Chavez defends Colombia rebels

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has urged the international community to stop labelling Colombia’s left-wing rebels as terrorists, a day after mediating the release of two of their hostages.

The political aims of the groups need to be recognised, Chavez told Venezuelan politicians during his annual state of the nation speech on Friday.

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The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) “are not terrorist groups, they are armies, real armies that occupy space in Colombia,” Chavez said.

He urged European and Latin American nations to resist what he called “US pressure”.

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“I ask you [Colombian President Alvaro Uribe] that we start recognising the Farc and the ELN as insurgent forces in Colombia and not terrorist groups, and I ask the same of the governments of this continent and the world,” he said.

‘Terrorist’ organisations

The Farc is the oldest and largest guerrilla army in Latin America and has been fighting the government for several decades.

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Cubans in Miami desperate for word on families feared lost at sea after leaving Cuba

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ , Associated Press

Last update: January 1, 2008 – 11:52 AM

HIALEAH, Fla. -This was supposed to be the year Luis Bazan celebrated New Year’s with his wife and young sons in the U.S.

Bazan left Cuba for Florida nearly two years ago on a hand-wrought wooden boat. On Nov. 24, his family and about 40 others, including a dozen young children, set out on the same journey aboard a speedy fishing boat.

The last he heard from his wife was when she talked to him using a borrowed cell phone shortly after they began the dangerous trip across the Florida Straits.

“My only drop of hope is that the boat landed somewhere in the Bahamas and that they haven’t been able to call,” Bazan said recently as he sat in his one-room Hialeah apartment, tracing his fingers over photos of his boys, 8-year-old Yasel and 2-year-old Yarlon.

More likely, Bazan’s wife and sons met the same fate as thousands of other Cubans migrants who have perished at sea trying to reach the U.S. since Cuban President Fidel Castro took power in 1959.

In the last two months alone, according to the Coast Guard, relatives have reported nearly 70 migrants aboard three boats have died or gone missing in the Florida Straits, including those on the boat with Bazan’s family. As recently as Saturday, the Coast Guard suspended a 48-hour search for a boat with at least three migrants aboard.

“In recent months and recent days, we’ve seen a very alarming loss of life,” said U.S. Coast Guard Spokesman Chris O’Neil.

In 2007, the U.S. stopped about 3,200 Cubans at sea, up from about 2,300 the year before. It was the largest number of interdictions since the 1994 rafter crisis in which 37,000 Cubans tried to reach Florida after Castro briefly opened the island’s ports. The numbers had fallen to as low as 391 in 1996, with 394 the following year.

O’Neil attributes the recent increase to a variety of factors, including months of mild weather, high-tech smuggling operations and concern among Cubans over the future of their country without the ailing Castro, who ceded power to his brother last year.

Under U.S. policy, Cubans who reach U.S. land are generally allowed to stay, while those stopped at sea are generally sent back, under the so-called “wet-foot, dry-foot policy.” Without Castro, Cubans could lose their preferential treatment if relations between the two countries improve.

Bazan wasn’t thinking about politics when he left his small village in Mantanzas in 2006.

“I came for everything, for freedom and to drag my family out of miserable poverty,” he said.

He found an apartment in this Miami suburb, got a job unloading packages at a cargo transport company, and sent packages home.

“I would make video tapes every month, playing and telling them stories so that they could see me. I left my little one when he was about six months, and he could pick me out of a photo album,” Bazan said.

Eventually he secured a spot for his family on a boat chartered by a recent fellow Cuban immigrant. Bazan and other relatives of people on that boat said they never paid for the trip, which would be a federal crime. The trip wasn’t expected to take more than a day in clear weather.

Bazan said he didn’t call the Coast Guard for nearly two weeks because he was sure his wife and sons had completed the crossing and were being processed by immigration authorities.

After he finally called, the Coast Guard searched the route the boat was supposed to take but found nothing. A week later, Bazan chartered a small plane for a fruitless aerial search.

O’Neil said it’s unlikely anyone on the boat is alive.

Coast Guard officials say they can’t prevent more drownings without more help from the Cuban-American community.

