How the Press Covered Carter's Havana Speech

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit


HOW THE PRESS COVERED JIMMY CARTER'S SPEECH TO THE CUBAN PEOPLE

Havana, May 16 (RHC)-- Cuba's official news daily Granma Thursday
published the entire text of a speech delivered in Havana by visiting
former US President Jimmy Carter, as well as the entire text of a
subsequent exchange between Carter and those in the audience. The
coverage flies in the face of mainstream media reports, particularly
from the US, which claimed that the Cuban press only reported
Carter's praise of Cuba and his call to end Washington's blockade
against the island, while not reporting the visiting dignitary's
criticism of Cuba's political system.

And those same mainstream media outlets either glossed over or
totally ignored some of the penetrating observations and questions
put to Carter following his speech. One of those interventions came
from Cuban student leader Hassán Pérez, who respectfully told Carter
that he disagreed with his affirmation that the United States should
take the first step in normalizing relations with Cuba because the US
is a powerful nation. Pérez expressed the opinion that this is not
why Washington should take the first step, but rather, because Cuba
has never blockaded the American people, nor financed and committed
aggressions against the United States that have cost American lives.

In response to Carter's call for the establishment of a bilateral
commission for the compensation of American firms nationalized by the
Cuban Revolution, Hassán pointed out that Cuba has compensated every
other country whose firms were taken over following the 1959 triumph
-- and asked who is to blame that the same hasn't occurred with the
United States.

(c) 2002 Radio Habana Cuba, NY Transfer News. All rights reserved.
 
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nytmed-05.17.02-18:21:49-16906