U.S. Mission in Cuba Runs Rights Messages
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ , 01.16.2006, 11:07 PM
The U.S. mission in Cuba on Monday ran excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on an electronic sign running along its sea front building, the latest salvo in an ongoing billboard war.
Evidently timed to coincide with the U.S. holiday, the messages streaming along the building's fifth floor in luminescent red also included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Although the new messaging system was activated earlier in the day, neighbors said the words really weren't visible until the sun set. Even then, the words were difficult to read.
"They are provoking us again," said neighbor Miguel Angel Fernandez, who said he first noticed the words from his bathroom window Monday night. "I don't know why they mess with us, we don't mess with them."
More than a year ago, the Cuban government erected billboards outside the mission emblazoned with photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a "Made in the U.S.A" stamp.
Those signs were erected in retaliation for holiday decorations placed on the building for Christmas 2004 that included a sign reading "75" - a reference to the 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in March 2003.
The two countries have been without diplomat relations for 45 years. The U.S. government in recent years has steadily tightened trade and travel sanctions against the island in an attempt to undermine Fidel Castro's communist government.
Without a full embassy, the U.S. government has an interests section here under the Swiss Embassy in Havana to handle consular affairs such as visa processing. Cuba has a similar interests section in Washington.
Also Monday, Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said that this month's jailing in the U.S. of two Florida academics on charges they spied for Cuba for three decades was "strange" and "worrisome."
In the government's first public reaction to the case, Alarcon questioned the timing of the married couple's arrests, which came as a U.S. federal appeals court in Atlanta prepared to rehear arguments in the case of five other Cubans accused of being secret agents of the Cuban government.
"This story comes across as strange and very worrisome because the FBI has supposedly known since June what they said about their activities," Alarcon told journalists of Carlos Alvarez, 61, and his 55-year-old wife, Elsa.
"So why come out with this case now? Obviously it has to do with something that goes beyond these two people," Alarcon said.
"They are trying to create an environment of McCarthyism to influence the Atlanta appeals court," Alarcon said of the newest arrests, referring to the sensationalist anti-communism hearings held by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
The husband and wife both hold positions at Florida International University and could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted of failing to register as agents of a foreign power.
A U.S. attorney said Alvarez had spied for Cuba since 1977 and his wife since 1982, working independently at first and later together.
AP writer Vanessa Arrington in Havana contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/01/16/ap2453238.html
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ , 01.16.2006, 11:07 PM
The U.S. mission in Cuba on Monday ran excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on an electronic sign running along its sea front building, the latest salvo in an ongoing billboard war.
Evidently timed to coincide with the U.S. holiday, the messages streaming along the building's fifth floor in luminescent red also included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Although the new messaging system was activated earlier in the day, neighbors said the words really weren't visible until the sun set. Even then, the words were difficult to read.
"They are provoking us again," said neighbor Miguel Angel Fernandez, who said he first noticed the words from his bathroom window Monday night. "I don't know why they mess with us, we don't mess with them."
More than a year ago, the Cuban government erected billboards outside the mission emblazoned with photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a "Made in the U.S.A" stamp.
Those signs were erected in retaliation for holiday decorations placed on the building for Christmas 2004 that included a sign reading "75" - a reference to the 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in March 2003.
The two countries have been without diplomat relations for 45 years. The U.S. government in recent years has steadily tightened trade and travel sanctions against the island in an attempt to undermine Fidel Castro's communist government.
Without a full embassy, the U.S. government has an interests section here under the Swiss Embassy in Havana to handle consular affairs such as visa processing. Cuba has a similar interests section in Washington.
Also Monday, Cuban Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said that this month's jailing in the U.S. of two Florida academics on charges they spied for Cuba for three decades was "strange" and "worrisome."
In the government's first public reaction to the case, Alarcon questioned the timing of the married couple's arrests, which came as a U.S. federal appeals court in Atlanta prepared to rehear arguments in the case of five other Cubans accused of being secret agents of the Cuban government.
"This story comes across as strange and very worrisome because the FBI has supposedly known since June what they said about their activities," Alarcon told journalists of Carlos Alvarez, 61, and his 55-year-old wife, Elsa.
"So why come out with this case now? Obviously it has to do with something that goes beyond these two people," Alarcon said.
"They are trying to create an environment of McCarthyism to influence the Atlanta appeals court," Alarcon said of the newest arrests, referring to the sensationalist anti-communism hearings held by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
The husband and wife both hold positions at Florida International University and could get up to 10 years in prison if convicted of failing to register as agents of a foreign power.
A U.S. attorney said Alvarez had spied for Cuba since 1977 and his wife since 1982, working independently at first and later together.
AP writer Vanessa Arrington in Havana contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/01/16/ap2453238.html
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