[NYTr] Cuban Radar Newsbriefs - August 23, 2007

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Progreso Weekly - Aug 23, 2007
http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=1

Cuban Radar Newsbriefs - August 23, 2007
A Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau service

* New law holds officials accountable for corruption
* US violates migration agreements and more
* The Cuban Five should be liberated, says Chilean judge
* Dean spared Cuba, though measures had been taken
* Cuban aid sent to Peru
* Demand for a single currency

Translated for Progreso Weekly by Germán Piniella


* New law holds officials accountable for corruption

On September 1, 2007, new measures will be in force to prevent
corruption and increase discipline at the workplace.

The last edition of the country’s government journal announced that a
new law will make officials accountable for corruption and
indiscipline, even if said officials are not directly responsible. It
also mentioned sanctions in relation to unjustified absence and
unpunctuality at production and service centers.

According to Decree 251 on August 2, signed by acting President Raúl
Castro, “disciplinary measures are imposed in a direct manner and
effective immediately.”


* US violates migration agreements and more

A declaration issued by the Cuban Foreign Ministry on August 21
denounces U.S. violations of the migratory agreements signed in 1994
and 1995.

The issue is the granting of political asylum by the government of
Hungary to 29 illegal emigrants who, after being captured by the US
Coast Guard, were taken to Guantánamo Naval Base, a U.S. occupied
territory in Eastern Cuba.

The declaration quotes reports by Reuters news agency that “17 (of 44
persons captured in international waters) held a 3-week hunger strike
protesting conditions of their arrest and demanding to be taken to the
United States (…) Hungary guaranteed asylum to 29 of them, while the
United States will pay house rent, winter clothes and
language courses during one year. (...) Other five will receive U.S.
visas and some are waiting permission from another country (...)”

The Cuban declaration mentions that the signed agreements between both
governments force the U.S. to return “Cuban emigrants intercepted on
the high seas by the United States attempting to enter the United
States … Likewise emigrants who try to enter Guantánamo Naval Base
illegally will also be returned to Cuba”.

But Havana mentions a thorn on the side of Cuba linked to U.S.
intervention in the war of independence that Cubans had waged for 30
years against Spanish colonial power.

“When they decided to send them to their illegal Guantánamo Naval Base,
they violate even the illegitimate Agreement for Coal and Naval
Stations imposed on Cuba in 1903, in which [the U.S.] committed
textually ‘to do all that is necessary to put such places in condition
of being exclusively used as coal or naval stations and for no other
purpose’.”

The base has served not only as haven for Cubans captured on the high
seas by U.S. patrol boats, but has been turned into a prison for
hundreds of alleged terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda.


* The Cuban Five should be liberated, says Chilean judge

Respected and well-known Chilean judge Juan Guzmán told Cuban TV that
the Cuban Five, who are serving harsh prison terms in the U.S., should
be set free.

“It was clear that Miami was not an adequate venue for the trial,
because jurors felt pressured, and even frightened,” Guzmán said in a
telephone interview with the Cuban TV program Round Table.

Guzmán, who won fame for being the first to indict former dictator
Augusto Pinochet in Chile, attended a hearing on the Five’s case at the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Together with Guzmán many
important international and local jurists were present.

He said that the defense for Gerardo Hernández, René González, Fernando
González, Antonio Herrero and Ramón Lavañino stressed the U.S.
government’s improper conduct at the trial: “There was no fairness nor
objectiveness on the part of jury members,” who were biased due to
pressures by the prosecution, he added.

In relation to the three-judge panel, Guzmán said that “if they want to
sleep with a clean conscience, they should exonerate them, free the
Five.”


* Dean spared Cuba, though measures had been taken

Hurricane Dean passed south of Cuba without too many repercussions --
although it caused some harm, particularly in the southern region of
the eastern part of the island, some 70 kilometers north of Jamaica,
where the powerful storm raged.

At the province of Santiago de Cuba, some 850 kilometers east of
Havana, there were damages in tourist facilities and a coastal highway
was cut at several points due to powerful waves. There was also damage
to housing and locations high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains which
were cut off due to intense rains.

In the eastern province of Granma a stretch of highway was under water
as much as 100 meters from the coast.

Cuba’s Civil Defense System, highly regarded by international
organizations, was set in motion with the first reports of Dean’s
course and evacuated some 300,000 people to safe and well conditioned
facilities. It also protected warehouses and vulnerable work centers,
and protected the harvesting of food products that otherwise would have
been lost.


* Cuban aid sent to Peru

Sources at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations confirmed to Radio
Progreso Alternativa that Cuba’s government has set up two field
hospitals at the region struck by the earthquake that cost the life of
more than 500 people. The hospitals are equipped with intensive care
units, surgery rooms and X-Rays.

Aid to countries struck by natural disasters is a regular practice by
the Cuban government.


* Demand for a single currency

Dissident sources report that a small and little known opponent group
is collecting signatures in favor of eliminating the circulation of two
different currencies in the Island.

The signed petition will be submitted to the National Assembly of
Popular Power, the Cuban legislative branch of government.

Two different currencies circulate in Cuba, the Cuban peso and the
convertible peso (CUC), the latter equivalent to $1.08 USD. Many
products and services are only available in CUCs, but they can be
bought at the official rate of 25 Cuban pesos each.

Cubans receive an average salary of 320 Cuban pesos.