“We need the community to say ‘This is not acceptable anymore. It’s not acceptable to continue to pay people to subject our relatives, our loved ones and our friends to these dangerous conditions. It’s no longer acceptable to see this loss in life,'” O’Neil said.

Bazan, who was briefly taken to a psychiatric ward after authorities feared he was suicidal, says he is ready to face whatever comes but he couldn’t celebrate the New Year as he had hoped.

“How can I go and eat at a buffet until I know if my family exists or not?” he said. “How can I celebrate anything until I know what happened to them?”

Cuba’s Castro says no longer ‘clings’ to power

This bastard is really funny, after almost 50 years of dictatorship he came out with this. HELL is what you need to visit, soon it will be if it is not already your home.

HAVANA, Dec 28 (Reuters) Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro sent a written message to the National Assembly today saying he had ”clung” to power in his younger days, but that life had taught him to change his attitude.

Castro, who handed over governance to his brother Raul after surgery in July 2006, hinted last week he may give up his formal leadership in a letter describing his duty as ”not to hold to positions and less to obstruct the path of younger people.” Cuba’s National Assembly could formalize Castro’s retirement as head of state when it approves the members of the executive Council of State at its new session in March.

Since falling ill, the 81-year-old Castro has only appeared in official photographs and pre-taped videos and it is unclear whether he will resume office. If he is too ill, the assembly may formally appoint Raul Castro or someone else as successor.

”What the foreign press in Cuba have most reported in recent days has been the phrase where I expressed … that I am not a person who clings to power. I could add that I was once, for the excesses of youth and lack of conscience,” Castro said in a statement read out at the assembly session, where the younger Castro, 76, sat next to his brother’s empty seat.

”What changed me, life itself, through the deepening of the thoughts of (Cuban hero Jose) Marti and the classics of socialism,” he wrote.

Castro has been nominated to run again for the assembly and his brother says he is now well enough that party delegates back his running again for an assembly seat, a requirement for holding the presidency.

He holds the posts of president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, and first secretary of the ruling Communist Party.

Cuba watchers say there has been a smooth transition of power under Raul Castro. Some analysts say he is a more practical administrator who has begun talking about a more open approach to handling the island’s economic problems.

In a landmark speech in July this year, Raul Castro, encouraged more debate on the country’s main problems and promised ”structural changes” in agriculture to ensure Cubans have more food as import costs rise.

Cuba embargo undermined: US report

Wed Dec 19, 10:49 PM ET

The US trade embargo on Cuba is being undermined by factors that include a lack of cooperation from some countries and domestic opposition to the rules, an official US report out Wednesday said.

According to the General Accountability Office (GAO), the audit and investigative branch of the US Congress, several factors “hinder enforcement of the Cuba embargo, sometimes acting in concert.”

A “lack of cooperation from foreign countries has undercut the embargo’s effectiveness and hampered inspections and investigations,” the GAO reports.

US public opinion is divided on the embargo, “particularly regarding the new travel and cash transfer restrictions.”

Some embargo violations, including on-line money transfers through third countries, “are difficult to detect or control.”

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Venezuela Proposes to Hold Operators Responsible for Sms Content

Nice, this is part of the new light-dictatorship  happening here.

Source: Cellular News

Venezuela’s telecoms regulator Conatel launched this week a public consultation on a reform bill that proposes to hold mobile operators accountable for the content sent in text messages via their networks, the watchdog said in a statement.

The proposed changes in article 8 can be reviewed on Conatel’s website for the duration of the consultation period running December 10-24.

Operators should warn subscribers in their contracts that it is forbidden to send messages that encourage illegal acts or send unsolicited publicity, the statement read.

The bill is expected to be approved over the next few days and published in the official gazette.

Operators are expected to have in place by January 15 measures to detect such messages.

Venezuela creates own time zone

The technical merits for this measure are all questionable, but that is not going to be our focus. We just one to note , this is what happens when you have a dictator with way too much time, ideas like this come to his mind. And BTW he actually (likely) believes he is making us the biggest of the favors by saving us from the imperialist imposition of -4 GMT, thank you Hugo … what about real work for a change?

