The Republican candidate - II
Fidel Castro Ruz

ONE of the most hostile U.S. newspapers when it comes to Cuba, headquartered in Florida, offers the following report: “Taking advantage of the negotiations to free the Bay of Pigs’ prisoners, the CIA tried to use a key person in the talks, American lawyer James B. Donovan, to deliver a lethal gift to Fidel Castro: a wetsuit contaminated with a fungus that lacerates the skin and an underwater breathing device infected with tuberculosis...the gear in fact was given to the Cuban leader in November 1962. “The revelation is one of many anecdotes in After the Bay of Pigs, a book on the negotiations held between the Committee of Relatives for the Liberation of Prisoners and Havana from April to December 1962. “The 238-page book, published late last year, was written by Cuban exile Pablo Pérez-Cisneros with businessman John B. Donovan, son of the late negotiator, and Jeff Koenreich, a veteran member of the Red Cross who has promoted humanitarian missions between the United States and Cuba. “Pérez-Cisneros is the son of Berta Barreto de los Heros, who was coordinator in Cuba of the Families Committee and interceded with Castro to trade off the 1,113 prisoners from the failed April 1961 invasion. “Barreto de los Heros started the book but died in March of 1993. Her son, who spent eight years researching and finishing the book, was the person who bought the wetsuit and scuba gear at the end of 1962, not knowing that both were destined for Castro. “In June 1962, Pérez-Cisneros visited James B. Donovan’s office in Brooklyn for the first time to request his intervention in the negotiations with Cuba. The meeting was arranged by Robert W. Kean, son of a former congressman and brother-in-law of Joaquín Silverio, a jailed member of Brigade 2506. Donovan agreed to work for the Families Committee at no charge. “Two months later, Donovan made the first of 11 trips to Havana for mediation with the Cuban government. ‘’When Donovan returns to Cuba in October 1962, Castro tells him he wants to have an aqualung (scuba gear) and wetsuit for diving,’’ Pérez-Cisneros told El Nuevo Herald in an interview to expand on the case. “So, Donovan tells me he wants to get quality equipment for a person, but without telling me they are for Castro.’’ “Pérez-Cisneros, who had been a champion underwater spearfisherman in Cuba, bought a $130 wetsuit and scuba equipment for $215 in a well-known store in Times Square, New York. “Castro received them in November 1962, and some weeks later, on another one of Donovan’s trips, the Cuban President told the lawyer that he had used them. “Only months after the negotiations had concluded did Pérez-Cisneros learn all the details about the real story. “During World War II, James Donovan had worked for the Office of Strategic Services, which preceded the CIA. He was later named one of the prosecutors in the Nazi war-crimes trials in Nuremberg. In February 1962, he was the chief mediator in the most spectacular spy trade of the Cold War: the trade of Russian Col. Rudolf Abel for Americans Frederick Prior and captured U-2 pilot Gary F. Powers. “When Donovan informed the CIA that Castro had requested diving equipment, the U.S. agency said it would take care of it. But the lawyer rejected any involvement in the proposal to contaminate the wetsuit and scuba equipment and preferred to give Castro the equipment bought in Times Square.
“In May of 1963, Castro invited Donovan and lawyer John E. Nolan, who represented then-Justice Secretary Robert Kennedy, to a day of diving in the Bay of Pigs area and again used the U.S. equipment. “In late 1963, ‘’Donovan told me that the idea of an attempt against Castro gave him goose bumps, and he refused to take the equipment from the CIA, thinking that if Cuba detected the operation, all the negotiations could be ruined and that he could be executed,’’ …”The book, sprinkled with curious and unexpected events, is a tense story of how love, determination and cleverness made possible the exchange of the Brigade 2506 prisoners for $53 million in food, medicine and medical equipment. “The efforts of Donovan and the Families Committee came at a moment of uncertainty over the prisoners’ fates…”The committee’s first meeting with Castro took place in Barreto de los Heros’ house in Miramar on April 10, 1962. Four days later, 60 wounded Brigade members were flown to Miami. “Donovan’s entry into the negotiations accelerated the release process. “Knowing that Barreto de los Heros’ telephone was tapped, Donovan arranged a secret code for communications. “In mid-December, Castro agreed to an exchange and handed over a 29-page list of food and medicine that was to be sent to Cuba by the American Red Cross. The last 10 days of negotiations were very intense because Donovan brought in a group of 60 lawyers in order to ensure all of the donations promised by 157 American companies. “On Dec. 23, 1962, the first five planes left for Miami, carrying 484 members of the brigade. A day later, the 719 prisoners that remained flew in nine more flights.”I have literally transcribed the article’s words. I wasn’t aware of some of the specific information.  Nothing that I remember is far from the truth.My relationship with the Cienaga de Zapata (Zapata Marsh) began very early.  I learned about the place thanks to some American visitors who would talk to me about the “black fish”, a very dark trout that was very abundant in the Laguna del Tesoro, at the heart of the marsh, at a maximum depth of 6 meters. In those days we were considering the development of tourism and possibly ‘polders’ like the land reclaimed from the sea by the Dutch.The spot was famous from my days as a high school student, when the marsh was populated by tens of thousands of crocodiles.  Indiscriminate catch had almost exterminated the species. It was necessary to protect it.We were impelled above all by the desire to do something for the charcoal burners of the marsh. That was how my relationship with the Bay of Pigs began, a bay that is so deep it reaches almost a thousand meters. There I met old Finalé and his son Quique, who were my teachers in underwater fishing. I used to go all over those keys. I came to know that area like the back of my hand. When the invaders landed there, three roads crossed the marsh, some facilities had already been built and others were being built for tourism, even an airport in the vicinity of Giron Beach, the last stronghold of the enemy forces which our combatants took by assault on the evening of April 19, 1961. I have told that story before. We were at the point of recovering it in less than 30 hours. Diversion maneuvers by the U.S. Marines delayed our crushing tank attack in the early morning of the 18th.In order to deal with the issue of captured prisoners, I met Donovan, who seemed to me –and I am pleased to confirm it with his son’s testimony– to be an honorable man; I indeed once invited him to go fishing, and without a doubt I talked to him about a wetsuit and diving equipment. I cannot remember the other details too clearly; I would have to make some inquiries. I was never concerned with writing my memoirs, and today I understand that was a mistake.
For example, I was not able to remember the exact number of wounded so precisely. What stayed in my mind was the memory of those hundreds of our wounded; quite a few died because of a shortage of equipment, medicines, specialists and the lack of suitable facilities in those days. The wounded men who were sent earlier surely required rehab or better care, but that was not available to us. From our first victorious battle, on January 17, 1957, it became our tradition to look after the enemy’s wounded. The history of our Revolution records that fact. In the book of memoirs called “Faith of my Fathers”, written by McCain with the omnipresent help of Mark Salter, technically very well written, the main author states: “I was often accused of being an indifferent student, and given some of my grades, I can appreciate the charity in that remark. But I was not so much indifferent as selective.  I liked English and history, and I usually did well in those classes. I was less interested and less successful in math and science.”
Further along, he assures us: “A few months prior to graduation, I had taken the Naval Academy entrance exams…did surprisingly well, even on the math exam. “My reputation as a rowdy and impetuous young man was not, I’m embarrassed to confess, confined to Academy circles. Many upstanding residents of lovely Annapolis, witnesses to some of our more extravagant acts of insubordination, disapproved of me as did many Academy officials.” Earlier, upon describing some of the events of his childhood, he tells us that: “At the smallest provocation, I would go off in a mad frenzy, and then, suddenly, crash to the floor unconscious.





