SUCH CRUELTY IS UNACCEPTABLE

SOUTH African Nadine Gordimer, 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature, read out letter to President Obama calling for the release of the five Cuban heroes. Gordimer is in our country as an invited guest to the 19th Havana Book Fair.

In the statement, Gordimer, who had a prior interview with family members of the Five, condemned the torture and psychological mistreatment to which the mothers and wives have been subjected for more than 11 years since September 12, 1998, when Gerardo, René, Ramón, Antonio and Fernando were unjustly imprisoned. "Such cruelty is unacceptable," the writer stated, affirming that she had witnessed first-hand the drama that these families, full of dignity and fortitude, are going through.

"I ask the Obama administration for their immediate release and also call on all citizens of the world. Its now time to end the torment that these five Cubans are experiencing," she emphasized after detailing in the missive the arbitrariness of the sentences, and the infamies committed during their trials and appeal processes.

Rask Morakabe, a political prisoner in apartheid South Africa, also added his voice to the declaration. He confided to having a special sensitivity for the case of the Five and stated that "in South Africa, we place a great importance on it because we suffered on account of Mandela’s imprisonment for so many decades and, in the same way that we engaged in a campaign for his release, we believe that we are going to achieve the release of the Five."

Serbian filmmaker and musician Emir Kusturica has also joined the call for justice for the five Cuban heroes, declaring his support for a solution of the case in Neuquén, Argentina and demanding that the U.S. president annul their sentences.

Translated by Granma International

http://www.granma.cu/

Raul Castro Participates at Tribute to Juan Almeida

A tender tribute was paid to Commander of the Revolution Juan Almeida on occasion of his 83rd birth in a ceremony held in Havana with the presence of Cuban President Raul Castro, Commanders of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes Menendez and Guillermo García Frías, and family members

Cuba paid tribute to Commander of the Revolution Juan Almeida on occasion of the 83rd anniversary of his birth in a ceremony held in Havana with the presence of Cuban President Raul Castro

Cuban artist Alexis Leyva (Kcho) put together the tribute held at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) with the participation of Commanders of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes Menendez and Guillermo García Frías, and family members. Juan Almeida was a prolific writer and composer, and leader of the III Frente Oriental Mario Muñoz of the Rebel Army that overthrew the Batista dictatorship more than 50 years ago.

Among the activities at the tribute was a moving rendition of Asi te recordamos written by Robertico Valdes and sung by Omara Portuondo, Pedrito Calvo, Eliades Ochoa and other Cuban musicians.

There was also a slideshow dedicated to Juan Almeida with photos by Raul Abreu, Liborio Noval, Roberto Salas and Ivan Soca among others.

The hall was decorated with 12 stars and works by artists Roberto Fabelo, Ernesto Rancaño, Eduardo Roca (Choco) and Diana Almeida, daughter of the beloved guerilla leader who passed away on September 11, 2009.

Several of Almeida’s most famous songs were performed, including Esa Mujer (Sur Caribe), Corazón, El gran día de enero (Bárbara Llanes), and La Lupe (Entre Voces Choir).

An especially moving moment was the song A mi papá, written and performed by Juan Almeida’s son, Juan Guillermo, while participants energetically repeated Almeida’s famous rebel cry, “Nobody surrenders here!”

http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/

Trial of Posada Carriles in El Paso Postponed Indefinitely

by José Pertierra
Feb. 19, 2010
Reprinted from CubaDebate
Translation by Gloria La Riva

Everything seems to indicate that the strategy of the U.S. government is put off, defer and delay the case of Luis Posada Carriles until he dies of old age in Miami.

The latest deferment took place this Friday in El Paso. Judge Kathleen Cardone announced that the trial that was scheduled for March 1 is now postponed to an indefinite date.

Posada Carriles is an international fugitive, with 73 counts of murder pending against him in Caracas. Venezuela formally requested his extradition on June 15, 2005, but Washington has chosen to try him for perjury instead of extraditing him for murder. In 2007, they indicted him for making false statements in relation to his illegal entry to the United States.

The prosecution has evidence that Posada entered by a boat named the Santrina with several conspirator friends of his. However, Posada alleged that at the age of 79 years he had entered the country on foot through the border with Mexico. A story that nobody believes.

Posada’s lies were convenient for Bush, because they allowed him to block the terrorist’s extradition, while the perjury charges made their way through federal court.

