New law makes officials accountable for corruption and increased discipline
Cuban
Radar Read Spanish Version
New
law makes officials accountable for corruption and increased
discipline
A
Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau service
On
September 1, 2007, new measures will be in force to prevent
corruption and increase discipline at the workplace.
The
last edition of the country’s government journal announced that a
new law will make officials accountable for corruption and
indiscipline, even if said officials are not directly responsible. It
also mentioned sanctions in relation to unjustified absence and
unpunctuality at production and service centers.
According
to Decree 251 on August 2, signed by acting President Raúl
Castro, “disciplinary measures are imposed in a direct manner and
effective immediately.”
U.S.
violates migration agreements and more
A
declaration issued by the Cuban Foreign Ministry on August 21
denounces U.S. violations of the migratory agreements signed in 1994
and 1995.
The
issue is the granting of political asylum by the government of
Hungary to 29 illegal emigrants who, after being captured by the US
Coast Guard, were taken to Guantánamo Naval Base, a U.S.
occupied territory in Eastern Cuba.
The
declaration quotes reports by Reuters news agency that “17 (of 44
persons captured in international waters) held a 3-week hunger strike
protesting conditions of their arrest and demanding to be taken to
the United States (…) Hungary guaranteed asylum to 29 of them,
while the United States will pay house rent, winter clothes and
language courses during one year. (…) Other five will receive U.S.
visas and some are waiting permission from another country (…)”
The
Cuban declaration mentions that the signed agreements between both
governments force the U.S. to return “Cuban emigrants intercepted
on the high seas by the United States attempting to enter the United
States … Likewise emigrants who try to enter Guantánamo
Naval Base illegally will also be returned to Cuba”.
But
Havana mentions a thorn on the side of Cuba linked to U.S.
intervention in the war of independence that Cubans had waged
for 30 years against Spanish colonial power.
“When
they decided to send them to their illegal Guantánamo Naval
Base, they violate even the illegitimate Agreement for Coal and Naval
Stations imposed on Cuba in 1903, in which [the U.S.] committed
textually ‘to do all that is necessary to put such places in
condition of being exclusively used as coal or naval stations and for
no other purpose’.”
The
base has served not only as haven for Cubans captured on the
high seas by U.S. patrol boats, but has been turned into a prison for
hundreds of alleged terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda.
The
Cuban Five should be liberated, says Chilean judge
Respected
and well-known Chilean judge Juan Guzmán told Cuban TV that
the Cuban Five, who are serving harsh prison terms in the U.S.,
should be set free.
“It
was clear that Miami was not an adequate venue for the trial, because
jurors felt pressured, and even frightened,” Guzmán said in
a telephone interview with the Cuban TV program Round Table.
Guzmán,
who won fame for being the first to indict former dictator Augusto
Pinochet in Chile, attended a hearing on the Five’s case at the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Together with Guzmán
many important international and local jurists were present.
He
said that the defense for Gerardo Hernández, René
González, Fernando González, Antonio Herrero and Ramón
Lavañino stressed the U.S. government’s improper conduct at
the trial: “There was no fairness nor objectiveness on the part of
jury members,” who were biased due to pressures by the prosecution,
he added.
In
relation to the three-judge panel, Guzmán said that “if they
want to sleep with a clean conscience, they should exonerate them,
free the Five.”
Dean
spared Cuba, although measures had been taken
Hurricane
Dean passed south of Cuba without too many repercussions — although
it caused some harm, particularly in the southern region of the
eastern part of the island, some 70 kilometers north of Jamaica,
where the powerful storm raged.
At
the province of Santiago de Cuba, some 850 kilometers east of Havana,
there were damages in tourist facilities and a coastal highway was
cut at several points due to powerful waves. There was also damage to
housing and locations high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains which
were cut off due to intense rains.
In
the eastern province of Granma a stretch of highway was under water
as much as 100 meters from the coast.
Cuba’s
Civil Defense System, highly regarded by international organizations,
was set in motion with the first reports of Dean’s course and
evacuated some 300,000 people to safe and well conditioned
facilities. It also protected warehouses and vulnerable work centers,
and protected the harvesting of food products that otherwise would
have been lost.
Cuban
aid sent to Peru
Sources
at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations confirmed to Radio
Progreso Alternativa
that Cuba’s government has set up two field hospitals at the region
struck by the earthquake that cost the life of more than 500
people. The hospitals are equipped with intensive care units,
surgery rooms and X-Rays.
Aid
to countries struck by natural disasters is a regular practice by the
Cuban government.
Demand
for a single currency
Dissident
sources report that a small and little known opponent group is
collecting signatures in favor of eliminating the circulation of two
different currencies in the Island.
The
signed petition will be submitted to the National Assembly of Popular
Power, the Cuban legislative branch of government.
Two
different currencies circulate in Cuba, the Cuban peso and the
convertible peso (CUC), the latter equivalent to $1.08 USD. Many
products and services are only available in CUCs, but they can be
bought at the official rate of 25 Cuban pesos each.
Cubans
receive an average salary of 320 Cuban pesos.
Translated
for Progreso
Weekly
by Germán Piniella.
