Embassy of Cuba in New Zealand
Newsletter
No.23 29th September 2013
Upcoming events
October
November 3rd - 9th Havana International Fair
In this issue:
Press Release by the Cuban Delegation on Direct Postal Services with the US
September 16th
On June 16, 2013, representatives of Cuba and the United States met to resume talks on direct postal services between
both countries. The Cuban delegation was presided over by Johana Tablada de la Torre, Deputy Director of the United
States Division at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Cuba and the U.S. delegation was headed by Lea Emerson, Executive
Director for International Postal Affairs of the U.S. Postal Service.
Both parties were able to follow up on the issues discussed at the talks held in Washington on June last and made
progress in different areas such as those related to the security of postal items. Both delegations ratified the
interest to establish direct mail transportation. The Cuban side made emphasis on the transportation of mail through
direct and regular ways in both directions, which is currently not possible due to the blockade policy imposed by the
Government of the United States against Cuba. This is a crucial issue that should be addressed in order to resume direct
postal services and ensure an efficient and secure service between the two countries.
The exchange between the postal administrations of Cuba and the United States took place in a respectful ambiance and
both parties agreed to resume talks in the next few months.
The Cuban delegation was also made up by Jorge Luis Oliva Martín, Director for Cooperation and International
Organizations of the Ministry of Communications; Carlos Asencio Valerino, President of Grupo Empresarial Correos de
Cuba; as well as some officials of the General Customs of the Republic of Cuba and the Cuban Institute of Civil
Aviation.
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Cuba reaffirms commitment to human rights
September 20th
Cuba reaffirmed its commitment to cooperate with the Human Rights Council and described as positive the results of its
Universal Periodic Review.
The review allowed showing the experience and good practice of Cuba and the country's challenges on its way to further
advance the enjoyment of all human rights, said Cuban deputy attorney general Rafael Pino, as cited by PL news agency.
Out of all recommendations received, Cuba accepted 230 which make for the majority, said the head of the delegation to
the meeting, who noted that many of them have been met or are under implementation, while others are future priorities
for the government and the people of Cuba.
Only 20 recommendations are not admitted by the island because they have been designed on groundless bases and are not
compatible to Cuban constitutional principles and domestic legal order, while their content runs contrary to the spirit
of cooperation and respect that must prevail at the Universal Periodic Review.
The Cuban official said it is not possible to assure the implementation of another 42 recommendations made though Cuba
has taken note and many of them are in the works.
This review allowed us to listen to the opinions of many delegations as significant contribution to keep improving Cuban
society, the official noted and expressed satisfaction with the acknowledgement offered by most delegations that
participated in a debate last May of the efforts and achievements of the island with regards to the universal and free
health and education services, as well as international cooperation in these two areas.
The head of the Cuban delegation also expressed gratefulness to many for their denunciation of the US economic,
commercial and financial blockade of the island and for the condemnation of the unfair and prolonged incarceration of
five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters in US jails.
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Cuba and the U.S. hold talks on search and rescue
September 21st
The Granma newspaper published on Saturday a press release by the Cuban delegation that took part in the technical
meeting held between Cuban and U.S. experts on aeronautic and maritime search and rescue operations.
According to the text, the meeting took place in Havana on September 19 and 20. The delegations were headed by Engineer
Oscar del Toro, president of the Coordinating Commission for Search and Rescue of Cuba, directed by the Transportation
Ministry, and Mr. Richard A. Button, head of the Division of Search and Rescue Coordination of the U.S. Coastguard
Service.
Also taking part in the meeting, adds the text, were representatives of the Cuban ministries of Transportation, of the
Armed Forces and of the Interior, and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as representatives of the U.S.
Coastguard Service, of the Transportation Department and of the Department of State.
The document points out that ratified at the meeting was the importance of strengthening the coordination of aeronautic
and maritime search and rescue operations, with the objective of saving the lives of persons in danger, guarantee the
efficiency and effectiveness of operations carried out by the entities responsible for this activity in the two
countries and honor international obligations derived from the International Agreement on Aeronautical and Maritime
Search and Rescue and the Convention on International of Civil Aviation.
As a result of the technical meeting, the document continued, an Operational Procedure for Aeronautical and Maritime
Search and Rescue between Cuba and the United States, which will be subjected to the final approval of the two
governments, was agreed in a preliminary way.
Talks were held in an atmosphere of respect and cooperation, the text concludes.
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Physicians trained in Cuba contribute to health strategy in Nicaragua
September 21st
Some 450 physicians trained in Cuba presently contribute to a strategy aimed at perfecting the health system in
Nicaragua, in coordination with authorities of this sector.
Health Minister Sonia Castro highlighted that these youngsters were trained in a model of community health care, in
prevention work, which adapts 100% to the programs of the government of Daniel Ortega, the Prensa Latina news agency
reported on Friday.
Castro and Youth Minister Bosco Castillo presided over a meeting with professionals graduated from Havana’s Latin
American Medical School, which has affiliate institutions in several Latin American countries, with the purpose of
coordinating actions favorable to the improvement of the quality of health in this territory.
