Cuban VP Denounces US Double Morality
Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage denounced US double morality Saturday on migratory matter, the lack of political will of the developed world and urged Latin America to fight for their rights.

Addressing the Heads of State and Government session of the 16th Ibero-American Summit, Lage warned that Washington has maintained for decades a policy, whose aim is to provoke a massive exodus, as a pretext of a campaign against the island and a military aggression.

If a Latin American decides to live in United States is an immigrant, while a Cuban is a political exile who escaped from the communist regime, stated Lage.

An illegal "emigre" Latin American is returned to the country, but if it is a Cuban, once he is in United States, by virtue of the Cuban Adjustment Act, he immediately receives permission for residence and work, and after a year there, receives permanent residence automatically.

"The Bush administration," stated Lage, "suspended migratory talks, limited remittances to $300 quarterly and restricted trips to the island of Cuban emigres to every three years, only for grandparents, sons or grandchildren and siblings.

In other part of his speech, the Cuban vice president talked of the Operation Miracle that in hardly two years has provided free ophthalmologic surgery for over 450,000 patients with eye afflictions from Latin America and the Caribbean.

The aim of this program is not to train professionals to exercise private medicine, but to take health and live to millions of people worldwide, said Lage.

He continued saying that the Millennium Aims and Goals are not going to be fulfilled; the developed world has not even had the intention of doing a minimum financial effort and billions of people are currently living without food, health and education.

The 16th Ibero-American Summit, taking place at the Radisson Hotel of the Uruguayan capital, must wind up Sunday, November 5, with signing of the Final Declaration, the Montevideo Commitment and nine Special Releases.

Among those documents are special statements against the US blockade on Cuba and the construction of a wall in the Mexican border, as well as a text condemning all forms of and expressions of terrorism.