10—The Daily Collegian Monday. Oct. 23, 1978
Released Cuban political prisoners return to U.S.
MIAMI (UPI) Forty-seven Cuban political
prisoners allowed to leave the communist island
began immigration processing in Miami
yesterday after a boisterous reunion with
thousands of cheering friends and relatives.
Cuban Premier Fidel Castro said he may
release others by the end of the year.
"I have already freed between 12,000 and
14,000 political prisoners," Castro told reporters
Saturday. "I hope it is possible to free the rest of
Iraq will
ask for oil
price hike
BEIRUT, Lebanon (UPI) Iraq,
citing Western inflation and the decline
of the , U.S. dollar, says it will seek a
minimum 25-percent hike in oil prices at
the next OPEC meeting in December.
But' Information Minister Saad
Kassem Hammoudi, in an indication a
compromise is likely with moderate
- OPEC members like Saudi Arabia, said
"We will make sure to come out with a
unanimous decision which will preserve •
the unity of OPEC."
Hammoudi, in an interview published
." yesterday by the • Beirut magazine
•-, Monday Morning, said prices set by the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, frozen for nearly 18 months at
: $12.70 a barrel, must be increased.
"The value of the dollar is continuing
to drop, reducing its buying power and
' our revenues," he said. "The prices of
• the goods we are importing from the
industrial countries are also continuing
• to rise."
: He said Iraq will "demand an increase
'-' after this long period of price-freeze.
Iraq intends to propose a minimum oil
" price increase of 25 percent."
Hammoudi said "the consumer
countries of Western Europe, the United
States, Japan and other nations" were
responsible for any price hike in OPEC
crude because they were continuing to
raise the prices of their exports.
Reflecting increasing pressure for a
price increase, Saudi Arabian Oil
Minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani
a key force in keeping prices down
said last week a hike at the December
meeting in Abu Dhabi would not be
surprising. „ .
Oil industry sources in Beirut believed
Saudi Arabia, by far the largest and
most influential OPEC exporter, would
work hard to keep such an increase well
below 25 percent. ,
A 5-percent to 10-percent hikd has been
mentioned as a likely figure.
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the political prisoners by the end of the year."
No one knows precisely how many political
prisoners are in Cuba, but Castro said he holds
about 3,000. He said only those prisoners who
have "committed very serious crimes," in
cluding murder, will be refused permission to
immigrate.
Many of the freed 47 political prisoners said
they will devote most of their time toward
freeing the men "we left behind."
"The most important thing for me to do now
that I am free," Tony Cuesta, the best-known
prisoner in the group, said "is to work for the
release of the people we left behind."
Cuesta, 51, spent 12 years in Castro's prisons
after being captured during an attempted
commando raid in 1966. He was blinded and lost
his left arm in the raid.
The crowd awaiting the newly arrived
prisoners at Dade County Auditorium Saturday
State College: Hills-Plaza • South Atherton Street (Route 32z E.)
and Branch Road. Store Hours:
10am-10pm, Monday -Saturday, Sunday,l2Prn-5Pm
gave their loudest cheer as Cuesta, guided by his
new wife, Carmen, stepped off the first of two
buses carrying the arrivals. When Cuesta
walked into the auditorium,' the crowd started
singing the Cuban national anthem.
Cheers of joy were sounded as each of the 47
prisoners and 33 members of their families
stepped off the buses. They walked into the
auditorium and across a stage with a 30-foot-high
American flag draped across the wall.
"This dialogue is strictly between Cubans
the Cuban community abroad and us, not the
U.S. government," Castro said. "I do this for
humanitarian reasons and as a gesture of good
will."
Castro admitted one reason he took the
initiative was because the Carter administration
has changed its policies towards Cuba. "They've
stopped sending spy planes over Cuba and lifted
a ban on travel to Cuba," he said.