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Yahoo!
June 14, 2002.
Cuba to declassify documents on Cuban missile crisis at October
conference
Thu Jun 13, 2:43 PM ET
HAVANA - Cuba will declassify secret government documents about the Cuban
missile crisis of 1962 during an international conference here in October
marking the 40th anniversary of the event that put the world on the brink of
nuclear war.
Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez, who organized a similar conference on
the Bay of Pigs invasion last year, provided no details about the documents
Thursday when announcing the upcoming conference.
The crisis peaked in October 1962 when the United States learned that Soviet
missiles were being set up in Cuba, just 90 miles (145 kilometers), from U.S.
shores. The United States demanded that they be removed and imposed a naval and
air quarantine on the island
Following several tense days of negotiations with Washington, Moscow
withdrew the weapons without consulting with Havana — a move that enraged
Fidel Castro ( news - web sites)'s government.
Entitled "The Crisis of October: A Political Vision 40 Years Later,"
the Oct. 11-12 conference is expected to include people from the United States
and the former Soviet Union who played roles in the event.
Most Russians associated with the crisis have since died, but several
advisers to the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy are still alive, said
Fernandez. He said conference organizers also are studying the possibility of
taking participants to sites in the Havana area related to the crisis.
The Cuban missile crisis "was the most dramatic episode of the Cold
War," said Fernandez, adding that the aim of the conference is to shed
light on events leading up to the crisis.
Summer in Cuba: As fans and air conditioners switch on, cash-strapped
economy feels the energy crunch
Thu Jun 13, 5:16 Am Et . By Vivian Sequera, Associated
Press Writer
FLORIDA, Cuba - Eneida Torres' sneakers are torn, but a new pair would cost
her entire widow's pension for the month, and her prospects have just gotten
worse.
The communist government has decreed a price hike at the "dollar
stores" that sell consumer goods such as sneakers for hard currency. It
needs to shore up its dwindling finances before the summer energy crunch, when
Cubans turn on their fans and air conditioners.
"This is bad," said Torres, a 59-year-old widow, sitting in her
rocking chair in her small wooden house in eastern Cuba. "Petroleum is
scarce. Laundry and bath soap only arrives every two or three months" on
the government ration.
The sweltering summer is usually the toughest time for the Cuban economy,
but this time it's worse than usual. Tourism, the biggest foreign currency
earner, was down 14 percent in the first quarter, oil prices are up and income
from sugar, Cuba's biggest export, is down. Officials expect sugar will bring in
dlrs 120 million less than its annual average of dlrs 500 million.
In San Luis in eastern Cuba, beyond a sign saying "Sugar cane is our
principal wealth," the 148-year-old Chile sugar mill stands idle — a
forlorn sight that seems to symbolize the crisis.
The 2,000 workers have been reassigned to other mills or farm work,
according to mill administrator Isabel Chavez.
The Sugar Ministry has given no reason for shutting the mill. But at the
beginning of the 2001-2002 sugar harvest, the official Cuban news agency
reported that only 100 of Cuba's 154 sugar mills were working.
The whole sugar industry is being restructured, but the modernizing
technology needed in the mills would cost between dlrs 4 million to dlrs 5
million per mill, the government has said.
Meanwhile, as sugar prices fall, oil is up, and Cuba has to import more than
half its petroleum needs. Fidel Castro ( news - web sites)'s government is
cutting energy use by 10 percent at state enterprises.
Torres lives with her son, daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. She
has no relatives abroad to send precious American dollars, and has to manage on
her pension of 80 pesos a month — about 3 dollars. She earns a few more
pesos by cooking for another family.
Cuba "has its good things: studies for the children, the attention of
doctors. It doesn't cost anything, it's free," she says.
But replacing those sneakers looks impossible. While no price list for
dollar stores has been published, the increases are thought to range between 10
and 30 percent.
According to an announcement last week, many essentials including milk will
get cheaper. But the increases are the latest signal that money is tight.
Oil and food are two imports Cuba cannot sacrifice. Julio Triana, of the
government-run Cuban Economic Studies Center, estimates the country pays dlrs 1
billion annually for crude and dlrs 800 million for food.
"Anyone can add it up," Granma, the Communist Party daily, said
after oil soared from just above dlrs 20 a barrel in January to dlrs 27 a barrel
in April.
