Perestroika Is not

Cuba has no need of perestroika or the
other changes currently sweeping the coun-
tries of Eastern Europe, Cuba’s consul gen-
eral to Canada told a Vancouver audience
June 22.

In fact, socialism as practised in the Car-

\ ibbean country has vastly improved the lives

of its citizens and can serve as a model for
: the rest of Latin America, Rolando Rivero
declared at a packed meeting sponsored by
the -Canadian-Cuban Friendship Associa-
tion.

“Let them do the perestroika in the Uni-
ted States — they need it,” Rivero declared
during a lengthy speech interrupted frequen-
tly by applause.

During his address at the Russian Com-
munity Hall, Rivero detailed the history of
U.S. interference in Cuba and the rest of
Latin America, including the recently at-
tempted counter-revolutionary television
broadcasts called TV Marti.

Speaking in Spanish, the lawyer, career
diplomat and former trade unionist left no
doubt that Cuba intends to go its own route
in establishing socialism and that it will
stand up to U.S. attempts to undermine or
overturn Cuba’s political and economic sys-
tem.

The CCFA’s invitation to Rivero to visit
Vancouver was a signal of support for the
island nation facing a renewed and inten-
sified military and ideological onslaught
from the U.S.

That intensification, aside from regular.
White House and Pentagon utterances, has
| come in the form of broadcasts like Radio
Marti and TV Marti— provocatively named
for Cuba’s hero of liberation, Jose Marti —
and military operations in the Caribbean.

needed in Cuba,
consul general says

Three simultaneous “shield” military
manoeuvres last year and one this year
called Ocean Venture, which utilized the
illegally maintained base at Guantanamo,
Cuba, were in fact a prelude to invasion,
Rivero claimed.

“They were carried out in order to take
advantage of the international situation aris-
ing from the crisis in Eastern European, and
invade Cuba,” he charged.

“But we showed them a capacity of mob-
ilization that they did not expect ... We
mobilized approximately one million peo-
ple ... then they withdrew.”

While not directly criticizing the process
of renewal known in the Soviet Union by the
now common terms, glasnost and pere-
stroika, the consul general said the United
States was “happy” when the socialist soc-
ieties in Eastern Europe began to unravel
and a “large counter-revolutionary move-
ment” emerged.

Rivero listed the gains Cuba has made
since the revolution of 1959 in such fields as
agriculture, manufacturing and pharmaceu-
ticals — achievements he said were due to
the country’s socialist system.

Cuba, once ostracized due to U.S. pres-
sure throughout the hemisphere, now has
friendly relations with most countries in the
Organization of American States, he noted.
OAS countries have been bucking U.S. con-
trol and were recently discussing ways to
resolve their foreign debt crisis by ending
“the hegemony of the United States,” Rivero
related. .

In this, Cuba has a leading role to play:
“Tf at this time we have to be the first bar-
ricade to defend socialism in Latin America,
and defend the independence of Latin Amer-

ROLANDO RIVERO ... Cuba ready to repel U.S. aggression.

ica ... then Cuba will committedly defend
(it),” he declared.

Third World leaders are very worried,
Rivero said, because, “from a world divided
in two, what we now have is a break — we
have a unipolar world led by the U.S.

“The idea of U.S. peace is peace among
the great powers, but not for the countries of
the Third World,” he said.

The U.S. once considered Latin America
its back yard; now it believes it has the right
to intervene in the entire world, Rivero
charged.

He attacked the “aggression and arro-
gance” leading to the attempted TV Marti
broadcasts, which usurped Cuban broadcast
channels until technicians were able to jam
the signal. As for the propaganda on TV
Marti, Rivero. countered:, “What..are..they
going to tell the Cubans, what are they going
to teach us — what they’ve been able to
achieve on the basis of exploiting the Third
World?”

Unlike other Communist parties, Cuba’s

plans no name change: “We’re not going to
call it the Socialist Party, or the Social Dem-
ocratic Party — we’ll continue to call it the
Communist Party of Cuba,” Rivero as-
serted.

Cuba will not drop the leadership role of
the party from the country’s constitution, nor
will it create “three or four parties” to create
a false sense of democracy, he said; the
revolution was “Cuban” first of all, and “it
was the Cuban people who created it and
gave it a socialist constitution.”

The United States has only two major
parties, of little difference to the other, Riv-
ero noted. And the history of U.S. invasions
in Latin America are good reason not to have
several parties vying for power, he con-
tended.

Cuba has a socialism “that was not im-
posed on us by any army ... Our leaders are
closely linked with our masses, and we are q
going to take our revolution to the last con-
sequences,” he declared.

