CUBANEWS NOTES FROM LOS ANGELES
by Walter Lippman, May 4, 2004
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PERSONAL NOTE
After Fidel's May Day speech on Saturday, I've taken a bit of
time off. I strongly urge any readers who may not have read it
to take the time to read or re-read Fidel's May Day speech if
you haven't already done so. You can find it at this location:
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2004/ing/f010504i.html
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CUBANEWS NOTES
Through the CubaNews Notes I speak in more of a personal voice,
reflecting on some of the key events going on in relation to
Cuba. I sometimes discuss other topics of interest to me as an
activist and moderator of the CubaNews list.
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AFTERMATH OF FIDEL CASTRO'S MAY DAY SPEECH
There's been a tremendous amount of activity since Saturday when
Fidel Castro gave his traditional May Day speech, and the speech
itself has had considerable repercussions. I went back and read
it again and found there were important points I'd missed when
first reading it. Since Fidel's speech on Saturday the reaction
has been swift: Mexico and Peru have recalled their ambassadors.
Mexico says it is lowering diplomatic relations with the island
to charge d'affaires level, but not cutting off relations. As of
yet I have no details on Peru. The US State Department gloated
over this in its daily briefing this morning. I'll be sending
that out to the CubaNews list separately.

It's quite remarkable to observe the difference between how a
story of this magnitude is carried in the English-language vs.
the Spanish-language media. One of the less obvious aspects of
Washington's blockade of Cuba is the simply non-reporting of
events related to Cuba, or reporting them in such small ways
it's easy to miss them. In the last couple of days the events
surrounding the expulsion of the Cuban ambassador to Mexico
has been buried in the US media. In the Los Angeles times it
merited nothing more than a few paragraphs hidden inside the
paper. In LA OPINION, the main Spanish-language paper it was
the main story on the front page yesterday, running all the
way across the entire top of the front page in two-inch high
print. Today's demonstrations are both featured on the front
page of both of the L.A. Spanish-language dailies, with the
story in HOY being the main cover story with a photo of the
demonstration in support of Cuba held yesterday and which
was attended by two thousand people, as the Cuban media
reported. Nothing in today's L.A. Times about the protest
in Mexico City. Their article was headlined Cuba-Mexican
relations unravel" which is the State Dept gloating opinion.
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VIETNAM'S LIBERATION AND ITS INTERNATIONAL REVERBERATIONS
Fifty years ago at this time, Vietnam succeeded in finally
kicking the French colonialists out of half of the country.
It would take another nineteen years for the rest of Vietnam
to be freed of foreign intervention, by the United States.
I've got several news articles about Vietnam which I will be
sharing with you because of the close relations between Cuba
and Vietnam.

Today, of course, Vietnam has won and maintained its
independence. Today the US maintains formally friendly
diplomatic and active economic relations with Vietnam.
Using the carrot instead of the stick, in a way similar
to the US approach to China, Washington hopes that using
market forces it can reimpose the rule of foreign capital.

If you've seen Tony Bui's eloquent movie THREE SEASONS,
you can get a sense of the contending forces of tradition
and capitalism at work in that country. Vietnam and Cuba
have long maintained extremely warm and cordial relations.
Vietnam and Cuba, despite the distance, retain an active
economic relationship. Lots of the rice Cubans eat comes
from Vietnam, which sells it to the island on favorable
and long term credits. Cuba sells sugar to Vietnam and
I'm not sure what else.
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SOME VIETNAMESE-AMERICANS FOLLOW MIAMI'S EXAMPLE
Not long ago a group of Vietnamese-American exiles who are
living in the Southern California Communities of Orange
County have passed local ordinances to either prevent any
visits to their communities by representatives of the
Vietnamese government. The Bush administration gave this
smaller but no less virulent group encouragement by its
recent decision to prevent a visit to that community by
Vietnamese government officials. It's a kind of monkey-
see, monkey-do kind of thing. The Los Angeles TIMES
wagged its finger at the local Vietnamese officials for
their adoption of such resolutions. But the Los Angeles
TIMES fully supports Washington's blockade of Cuba and so
it's no wonder the local counterparts of the rightist
Cuban minority which dominates Miami's politics should
try to impose its views as is done in Miami. They have
terrorized the local community here, and back in the
1970s they even assassinated one local activist, Prof.
Edward Cooperman. On the other hand a recent surprise
was to learn that one of the worse of these zealots,
Nguyen Cao Ky, one of the last of the US-installed puppet
dictators in Vietnam has spoken up for open and friendly
ties with his homeland.
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HISTORICAL ANALOGIES AND THE IRAQI REALITY OF TODAY
As we look at any human experience, and try to understand
it, it's natural to look at it in the light of what we now
know and remember. Many people are looking at it as similar
to Washington's experience in Vietnam. I felt this way, too
at first. But after seeing THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS again after
well over thirty-five years, Fidel's preference for Algeria
as the historical reference point is a better one. It shows
the process of the formation of a nationalist consciousness,
and the ways ordinary people are transformed by events and
their participation into extraordinary people.

