Alfredo Morales Cartaya, former minister of Labor and Social Security, died Saturday in Havana of a heart attack, a brief obituary in Cubadebate reported. He was 62. Morales had been secretary general of the Cuban Workers Central in Havana. He was a deputy to the National Assembly and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Morales was promoted to the Labor Ministry in October 1999 and served until March 2009, when a major Cabinet shuffle removed him and other officials – including Carlos Lage and Felipe Pérez Roque – from their posts. Morales was replaced by his First Vice Minister, Margarita Marlene González Fernández.
At the time of his death, Morales was national commission chairman of the Social Prevention and Care System. (For his obituary in Granma, click here.)
« September 2010 | Main | November 2010 »
Ted Sorensen, an aide to JFK, dies; wrote 1962 speech announcing blockade of Cuba
From the Bloomberg news service:
Theodore Sorensen, who helped craft some of the most quoted and analyzed speeches in American history as a top adviser to President John F. Kennedy, has died. He was 82. One of the last surviving members of Kennedy’s inner circle, Sorensen served as senior adviser and special counsel, briefing the president and offering advice on everything from electoral politics to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
During the tense showdown with the Soviet Union in 1962 over missiles in Cuba, Sorensen drafted Kennedy’s correspondence with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. He also wrote Kennedy’s Oct. 22 speech to the nation announcing the U.S. blockade of Cuba.
“We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril,” Kennedy said in the nationally televised speech. “Nuclear weapons are so destructive, and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.”
To read the entire obituary, click here. For an obit in The New York Times, click here.
What to do with an unrepentant dissident?
According to The Associated Press, the Cuban government "has a week left to make good on a promise to clear Cuban jails of 52 activists, opposition leaders and social critics."
Thirty-nine have been freed and were put on the first plane to Spain.
The 13 who remain, however, "may be the toughest releases yet for a government that describes dissidents as subversive U.S. agents bent on toppling the socialist system," the AP says.
They refuse to leave prison unless they are freed without any conditions – pardoned, not paroled.
Speculations abound as to what the state will do with them. My guess is that it will pardon and release them. But it will also keep closer tabs on them than before, an ability made simpler by the fact that there's only 13 of them.
And the minute any of them makes a move considered seditious by the government, he will be given a quick trial and sentenced to domestic exile, i.e., resettled as far away from his home as possible, not in a prison but in some sort of isolated community with minimal communications and fewer forms of egress.
It's not really my idea. Actor Patrick McGoohan came up with it in the 1960s, sold it to Britain's ITV and starred in the series. It was called "The Prisoner."
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Lawmaker confirms wife's visit to inmate
The wife of convicted Cuban spy Gerardo Hernández was allowed to visit him in his U.S. prison last month for the first time in 12 years, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's office confirmed Friday. Ros-Lehtinen spokesman Alex Cruz said the Republican congress member "raised hell'' when State Department officials briefed her on the visit, after it had taken place.
"We again raised the fact that they are treating Alan Gross and this convicted spy as equals,'' said Cruz, referring to the U.S. government subcontractor jailed in Havana. "We were assured that there was no such linkage.''
Cruz said the wife's visit took place in early or mid-September – shortly after Gross's wife Judy was first allowed to visit him in Havana, where he has been jailed without charges since Dec. 3.
Adriana Pérez visited her husband at the federal prison in Victorville, Calif., according to the blog Cafe Fuerte, which first reported the visit Thursday.
For more details, click here.
–JUAN O. TAMAYO.
North Korean Vice Marshal arrives
Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho, Chief of Staff of the North Korean Army, toured the Rescate de Sanguily military base outside Havana on Friday, on the first day of his six-day tour of Cuba.
Ri and his delegation watched some firing-range demonstrations and viewed an artillery display, Prensa Latina reported.
Gen. Álvaro López Miera, Vice Minister of the Cuban Armed Forces and Chief of the General Staff, was the North Korean general's host.
During his stay in Cuba, Ri will visit "places of historical and cultural interest," the news agency said.
The two officers last met in April, when López Miera stopped in Pyongyang during a two-week tour through North Korea, Vietnam, China and Russia. (IN PHOTO, López, Ri and an interpreter at artillery display.)
Cuba, North Korea restate mutual affection
At a reception Thursday in Pyongyang marking the 65th birthday of North Korean President Kim Jong Il, Cuban Ambassador José Manuel Galeno Montano pointed out "that Fidel Castro Ruz made public articles this year denouncing the moves of the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces to stifle the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and expressing solidarity with the Korean people in their struggle to build socialism, defend sovereignty and achieve the reunification of the country."
Galeno's comments were published by the Korean Central News Agency of the DPRK.
"On behalf of the party, government and people of Cuba, [Galeno] expressed sincere hope that the Korean people would fling open the gate to a thriving nation and enjoy happy life and the Workers Party of Korea would grow stronger," the news agency said. Former Premier Kim Yong Il, a guest at the reception, thanked Galeno and "noted that the Korean people are sincerely rejoiced as their own over the successes made by Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro Ruz and Raul Castro Ruz."
Earlier in the day, Galeno bade goodbye to Gen. Ri Yong Ho, Vice Marshal of the Army, who left for Cuba. (See previous blog item, "A top North Korean officer pays a visit.")
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.
Wenski to lead bishops on trip to Cuba
From the Rome Reports news agency:
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that it will send a delegation to attend the opening of a new seminary in Cuba. The island has not held a ceremony such as this in over 50 years. The USCCB delegation will be led by subcommittee member Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami. The group will travel to Cuba from November 3-6, visiting various churches.
John Paul II blessed the cornerstone of this seminary in his 1998 trip to Cuba. The project has been financed by a number of Catholic organizations, including the Knights of Columbus.
For a report from EFE, in Spanish, click here. For an interview with Wenski, in El Nuevo Herald, click here.
Ros-Lehtinen's role in House could grow, foiling efforts to ease restrictions on Cuba
Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is poised to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee if Republicans take control of the House in November, effectively quashing congressional efforts to ease restrictions on Cuba. Congressional observers suggest she's a lock for the job, if the GOP wins the 39 seats required to gain the House, as a number of analysts predict.
The chairmanship would give Ros-Lehtinen access to the House leadership's inner circle and provide the pro-embargo legislator with an enhanced position to influence U.S. policy on Cuba.
Ros-Lehtinen, first elected to Congress in 1989, would be the first Cuban American to chair a committee. The decision, which will be made after the November election and only if Republicans take the majority, is up to a 32-member steering committee largely dominated by the House speaker and majority leader.
To read more, in The Miami Herald, click here.
–LESLEY CLARK.
A top North Korean officer pays a visit
Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho, Chief of Staff of the North Korean Army, will arrive in Cuba Friday on an official visit, Granma reported Thursday.
In an unusual welcome, he shall be given a 17-gun salute.
According to intelligence experts cited by The Wall Street Journal, Ri likely will guide the North Korean military in a transition of power to Kim Jong Eun if his father, President Kim Jong Il, dies or becomes incapacitated.
Ri and Kim Jong Eun were both appointed vice chairmen of the Workers Party' Central Military Commission. Ri, 68, spent the past six years as chief of the Pyongyang defense command, the WSJ reports.
PHOTO SHOWS Kim Jong Eun and Ri at a recent party gathering. To read the entire WSJ article, click here.