Teaching time
Mark Godfrey

CHINA’S rush for Olympic glory has made unlikely heroes of some of its older citizens. Summer and Rose, two septuagenarian English students who run the show at the weekly Olympic English class at Chaoyang Library in Beijing every Saturday, are typical representatives of these people. I know them because I was recruited one night by a plucky, perennially optimistic local secondary school teacher, Dana, while buying bananas at the fruit stall on my quiet residential street. A long-time teacher couldn’t make the next day to class and I filled in.
Around the corner from the People’s Daily on a leafy strip of the city’s business district, Chaoyang Library has always been a weekend haven for senior citizens wanting to use their time productively: singing classes, art classes and financial advice shops. But they’ve taken it up a huge notch with Olympic English. A 12-month course hammered out, typed and printed by volunteers, which introduces locals to the kind of dialogue they’ll be expected to replicate with lost Olympic-going foreigners. Phrases are written in a chatty, informal style to encourage chat between students and the Olympic visitors they’ll speak to. “There are plenty of restaurants near your hotel, which kind of food would you like?” There are concessions to modernity too: “You can find wireless Internet connections in most of Beijing’s downtown hotels and cafes.”
I give the course most of the Saturday mornings when I’m in Beijing. Friends have come to share the space behind the microphones in a large library auditorium. The eager 70 or so students cram together on blue plastic seats below us. Sitting next to us on the stage was one of the local organizers, a retired civil servant, patiently projects each lesson onto a screen using his laptop. We read, the students repeat. I come back every week because it’s reassuring. Sitting in the class on Saturday morning far from the road rage and frequent arrogance of the city’s nouveau riche, I’m reassured of the decency of Beijingers. The students’ incredible eagerness to learn is compelling too. The classes are also hugely educative for the teachers. Generations of locals enthusiastically share their views and histories. They’re always a good barometer of local feelings on everything from local coffee shop prices (“too expensive!”) to the evolution of the local transport system. Since most students are compelled to use public transport and the aforementioned Rose spends two hours traveling to class from Fengtai District on Beijing’s southwesterly fringes.
In the 90-minute English corner that leads to lunchtime, we sit with the students, rimmed by eager faces with questions and curiosity. Some come with lists for translation: What’s an esophagus? Tang brings a book of film dialogues. He finds Roman Holiday and Casablanca boring. Better English is tough, I try to tell him. Next week he’s studying a script for Basic Instinct plucked off the Internet. There’s some words there he needn’t learn, I say. With him, like other students, I’ve become friends and can count on a script-like call if I’m late or absent from class: “Where are you man? You comin’ down here?” The novelty factor of elderly people learning English from volunteer foreigners means teacher and students have sometimes become an unnecessary spectacle, asked to perform for the camera by visiting and local TV crews. “Make them play games,” I was asked by a camerawoman. Another foreign documentary maker expected we’d choreograph the entire class for the benefit of her crew. The honest, tough grind of learning a foreign language didn’t seem to be worthy of the camera.
Learning a language is a hard-slog business after all. Already I often worry about the sustainability of the program we’re teaching. We badly need more frequent English corners, with more teachers, to allow the students to troubleshoot the phrases they’ve been learning. A 90-minute dose of Olympic English, no matter how well explained, translated and repeated by the teachers on the stage, will not sink in without practice. I can imagine there are armies of expatriates out there with a couple of hours to give on a Saturday morning. It needn’t be Saturday: Our students in their eagerness are also keen on Sunday afternoon slots. A previous teacher, since returned to an American boardroom, began a Sunday afternoon film club that needs subtitled English-language films and someone to explain any unfathomed dialogue afterwards. I hope our Saturday morning Olympic English survives this summer’s Games. I’m not sure what we’d call it. Maybe Life English. Certainly we don’t want for students or enthusiasm. We just need more teachers!

