Cuba Protects its Children and Enforces Law

By Istvan Ojeda Bello

Children are the most important members for any family and most states have shown concern for the wellbeing of future generations. Consequently, if parents fail to fulfill their natural obligations, it is the responsibility for the nation’s judicial power to take measures to preserve the integrity of its youngest citizens.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989 and in effect since 1990, clearly expresses in its ninth article that "state parties shall ensure that a child not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities —subject to judicial review— determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child."

Currently 96 percent of the children around the world, including Cuban children, live in countries whose laws are compatible with the UN convention. The right of parents to raise their children, regardless of their religious or political beliefs, has been recognized worldwide.

Spain’s constitution, for instance, states in its 39th article that parents should provide all types of assistance to children they have had within or outside marriage, while they are minors and in other cases that the law may establish.

Likewise, Mexico’s constitution affirms in Article 4 that parents shall ensure the right of minors to satisfy their needs and must take care for their physical and mental health.

Guatemala’s Magna Carta makes it clear, in Article 51, that "the state shall ensure the physical, mental, and moral wellbeing of minors and the elderly. It will ensure their right to food, healthcare, education and security, and welfare."

The obligations established by the different national laws even consider the possibility of withdrawing the legal custody of minors from people who are a threat to the physical or mental integrity of children. It is therefore not at all strange that several countries include in their fundamental legislation the commitment of the state to the welfare of boys and girls.

In that sense Germany’s constitution, in Article 6, states that "the protection and education of children is a natural right entitled to parents and an obligation which primarily involves them (…) children could only be separated from their family by virtue of a law, if those in responsible for their education do not comply with their duties, or if, for others reason, the children run the risk of abandonment." It is an outrageous crime to cause any harm to a child.


That is why judicial institutions are very severe with those who mistreat children. Recently a Catalonian court withdrew the custody of their four children from a couple who lives Barcelona. They were accused of maltreatment and neglect after one of their children had to be operated on for necrosis in one of his hands; this had resulted from a poorly treated burn. The mother was the first to be arrested. Due to the resulting lesions, she was accused of child neglect, which is considered a crime by Article 226 of the Spanish Penal Code.

In Valencia, also in Spain, some 70 parents lost their rights to their children in 2005 after judicial authorities proved that the minors were living in a dangerous family situation. The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, in its fourth chapter, recognizes that the family is the fundamental unit of society and states that parents have the duties to feed their children, assist them in the defense of their interests, and contribute actively to their education and development.

Cuba has proven on several occasions its attachment to the right of parents to give their children the type of education that they consider most appropriate, even prior to the UN adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Perhaps the period which was most trying for Cuba was in the 1960’s, when many parents —confused by counter-revolutionary propaganda— sent their children alone to the US.

In September 1961, Fidel Castro, who was then prime minister of the revolutionary government, said, "It is painful that those children are being sent there [to the US] to be educated, but above all, we respect the sentiment and right of each family." Those were the days of Operation Peter Pan, a slanderous propaganda campaign directed from the US which spread the rumor that the Cuban government would deprive parents of custody of their children.

More than 14,000 children were taken to the US. The revolutionary government, however, never prevented the departure of any of the minors, as long as they left the country in a safe and legal manner. According to Dr. Olga Miranda Bravo, if the authorities had prevented the departure of the children —whom their parents had given the corresponding authorization through a notarial act and all requirements for travel abroad had been met— then the slanderer would have been proven right.

Miaranda Bravo, who has been a member of The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration since 1973 and an adjunct Professor of Havana’s Higher Institute of International Relations, says that, "child custody, according to Cuban legislation, is a right of all parents, even those who are not disqualified to exercise it.

This was not the case of those parents misled by that propaganda, as they excised their right and transferred it to US authorities or to their representatives in that country. For that, they subsequently paid a high price, as in many cases they lost their children, were later rebuked by their children or by history itself. Laws have acknowledged that parents have the right to raise their children and to take them wherever they decide.

But the laws in most countries around the world have also established that parents cannot violate the laws, nor are they entitled to put the lives of their children at stake

Fidel Castro Leads Bay of Pigs Anniversary Assembly

Commander in Chief Fidel Castro led the political cultural assembly to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the victory against the Bay of Pigs invasion. He denounced new aggressive plans of the United States government.


