[Nettime-bold] Interested in Cuba

[Cuban Review <office@cubanreview.org>]

Dear reader,

The international foundation Global Reflexion has published for 7 years the
newspaper Cuban Review, a monthly publication specialized in Cuban matters,
in Spanish and English, covering almost every aspect of developments and
daily life on the Island.

Cuban Review emerged from the need for honest and balanced information on
Cuba, a country whose originality has attracted the attention of the entire
world. Nowadays the need for a fair coverage of Cuba is even more urgent. 

Global Reflexion and the editorial board of Cuban Review have therefore
decided to make some adjustments in our work. Above all our purpose will be
the reflection on Cuban affairs, with an emphasis on opinion-journalism.

Additionally this seventh-anniversary edition will mark a change in the
presentation, frequency and number of languages in which our publication is
issued. Thus Cuban Review will appear in a bimonthly, bilingual form with a
larger format and 20 pages.

The cost of a one-year subscription (6 numbers), including mail delivery,
is 25.00 euros for subscribers in Europe and 28.00 euros or dollars for
subscribers outside of Europe. 

IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE A FREE COPY, PLEASE REPLY THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR
NAME AND ADDRESS!

Furthermore we are ready to deliver a digital information service with
frequent updated information on Cuba and send it to you via e-mail. What is
offered is a varied, agile and objective service based on information and
in-depth articles from the Cuban scene itself produced by our editorial
staff based in Havana, and other sources in Cuba.

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO RECEIVE THE CUBAN REVIEW UPDATE, PLEASE REPLY THIS
MESSAGE WITH UNSUBSCRIBE.

In order to be aware of our work, we invite you to take a look at our website:
http://www.cubanreview.org 

If you want to support our work, please forward this message to your friends.

Olga E. Fernandez (editor-in-chief, Cuban Review)
Nico Varkevisser (president, Global Reflexion)

*********************************************************

Cuban Review Update
Number 1, July 12 2002.

Cuba-United States Relations
A contribution to sanity?

By Olga E. Fernández

Occurring as it did within a setting of erratic moves pointing toward a
still tougher stance in Washington's official policy toward the Island, the
Castro-Carter meeting also constitutes a mature and dignified contribution
to peace and understanding within the craggy territory of global
international relations.

A retrospective analysis of the complex bilateral contradictions points up
the audacious and constructive will of the two statesmen. History records a
number of positive political actions taken by Havana and Washington during
the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter (the sixth consecutive U.S.
president to coexist with the revolutionary period in Cuba), in brief
periods of relaxation of tensions, that alternated with pressures and
maneuvers of the 

Pentagon and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, most eloquently
illustrated by the significant number of covert actions carried out against
the Island during the Carter period of 1977-1981. 

As the present director of a foundation devoted to research and
philanthropy, based in Atlanta, Georgia, Jimmy Carter enjoys the public
recognition accorded to former presidents in the United States. His
activity, however, has lacked any official authority since January 1981,
when he was succeeded in the presidency by the ultra-right Republican,
Ronald Reagan, a key figure in an apogee of conservatism in U.S. society,
with pernicious repercussions in both the domestic and the international
sphere that have lasted up to our own days.

Carter's stay in Havana bore the stamp of the unusual, beginning with the
welcoming protocol, in which the national anthems and flags of Cuba and the
United States presided over a public ceremony on Cuban territory for the
first time in almost half a century, and the treatment of president
accorded the visitor by Castro.

Lavish in mutual praise and permeated with daring political reflections on
the history and current situation of their countries' mutual relations, the
speeches of the host and the visitor coincided in some respects such as
their condemnation of the blockade against Cuba and the restrictions on
travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens. But, as was to be expected, implicit or
explicit differences in approach and political and ideological positions
were also evident in such subjects as democracy and the Island's
single-party system.

Not so much as a ripple occurred, however, in the high-level and
constructive climate that prevailed throughout the visit, accompanied by a
massive press coverage and international scrutiny, that included the
sleepless following of the rendezvous in Havana by the U. S. president,
George W. Bush, and his closest advisors, according to journalists who
cover political activities in Washington.

In the Cuban capital, the former U.S. president was granted unprecedented
access to the most diverse spheres, including previously announced
meetings, without any type of official interference, with representatives
of the diminutive opposition groups, which are illegal but tolerated on the
Island and which displayed their inveterate discrepancies, unable to
overcome them even on the occasion of the highly publicized visit of Jimmy
Carter. 

On his return to Washington, Carter offered his impressions of his trip to
Bush, the highly prejudiced current occupant of the White House, who, by
coincidence, was immersed in attending to his political commitments with
the Cuban community in Miami and in guaranteeing the aspirations of his
brother, Jeb Bush, to reelection as governor of Florida, precisely the
state that houses the leading enclave of the influential ultra-right
Cuban-Americans.

It now remains to be seen in what measure the honorable attitude of
President Fidel Castro and the firm call by Jimmy Carter to the United
States to take "the first step" can work in favor of bilateral
understanding, amidst a renewed debate in the U.S. Congress regarding
initiatives against the blockade and the prohibition of visits to the
Island, threatened in advance by a presidential veto.

***

Cuban Review is a 20 pages bimonthly and bilingual (english/spanish)
publication.
The cost of a one-year subscription (6 numbers), including mail delivery, 
is 25.00 euros for subscribers in Europe 
and 28.00 euros or dollars for subscribers outside of Europe. 

IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE A FREE COPY, PLEASE REPLY THIS MESSAGE WITH YOUR
NAME AND ADDRESS!

See also our website: www.cubanreview.org

Administration and distribution: Global Reflexion, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
Ph.  ++ 31 20 615 1122 - Fax: ++ 31 20 615 1120 - E-mail:
office@cubanreview.org

Editorial office: Havana, Cuba
Ph./Fax: ++ 53 7 66 22 58 - E-mail: editor@cubanreview.org




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