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US not impressed with Cuban dissident
release
WASHINGTON, 29 (AFP) - The United States
refused to offer any praise to Cuba for
releasing three jailed dissidents who had
been imprisoned for more than a year, maintaining
they should never have been arrested in
the first place.
The State Department said Washington was
pleased they were free and would join their
friends and family in welcoming their return
home but would not praise Havana for releasing
them from "injust" incarceration
following a March 2003 crackdown on dissent.
"We certainly join their family and
friends in welcoming the end of the unjust
detention to which the regime subjected
them (but) we really don't give any credit
to the Cuban government for releasing them
since they never should've been jailed to
begin with," spokesman Richard Boucher
said.
"We continue to condemn the unjust
incarceration of dozens of other prisoners
of conscience in Cuba and we repeat our
call to the Cuban government to release
all political prisoners immediately,"
he told reporters.
Cuban authorities on Monday freed dissidents
Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Margarito Broche and
Marcelo Lopez for health reasons, according
to a leading rights activist in Cuba. They
were among 75 dissidents jailed last year
for between seven and 28 years on security
charges.
Seven other dissidents among the 75 have
been released in recent months, including
the only woman in the group, economist Martha
Beatriz Roque, and poet Manuel Vazquez Portal.
Cuban authorities gave Vazquez Portal permission
to leave the country last week.
But key opponents of President Fidel Castro,
including the writer Raul Rivero and a number
of journalists, remain in prison.
Monday's prisoner release followed last
week's meeting between Cuba's foreign minister
and Spain's ambassador to Havana. It was
the first official contact between Cuba
and the European Union since June of last
year.
Boucher noted that Cuba's communist government
had been pressed into freeing the dissidents
because of pressure from democratic states.
"We think that it's important to remember
the pressure from democratic nations has
helped contribute to their release and to
remember that these Cubans are brave people
who were jailed solely for exercising their
human rights," he said.
US: Spain not cause of Cuba dissident
release
WASHINGTON, 30 (AFP) - Cuba's release of
five jailed dissidents came after international
pressure, and was not the result of Spanish
diplomacy, a US official said, after one
of them thanked Madrid for his freedom.
I can't describe this Cuban decision as
being the result of any specific nation
or upcoming meeting or anything like that,"
said State Department spokesman Richard
Boucher.
"Second of all, I think if you look
at the overall international situation,
you see the Europeans have been, in recent
years -- partly because of our work with
them -- a bit more insistent on human rights
aspects in Cuba, in raising these issues,"
he said.
"You've seen a lot of Latin American
nations be quite a bit more clear about
this. You've seen a number of specific European
nations being quite a bit more clear about
the human rights situation in Cuba,"
he said.
"We think that all that is an important
part of the pressure on the Cuban government
to release these people and to change its
system."
Cuba's communist regime has released five
dissidents during the last two days, part
of a group of 75 jailed in March and April
for between seven and 28 years in a crackdown.
After his release, poet Raul Rivero, 59,
expressed his "eternal gratitude"
to the Spanish government for its lobbying
on his behalf. He also urged diplomatic
engagement of Castro's isolated regime.
The dissidents were freed following a meeting
Thursday between Cuban Foreign Minister
Felipe Perez Roque and Spain's ambassador
to Cuba, Carlos Alonso Zaldivar.
Cuba Dissident's Wife Becomes Activist
By Vanessa Arrington, Associated
Press Writer. December 1, 2004.
HAVANA - Blanca Reyes used to make coffee
while her husband, writer Raul Rivero, spent
hours talking with other intellectuals in
their living room. But when Rivero was thrown
into prison after a crackdown on dissidents
by Cuba last year, the former homemaker
became an activist, leading political prisoners'
wives fighting for the release of their
husbands.
"Now, I'm the husband of Blanca,"
Rivero joked Tuesday, back home after his
surprise release from prison.
Rivero was the best known among the 75
dissidents rounded up by the government
in March 2003. The 59-year-old was freed
on medical parole early Tuesday.
He was the fifth dissident to be freed
by Cuba's communist government in two days,
part of a wave of releases apparently aimed
at cleaning up the island's human rights
record.
During Rivero's 20 months behind bars,
Reyes became the most visible face of the
"Ladies in White" - wives and
other female relatives who declared the
innocence of their loved ones and demanded
their release.
The women always wore all white, a symbol
of hope, said Reyes. As the time the men
spent in jail lengthened, the women became
bolder, launching candlelight vigils and
public protests practically unheard of in
Cuba's controlled society.
"It seems like it's gathered a lot
of strength," Reyes told The Associated
Press in an interview just a few weeks before
her husband was released. "We defend
each other, all as part of the group."
Reyes said she became fully aware of the
group's power in October, after the government
granted the demands of the women when they
camped out in a Havana park to insist that
a jailed dissident be transferred to the
capital for medical treatment.
Cuban authorities on Oct. 7 forced the
group of women to leave the park, where
they had planted themselves for two days.
Hours later, the group learned the dissident
was being treated at a Havana military hospital.
Reyes said she never intended to become
an activist.
"The dissident movement doesn't interest
me - I've always said I'm simply for (my
husband's) liberation," she said.