Another analogy which has been suggested is that of Hitler's
march into the Soviet Union and the battle of Stalingrad, a
further option which makes sense. And one other which has
been also suggested is to the Soviet Union and its war in
Afghanistan. Now that Washington has obviously suffered a
profound defeat in Falloujah, the prospect of this being
seen as analogous to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan
is quite the compelling one. As is well-known, Zbigniev
Brezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security advisor openly
bragged of his success in setting up the USSR to be drawn
into Afghanistan, a war which played a key role in the later
unraveling of the USSR. This is a debatable point, but it
does seem quite plausible to me. Imagine, therefore, if the
idea that Washington's invasion and occupation of Iraq may
turn out to be analogous to the Soviet involvement in the
Afghan war? Here's the transcript of Brezinski's interview:
http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/interview_of_brezinski_.html
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CUBANEWS LIST AND THE WAR IN IRAQ
CubaNews list focuses on Cuba as its main focus. This doesn't
mean that the list only posts material about Cuba and Cuba's
relations with the United States. Anything which appears in
the Cuban media should be of interest to CubaNews readers and
the Cuban media publishes lots and of materials about Iraq,
and Cuba is so obviously related to Iraq, having experienced
a United States occupation for many years at the start of the
last century.

Australian writer Julie Webb-Pullman has written a great essay
on the relationship between Cuba and Iraq in light of 9-11,
which I cannot recommend to readers more highly:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00093.htm
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OLIVER STONE'S "COMANDANTE"
A few nights ago I was fortunate to see the movie by
Oliver Stone COMANDANTE, which he shot for Home Box Office
and which they pulled from broadcast at the last minute.
Oliver Stone's film-making techniques are uniquely his own,
so you may or not like the visual language he chooses to
use, but a few observations about the film.

The film was scheduled for broadcast last spring just after
the trials and executions in Cuba. It's not widely known and
less-widely discussed that the film, which didn't deal with
the trials and executions, was shot the previous year, 2002.
In my opinion, it's a fine film, and the two movies stand as
completely separate items. I hope that the movies gets out as
it's one of the rare films about the Cuban leader with such
a favorable slant. Estela Bravo's FIDEL is one of the very
few others who view Fidel Castro sympathetically.

Those of you who are living here in Los Angeles and would be
interested in seeing COMANDANTE, please write to me off-list
with your phone number. I'm working on another private
screening, but cannot send out any public announcements.
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GOODBYE, LENIN!
Not long ago I saw the German film GOODBYE, LENIN! for the
second time and I'd like to recommend it to everyone with
complete enthusiasm. There is a small LITERAL connection to
Cuba in the film, though it's not actually about Cuba, but
about East Germany on the eve of, and just after it had been
swallowed up by West Germany. It's a precious movie and I'd
strongly recommend everyone see it if at all possible. For
those who support the Cuban Revolution but don't live on the
island, it's all to impose our wishes and hopes on the island
itself. There's a great temptation to avoid seeing any of the
darker and less savory sides of Cuban life. In my work as an
activist in solidarity with Cuba, I frequently defend Cuba
against the many factually false and politically disingenuous
things said against it. But not to acknowledge that Cuba is a
country with significant social problems of its own is to miss
much of the reality. This movie is very multi-faceted and I'm
not going to make further comment about it beyond telling you
that, no matter how much the dominant corporate media tries to
tell you the movie is anti-Communist, it's not.

Read Louis Proyect's review at the GREEN LEFT WEEKLY which
presents a comprehensive, detailed discussion of the movie:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/567/567p26.htm

Thinking about the German Democratic Republic, and thinking
about Cuba, one must always keep in mind, of course, that no
genuine revolution brought an end to capitalism in Eastern
Germany. Its revolution was a bureaucratic process which was
accomplished in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazi Germany
at the end of the Second World War. By contrast, the Cuban
Revolution was and remains a genuine indigenous project with
all the nationalism and legitimacy which flows from those.

Cuba's media isn't very critical or self-critical, but Cuba's
media does discuss significantly more of the island's various
social problems than you might think, and certainly not if the
only source you had was the dominant corporate media. Most of
these more critical or reflective discussions are available in
the Spanish-language Cuban media and aren't often translated to
English. I've been getting a few translated into English to
share with you.