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)





Annapolis fails to strengthen peace process
Walid M. Awad

THE Annapolis conference in November 2007, hosted by US President George W. Bush, gave many some hope that a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is within the realm of possibility. However, the scene since then has changed for the worse. The US is busy with a presidential election; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is battling for his survival. As for Palestinians, Hamas is trying to consolidate its authority over Gaza. In the West Bank, tremendously weakened by Hamas’ coup in Gaza, President Mahmoud Abbas is trying his best to keep the peace process on track. His efforts, however, are facing immense difficulties. Israel’s nonstop raids on the West Bank and Gaza are shedding much Palestinian blood, the siege and the checkpoints are rendering any economic recovery meaningless, the Palestinian government is unable to meet its economic and financial obligations toward its people, government employees are restless and threatening strikes.
The absence of any tangible indication from the presumably ongoing peace talks, coupled with the Israeli escalation of its bloody military operations and settlement activities, particularly in and around Arab East Jerusalem, are pushing many to lose hope, and increasing their hate and anger. The Quartet envoy in charge of reconstructing the Palestinian economy and rebuilding institutions, Tony Blair, is learning the hard fact which is known to every Palestinian man, woman and child, that without removing the road blocks and the siege and ending the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian economy will not get off the ground. The financial assistance promised at the Paris conference to the PNA is not forthcoming. According to Palestinian deputy minister of finance, more than 90 percent of the promised aid for the 2008 fiscal year has not arrived. Despite his serious and sincere efforts to achieve a peace accord with Israel, President Abbas is continuously ridiculed by the Israeli media and politicians. The Israeli government is not reciprocating. Not one single settlement or so-called settlement outpost has been removed, the siege on Arab East Jerusalem is tightened, and the Judizing of Arab Jerusalem is continuing at full speed. Israel’s actions are enforcing the widely held Palestinian and Arab belief that it is not interested in peace, and its only concern is the gradual swallowing of Palestinian land and solidifying its illegal occupation of Arab Jerusalem. The momentum for peacemaking, which began in earnest after Annapolis, is all but evaporated. Subsequently, President Abbas’ repeated statements on the possibilities of achieving peace with Israel, regaining control over Gaza and its crossings ring hollow to Palestinian ears. Unfortunately his credibility amongst his people appears to be diminishing.
Once again, the Palestinian and Arab people are duped by the West. Despite promises to the Palestinians, the West continues unquestionable support for Israel, its occupation and expansionist policies. To ask the West to flex some muscle and pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian land and to return to pre-1967 borders is answered by the West as being unrealistic. The peace process is going nowhere, despite the rhetoric to the contrary. The fact that the US and the EU are not lifting a finger to change the reality on the ground testifies to their acquiescence in the status quos. The Palestinians and Arabs are advised to search for a new strategy, a strategy that still has peacemaking and achieving just peace as a goal. For this purpose, they need to use the vital tools and assets available to them, and make better and more efficient use of them. The Arabs must learn more about the politics of world economy and invest this learning to the benefit of their vital interests. If the Arabs choose to, they can assert themselves more forcefully. They have the ability, the geography, the management and skills, the economic and political power to make the Western world listen, and listen attentively.

—Arab News