After Barack Obama assumed the presidency, the prosecution added other charges to the case, accusing him of obstructing an investigation into international terrorism, for his lying about his role in the terrorist campaign against Cuba in 1997. This is something that Posada had already boasted about during an interview with the New York Times, when he admitted being the mastermind of the bombs that exploded in Havana, and which killed the Italian Fabio di Celmo.

Each time that Posada feels pressured, he threatens to talk about his relation with the CIA. The documents that his attorney have presented before the court are full of these threats and insinuations, including saying that everything that Posada has done in Latin America has been “on behalf of Washington.”

His new legal strategy includes alleging that the CIA taught him to lie: to utilize false names and to carry false passports. He wants to present himself as a soldier of the U.S. intelligence agency to claim that everything he did was under the supervision of Washington.

The prosecution fiercely opposes this strategy, because the last thing Washington wants is for the hidden skeletons of Langley to be uncovered. In this Posada is right: the mendacity of the CIA is deeper than that of its operatives. What was the role of the CIA in the dirty war in Latin America? Who was ultimately responsible for the bombingof the Cuban Airlines plane in 1976, in which 73 civilians died: the CIA or Posada? What role did the Agency play in the terrorist campaign against the Cuban tourist installations in 1997?

To prevent Posada from playing the valuable card of telling everything that he knows, the government has succeeded in getting the court to seal more than 90% of the documents that have been presented in court. Only the prosecution, the defense attorneys and judge can view them. Neither the press nor the public has access to them. Some journalists accuse Judge Cardone of not maintaining “an open and transparent case.”

But the petition for the secret litigation was by the prosecution. It is extremely rare for a judge to force the hand of the government to reveal delicate information that supposedly harms the country’s national security.

What we know for certain is that the true objective of the prosecution is being realized. The process has up to now been secret, and the case remains in a legal limbo without a set date for the trial. Judge Cardone’s court order has announced a preparatory hearing for May 20. In that hearing, she wants to know the “state” of the case, to determine if a date will finally be set for the trial.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s extradition petition is still pending and Posada Carriles continues enjoying complete impunity for the murder of those 73 defenseless people on board a passenger plane. When Posada’s attorneys meet with the prosecutors next May 20 in El Paso to review the “state” of the case, will it occur to anyone to tell the judge that this international terrorist is now five years in the United States without having to answer for his crimes? Or that Giustino di Celmo has waited for 12 years to see that his son Fabio’s murderer be tried? And that the families of the victims of Cubana de Aviacion’s flight 455 have waited almost 34 years to see that justice is carried out, for the murder of their loved ones? What are they waiting for? For the assassin to die of old age in Miami?

http://www.freethefive.org/

Cuba Celebrates Lunar New Year

Havana, Feb 13 (Prensa Latina) Chinese descendants and Cubans who love Chinese culture are expected to celebrate on Saturday the New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar at the historic center of the capital with several artistic proposals.

The program, sponsored by the Havana City's Historian Office and the Cuban School of Wushu founded in 1995 by Master Roberto Vargas Lee, includes performances by mythological characters and the traditional lion dance, among other expressions.

According to organizers, more than 200 Wushu practitioners of ages from five to 90 will show their therapeutic systems of exercises and martial arts.

Gastronomic facilities belonging to Habaguanex SA will offer special menus related to the holiday, also known as Spring Festival, considered the most important of Chinese culture, in the Asian country and abroad.





http://www.prensa-latina.cu/

CNN Lies about Identity of Doctors in Haiti

MATANZAS.—One of the many Cuban doctors currently assisting the Haitian victims of the earthquake granted an interview to the CNN a few days ago and was strangely presented to the public as a Spanish doctor.

In a phone conversation with the Juventud Rebelde newspaper, Doctor Carlos Guillen —that is his real name and not Carlos Arguello, as the CNN reported— said that it was really difficult to specify if it was a mistake or was done intentionally.

“We are so deep into our work here,” said Guillen, “that we don’t have time for anything else. However, the CNN team did know we were Cubans. They knew that the doctors at La Paz Hospital were all Cubans because the Spanish doctors had left two days before. We told them so, and they didn’t have any reason to think otherwise,” said Guillen.

Guillen, who also holds a Master’s Degree in Health Economics, has been working in Haiti since 2008 as the manager of Miracle Operation —a Cuban program aimed at helping people with cataracts recover eyesight. This is his first mission abroad.

When the earthquake shook Haiti on January 12, he was on his way back to the Cubans’ residency. He was in a market when the tremor began. A huge cloud of dust covered the city afterwards, and from that very moment Guillen started helping the victims, for he had to assist an injured woman near him.

