Granma: Cuba Has Not Imported Chinese Arms for 30 Years Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit GRANMA June 20, 2001 Cuba has not imported arms from China for 30 years [Fidel unmasks U.S. lies against China and Cuba. Alleged secret arms shipments to the island were beans, rice, fabric, buttons and thread. Concept of War of All the People guarantees that an invader would have to pay too high a price. There are millions of determined people convinced of their duty, and there are sufficient weapons. We're not going to give them any pretexts; they'll have to invent them, but they should know that they are not gods or the masters of the world.] BY ELSON CONCEPCION PEREZ (Granma daily staff writer) CUBA has not imported arms from China for 30 years, and since the special period began 10 years ago, Cuba has not invested a cent in arms purchases, President Fidel Castro stated during the televised roundtable discussion unmasking the United States' lies against China and Cuba. Fidel gave detailed and documented analysis refuting all the information circulated in the United States on allegedly secret armed supplies by China to Cuba. He explained that the three shipments of "terrifying weapons," arriving in Cuba on three ships from China, turned out to be beans, rice, fabric, buttons and thread. "They live on lies, hypocrisy and deceit," Fidel stressed. Later on, he offered details of the three ships "full of arms." The first arrived in a Cuban port on May 10, 2000, at 8:30 a.m., consisting of a cargo for the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), of a Chinese donation of olive green fabric, rubber boots and zippers, buttons and other components of uniforms which, as has been the case in recent times, are made with good-quality Chinese fabric. Another ship arrived in the port of Mariel on September 5, 2000, and on September 6 at 10:50 a.m. the unloading began of 311 tons of a material used in construction and contracted by the Ministry of Construction, which employs it in the mining sector for the production of stone, sand and marble. Later that ship sailed on to the port of Havana, where it unloaded beans, and did the same in the port of Santiago de Cuba. "Arms to combat hunger," commented Fidel, referring to the beans used in dishes enjoyed by the Cuban people. The third shipment was contracted on December 15, 2000, and consisted of 20 containers of rice, of which 13,151 tons were unloaded in the port of Havana. WE HAVE ALL THE ARMS WE NEED Fidel stated that in conversations held during the visit to Cuba by the head of the General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, there was no agreement signed for arms supplies. "What is our policy on arms?" he asked, and answered as follows: He explained that since before the disappearance of the USSR, in the first years of the 1980s, Cuba became completely convinced that if the United States undertook a military invasion of Cuba, we would have to fight alone. "We elaborated ideas, and there was a radical change on the concept of our defense, an idea born out of our guerrilla experience, when we defeated an enemy force of 80,000 men in less than two years." He referred to the fact that almost 20 years ago Cuba began to prepared itself for "the war of all the people," a revolutionary concept for which the country has more than enough arms, so that we could guarantee that an invader would have to pay too high a price for attempting to take over this land. President Fidel Castro declared that in our country all the wars were studied, including that of Kosovo, where if the resistance had gone on for two more weeks NATO would have been dissolved, because the time had come for a land war and the aggressors did not know how to do that. In Cuba there are millions of determined people convinced of their duty, and there are more than enough weapons, he added. Later on he stated that Cuba would not give them pretexts, that they would have to invent them, but they should know that they are not gods or the masters of the world. Speaking about another U.S. lie on the subject of "asymmetical warfare" - only comparable with "all the trash they've said that the very few truths they have spoken in their lives" - Fidel asked, "Who had the peculiar and stupid idea that someone could make electronic war with the few resources we have? Where did the crazy and stupid theory of such warfare come from?" He explained that the country is making a great effort to improve communications and mentioned the $400 million USD investment in the Cuban-Italian company ETECSA, installing new microwave systems, and the process of installing fiber optic cables for better and increased communications, initially benefiting all the provincial capitals and some 30 municipalities, but noting that more than 120 municipalities would be left without that service for now. UNITED STATES: CHAMPIONS OF TERRORISM Referring to the "new little campaign" regarding the supposed sales of Chinese weapons to Cuba, Fidel said that what had been published in The Washington Times in eight columns on the front page, and later picked up by various news agencies, was done with the goal of creating scandals and influencing U.S. public opinion, presenting Cuba as a threat. He read for those present some of the declarations of U.S. officials and representatives of the Cuban-American mafia in Miami, including Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and other members of Congress who - alleging the truth of the arms sales - even threatened economic sanctions against China. Fidel said that the United States, claiming to be the "supreme judge," wants to say which countries in the world are behaving badly or well, which ones violate human rights and which ones support terrorism - when in reality it is the U.S. government that is the champion of terrorism in the world, that waged the dirty war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, that turned over weapons to Savimbi in Angola and that even shot down UN planes, as well as sponsoring horrible crimes committed in El Salvador. He recalled that at the School of the Americas in Panama, the United States trained about 70,000 security officers in torture techniques and trained criminals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. In the case of Guatemala, 200,000 deaths and 150,000 disappearances were the result, as a time when no one was taken prisoner, but just killed. He said that in Angola, Savimbi's bands massacred entire villages; in Chile the United States prepared the coup d'état against Salvador Allende; and in Palestine tanks, helicopters, planes and sharpshooters kill children and raze homes with the support of the United States, which cynically refused to approve a resolution and later vetoed it, so as not to condemn Israel. After listing all these actions, Fidel asked, "How do they have the nerve to talk about terrorism and human rights? How can they speak of money laundering when everyone knows that the U.S. banks are the main exponents of these actions?" 'THE WASHINGTON TIMES': VOICE OF THE ULTRA-RIGHT The roundtable began with an analysis by journalists Eduardo Dimas, Bárbara Betancourt and Renato Recio, with moderating by Randy Alonso, of information that appeared last week in the U.S. press, specifically in The Washington Times, voice of the U.S. ultra-right, on alleged Chinese arms sales to Cuba. They read out paragraphs of what that daily has published, including allegations that "according to U.S. intelligence sources," some of the shipments would go to strengthening a Chinese electronic wiretapping system in Cuba. The panelists recalled that The Washington Times belongs to the Unification Church, better known as the Moonie sect, which - more than a religious organization - is a powerful corporation linked to the most conservative sectors in the United States. Since 1980, that sect has had ties with the Bush and Reagan families and contributed $10 million USD to Bush Sr.'s electoral campaign. Furthermore, the journalists emphasized that the United States is trying to stop other countries from selling arms, while it provides military aid and advising and sells weapons to 152 countries throughout the world. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.20.01-21:27:18-31090