[NYTr] Alarcon: The Cuban Revoluton is a Supre-bold Adventure Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 19:06:41 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Progreso Weekly - Oct 4, 2007 http://progreso-weekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=1 "The Cuban Revolution is a super-bold adventure" [Excerpts from a radio interview with RICARDO ALARCCN DE QUESADA, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the National Assembly of the People's Power. The interview was done in Montreal, Canada, during the 27th Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Sept. 7-8, 2007. It was broadcast on Miami's Radio 1210 (AM); the interviewer was Edmundo GarcC-a. Words [in brackets] are the editor's clarifications.] GARCCA: In your most recent statement about U.S.-Cuba relations, you said that Cuba is willing to sit down and settle the dispute with the U.S. without including the topic of the embargo, a topic that Cuba is sensitive about. Would you place that statement in context? I read it in the BBC [website]. ALARCON: To be exact, the BBC asked me if we would sit down to talk, to negotiate with the U.S., if the embargo was not lifted. I told them that we have already done that, that I have done it several times, that we even have reached agreement, that we have negotiated with the U.S. government, even though the current bilateral situation has not changed. For example, we discussed and negotiated an immigration agreement in 1984. Later, that came to a crisis when Radio MartC- went on the air. We again negotiated to get past that crisis and reactivate the immigration accord by linking it to the debate and the negotiation -- which is something some people forget -- about the topic of radio broadcasts from one country to the other on standard wavelength, which is how Radio MartC- worked. We were aiming for a mutually acceptable solution. The U.S. agreed. The United States (at that time Reagan was president, not Clinton, and ran a more conservative administration) accepted the principle that those radio broadcasts were negotiable and that finding a mutually acceptable arrangement was legitimate. We slipped into a big mess, technically very complicated, and we spent months looking at the possibilities of broadcasting from Cuba to [the U.S.] and the whole thing is technically very complicated because the United States' radio spectrum is very saturated. You need to know that ... GARCCA: How expensive is it for Cuba to try to jam -- or actually jam -- those broadcasts from Radio and TV MartC- and other signals emanating from the U.S.? I mean, in terms of money. ALARCCN: [It costs] practically nothing. Nothing, really. It has allowed some of our specialists and technicians to become very familiar with ... GARCCA: In other words, is not very complex? ALARCCN: To me it is, because I don't understand anything about it, but it seems that it's quite a simple matter, quite inexpensive for Cuba. Unfortunately, the broadcasts are also very inexpensive for the United States. GARCCA: No, AlarcC3n, it is very expensive! It costs $36 million a year! [The broadcasts] have no effect, yet they cost $36 million a year! ALARCCN: Listen, Edmundo, that story goes back to the year 1984 or '85, that is, back more than 20 years. And the millions you mention are spent every year. Add it up, one year after another. GARCCA: The elections to the Assembly of the People's Power have begun. Will Fidel Castro be nominated? ALARCCN: To what? To municipal delegate? No, because the process is still in that [early] phase. No. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has nominated him. GARCCA: Will Fidel Castro's health allow him to enter the process Cuba is now developing within the framework of the elections? ALARCCN: Look, people keep repeating something I said -- an answer I gave -- back in March, I believe, when a foreign journalist asked me: "Do you think that Fidel Castro will be re-elected President of the Council of State?" I told him, "I myself don't know if I'll be re-elected deputy because I cannot nominate myself. If I were a deputy at that moment, I would nominate him again." That was my answer and remains the same today. Because you must realize that [the nomination] would be made before the elections for the Council of State, which will be early next year. And there's a principle that operates in our system (I think it's more or less the same everywhere) called voluntarism. Nobody can make you a candidate if you don't want to be one. GARCCA: [Oppositionist] Oswaldo PayC! SardiC1as is asking for the Cuban election laws to be rescinded because [the oppositionists] don't have any real chance of participating. Do the oppositionists have a chance? Do the Cuban Constitution and the election laws allow PayC! or Martha Beatriz [Roque] or whoever to run for office without any problem? Or is there some obstacle? ALARCCN: [PayC!] is asking exactly what the Bush Plan asks. Exactly the same. There is no difference between the two. For a very simple reason: What PayC! proposes in his so-called Varela Project -- and he concentrates a lot on the subject of the elections -- is to change the Cuban electoral system, to put an end to what we're doing now, in September, when the people gather everywhere, in all the neighborhoods nationwide, and nominate whoever they wish, whether they're called Oswaldo PayC! or Martha Beatriz Roque, whoever. If a person has the votes, he will be a candidate. Look, Edmundo, how can an individual become a candidate if he doesn't have a single person willing to say he wants [that individual] elected? Supposedly, everybody has at least someone -- a nephew, a friend ... GARCCA: Has the Assembly heard if any of them intends to run for office? ALARCCN: That's precisely the key to the question. What does the United States want? For the people not to nominate the candidates but to adopt a system -- I'm quoting Bush here -- like the American system? For voter registration not to be automatic, but to be the way it is in the United States? Check out the steps needed to become a voter in [the U.S.], the red tape people have to go through, the efforts they must make during working hours, the work all that entails. GARCCA: There is a rumor that a grand jury in New Jersey has technically ended its 18-month term and that, for that reason, the U.S. government's appeal against [Luis] Posada Carriles on immigration charges has expired. I am talking about speculations. In this case, I understand that the Cuban authorities reportedly have resumed cooperation with [the U.S., providing] information and data. How do you see the Cuban position, regarding the case of the New Jersey grand jury? ALARCCN: Well, I can't tell you anything on the basis of a speculation, because I