All posts by Casa de las Americas

Casa de las Américas (Casa) is a New York-based organization of Cuban emigrants who support the revolution. Beginning in 1955, the July 26 Committee was established in NY for the purpose of supporting the armed struggle that was taking place in Cuba against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Shortly after the triumph of the revolution in 1959, the Committee was renamed Casa Cuba, which later became Casa de las Américas.

Cuba convicts 12 of corruption in nickel industry

Cuba convicts ex-officials, workers at joint Canadian nickel concern in corruption probe

By Peter Orsi, Associated Press | Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban court has convicted a dozen people of corruption, including high-ranking government officials, an executive at a state-run nickel company and workers from a project operating under a Cuban-Canadian joint concern, official media announced Tuesday.

In a case involving a contract for the expansion of the Pedro Soto Alba nickel and cobalt processing plant at the Moa mine, the sentences range from four to 12 years, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported.

The court in the eastern province of Holguin took into account “the gravity of these acts and their harmful consequences in one of the strategic activities for the nation’s economy, and the conduct of the accused, characterized by the loss of ethical values and deception,” the bulletin read.

The announcement was the first official confirmation of a probe that since last year has been the source of rumor and private discussion by diplomats on the island, part of a wider crackdown on graft that has caught up several foreigners and sent a chill through the small foreign business community.

The stiffest prison terms were handed down to Alfredo Rafael Zayas Lopez (12 years), Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez (10 years) and Antonio Orizon de los Reyes Bermudez (eight years), all former vice ministers at the Ministry of Basic Industry, which oversees nickel production.

Cristobal de la Caridad Saavedra Montero, business director of state-run Cubaniquel, was given six years.

Accounting executive Alfredo Barallobre Rodriguez and deputy production director Orlando Carmenaty Olmo of Empresa Moa Nickel SA.

The Moa Joint Venture that controls the mining operation is operated in tandem by Cuba and Toronto-based mining company Sherritt International Corp., were sentenced to six and five years, respectively.

Sherritt representatives did not immediately reply to phone and email messages seeking comment.

Moa currently produces 37,000 tons of nickel and cobalt per year, according to Sherritt’s website.

Six other people also were sentenced. All can appeal.

Two foreign business executives told The Associated Press in November that the same probe had led to the shuttering of Canadian companies Tri-Star Caribbean and Tokmakjian Group as well as the investment firm Coral Capital Group, headed up a Briton.

Two Canadians and a Czech who were reportedly detained in the case were not listed Tuesday among those convicted.

Nickel production is one of Cuba’s main sources of foreign income, along with tourism. In April a senior government official said the mineral accounted for 30 percent of exports in 2011, which would put nickel revenues at $1.8 billion for the year based on recently released overall export figures.

Cuba convicts 12 of corruption in nickel industry

Save the date; U.S. tour of VICENTE FELIU

Download English version Leaflet both in Color or in Black/White

Enjoy an Evening of Music with a Leading Voice of the Nueva Trova Movement from Cuba, VICENTE FELIU, in Concert with Latin Grammy Award Winner ALEJANDRO VALDEZ


Saturday, September 15th

Special Cultural Presentation by
VIicente & Alejandro in CONCERT


Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center
310 West 43 Street, Manhattan
(Between 8th & 9th Ave.)
Reception: 7:00 p.m.
Light Refreshments
Time: 8:00 p.m.

Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González, the Cuban 5, were arrested by the F.B.I. on “conspiracy” and other trumped-up charges. The real reason for their imprisonment was that they infiltrated and gathered information on right-wing Cuban-American groups in Miami in order to prevent terrorist attacks against Cuba by these groups. The Cuban 5 have been imprisoned for more than 13 years – for defending the sovereignty of their homeland.

Suggested Donation $10.00 (No One Turned Away For Lack of Funds)

Organized by the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 in collaboration with World Organization for Right of the People to Health Care, Inc., IFCO/Pastors for Peace, Casa de las Americas, July 26 Coalition and the National Network on Cuba.

U.S. still says Cuba on its list of “countries which sponsor international terrorism”

PERMANENT MISSION OF CUBA TO THE UNITED NATIONS
315 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016 (212) 689-7215, FAX (212) 689-9073

PRESS RELEASE

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA

On July 31st, the U.S. State Department once again included Cuba on its arbitrary, unilateral list of “countries which sponsor international terrorism.”

Yet again, the only reason Cuba is kept on this list is exposed as an attempt to justify the U.S. blockade of our country, as well as the adoption of new measures to limit our financial and commercial transactions, to strangle the Cuban economy and impose a regime which responds to U.S. interests.

On this occasion, the U.S. government attempts to sustain this discredited exercise with a new, slanderous accusation as to the supposed failure of Cuba’s banking system to take measures to confront money laundering and financial transactions linked to terrorism.

With this tall tale the United States hopes to conceal the fact that Cuba regularly provides precise, truthful information to the appropriate United Nations bodies charged with addressing these issues and others related to confronting terrorism. The U.S. blatantly ignores the Cuban government’s repeated proposals, made again as recently as February, 2012, to agree upon a bilateral program to confront terrorism. The U.S. government has not responded.

The United States does not have any moral authority whatsoever to judge us. It is widely known that the U.S. government has used state terrorism as a weapon in its policy toward Cuba, causing 3,478 deaths and 2,099 permanent injuries and has harbored, over time, dozens of terrorists, some of whom live freely within the country, while Cuba’s five anti-terrorist fighters remain unjustly imprisoned or detained. The U.S. is also the principal center of money laundering on the planet and the lack of regulation of its financial system detonated the current global economic crisis.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs forcefully rejects the manipulation of an issue as sensitive as terrorism for such narrow political ends against Cuba and demands that the U.S. government stop lying and put an end to this shameful practice which offends the Cuban people and discredits international efforts in the struggle against terrorism.