Back in Cuba, Guillen’s family was desperate because there was no communication at all. About midnight that very day, his wife Lilia Fuentes Alfonso contacted him: “All he said was that the 16 members of the brigade were fine, and he asked me to inform the rest of the families. We communicate more frequently now and I brief him on the situation here, as they do not have much time there for anything else.”

Carlos graduated in 1991, in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, where he was born. He has worked in many health care centers in Santiago and Matanzas; he has also worked as a professor of postgraduate courses; he speaks English and Creole; and he has also participated in many scientific events. In 2006, he was head of the Nelson Fernandez Hospital in the municipality of Jaguey Grande, where the Operacion Milagro experience was first developed.

How will you remember Haiti?

“I’d like not to see anything like this again. I keep trying to forget but the images come back to me again and again, even at my busiest hours.”

Is this the most terrible event you have experienced as a doctor, despite your long professional experience?

“This is a disastrous situation. We spent the first days of the catastrophe amputating people’s limbs, operating the victims. It is something so hard that we would not like to experience it again. But on the other hand, we’ve witnessed the power of Latin American integration. And we Cuban doctors are very happy to help the Haitian people in this terrible moment.

Work at the hospital is very well organized. We wake up at 5:00 am and resume work at 7:00. We work for over 12 hours every day, by shifts, and we have conditioned some tents to rest. We have also improved hygienic conditions, organization, discipline and control of contaminating materials.

Last Saturday, CubaDebate published a note in which the CNN apologized for having presented the Cuban doctor as a Spanish professional. Following the report by the CNN correspondent in Port-au-Prince, the anchor said that it had been an evident mistake, and apologized, although he did not make it clear that the interviewee was not a doctor who was just passing by, and that the CNN staff had found him at the hospital where only the Cuban doctors were working.


http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/

From today: U.S. doctors working in Cuban hospitals

● Seven graduates from the Latin American
School of Medicine in Havana

Leticia Martínez Hernández
Photos: Juvenal Balán

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti.—Seven young doctors have just arrived at the Croix des Bouquets field hospital. They have come from the United States and wish "to help their Cuban brothers and sisters in attending to the suffering Haitian people. We are in the process of having our Medical degrees validated, but felt the need to be here, we’re leaving aside our studies so as to say ‘Present’," they affirm. For that reason they will begin attending to Haitian patients today.


Elsie Walter talks on behalf of all of them, explaining that they are graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba (ELAM). Five of them are from New York and two from California. They responded to a call from the Reverend Lucius Walker, and didn’t hesitate. "There were lots of us who wanted to come, but given our responsibilities there, only seven of us could come for now; others are thinking of joining later on, because we know that the Cuban medical brigade is going to be here for a good long time."

For one month, this first group will be working in the Cuban hospital that, up until yesterday, had attended to 3,590 patients. They will be sharing with its doctors all aspects of field hospital life. Orthopedist William Alvarez, director of the center, explains that the idea is to incorporate them into hospital activities, both on the ground and in consultations, although of course, this will be done in a staggered way. The main concern of these doctors, all women, is their lack of knowledge of Creole, but in that context, Haitian students training as doctors in Cuba and currently in Haiti, will support them.


The doctor highlighted that the young ELAM graduates came with their packs of water and food but, as soon as they arrived, they handed them over to the hospital’s reserves. They also brought backpacks loaded with medicines, which they likewise immediately donated. They have incorporated themselves very well in the group of Cubans, he says. "Without any doubt, they are a great help, and also a challenge, because we are responsible for their preparation and they are in a scenario that they haven’t experienced before. For example, they have never had to confront illnesses like Chagas or Leishmaniasis."

Elsie comments that they came to share everything, as they learned in ELAM. For that reason, they do not see any problem in sleeping in tents and working at any hour of the day or night. "The experience has been fantastic, you have treated us very well, with that great hospitality, we feel privileged to be here; thank you Cuba for opening your doors to us as always."

Elsie says that she and her colleagues are in the process of sitting examinations to validate their degrees and comments that although the assessment in her country is different, they are sufficiently prepared to pass them. This is the attitude of these young women trained in Cuba who have joined our doctors to continue saving lives in Haiti. When consultations begin in the Croix des Bouquets field hospital, the patients will find new faces; however, the attention will remain the same.

Translated by Granma International

http://www.granma.cu/