__ | India’s Communists campaign against separatism

; The recent violence from separatist
strife in the Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir and other areas is the result of
historic injustices coupled with interfer-
ence from neighbouring Pakistan, one of
India’s top Communists stated.

But Harkishan Singh Surjeet said that
despite efforts to break off the state and
annex it to Pakistan, the campaign is failing
because no world power wants a war over
the conflict and because the central gov-
emment is being urged to work on a real
solution.

“A solution must guarantee that the cul-
tural identity of the Kashmiri people is
protected,” said the 75-year-old Surjeet, a
retired parliamentarian and one of the lead-
ing members of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist), in a recent interview.

Surjeet, a former state (Punjab) and na-
tional politician, last visited B.C. in 1987
when he commented in a Tribune inter-
view on the fundamentalist Khalistani sep-
aratist movement.

A key leader of a secular party in a
country with many religions, cultures and
religious strife, Surjeet has frequently been
sought for advice by governments and
prime ministers ranging from the late In-
dira Gandhi to the current V.P. Singh.

As with the separatist movement spear-
headed by fundamentalist Sikhs in the
Punjab, Kashmiri separatism threatens the
unity of India and is strongly opposed by
Surjeet’s party and the Communist Party

of India (International).
The parties support the
secular nature of India’s
constitution, and warn that
movements based on rel-
igious fundamentalism of-
fer no real solution to dis-
crimination and cultural
annihilation in India —
problems which, they ac-

tee that the identity of the
Kashmiri people is pro-
tected,” Surjeet asserted.
The CPI(M) estimates
that some 1,000 armed sep-
aratists have infiltrated into
Jammu and Kashmir. They
are armed and trained, al-
ong with Punjab fund-
amentalists, in 31 camps set

knowledge, are real.

up for that purpose in Pak-

Disillusion has set in HARKISHAN SINGH istan, Surjeet said.
since Kashmir joined India SURJEET Pakistan’s ruling elite

in 1947, on the understanding the new state
would be secular, that the feudal system
would be broken, and their cultural identity
protected, Surjeet related.

Today, “they are losing confidence in
the secular nature of India,” he said.

Young Kashmiris today are educated,
but have few job prospects, Surjeet said:
“No one pays sufficient attention to see
that these younger elements are absorbed”
into mainstream Indian life.

Two main groups operate in Kashmir,
Surjeet reported. The CP1(M) acknow-
ledges that the Jammu and Kashmir Liber-
ation Front stands more for cultural protec-
tion and opposes annexation to Pakistan.
But the other, the fundamentalist Jamait
Islamic, wants to join Pakistan and is fun-
ded by Islamic countries like Iran and Sau-
di Arabia, “so we demarcate between the
(liberation front) and them,” he said.

“A solution to the conflict must guaran-

fosters such activities partially to draw at-
tention away from religious strife in its
country, and it still has to the power to do
so even though the activities are not sup-
ported by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

“The failure of the (Indian) central gov-
emment’s policies have provided fodder
for the infiltration,” Surjeet charged.

India has other separatist problems. In
the state of Assam, another separatist
movement trained in Burma is demanding
independence from India, while waging a
terror campaign against the non-Assamese
population. In the ancient city of Mathura,
Hindu fundamentalists are demanding the
demolition of a 450-year-old mosque on
the grounds that the city is the birthplace
of Rama, one of the Hindu religion’s three
“Jords.” (The claim has been disputed by
archaeologists.)

“This has already divided the Hindu
and Muslim communities very badly,”

- Delhi in May struck a committee to launch

Surjeet commented.

Despite Pakistan’s efforts, it has failed
to “internationalize the issue” of Kashmir
separatism, he noted. “No superpower is
prepared to involve itself in a war in this
climate of peace. And the United States
fears its military bases in Pakistan will be
endangered in the event of a war.

“And Pakistan itself is badly divided.”

Meanwhile, progressive forces in India
are mobilizing to counter the destabilizing
effort, Surjeet noted. A meeting of all left
parties and “other secular forces” in New

an anti-separatist campaign.

The campaign will stress that “there is
danger to national unity whether from sep- j
aratist movements or religious fundamen- q
talists. It is a very big challenge,” Surjeet
said.

The political climate in India has im-
proved since the defeat last year of the
tuling Congress Party and the advent of the
new government. No longer are left-lean-
ing state governments attacked by the cen-
tral government, and many draconian laws
of the former Gandhi regime have been
repealed, he related.

The CPI(M) increased its plurality in
the last national election, which elected a
government “committed changing dem-
ocratic forms” and one which has involved
trade unionists, women’s organizations,
students and peasant groups in ore
national policy, Surjeet said.

Pacific Tribune, July 2, 1990 «3