Havana, August 1st, 2012

U.S. still says Cuba on its list of “countries which sponsor international terrorism”

Tribute to Barrón


On July 24, 2012, a tribute to our compañero Arnaldo Goenaga Barrón was held in Havana for his valiant service to the Revolution and to his homeland, Cuba. Our compañero was awarded the Friendship Medal. This acknowledgement was presented to him by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and was certified by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba and its President, the Honorable Raúl Castro Ruz.

The hot, tropical summer afternoon was no impediment for his friends and comrades in struggle, which included representatives of the revolutionary government, to gather in honor of Barrón. The celebration was led by Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada. Also present were the Ambassador of Cuba to the United Nations, Pedro Núñez Mosquera, comrade Rafael Dauza, who represented the Minister of Foreign Relations, Kenia Serrano, President of the ICAP, the Executive Board of Casa de las Américas, and Andrés Morejón and Esperanza Luzbert, officials of the ICAP who had the task of organizing this auspicious event. The proclamation was read by Esperanza Luzberty. In a moment of great honor, Alarcón decorated Barrón with his deserved medal, which he placed on Barrón’s guayabera, over his heart. As soon as the medal was pinned, the audience erupted in thunderous applause.

What follows is a brief explanation of the reasons for which this distinction was given to our beloved Barrón. Compañero Barrón tells us that the motivation to involve himself fully in the struggle to eradicate from Cuba Fulgencio Batista’s bloody dictatorship was the failed attempt during the attack on the Moncada Barracks by that valiant group of Cuban patriots, led by Fidel Castro on July 26, 1953. With close attention and with great pain, Barrón followed the infamous trial and the conditions of imprisonment to which Fidel and the other survivors of that heroic endeavor were subjected by the bloodthirsty Batista regime.

International pressure and the criticisms of the atrocities committed by the henchmen of Batista against the prisoners of that heroic deed resulted in the freedom of Fidel and the other imprisoned comrades. Fidel went abroad and in Mexico, he began to organize Cubans in the Diaspora. It was at that time that a group of young Cubans from the committee of the Orthodox Party of Cuba in New York, led by Arnaldo Goenaga Barrón, made contact with Fidel and asked that he visit them in that city. Fidel accepts the invitation and travels from Mexico to Texas and continuing by train to New York City, arriving on October 15, 1955. He was received by the members of the Committee of the Orthodox Party.

Gloria Goenaga and Arnaldo Barrón welcomed Fidel into their home for the 15 days he was in New York City. During his stay, Fidel commits all his efforts toward organizing the different sectors of the Cuban Diaspora in order to unite them into one organization. On October 28, 1955, the July 26 Movement is established in the United States, and was led by comrade Arnaldo Goenaga Barrón.

Members of the July 26Movement in the United States, including those who are no longer with us, knew how to valiantly respond to the call of the homeland and dedicate their lives to the ultimate expression of the apostle Jose Martí who tells us that, “The genuine person does not look toward what side lives better but rather on which side his duty lies.”

Who better than the President of Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, to elaborate upon these magnificent individuals? Alarcón, in an emotional and eloquent dissertation about Barrón at the ceremony, spoke precisely and clearly about the revolutionary history of these anonymous heroes of the Revolution. Alarcón declared that if anyone deserved the recognition being given, it was Arnaldo Barrón, saying: “At the very least we can give him that distinction today and with how many more could we express the gratitude that we Cubans should have toward this comrade who represents so many others who, in the ‘belly of the beast’ knew how to defend and maintain a living image of the homeland and live the revolutionary ideals?” What the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba has done through the action of the ICAP has been simply to carry out an act of justice.

Further on, Alarcón forges a framework for the accomplishments and virtues of Arnaldo and his fellow Movement comrades. He goes on to explain step by step the most daring moments of the revolutionary struggles in which those tireless Cuban fighters participated, under the leadership of our beloved Barrón. Alarcón next addresses those present in order to point out that “I have allowed myself to speak these words on this occasion to tell those who did not know him, that what we have here is a living and inseparable part of what is best in the Cuban revolutionary struggle. And in all those years that Arnaldo was not here in his homeland, he was there struggling for his homeland every second and for his people. He had to wage a little known and very hidden struggle in order to gather arms and organize actions, and he had to do this confronted with groups that were in opposition to the revolutionary process.”

“Martí said that to honor, honors, but to honor is also a duty of gratitude for those whom should never be forgotten. If we have come this far in this prolonged struggle it is because many people sacrificed their lives along the way and among these is comrade Barrón.”

In conclusion, the history of the Cuban Revolution is incomplete without the inclusion of the activities that occurred in the Cuban Diaspora in the United States and its struggles and sacrifices against the Batista dictatorship and in defense of the Revolution. We have presented here some of the actions that took place in the struggle during those times. The history of the July 26 Movement in the United States encompasses many more activities and actions unknown by many. Casa de las Américas has taken up the task of compiling and documenting everything that is relevant to that incredible history so that it may be known in the future as a gift for those who today struggle for social justice and the rights of the peoples to genuine independence. To honor the memory of all those who with so much valor and sacrifice knew how to raise the banner of the Cuban homeland on high, without caring about the risks that this entails, is our patriotic duty.

¡Viva Arnaldo Barrón, Viva Gloria Goenaga!

Eternal glory to the Fallen of our glorious revolution!
Casa de las Américas