While still in prison, Rivero advised his
wife not to become too political, and to
resist possible manipulation.
Despite small successes getting attention
for her husband's cause, Reyes said most
of her days were unbearable. She said visits
to see Rivero every three months were never
enough, and sometimes she was so depressed
she spent up to three days in bed.
"I feel so frustrated," Reyes,
57, said in the mid-November interview,
before she knew Rivero would be freed. "From
the moment I get up in the morning, I just
don't get it. He is unjustly imprisoned.
He has done nothing wrong."
"He fills this house - it used to
be a home," she added, wistfully.
But on Tuesday, Reyes was all smiles with
her husband of 15 years back in their living
room. Still dressed all in white, Reyes
said she looked forward to digging out her
more colorful clothes.
Rivero thanked his wife for her efforts,
saying the pressure helped keep the prisoners'
cause alive.
Reyes said her husband never wanted this
kind of attention.
"What (the government) has done is
convert him into a hero, without him being
one," she said in the earlier interview.
"Because Raul never wanted to be this
protagonist, ever. What he is a poet - nothing
more."
Commerce Nominee Fled Cuba As a Child
By Martin Crutsinger, AP
Economics Writer. Mon Nov 29.
WASHINGTON - Carlos M. Gutierrez, picked
by President Bush to be Commerce secretary
on Monday, rose to the top of one of America's
biggest corporations after leaving Cuba
more than four decades ago as a political
refugee.
Gutierrez, the chief executive of Kellogg
Corp., was dubbed "the most important
Hispanic in corporate America" after
he helped revive the cereal giant's fortunes
with a corporate and marketing overhaul.
In an announcement ceremony at the White
House, Gutierrez told Bush that he had been
privileged to live the American dream since
leaving Cuba with his parents and a brother
in 1960 as political refugees one year after
Fidel Castro (news - web sites) came to
power.
Gutierrez, 51, said in his acceptance remarks
that be began working at Kellogg by "selling
cereal out of a van in Mexico City"
in 1975.
He rose from that job to become general
manager of Kellogg's Mexican manufacturing
operations in 1983, taking over a facility
that came in last in the company's internal
rankings of its plants around the world.
Within two years, Gutierrez had transformed
the facility into one of Kellogg's top-performing
plants.
He became chief executive of Kellogg in
April 1999 at the age of 43 after having
worked all over the world for the cereal
maker.
Since taking over, Gutierrez narrowed the
company's primary focus to cereal and wholesome
snacks, providing new life for such brands
as Special K and winning admiration on Wall
Street for reviving the fortunes of a flagging
company.
Kellogg's net sales rose from $6.2 billion
in 1999 to $8.8 billion last year, a 43
percent increase, helping to drive earnings
per share up by 131 percent.
For his efforts, Gutierrez received $7.4
million in total compensation in 2003, including
salary, bonus and incentive payments, according
to a Kellogg proxy statement. He owns or
has option rights to 2 million shares of
company stock.
Gutierrez gained respect for his ability
to guide Kellogg's fortunes not only in
the United States but around the world.
The Michigan-based company has manufacturing
facilities in 19 countries and sells its
products in more than 180 nations.
The administration has been engaged in
a campaign to bolster the fortunes of America's
struggling manufacturing sector, which has
seen the loss of 2.7 million factory jobs
over the past four years as the country's
trade deficit soared to record heights.
In his comments, Gutierrez said he had
no doubt that the United States would remain
the best country in the world with which
to do business.
"We have the best people. We have
the training. We have the workers,"
Guiteirrez said. "I believe the 21st
century is really and truly the American
century, as the president does."
Bush's nomination of Gutierrez to succeed
Donald Evans as head of the sprawling Commerce
Department, must be confirmed by the Senate.
Cruz's 'Anna In The Tropics' Starts
London Premiere
James Inverne Playbill On-Line.
Mon Nov 29.
London's Hampstead Theatre, which has had
a pretty torrid time since opening its new
building in Swiss Cottage, is looking to
improve its fortunes with a Pulitzer Prize-winner.
Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics previews
from Nov. 25, with opening night set for
Nov. 30.
The work of Cuban playwright Cruz is much
in demand throughout the U.S., with his
other plays Lorca in a Green Dress and Beauty
of the Father having had multiple productions
there. Anna snatched the Pulitzer Prize
for Drama and a 2004 Tony Award nomination
for Best Play.
Set in 1929 Florida, Anna depicts a reader,
or 'lector,' who is employed to read to
the employees of a cigar factory. But the
choice of book - Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina'
- has explosive consequences.
In New York the cast featured Jimmy Smits
and Priscilla Lopez. The Hampstead production
will star Diana Quick and Joseph Mydell
and will be directed by Indhu Rubasingham.
Quick, a winner of Emmy and BAFTA awards,
was last seen on the London stage in the
Shared Experience production of After Mrs.
Rochester, which played the Lyric Hammersmith
and the Duke of York's Theatre in the West
End. Mydell has an Olivier Award to his
resume (for Perestroika, part two of Tony
Kushner's Angels in America at the National
Theatre) as well as numerous credits with
the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Anna in the Tropics will run at the Hampstead
until Jan. 8, 2005. For more information,
call (0)207 722 9301.
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