Orfilio Pelaez

pelaez@granma.cip.cu


We have high hopes that the new generations will have the same determination as the valuable comrades who died fighting the mercenary aggression, said President Fidel Castro at the political cultural assembly for the 45th anniversary of the victory over the Bay of Pigs invasion, held Wednesday at the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana.


At the beginning of his speech, the leader of the Revolution said he had never seen so much history and glory together. He was referring to the presence of over 3,000 participants in the heroic defense of the island at the Bay of Pigs, which dealt US imperialism its first major defeat in Latin America.


Before Fidel Castro addressed the audience and the nation, three other speakers took to the podium: Bay of Pigs veteran Julio Osvaldo Chaviano, Dr. Antonio Vargas Gonzalez of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, and Lisbeth Ruiz Sanchez, student at the Eduardo Garcia Delgado Art Instructors School.


The evening included performances by student Kenia Otano, who recited a poem, musicians Emiliano Sardinas and Hector Gutierrez, actor Jorge Enrique Caballero and troubadour Sara Gonzalez, who sang Giron, The Victory.


Besides the thousands of Bay of Pigs veterans and family members of those who died in battle, also attending the gathering were members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party and Councils of State and Ministers, relatives of the Cuban Five, Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his family including his son Elian, representatives of political parties including Kgalema Motlanthe, secretary general of South Africa’s African National Congress party, and the diplomatic corps.

The U.S. ban on travel to Cuba devastates local families

By Kathy Johnston

A rare visit to SLO next week by a musician from Cuba brings into the spotlight the U.S. ban on travel to and from our Caribbean neighbor. It's a prohibition that hits especially close to home for two prominent local Cuban-Americans who aren't allowed to go back to see their families. Delvis Fernandez, the founder and president of the national Cuban American Alliance Education Fund, would like to take his blind 88-year-old mother Sara to Cuba to visit with her diabetic 86-year-old sister, whose leg was recently amputated. But their proposed trip is illegal under the U.S.

Administration's tightening regulations.

George "Jorge" Milanés of Los Osos wants to travel to Havana to see his dying 94-year-old aunt, Tia Carmen, who-in a typical Cuban extended family custom-helped raise him. However, U.S. rules forbid him to go. "What are we as a society if we violate the basic rights of the most fundamental part of civilization, the family?" asks Fernandez, who moved from his Washington, D.C. office to See Canyon to be closer to his sons and grandchildren.

"There is such pain among Cuban-Americans because of family separation. I want American people to be aware that the policy of the Bush Administration has exacerbated a tremendous problem," he adds.

Although other Americans are not allowed to travel to Cuba at all, Cuban-Americans are now allowed one trip every three years to visit family members. But under the new rules, "family" has been redefined only as mother, father, sister or brother. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews don't qualify-which is the reason Fernandez is not allowed to accompany his aging mother on a visit to her sister.

"We could be detained, we could be arrested, if we go to see our family, if we unite two elderly people, two loving sisters, in the twilight of their lives," Fernandez says with a deep sigh.

Administration officials say the travel ban is aimed at supporting the U.S. embargo and restricting the flow of funds to Fidel Castro's government, thereby hastening a regime change. That's also the reason Cubans are not permitted to travel into the U.S., where they might earn money.

Cuban guitarist and composer Pablo Menéndez, who comes to Cuesta College April 17, is virtually the only musician currently allowed to travel back and forth. But he's a special case. Born in Oakland, California, Pablo Menéndez went to Cuba in 1966, at age 14, to visit his father and study music. He's been living and playing music there ever since, an active part of the Cuban music scene.

Members of Menéndez' Grammy-nominated band Mezcla (Spanish for "mixture") are not allowed to accompany him, so instead of a concert, he'll give a multimedia tribute to Cuban music. The event is cosponsored by the Central Coast Cuban American Alliance, a local group founded by Milanés after he revisited his birthplace in Cuba in 2000.

Milanés first met Pablo Menéndez 12 years ago, while attending a Northern California concert of Mezcla promoted by Carlos Santana. "Mezcla is the cleanest, freshest water I have ever tasted," gushes Santana.

Impressed by the band leader's blend of traditional African rhythms, Cuban songs, jazz, blues, and rock, Milanés made a point of seeing Pablo Menéndez' concert at Havana's premier jazz club, La Zorra y El Cuervo (The Fox and the Skunk). [Fox and Crow--L.A.] He's stayed in contact, and invited the Cuban musician to the Central Coast for next week's Cuesta College presentation.

