>>> "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com> 04/27/00 11:16AM >>>
>CB: ... Mayor G. is presiding over open terrorist rule in NYC today, right
>now , as we speak.
Actually, I believe Giuliani is undergoing a biopsy for prostate cancer as we speak. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.
______________
CB: Good time for an insurrection.
FYI
APRIL 27, 09:32 EDT
Castro: Guns Not Needed for Raids
By JOHN RICE Associated Press Writer
Castro looks toward the press corps AP/Jose Goitia [25K] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HAVANA (AP) ― Cuban President Fidel Castro says if his agents had raided a house to retrieve Elian Gonzalez, they would have gone unarmed ― though he refused to directly criticize U.S. officials for using guns.
``You can see obviously that the people were well-trained,'' Castro said Wednesday, referring to photos of the raid Saturday that took the 6-year-old child from the Miami house of his great-uncle. ``They did it well.''
He noted that U.S. officials used weapons in Saturday's raid because of reports that there might be weapons in or near the house.
But in Cuba, he said, ``we do it with unarmed people. That is within our idiosyncrasy and our habit that one has to risk one's life.'' He said Cuban border guards were trained to board vessels unarmed.
Such a practice in the United States might cause anarchy ``if the marshals renounced their arms and were sent on an operation at a house where there were armed people,'' the Cuban leader said.
Castro also suggested U.S. officials erred by allowing photos of the raid, saying they should have foreseen they would be used in ``a war of images'' by the Miami family fighting to keep Elian in the United States against the wishes of his father.
In Washington, a top State Department official called Castro's actions in the Gonzalez case ``absolutely deplorable'' and said the United States will persist in its attempts to isolate Cuba.
Assistant Secretary of State Peter Romero accused the Cuban leader of trying to use the boy's misfortune to create ``a diplomatic-political clash'' with the United States. ``He manipulated this for complete domestic purposes,'' Romero said Wednesday.
Romero's comments were the most strident by an administration official since Elian arrived in South Florida last November after being rescued at sea during an ill-fated boat trip that claimed the life of his mother.
In the five months since Elian's arrival on U.S. soil, Castro has organized a series of mass anti-American demonstrations demanding the boy's return to the island. He also ordered the construction of an anti-American monument near the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana.
On Wednesday, Elian's former kindergarten teacher and a cousin flew to the United States to join the boy with his father, stepmother and baby brother at the Wye River conference center in Maryland.
Elian had stayed with a great-uncle in Miami since being rescued from the shipwreck in late November. A federal court has ordered him kept in the United States until the Miami family's attempt to seek political asylum for him is resolved.
Four of Elian's classmates and four of their parents also applied for U.S. visas Wednesday in Havana. U.S. officials have said the visas would be expedited.
Castro criticized the U.S. refusal to authorize the full 31-person team of students, teachers and medical specialists Cuba had proposed to help the boy overcome his ordeal and rebuild bonds with Cuban friends and teachers.
``I don't understand any of that, nor can it be understood,'' Castro said of the U.S. decision. He complained that the visas approved included ``not a single specialist, not a single psychologist, not a single psychiatrist.''
Castro spoke after visiting a special boarding school created in a two-story house in Havana where officials plan to have Elian and his classmates stay for at least three months after the boy's return.
In interviews broadcast Wednesday night by Cuban state television, cousin Yasmany Betancourt, 10, promised to give Elian ``a kiss and a very strong hug.''
He said the two would play with toy cars, draw and make faces.
Teacher Agueda Fleitas said she was bringing ``a whole series of materials'' so that Elian could catch up with schoolmates. ``He's behind,'' she said. ``We are going well prepared to advance as much as possible.''
Cuban television broadcast parts of a 41-minute videotape with greetings from schoolmates and neighbors, as well as relatives displaying pet dogs and birds and playing baseball.
``We send you many kisses,'' said his first grade teacher, Yamilin Morales Delgado.
``A very big hug,'' added his best friend, Hanser Munoz Pedroso.
University of Havana psychologist Aurora Garcia, a proposed member of the team, said the idea was to help the boy restore relations with friends while curing psychological wounds caused by the stress of recent months.
She ridiculed critics in the United States who portrayed the proposed team ``as a kind of evil commando.''
``They speak of programming as if Elian were a computer,'' she said