An especially bruising blow came from Venezuela, Cuba's most important
regional ally.
Under an October 2000 agreement, Venezuela was selling Cuba up to 53,000
barrels of oil daily on preferential terms. But shipments stopped during the
abortive mid-April coup against Castro's friend, President Hugo Chavez, and
haven't resumed.
While Caracas has been silent, Havana says the suspended deliveries have
caused grave problems, forcing it to seek more expensive crude elsewhere.
Energy-saving blackouts have been a way of life for years in Torres' town
and elsewhere. While they now come only every 15 to 20 days, in the early 1990s
they were daily.
In 1993, in a financial crisis caused by the former Soviet Union's collapse,
Cuba reluctantly adopted modest economic reforms. These included legalizing the
use of the U.S. dollar, approving a limited number of small businesses,
permitting foreign investment, and opening dollar stores. There have been no
major reforms in the state-controlled economy since.
Cuba Reform Activist Questions March
Thu Jun 13, 2:58 Am Et . By Anita Snow, Associated Press
Writer
HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro ( news - web sites)'s mobilization of millions of
people to ratify Cuba's one-party socialist system as "untouchable"
has organizers of a reform movement convinced their project has terrified the
government.
"We are filled with hope," said Oswaldo Paya, top organizer of the
Varela Project referendum. "It was the desperate mobilization of a
government that feels panicked. If the government feels so sure that it has the
support of the people, then why not have the referendum?"
Described as the nation's response to President Bush ( news - web sites)'s
May 20 Cuba policy speeches, the marches here and around the island Wednesday
also supported a proposed constitutional amendment declaring that Cuba's
economic, political and social systems cannot be changed.
Surrounded by security men and other top communist officials, Castro, who
celebrates his 76th birthday in August, walked slowly down the Malecon coastal
boulevard for about a mile, then stood on a stage for hours afterward watching
marchers pass by.
Wearing his traditional olive green uniform and cap and the black high-top
athletic shoes he now favors, Castro waved a small red, white and blue Cuban
flag as the sea of people marched toward the U.S. Interests Section, the
American mission in Havana.
"Long live socialism! Down with the lies!" Castro shouted —
referring to Bush's speeches promising not to lift American trade and travel
restrictions until Cuba holds competitive elections and undertakes other
democratic reforms.
The Havana event coincided with about 800 marches around the island
involving several million of the nation's 11 million citizens, the government
said. The government said 1.2 million people — more than half the capital's
population — participated in Havana alone.
Paya said he watched part of the march, which was shown live on state
television and then repeated for viewers in the late afternoon.
"In the street with their little flag, the people cannot say anything,"
said Paya, a longtime activist with Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement. "Thousands
of those people marching in front of the Interests Section are signed up there
for the (visa) lottery to go to the United States."
Castro called for the mobilization to support the proposed constitutional
change, announced one month to the day after Paya and other activists submitted
more than 11,000 signatures to the National Assembly soliciting a referendum.
The Varela Project initiative would ask voters if they favor civil liberties
including freedom of speech and assembly, the right to own a business, electoral
reform and amnesty for political prisoners.
Most Cubans first heard of the Varela Project in mid-May, when former
President Jimmy Carter mentioned it in a live, uncensored television address to
the Cuban people. Carter suggested that the plan be published in the state
media. But that has not happened, and most Cubans still do not know what it
says.
Castro has said nothing publicly about the Varela Project. But the proposal
to describe the socialist system as "untouchable" in the constitution
indicates that the current leadership is not in the mood for change.
In comments to international media, communist officials have accused Varela
Project organizers of being on the U.S. government payroll — something the
activists deny. Authorities also have described what they say are legal and
technical problems with the referendum proposal, giving it little hope for
success.
"If Castro is serious about his constitution, he would hold a
referendum on reforms outlined in the Varela Project," said U.S. Rep. Jeff
Flake, a member of the House International Relations Committee and of the newly
formed House Cuba Working Group, which favors easing sanctions against the
island.
Flake, who spoke in Washington, is chief Republican co-sponsor of a House
resolution that praises Cubans who signed the Varela Project. The Senate
unanimously passed the resolution Monday.
Paya said Varela Project organizers welcomed the Senate resolution, calling
it "a demonstration of respect for the self-determination of the Cuban
people." | 