During the meeting, under way at the National University of Engineering, Bosco recalled that, so far, 930 youngsters of
scant economic resources have graduated as physicians in Cuba alter being selected starting from 2007 by the government
of Nicaragua to carry out these studies.Back to top
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Successful session of Cuba-China Intergovernmental Cooperation Commission
September 25th
The 26th session of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Commission between Cuba and China was held on Tuesday, which ended
with the signing of a bilateral economic agenda for the next five year period.
The Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, told Prensa Latina news agency that this agenda
will make it possible to work in a more organized way and with a medium term plan.
Malmierca, also a member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, in one of the halls of the Ministry of
Trade of China in Beijing, described the session as successful, which included the adoption of nine documents on
concrete economic projects and the final minutes of the Intergovernmental Commission.
The Cuban minister, since his arrival in Beijing on Saturday, has held meetings with numerous companies and banks of
China as well as with the Minister of the National Commission of Health and Family Planning, Li Bin.
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Chinese entrepreneurs interested in Cuban Development Zone
September 25th
Cuban Foreign Trade and investment minister Rodrigo Malmierca briefed Chinese entrepreneurs in Bejing about the ongoing
project to develop a Special Economic Zone in western Cuba and its investment opportunities.
The project has prioritized sectors for investment such as biotechnology and renewable energy, while other areas to be
developed include food, tourism, telecommunications, real estate, agriculture and industry in general.
Malmierca said that Chinese companies have huge potential to settle in the new development zone, which is the most
complex project implemented in Cuba over thepast fifty years.
The presentation was attended by the director of the Development Zone Office, which operates under the Cuban Council of
Ministers, and is in charge of managing and controlling activities in the zone and of drawing up and leading the
development and business program.
Minister Malmierca stressed the good environment for doing business in Cuba marked by a safe and transparent legal
framework, good port, road, railways and communications infrastructure at the service of investors.
He also addressed guarantees for investors, such as free transfer of their gains abroad, the strategic location of the
zone, right in the heart of the Caribbean, plus a special tax system offering fiscal incentives.
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CELAC calls for total elimination of nuclear weapons
September 26th
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) called at the United Nations General Assembly for the total
and general elimination of nuclear weapons, as the only guarantee against the use of such arsenals.
At the first high-level meeting of the Assembly on the issue, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, presented the
position of the 33-member-nation bloc, which is currently being chaired by Cuba this year.
“CELAC's member states reiterate our deep concern in the face of the threat posed on humanity by the existence of
nuclear weapons and their possibility of their use or threat to be used. There is urgent need to advance towards nuclear
disarmament,” said Bruno Rodriguez on behalf of the Community, founded in December 2011, in Caracas, Venezuela.
The bloc considered the use or threat of using nuclear weapons a crime against humanity and a violation of international
law and the charter of the United Nations.
Minister Rodriguez also called on all states that possess nuclear weapons to eliminate them from their doctrines,
security policies and military strategies. He also called for fast work on the negotiation and adoption of a juridically
binding and universal instrument on the issue and to draw up a multilateral timetable to eradicate the arsenals in a
transparent, irreversible and verifiable manner.
According to estimates, there are over 23 thousand nuclear weapons on the planet, half of which are ready to use.
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New regulations on self-employment in Cuba announced
September 26th
The regulations published by the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba authorize new activities of self-employment,
as well as standards for better functioning of others that already exist, according to Granma newspaper.
These measures point to a higher arrangement of this form of non-state management with the aim of contributing to the
continuous deployment, improving this activity, putting things right when they have not worked as designed, taxing to
legality and protecting those complying with the provisions.
José Barreiro Alfonso, advisor to the Minister of Labour and Social Security, said the major changes in the new
legislation are related to the need of adding new figures, removing limitations on the exercise of certain activities,
and better defining the denomination and extent of each of them.
Consequently, ten new activities are incorporated and authorizations of eight others which were suspended are being
granted, as there was not a legal market for purchase of raw materials, equipment and other supplies.
To ensure the supplies of the latter, an amount of money was allocated by the Economy Plan, and it has been created the
conditions for their sale in the store network, and at specific points, depending on the characteristics of the product
to offer.
Barreiro Alfonso added they will look after the legal origin of the raw material used in each of the activities. Among
other items, it is expected that steel and aluminum plates, marble pieces, aluminum and bronze scrap, bars, tubes of
different shapes, floor polishing machines and bottles of oxygen and acetylene to be marketed in certain parts of the
country.
On the other hand, he said, in order to avoid distortions that have previously occurred in regulated for certain
activities; the new provision defines more precisely the name and scope of these. Thus, those who perform tasks such as
"vendor of agricultural products in wheelbarrows" will not be allowed to sell imported goods.
In addition, the Criminal Code makes clear in its section 230 that who obtains goods or other objects with the purpose
of reselling them for profit or gain commits an offense. Then we must dust off what is legislated, comply with
regulations and ensure for its fulfillment, the official told.
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Message from the Cuban Five
September 26th
Fifteen years ago today, September 12, 1998, the brutality of five simultaneous arrests burst into our homes to initiate
one of the most shameful chapters of U.S. legal history: the trial of those of us today known as The Five.