In connection with this, you'll find some extended discussion
of life in East Germany before the collapse of the country in
the book written by Ernesto Bravo, an Argentine physician who
has lived in Cuba for over forty years. He's the husband of
filmmaker Estela Bravo and his book is called: "Development
within underdevelopment? New trends in Cuban medicine", and
it was published in Cuba in 1998.
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TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CUBAN AND SPANISH-LANGUAGE MEDIA
Some readers have been helping out with translations for
CubaNews list and I'm deeply grateful for these many of
the important stories in the Cuban media, and sometimes in
other Spanish-language media never get into the dominant
US media at all. I'm grateful to those readers who have
been volunteering to assist our work with translations.
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BUSH'S "FREE CUBA" COMMISSION
In recent weeks the Bush administration has been revving up its
propaganda drive against Cuba. It's a multi-faceted operation.
May 1 was the deadline for the report requested by the so-called
commission headed by Colin Powell. We've been reading the various
leaks about this for awhile now. A formal date for the publication
of what the advance publicity tells us will be a FIVE HUNDRED WORD
report isn't set, but the next few weeks should provide much more
in the way of a build-up. If it really does turn out to be five
hundred pages, that will be so that it can offer something for
each and every one of its hangers-on in the far right wing of
the Cuban-American exile community, to which it pitches its
fervent yet flatulent appeals for support. It will be more or
less a laundry list for fantasy island.

MAY 20th will be used by Bush and his administration to issue a
major attack on Cuba. Without knowing anything specific about the
announcements Bush will make, the choice of May 20th by politicians
from the United States. As is well-known, May 20th is the date when
Cuba's severely limited independence was finally recognized by the
United States Government. The Spanish had nearly been defeated by
Cuban independence fighters when the US intervened militarily to
prevent Cuban independence. On May 20th a constituent assembly
finally acceded to US demands that it install an amendment into
the Cuban constitution, authorizing the United States to
militarily intervene in Cuban affairs whenever the US deemed it
necessarily. It will be interesting to see what kind of similar
amendment is put into the Iraqi constitution whenever the US
gets around to "granting" formal, but limited sovereignty to
Iraq. Don't hold your breath about the June 30th date, however.

WEB-PAGE FOR THE BUSH ADMININSTRATION'S CUBA COMMISSION:
http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rt/c10991.htm
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TEXT OF THE PLATT AMENDMENT, 1903
Article I. The Government of Cuba shall never enter into
any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or
powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence
of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign
power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military
or naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgment in or control
over any portion of said island.

Article II. The Government of Cuba shall not assume or
contract any public debt to pay the interest upon which,
and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the
ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the
Island of Cuba, after defraying the current expenses of the
Government, shall be inadequate.

Article III. The Government of Cuba consents that the
United States may exercise the right to intervene for the
preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a
government adequate for the protection of life, property,
and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations
with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the
United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the
Government of Cuba. . . .

Article V. The Government of Cuba will execute, and, as far
as necessary, extend the plans already devised, or other
plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the
cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of
epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby
assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as
well as to the commerce of the Southern ports of the United
States and the people residing therein....

Article VII. To enable the United States to maintain the
independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as
well as for its own defense, the Government of Cuba will
sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for
coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to
be agreed upon with the ]?resident of the United States.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/platt.htm
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JON HILLSON (1949-2004)
Today I received the sound recording of the memorial meeting
for Jon Hillson. In time I'm hoping to get the entire sound
file of the meeting posted to the website along with the
rest of the information which has been compiled about him
to this time. If you knew Hillson and would like to write
up your own impressions to share with others, please send
those to me at walterlx@... Thanks.

Web page: http://www.walterlippmann.com/hillson.html
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NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE
With all the information on Cuba which has been coming out
recently, I'm pleased to report the work of NY TRANSFER NEWS
is now being posted to the CubaNews list. NY TRANSFER has
been providing "all the news that doesn't fit" for many years
and we'll be using a significant number of their postings on
this list. Their website: http://www.blythe.org
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POSITIVE ACTIONS TO DEFEAT THE BLOCKADE OF CUBA:
As we wait for the Bush administration's plans to try to
still further tighten the US blockade on Cuba, activists
opposed to the blockade are planning coordinated efforts
to break the blockade through direct, non-violent actions
of civil disobedience. The Pastors for Peace through its
Friendshipment Caravan, the Venceremos Brigade, the
National Committee to Free the Five and the African
Awareness Association have announced plans for direct
actions breaking the blockade. The first three have also
announced their plans to all return to the United States
from Cuba on the same day, to maximize efforts to obtain
publicity and attention to the blockade and actions to
break it. Everyone who supports the right of the Cuban
people to determine their own destiny and to build their
own society according to their own wishes, and without any
further foreign intervention, should support and participate
in these actions. Here are some of the details:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/25390
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FOR MORE NEWS, VIEWS AND INFORMATION ON CUBA PLEASE SEE:
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
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