Venezuelan early risers will now get more daylight

Venezuela creates its own unique time zone on Sunday, putting the clock back half-an-hour on a permanent basis. President Hugo Chavez says that an earlier dawn means the performance of the country will improve, as more people will wake up in daylight.

“I don’t care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead,” he said.

But critics say the move is unnecessary and the president simply wants to be in a different time zone from his arch-rival, the United States.

The new time puts Venezuela four-and-a-half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, and out of step with all its neighbours.

Venezuela: A New Player in the Mix

Summary
The Venezuelan government lost its constitutional amendment referendum in a national vote Dec. 2, emboldening the opposition and dealing President Hugo Chavez his first electoral defeat since he took office a decade ago. This is hardly the end of the line for Chavez, but something new is taking shape in the country: a competent and capable opposition.

 

Analysis
Contrary to Venezuelan government predictions, a constitutional referendum that would have consolidated President Hugo Chavez’s power has failed by a slim margin, reports indicate. This is the first electoral defeat for Chavez since he became president in 1997; he has survived not only elections but also recall referendums and even a coup. What makes this vote different, however, is not that Chavez lost, but how he lost.

 

Chavez’s inability to stamp out the embers of opposition has raised hope among his detractors — many of whom call him “the world’s worst dictator” — that he will one day make one mistake too many and be swept aside.

 

Stratfor does not agree with this assessment. Although he is personally unpredictable and many aspects of his rule are erratic, as a political operator, Chavez is among the savviest we have ever seen. His use of oil revenues to solidify his power base and export his ideology has proven remarkably successful, and the arming of his Chavistas with automatic weapons has hugely mitigated the chance that any “People Power” revolution can displace him. (Do not confuse these comments with an endorsement; being a competent power broker is not the same as being a competent leader.)

Maria fled Cuba for a better life here (Canada)

‘Left in a little boat’; Sacrificed for her daughters to prosper

AMY LUFT, The Gazette

Published: Tuesday, December 04

Maria, a Cuban native, faced a dangerous escape from her homeland with her two young daughters. A doctor, she risked her life and fled the communist nation to join her husband in Canada.

Now separated, and with little money to support her children, Maria has given up working as a doctor and knows she made the ultimate sacrifice for her daughters to prosper in Canada.

Maria has lived for three years here without employment, learning first to speak French, and now English, and surviving on welfare. She scrapes by on handouts from the community and pinches every penny.

Maria and her daughters are among the thousands of Montrealers who are to receive $125 from The Gazette Christmas Fund. The money helps needy individuals and families during the holiday season.

Maria is struggling in Canada. She hopes the future will be brighter, but she misses her family and friends in Cuba. She feels isolated because she hasn’t yet integrated into society. Going through a divorce, without work and still learning the local languages, she finds it hard to make friends.

But after her escape from Cuba, she feels lucky to be in Canada. Though they tried to leave legally, Maria and her young daughters were barred from doing so, and escaped the only way they could.

“I left in a little boat. It took us two days to get to Mexico and it was very dangerous,” she said. From Mexico, Maria and her young daughters travelled two days on foot to the U.S. border, then rode by bus to the Canadian border, where she received a temporary residence visa. Three years later, the girls, age 6 and 7, are now enjoying life in Montreal, but Maria is lagging behind.

“I can’t work as a doctor or a nurse here. There’s a wall up against people who are trained elsewhere,” she explained. She plans to study to get her Canadian credentials as a nurse after she completes her English courses in six months.

Though Christmas is a season for extra spending, especially difficult when it’s already hard to get by, the St. Laurent resident is looking forward to the holiday. It’s one time of year Maria doesn’t feel lonely.

“I get to see people from Cuba I never get to see. We have a party where we dance and play Cuban music and eat together. We have fun. I wish it happened more often,” she said. She plans to use The Gazette donation to buy educational toys for her daughters.

Maria is especially thankful for the help she has received in Montreal, and for the generosity of others. When she first moved here and settled in Dorval, she did not have a cent, and charitable neighbors provided her with a mattress, dishes and food.

“People are very generous,” she said.

“We never would have received this in Cuba.”

– – –

Christmas Fund

How you can help: Send donations to The Gazette Christmas Fund, PO Box 11057, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, H3C 4Z4.