With the Bush Administration's new definition of "family" for Cuban-Americans, Milanés cannot legally travel to Havana again, since he has only aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews there. His California-born children are not allowed a first-hand experience of their Cuban roots. "How gross is that, to hinge foreign policy on the separation of families, especially for a 'family values' kind of guy," Milanés fumes.

When Milanés was three, during Cuba's revolutionary struggle, a government-issued military bullet pierced the wall above his crib, so his uncle put him on a plane in Havana to join his parents in Miami. For Milanés, going back to Cuba after living 40 years in the U.S. was "life-altering."

"Stepping on Cuban soil in 2000, I almost got weak in the knees with the flush of feelings. I felt like I was home," Milanés says. Now, he says, to be legally allowed to visit, he would have to marry a Cuban-and would be allowed to see her only once every three years, even if they had children there.

Fernandez' story has a similar ring. He arrived in the U.S. from Cuba in 1957 at the age of 17 to attend college in Salt Lake City. With limited English skills, he enrolled in mathematics classes, eventually obtaining his Ph.D. and becoming a college math professor in the Bay Area.

Returning to Cuba to see his younger sister 22 years later was a dramatic experience for him. He had last seen her when she was just four years old.

"You have the hunger for connection, for commonality of day-to-day experiences, all those little things of life we're missing-that's what creates love," Fernandez says.

Later, his sister suffered an aneurysm, and her family in the U.S. couldn't go see her before she passed away. The experience was a catalyst for Fernandez to form the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund, which advocates for expanded trade, especially of food and medical supplies, and more liberal visitation policies. He's lobbied Congressional lawmakers, and last year testified before the U.S. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

But the U.S. rules on travel and trade keep tightening up, in spite of his efforts. Even educational and arts exchanges, like the one that took the SLO's Academy of Dance to Cuba in 2000, are no longer allowed.

Some Americans are refusing to follow the Administration's directives on Cuban travel, lured by the forbidden fruit that's closer to the U.S. than Santa Barbara is to SLO. In spite of the risk of fines up to $65,000, according to the Los Angeles Times, "many" Americans fly to Havana through the back door, from Canada, Jamaica, the Bahamas, or Mexico. At least 500 Americans were fined last year for traveling to Cuba, according to the Times
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From Fernandez' point of view, most Americans are not aware of the U.S. Administration's travel restrictions. "You'll find every American you talk to rejects the U.S. policy. We have to expose this cruelty so people will rise up and say, 'This is not right.' There comes a time when you have to say, 'Basta,' that's enough."

Surrounded in his See Canyon office by Cuban books, photos, and a bust of José Martí, Fernandez quotes the Cuban national hero: "To see a crime and do nothing is to commit that crime."
Award-winning journalist Kathy Johnston may be reached at kjohnston@newtimesslo.com.

Frustrated Airwaves of a Macabre War

By RANDY ALONSO FALCON

Along with the thunder of its arsenal, Washington flexes its muscles through its propaganda, using the latest technology.

The US media has been used to unleash wars (Remember the Maine! Remember Iraq!) and to manipulate public opinion in “enemy” countries.

Cuba has been a target of this media manipulation and aggression for four decades. Two of the most infamous manifestations of this anti-Cuban intervention are Radio Marti and TV Marti, created during the Reagan-Bush era in 1985 and 1990 respectively.

Right from their sordid beginnings as tools for manipulation, both have been ostracized. Twenty years and close to $500 million dollars later, the anti-Cuban radio and television stations are still without any audience in Cuba.

A recent study from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) fully reveals the framework of US interference, professional ineptitude, manipulation, political corruption and the colossal waste associated with these two US government companies.

INDUCED BIRTH

The hypocritical media creations, cynically named after Cuba’s National Hero, were the fruit of Washington’s obstinacy and the Cuban American National Foundation’s ability to buy political leverage in Washington.

As revealed in the COHA report, one of the main driving forces behind the Broadcasting to Cuba Act of 1983 —which enabled the creation of Radio Marti— was the Republican senator from Florida, Paula Hawkins, who received more than $126,000 dollars from Cuban-American organizations for his political campaigns.

Following this law was the Television Broadcasting to Cuba Act, sponsored by the Democratic senator from South Carolina, Ernest Hollins, and Republican Representatives William Broomfield (Michigan) and Dante Fascell (Florida). The research report “The Cuban Connection: Cuban-American Money in US Elections, 1979-2000” reveals how Senator Hollins received more than $94,000 dollars, and Fascell more than $97,000, from Cuban-American organizations for their political campaigns.