haven't the slightest idea of what they're going to do. We have cooperated with the FBI and the U.S. authorities every time they've asked for cooperation, every time they have asked for information or data -- and they have done so on some occasions -- and they've wound up going to Havana and receiving whatever they've requested. So, this is not rare; particularly because it's a duty. You can't tell the world that you oppose terrorism and then tell someone, "well, no, because I don't like you, I won't give you the data about someone who's in your country and is a terrorist." We are obliged to give it to them. We denounce, condemn and criticize the double standard of the U.S., because it imprisons our five comrades for fighting terrorism and at the same time it protects Posada Carriles. We have to be consistent. When they ask us if we know anything about something in particular, we say to them: "Yes, look, this is what we know about this." GARCCA: Some months ago, there was a strange deportation from Cuba -- an American living in Cuba who was turned over to the U.S. authorities. Was this a case of cooperation? Was it a special instance or is it something that Cuba is willing to discuss with the U.S. and cooperate? ALARCCN: Well, on several occasions we have deported Americans. We have returned them. We have turned over criminals sought by the U.S. authorities, people we were not interested in having [in Cuba.] What sense would it make to keep them? GARCCA: AlarcC3n, the case of The Five has altered U.S. public opinion. We are waiting for the [Appeals Court] judges [in Atlanta] to hand down a ruling and we don't know when that will happen. If that ruling does not favor their release, would the case go up to the Supreme Court? ALARCCN: Up to the Supreme Court, I believe; up to the [International] Court [of Justice] in The Hague; up to the interplanetary court; up to wherever it must go. Let there not be the slightest doubt about that. I believe you're right; it's a topic that is beginning to have greater visibility in the United States, which is important, because very serious things have happened, even this past year. For example, Aragoncillo -- I believe he's called Leonardo Aragoncillo of New Jersey -- this man had been working in the White House with two Vice Presidents, Al Gore and [Dick] Cheney (LAUGHTER) -- yes, the guy is bipartisan -- and worked in their office. At the time he was arrested, he was an FBI analyst, after he had committed a crime. This man was not charged with conspiring to commit espionage, even though he was found in possession of 736 secret documents from the White House! And they sentenced him to 10 years! GARCCA: Some people criticized me because on our first interview, when we broached these topics, I didn't ask you why Cuba was not defending Ana BelC)n Montes, serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S. Will Cuba ever assume a public stance regarding Ana BelC)n Montes? ALARCCN: No, I wouldn't say that. The problem is that one has to take into account what is most convenient for the person in question and her defense team, and what they might consider at a specific moment. Of course, I don't know her and I don't know her case, except for what I've read. But anyone who has sacrificed his- or herself for our country, for its security, its independence, deserves our full respect and our best wishes for her well-being. GARCCA: For the first time, we see people who are not Cuban leaders opining publicly about Fidel's health and the processes that might happen in Cuba in the future. I'm referring to Mariela Castro. Is this something different? She is not a high-ranking functionary. ALARCCN: No, Mariela is a young woman who grew up in the Revolution; a person with great professional and moral authority. Very consistent, too, it seems to me. GARCCA: Is this the generational change you spoke to me about, two years ago in New York City? ALARCCN: That's one of the changes. Those are the reflections, what one sees. Imagine, "time passes and we're getting old," as the song says. GARCCA: Are Cubans afraid that the fact that some of the leaders' children -- such as [Carlos] Lage CodorniC: and Mariela Castro -- participate in this process might be seen as negative? ALARCCN: Lage CodorniC: is the son of [Vice President] Carlos Lage [DC!vila] but he is his own man. Mariela is a clear example of that. Mariela is the daughter of RaC:l [Castro] and Vilma [EspC-n], and she was brought up in a very special, very solid home. Intellectually, she is very well formed. She says things and gives opinions that a traditional politician would keep to himself. GARCCA: Could that be a political strategy? Allowing certain people to publicly give their opinions, people who don't have the same weight that -- let's say -- you have? ALARCCN: No, no, because I've said the same things, too. GARCCA: Do you maintain any contact with Fidel's children? ALARCCN: With the older son, yes, perhaps for generational reasons. He and I have worked a lot in events like this [LASA congress.] I have not had many dealings with [Fidel's] other children or with RaC:l's. With Mariela, yes, because Mariela is a fighter in this issue of gay rights. Contact has been necessary. GARCCA: Are you in favor of homosexual marriages? And I ask for your views as president of Parliament, not as a private person. ALARCCN: I am fully in favor of everything that Mariela has proposed about modifying our Code. And we'll do that someday. We have to work and do it democratically; we must persuade, convince, explain the issue [of gay rights] to the people. The question of matrimony is something else; it's more controversial. GARCCA: Are you in agreement with the position of the Roman Catholic Church? ALARCCN: It's not just because the Catholic Church says so, but I do believe that we need to grant due respect not only to the Catholics but also to all the other religions that consider matrimony as a sacrament. So, it seems to me that redefining marriage would be disrespectful; it would needlessly create an additional conflict. Homosexuals and lesbians suffer enough prejudice and discrimination without getting the Church involved, and all that mess. Let's keep the issues separate. I would not modify matrimony, traditional marriage, as defined by the law or defined by the Church. What's needed is not an amendment to the laws of God but an amendment to the [Cuban] Code. Now then, same-sex couples should have the same rights and responsibilities as different-sex couples. GARCCA: An Internet debate is going on, involving Cuban journalists like Soledad Cruz and other analysts, where there seems to be a variety of ideas or projects to transform the economy. Some say this has to do with what RaC:l said in his July 26 speech in CamagC