Please use the coupon on Page A13. Fax it to us at (514) 987-2244, or drop off a donation at 1010 Ste. Catherine St. W., or phone us: (514) 987-2400, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or donate online: http://www.christmasfund.com

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

Venezuela has not become a second Cuba

		Opinion & analysis
		19:08 | 04/ 12/ 2007

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti international commentator Ivan Zakharchenko) – Some Venezuelans don’t like Hugo Chavez because they fear losing power and wellbeing.

Others, on the other hand, love their president but still fear he might go too far in his attempts to build “democratic socialism,” and never solve social problems.

It seems those who fear he may go too far have multiplied, which led to the Venezuelan leader’s defeat at last Sunday’s referendum on constitutional reform.

Chavez had put up 69 amendments to the fundamental law of the country for consideration, including lifting all the restrictions on reelecting the same person president, introducing the practice of appointing not electing the heads of local administrations, declaring martial law for an indefinite period of time, and limiting the freedom of the press.

Their adoption would have meant the proclamation of socialism in Venezuela, the country considered to be the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States.

Observers note that most Venezuelans have shown that they do not share Chavez’s views, no matter how attractive his social and economic projects could be; he wanted to cut the working day from eight to six hours and set up public councils for the distribution of government funds.

The amendments were only supported by 49% of the referendum voters, while 51% opposed them.

A year ago more than seven million people backed Chavez in the presidential election, but now he has lost the support of some three million.

True, there is the view that many failed to turn up, secure in the knowledge that Chavez would win anyway. But this did not happen.

The 53-year-old president, who came to power in 1998 and conceded defeat at the present referendum, explained the situation by doubts and fears felt by the population. He also attributed it to the lack of time for explaining the gist of the program leading to the victory of socialism. But, analysts believe, Chavez simply overestimated his popularity in the country.

Emil Dabagyan, a leading research fellow at the Center for Political Studies of the Institute of Latin America, said the referendum results are a “good barometer of the sentiment changes in Venezuelan society.”

“The opposition managed to accumulate these sentiments, while the ruling bloc began breaking up, and a shaky balance set in, with Chavez losing support from the upper and middle classes and from the ruling camp as well,” the expert said.

Reports from Caracas say that Chavez’s socialist program did have success in the past nine years owing to his populist policies and rising oil prices, but many of his former supporters are now disappointed with the shortages and high prices of essential items, such as milk, eggs and sugar. They are also dissatisfied with the growth of crime and the president’s growing personality cult. The people have finally expressed their disagreement and reluctance to follow Chavez all the way to the socialist future unless he satisfies their current needs.

Still, the opposition’s victory at the referendum in Venezuela has not knocked Chavez out. He still has five years in office ahead of him, and he will make every effort to reach his goals. The opposition parties are still weak and disunited; they do not have a leader who would be a match for Hugo Chavez.

Moreover, he is already trying to use the results of the referendum for his own ends making it out as an encouraging sign of a functional democracy, and therefore the accusations of him being a dictator are groundless and poorly argued.

Chavez’s social programs, including healthcare and education, are still popular with low-income families. The president, who is obviously a very gifted politician, swore he would continue to build socialism and was not going to change his plans.

The opposition, inspired by its first victory, also has time and will have plenty of opportunities to launch an offensive. For example, certain experts have mentioned the constitutional possibility of holding a referendum on Chavez’s early resignation. One such attempt was made in 2004, but the president won that round.

The current situation could prove different, and whatever Hugo Chavez’s political talents, Venezuela will never be a “second Cuba” in South America.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

Cuba: 29 dissidents detained in less than two weeks

December 4, 2007

HAVANA
Cuban police have detained 29 anti-government activists in less than two weeks and seven remain jailed, including a man who called for the communist-run island to tolerate independent universities, a human rights leader said Monday.

 

Independent education activist Rolando Rodriguez was arrested last week after announcing that 5,000 signatures had been collected in support of autonomous universities in Cuba, said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

 

Sanchez, whose organization is not recognized but is tolerated by Cuban authorities, said the arrests come as government critics prepare to mark International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

He said the detentions began Nov. 21, when five government critics in Havana were detained by police without charges, then released.

Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel