Toronto Forum On Cuba

March 9th, 2010
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Metro Toronto Convention Centre South Building
222 BREMNER BOULEVARD
Toronto

We invite all concerned individuals, groups and organizations to join us in commemorating the lives of community leaders throughout Latin America who have lost their lives due to the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. We will gather outside of the Toronto Metro Convention Centre (South Building) where PDAC (the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada) are holding their annual mining investment show.

PDAC is an organization made up of more than 7000 junior and senior mining and exploration companies. Among them, are many mining companies infamously known for their human rights violations at home and abroad. These include companies such as Hudbay Minerals Inc., Gold Corp Inc, Barrick Gold, Pacific Rim Mining Corp among many others.

Through their media relations campaigns - including their involvement with PDAC, these companies have shown that they are not serious about respecting the human rights and self-determination of local communities. In fact, they are only interested in maintaining a false image of moral behaviour in the absence of real accountability.

We have too often read about the impact of mining on local communities - the disruption of livelihoods, the silencing of community leaders, the violence against women and other community leaders, the destruction of natural environments that bring wide-spread illness. We stand in solidarity with local communities who demand a right to alternative forms of development, health and self-determination.

Community Solidarity Response Toronto, in solidarity with the Latin American Solidarity Network of Canada, the Women’s Issues Network and LA CASA of London Ontario.

Please come back often for updates on parallel events in other cities!

MARK THE DATE OF FRIDAY, MARCH 26TH ON YOUR CALENDAR!

FUNDRAISER: ‘COMING TOGETHER FOR HAITI, CELEBRATING THE STRENGTH, HISTORY, RESILIENCE OF ITS PEOPLE’

by Salim Lamrani

On February 23, 2010, Cuban inmate Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 83 days on hunger strike. He was 42. This is the first such incident since inmate Pedro Luis Boitel died in 1972 under similar conditions. The corporate media put the tragic incident on the front page and emphasized the plight of Cuban prisoners.1

Zapata’s dramatic exit sparked a global uproar. The Cuban prisoner’s case undeniably fosters sympathy and a sense of solidarity with this person who expressed his despair and malaise in prison carrying out his hunger strike to the ultimate consequence. The heartfelt emotion aroused by his case deserves respect. In contrast, the manipulation of Tamayo’s death and of the grief of his family and friends by the corporate media for political purposes violates the basic principles of journalistic ethics.

Zapata, Political Prisoner or Common Convict?

Since 2004, Amnesty International (AI) has considered him among Cuba’s 55 “prisoner of conscience.” In addition, it has noted that Zapata’s hunger strike was launched not only to protest his conditions of detention, but also to demand the impossible: a television, a personal kitchen, and a cell phone to call his family.2 Zapata was not exactly a model prisoner. According to Cuban authorities, he was guilty of several acts of violence during his incarceration, especially against the guards, leading to his conviction being increased to 25 years.3 (more…)

Julie Webb-Pullman

Ricardo Alarcon

WHY there is a big wave of concern around the world

The incredible case of Gerardo Hernández

While some other defendants in this infamous case[i] were also charged with failure to register as foreign agents, false identity and various conspiracy charges, Gerardo Hernández was hit with something so far out of left-field it ranks a right hook – conspiracy to commit first degree murder.

This charge related to a sovereign act of the Cuban Government, the shooting down of two of three planes, one at least of which had entered Cuban airspace, on February 24, 1996.[ii] More bizarre still, the prosecution themselves attempted to withdraw the charge because even they acknowledged that they could not prove Gerardo Hernández had any involvement – yet he was still found guilty.

“That was an absolute fabrication, the biggest fabrication in the case, it was so obvious that the Bush Administration, the Bush Attorney General’s office - remember what kind of an attorney general I am talking about, the same guy who justified war and torture and so on, Alberto Gonzalez, none other than Alberto Gonzalez - in a written form, in an official document, recognised that they failed to prove that charge, and they asked for its removal from the instruction to be given to the jury, because they could not prove that Gerardo was involved in such a crime. That request was denied, and the jury had to pronounce itself on the original accusation, and they found him guilty, unanimously, in a matter of minutes,” said Ricardo Alarcon. (more…)

Photo: Cuban Ambassador to Ireland, Teresita Trujillo

The Cuban Ambassador to Ireland, Teresita Trujillo, who is currently serving her second term as her country’s representative in Dublin, spoke to An Phoblacht’s NIALL CONNOLLY this week on the 51st anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

AN PHOBLACHT: Some-times Cuba is portrayed in the media as isolated. How true is that perception?
Teresita Trujillo: Cuba is far from being isolated; the U.S. policy on Cuba is isolated. Cuba has diplomatic relations with 182 countries and has 148 diplomatic missions in 120 countries. Last year, 41 Heads of State or Government and 78 Ministers of Foreign Affairs visited Cuba.

We are fully integrated into Latin America’s regional organisations, such as the Rio Group and the Asia, Caribbean and Pacific Group, among others, and Cuba is a founding member of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America, which has just marked its fifth anniversary and is developing as a real platform for integrating the peoples of our region. (more…)

Mr. President;

It took 60 million deadly casualties during World War II to develop the concept of human rights, particularly the right to life and human dignity.

Much progress has been made in developing the human rights concept; very little has been done to guarantee its implementation. This issue has become one of the fundamental pillars of the United Nations, as well as international development, peace and security. However, this is the area where the ideological manipulation, political hypocrisy and double standards of industrialized countries have caused most ravages.

Those who take upon themselves the role of watchdogs of human rights and attempt to question others, are precisely the ones who are directly responsible for the most serious, systematic and flagrant violations of human rights, particularly the right to life. (more…)

http://mediccglobal.wordpress.com

Stop the Abuse!!
Let’s demand, in front of US Embassies all over the world, Humanitarian Visas for Adriana and Olga

Update about the visa situation for Adriana and Olga and what you can do to help

ADRIANA

On July 15, 2009 the US denied for the tenth time the visa application presented by Adriana Pérez

We ask you to please contact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the following:

1) To immediately grant a HUMANITARIAN VISA to ADRIANA PEREZ to visit her husband GERARDO HERNÁNDEZ in prison and end the violation of the right of family visits.

2) To grant multiple visas to all family members of the Cuban Five so they can visit their imprisoned loved ones in the US.

To contact the US State Department:
US State Department
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520

Fax number: 1-202-647-2283
Phone number: 1-202-647-4000
1-202-647-4000

OLGA

On December 18, 2009, she was denied humanitarian parole.
In July, 2008 Olga Salanueva was classified as “permanently ineligible”.

We ask you to contact Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking the following:

1) To immediately grant a HUMANITARIAN VISA to OLGA SALANUEVA to visit her husband RENE GONZALEZ in US prison.

To contact Homeland Security:
Janet Napolitano
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

Fax number: 1-202-282-8401
Phone number: 1- 202-282-8000
1- 202-282-8000
Comment line: 1- 202-282-8495
1- 202-282-8495

If possible please send copies of your letters to the United Nation Human Rights Council e-mail InfoDesk@ohchr.org

Urgent Action e-mail urgent-action@ohchr.org

Complaint Procedures 1503 e-mail 1503@ohchr.org

WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH ADRIANA AND OLGA

Int’l Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5

My wife, Marush, and I were invited to Cuba to attend the Havana International Book Fair because my book A People’s History of Science had been translated into Spanish and published by a Cuban publisher, and they were “launching” it at the Fair on February 17. The book’s Spanish title is Historia Popular de la Ciencia and I wrote a special introduction for the Cuban edition. (more…)

“I greet the Five and send my recognition to them and their families”, said Sheehan.

Mother of a US soldier killed during the US invasion of Iraq, Sheehan raised her fist as a sign of struggle and victory to greet Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez “internationally known as the Cuban Five”, who were arrested and given harsh and unjust sentences for monitoring anti-Cuba groups in South Florida that were planning and carrying out terrorist actions against the Caribbean nation. (more…)