The Cuban Five send a message to their supporters around the world and the US people.
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President of East Timor arrives in Cuba
September 26th
The President of the Democratic Republic of East Timor Taur Matan Ruak arrived in Cuba, Thursday, on an official visit
aimed at strengthening bilateral cooperation.
Taur Matan Ruak is scheduled to hold official talks with President Raul Castro and carry out other activities.
Before coming to Cuba, Matan Ruak, like other heads of state from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, demanded the
lifting of the US economic blockade of the island during his participation at the 68th Session of the UN General
Assembly.
Cuba and East Timor established diplomatic relations on 20 May 2002, when that Southeastern Asian nation achieved its
independence.
Bilateral cooperation relations particularly focus the sector of health, education, agriculture, sports and culture,
while both nations are also looking forward to collaborating in the field of food security, according to Granma
newspaper.
Some 600 medical doctors from East Timor graduated at the Havana-based Latin American School of Medicine, while hundreds
of Cuban doctors have offered their services since 2004 in remote areas of East Timor.
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Southern nations demand end of US blockade of Cuba
September 28th
Leaders of Latin American, African and Asian countries demanded the lifting of the over-50-year US economic, commercial
and financial blockade of Cuba at the United Nations General Assembly.
During the session prime ministers and heads of state described the US blockade as policy of genocide, illegal, failed,
a relic of the Cold War period, anachronistic and obstacle to development, among other terms.
Representing Latin America, the leaders of Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, Uruguay, El Salvador, Guyana, and
Trinidad-Tobago demanded the end of the US siege which has inflicted huge damage on all Cuban economic and social
sectors, particularly health and education.
Meanwhile, the representatives of South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Chad, Mozambique and Gabon, and for Asia, the leaders of
Sri Lanka and East Timor also called for the end of the US blockade at the plenary session attended by 193 states, the
overwhelming majority of which have repeatedly voted a Cuban resolution since 1992 demanding the lifting of the US
anti-Cuba measure.
In his remarks at the forum, Bolivian President Evo Morales criticized the US administration for ignoring the claim by
the international community against the US blockade of the island.
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Pressure builds in the US to break the 'Cuban Five' sentences
September 29th
In the United States the case of the 'Cuban Five' who received long sentences in a much-disputed Miami court process
early in the late 1990s has taken a big step forward — 15 years after proceedings began.
The Washington DC-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) is bringing a lawsuit against the US State Department
to release evidence it holds covering secret payments by the US government to Miami-based journalists reporting on the
case at the time, using 'hostile, inflammatory and prejudicial stories… (which) propagandized US-based domestic public
opinion including the jury pool and sitting jury', as described in the complaint.
Within the State Department are the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and their
predecessor agency, the United States Information Agency, which are responsible for the operation of Radio Marti and TV
Marti by which the US Government broadcasts information and propaganda into Cuba and into Florida.
All are named in the complaint as having paid journalists to imply the 'The Five' — Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero,
Fernando Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino and Rene Gonzalez (who served his sentence and relinquished his US citizenship) — were
guilty. The State Department has been ordered to produce the documents beginning in October.
Additionally all five are this month (September) filing habeas corpus actions in Miami Federal Court which challenge all
aspects of their convictions and sentences.
The five Cubans were jailed in 1998 in Miami for alleged terrorism offences, while their mission, as admitted agents,
was to build knowledge about Cubans in Miami planning terrorist activities in Cuba against the Castro government.
Ironically they were passing information to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation assuming it would want to prevent its
citizens committing criminal activities. But they were arrested by the FBI and the information they had provided was
deemed 'classified' and used against them.
The PCJF says it is joined by Amnesty International, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, and individuals
including ex-president of the US Jimmy Carter, former US attorney general Ramsey Clark, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former
chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell, author Noam Chomsky, ten former Nobel Prize winners and many
thousands of people and organisations in the US and world-wide.
Other irregularities were also taken into account for the habeas corpus petition. In the case of Ramon Labanino, the
attorney that initially presented him in court did not say that he could remain silent when he was asked for a statement
and still called by the name Luis Medina, which he used. This slip cost him an additional charge: obstruction of justice
and five more years on his 25-year sentence.
Gerardo Hernandez is facing the most complicated case with two life terms, plus 15 years.
His habeas corpus is based on a constitutional violation since he was not able to declare separately on his third
charge: conspiracy to commit murder. Add to this the ineffectiveness of his initial defense attorney, who did not try to
prove that Gerardo had nothing to do with the bringing down by Cuban air force MIGs, on 24 February 1996, of the planes
flown by Miami-based members of the organization known as ’Brothers to the Rescue.'
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Embassy of Cuba in New Zealand press release:
The Story Behind the Injustice: 15 Years of Unjust Imprisonment
September 12 marked 15 years since the unfair arrest and frame-up of René González, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino,
Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernández, known as the ‘Cuban Five’.
Who are they? Why they were framed? Why they should be free?
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Embassy of the Republic of Cuba in New Zealand
76 Messines Rd, Karori, Wellington 6012