FROM BAD TO WORSE

From the very onset of these two anti-Cuban stations, the ultra-rightwing Cuban-American community in Miami took hold of them, turning what were already offensive and interventionist broadcasts into the voice of their dark and sinister interests.

The head honcho of the Cuban-American National Foundation, Jorge Mas Canosa, was also the first chairperson of the President’s Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting, from where he had complete control of both stations.

The COHA report also details how in 1996, both the US General Accounting Office and the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General investigated Radio and TV Marti in response to allegations from station insiders who were fired for their political beliefs and criticisms of the stations.

The relocation of both broadcasters from Washington to Miami in 1998 caused a backlash. Even the station’s former news director, Jay Mallin, acknowledges, "The station has gone steadily downhill… under a series of… totally incompetent directors.”

This was during the time when Herminio San Roman was director of the Office of Cuban Broadcasting (OCB) and manager of Radio Marti and TV Marti. He was accused of “significant deterioration of programming.”

An evaluation carried out in 1998 by five journalists associated with the Florida International University looked at Radio Marti programming and concluded that there were problems of credibility, inadequate sourcing, and a profound lack of professionalism.

Following, the anti-Cuban consortium was directed by the unsavory individual Salvador Lew. According to the COHA report: “Lew’s tumultuous tenure had created utter chaos and internal strife within the Marti operations, as he filled its ranks with close personal associates, including some of Miami’s most ultra radical right-wing figures, among them such tawdry characters as Amardo Perez Roura, a follower of Batista and a member of the Alpha 66 and the Cuban Unity faction, as well as Rolando Espinosa, former partner of brigand businessman Demetrio Perez Jr.”

WADING THROUGH THE SWAMP

With many more millions in their coffers, the anti-Cuban broadcasters carry on down the same muddy path: plagued by internal turmoil, they do not see or hear criticisms. The current head of the propaganda machine is Pedro Roig, another former Bay of Pigs mercenary and an individual closely linked to the CANF and the reactionary Floridian congresspersons.

Despite the fact that the poorly named Radio Marti has increased its broadcast frequencies and transmissions from Florida, California and North Carolina, while flagrantly violating international broadcasting laws, its impact on Cuba is laughable. An even bigger failure has been the television broadcasts, practically invisible, whose latest mishap was the disappearance, during a hurricane, of the blimp from which they were broadcasting their transmissions.

The COHA report clearly demonstrates the failures: "Radio and TV Marti is almost entirely characterized by propagandistic low-quality programming, mismanagement, and a striking inability to reach the intended Cuban island audience.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, (D- Ore), recently lashed out saying: “What we have been feeding the Cuban people is static and snow… and this is just about the most expensive snow we have seen on the planet.”

Despite the incompetence, waste, corruption, discredit and interventionist nature of the anti-Cuban broadcasters, they continue to receive lucrative US public funding as part of Washington’s obsessive policies towards Cuba and the support of congresspersons who receive campaign funding from Miami-based rightwing Cuban-American organizations.

As cited in the COHA report, “…the whole venture is in fact little better than a ill-reputed rape of the treasury and a propaganda machine for the radical right-wing of the Miami Cuban community, as well as a job-bank for unemployed anti-Havana ideologues.”

Despite all the criticism, the US Congress earmarked $37 million dollars this year for funding of the two broadcasters. Included in this sum is $10 million for the purchase of an EC-130 military aircraft that will replace the one currently being rented from the US Air Force for the media aggression against Cuba.

The COHA report states: "In his 2005 State of the Union Address, President Bush proclaimed ‘tax payers dollars must be spent wisely or not at all.’ Given that the U.S. is currently facing a serious budgetary and debt crisis, one must question why this administration and congress is willing to spend an additional $10 million dollars above and beyond the hundreds of millions already spent on anti-Havana initiatives including Radio and TV Marti.”

The anti-Cuban propaganda machine may receive even more funding in the coming days after a Commission, chaired by Condoleezza Rice, finishes its review of the Bush Plan for Cuba.

Sincerely, the best piece of advice for Ms. Rice may be that from Senator Byron Dorgan who, during a debate in Congress over the anti-Cuban creations, told Rice to “have the courage to shut down a program that is a total waste of the American taxpayers' money.”