, they will not forget his steadfastness.***
June 2, 2002 - Sen. Boxer: 'Communism Is Dead' in Cuba ***California's ultra-left-wing senator, Barbara Boxer, insists that "Communism is dead" in Castro's Cuba. Boxer made these comments in late May at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing when Otto Reich, the assistant secretary of state for Latin America, testified. Boxer was arguing in favor of an amendment to the Trade Bill that would allow private U.S. financing of food sales to Cuba.
Boxer told Reich she is unhappy with the Bush administration's hard-line policy with Cuba, and that she holds a different view after a recent trip to the enslaved island nation. While admitting that Castro had helped to spread communism, she told Reich and her colleagues: "It's a new day. Comunnism is dead. It's even dead in Cuba. I hate to say it, it's dead."
Boxer's evidence of this new discovery - which has yet make even the liberal New York Times? She explained, "Castro may think he has communism, but he's got a whole dollar economy going and I went to the restaurants and there's all kinds of capitalism over there."***
June 27, 2002 - Castro's Lawmakers Preserve Cuba's Socialism *** HAVANA (AP) - Cuban lawmakers voted unanimously to make socialism an ``irrevocable'' part of the constitution in an effort to ensure the nation will remain socialist long after Fidel Castro is gone. More than 500 members of Cuba's unicameral National Assembly voted late Wednesday to declare that ``capitalism will never return again'' to the Caribbean island. Deputies' names were called out in alphabetical order and each one stood up and shouted ``Si!'' into a microphone. Of Cuba's 578 deputies, 559 were present and all voted affirmatively.
Deputies grew emotional and almost giddy during the tally, eventually applauding loudly after each vote. When the final vote had been declared unanimous, the deputies first stood stoically at attention for the Cuban national anthem, then held hands and swayed back in forth as they sang the socialist anthem, ``Internationale.'' Castro presided over the session and afterward personally greeted many of the lawmakers in the assembly. ***
***In a July 11 (2002) letter to the House Appropriations Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill wrote: "Trade by other nations with Cuba has brought no change to Cuba's despotic practices, and it has frequently proved to be an unprofitable enterprise." Unprofitable, indeed. France, Spain, Italy and Venezuela have suspended official credits to Cuba because Castro has failed to make payments on its debt, including debt incurred on agricultural purchases. In fact, according to Powell and O'Neill's letter, two foreign governments have approached the United States to complain that Cuba's payments of cash for U.S. agricultural products have meant that they are not getting paid at all.
……….Critics of current policy claim that Cuba is purely a matter of Florida's electoral politics, but the facts show otherwise. While announcing his "U.S. Initiative for a New Free Cuba" in May, President Bush declared that, "Cuban purchases of U.S. agricultural goods ... would be a foreign aid program in disguise." Current policy toward Cuba has saved taxpayers millions in export insurance, subsidies, and de facto foreign aid. All, because trade with Cuba does not represent trade with Cuban business owners, entrepreneurs or consumers; Trade with Cuba is trade with the Castro government itself, which monopolizes virtually all enterprises and exploits Cuban workers as their sole employer. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, recently wrote that, "In Cuba, Fidel Castro is still the one man through whom everything has to go. Any trade that goes through Cuba is going to strengthen Cuba's regime."***
July 19, 2002 - Europe Excludes Cuba From Aid Funds [Full text] NADI, Fiji (AP) - The European Union has excluded Cuba from a multibillion-dollar pool of aid because of its poor human rights record and lack of democracy, a spokesman for a group of former European colonies said Friday. Cuba is a new member of the African Caribbean Pacific group, or ACP, which is holding a leaders' summit at a palm-fringed island resort near the Fijian town of Nadi. The 63 national delegations are trying to forge a single negotiating position ahead of trade talks with Brussels in September. Central to the talks is a 25-year pact signed by the EU and ACP in 2000, known as the Cotonou agreement, which promises $12.7 billion in aid to ACP states over the next five years if they show efforts to improve human rights and root out corruption.
As a latecomer to the ACP, Cuba has not signed Cotonou. EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who is attending the summit, on Friday rejected overtures from ACP leaders to give Cuba quick access to the agreement, said ACP spokesman Hegel Goutier. The EU believes Cuba cannot satisfy basic principles of the agreement, especially with respect to democracy and human rights, said Billie Miller, deputy prime minister of Barbados, who heads the Caribbean grouping at the summit. Miller said she had formally appealed on behalf of Caribbean nations to the EU to fast track Cuba's inclusion. The head of Cuba's delegation, Ricardo Cabrisas, called the EU decision "a humiliation and slap in the face for Cuba," Goutier said. Lamy told delegates that the EU wanted to see more political reform from Havana, Goutier said. [End]
***In a July 11 (2002) letter to the House Appropriations Committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill wrote: "Trade by other nations with Cuba has brought no change to Cuba's despotic practices, and it has frequently proved to be an unprofitable enterprise." Unprofitable, indeed. France, Spain, Italy and Venezuela have suspended official credits to Cuba because Castro has failed to make payments on its debt, including debt incurred on agricultural purchases. In fact, according to Powell and O'Neill's letter, two foreign governments have approached the United States to complain that Cuba's payments of cash for U.S. agricultural products have meant that they are not getting paid at all.
……….Critics of current policy claim that Cuba is purely a matter of Florida's electoral politics, but the facts show otherwise. While announcing his "U.S. Initiative for a New Free Cuba" in May, President Bush declared that, "Cuban purchases of U.S. agricultural goods ... would be a foreign aid program in disguise." Current policy toward Cuba has saved taxpayers millions in export insurance, subsidies, and de facto foreign aid. All, because trade with Cuba does not represent trade with Cuban business owners, entrepreneurs or consumers; Trade with Cuba is trade with the Castro government itself, which monopolizes virtually all enterprises and exploits Cuban workers as their sole employer. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, recently wrote that, "In Cuba, Fidel Castro is still the one man through whom everything has to go. Any trade that goes through Cuba is going to strengthen Cuba's regime."***
December 28, 2002 - REAL AXIS OF EVIL - Venezuela and CUBA***Fattah represents the tip of an iceberg, according to security officials, confirming that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been setting up a terrorist regime to overthrow the constitution of the oil-rich South American country. A dedicated disciple of Fidel Castro [see "Fidel's Successor in Latin America," April 30, 2001], Chavez is plugging international terrorist networks into the country's security services, financial system and state corporations as part of his plans to clone Cuba's revolution and turn Venezuela into a terrorist base.
The president's scheme also involves government-sponsored armed militias, or Circulos Bolivarianos, modeled on Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees. These militias are taking over police stations around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and invading the facilities of the state-run oil company, PDVSA. Indeed, the latter is presided over by an ex-communist guerrilla leader, Ali Rodriguez Araque.
Following the blueprint that Castro drafted for Chile's Salvador Allende, a minority president who similarly imported thousands of Cuban paramilitaries to overthrow the constitution of Chile and establish a Marxist-Leninist regime there, Chavez is facing an internal rebellion against his plans. With 80 percent or more of the national revenues cut off by an oil strike, he is faced with difficult choices. Chavez may be forced to order his navy to take over some 20 oil tankers that are refusing to load. Since he cannot entirely rely on the loyalty of his armed forces, he is expected to bring in the Cuban advisers.
Cuba's Direccion General de Inteligencia (DGI) special-operations teams already are positioned at the port of La Guaira, according to Venezuelan navy sources, who report that Cuban undercover agents are using the local merchant-marine school. Sources say that they could be studying Venezuela's oil-tanker fleet as part of contingency plans to prepare for commandeering of some of the tankers by a U.S.-trained Venezuelan intelligence officer. A Cuban special-assault unit reported to be occupying the second and third floors of the Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira also could be part of the plans to break the strike and impose a terrorist dictatorship.
During the last few weeks, Chavez has moved to control the military high command with his closest acolytes. Gen. Luis Garcia Carneiro, who has been leading the Caracas-based 3rd Infantry Division in operations to disarm the metropolitan police, now is the effective head of the army.
Possibly thousands of Arab terrorists as well as Colombian narcoguerrillas are being protected by DISIP, which has come under the control of Cuba's DGI, according to members of the Venezuelan security agency. European diplomatic officials in Caracas confirm that Cubans are operating DISIP's key counterterrorist and intelligence-analysis sections. According to a variety of sources, 300 to 400 Cuban military advisers coordinated by Havana's military attaché in Venezuela, navy Capt. Sergio Cardona, also are directing Chavez's elite Presidential Guard and his close circle of bodyguards, some of whom can't even sing the words to the Venezuelan national anthem. As many as 6,000 Cuban undercover agents masquerading as "sports instructors" and "teachers" also are reported to be training the Circulos Bolivarianos and even operating naval facilities.
"I quit my job when I got tired of doing dirty work for Chavez with the Cubans looking over my shoulder," Ferreira tells Insight, claiming that Interior Minister Rodriguez Chacin and other presidential aides repeatedly pressured him to launder the identities of terrorists and narcotraffickers transiting through Venezuela. He also was ordered to deceive U.S. authorities on the activities of a Hezbollah financial network whose files were requested by the FBI following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chavez gave instructions to destroy records on 10 suspected Hezbollah fund-raisers conducting suspicious financial transactions in the islands of Margarita, Aruba and Curaçao, and the cities of Maracaibo and Valencia, according to Ferreira. The Venezuelan president also dissolved key military counterterrorist units by firing 16 highly experienced, U.S.-trained intelligence officers at the time of the terrorist plane attacks in New York City and Washington. Circulos Bolivarianos leader Lina Ron celebrated the event by burning an American flag in the center of Caracas. ***
January 23, 2003 - Bush's hawks making way to Latin America, too*** THE Bush White House can't seem to help itself. Even as it appears ready to swoop down on Iraq, it is also elevating hawks to new perches on the Latin American branch. The White House announced on Jan. 9 that it will name Otto J. Reich to the position of the National Security Council's special envoy to Latin America -- a position that was specially created for him after his recess appointment as assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere expired. The move will keep the highly controversial Reich in government and does not require Senate confirmation. Under the Reagan administration, Reich headed the Office of Public Diplomacy, which aimed to create public support in the United States for the Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista rebels, also known as the Contras. Congress later closed down the office because a comptroller's report found that the office engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities" during the Iran-Contra affair. ***
January 24, 2003 - Politically diverse group calls for ties with Cuba***The conclusions of the 16-page report, "U.S.-Cuba Relations, Time for a New Approach," aren't unique. But the makeup of the commission and the people articulating the message of normalizing ties with Cuba are new. The commission's members include Peter Magowan, president and managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants; former Texas Gov. Ann Richards; Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of Premier American Bank in Miami; Thomas Wenski, auxiliary bishop at the Archdiocese of Miami; and William Frenzel, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1991.***
January 24, 2003 - Venezuela gets a hand from nimble Castro***The Cuban regime is extending its influence by sending thousands of government employees - among the health workers and sports trainers are intelligence officers - to Venezuela for extended periods. Meanwhile, large numbers of Mr Chávez's supporters are being sent to the island for training. Commenting on the aborted coup, one European ambassador in Caracas said: "I don't know which was a bigger factor in returning Chávez to power - the ineptitude of his enemies or the effectiveness of the Cubans - but I do know that both played a role." ***