Chronicle on Cuba - January 2004

Domestic Affairs

January 3: Declaring that together they had written "an unprecedented page of history," Fidel Castro gathered with several thousand members of Cuba's political elite Saturday to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the revolutionary triumph that brought him to power. Mr. Castro told the formally dressed guests that the protagonists of the revolution sought social justice, not fame. "Our objective never was the search for glory," he said. Mr. Castro's speech was broadcast on state-run television and radio. (The Globe and Mail, 4/1/04)

January 2: Cuban dissident activist Osvaldo Payá gave the foreign press a message for the year 2004. In his Message of Hope, Payá calls on “everyone to reflect on a dialogue. For we have already proclaimed: ‘it is better for all to have rights and not just a few with all the power and all the privileges’." Payá also states that “the Cuban dissident movement achieved a higher social reach and it is, unquestionably, the most authentic expression of the yearnings and concerns of most Cubans even though they have yet to openly express them, they want peaceful changes for Cuba”. (Puente Informativo, 4/1/04)

January 2: This will be a difficult year, with increased crime and a greater risk of natural disasters, according to the "Letter of the Year" released by a group of Santeria priests, who also advised the Cuban people to be extremely law-abiding. Each January, believers in this Afro-Cuban religion eagerly await the "Oddun" or "Letter of the Year," read by the "babalawos," as Santeria priests are known. The Cuban Council of High Priests of Ifa, the first group to publish its "Oddun" this year, said Friday the year's governing deity would be Ochun - identified in Cuba with the Catholic religion's Our Lady of Charity - along with Obatala, associated with Our Lady of Mercy. The sign of the year, according to the priests, is a sign of harshness and aggression and related to death, although the babalawos' message says that this time the sign appears with "Ire" (luck). (EFE, 2/1/04)

January 3: Elsa Morejon, wife of the Cuban civic leader, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, said that her husband is unrecognizable since she last saw him four months ago. “He is so thin, pale and ill looking", " these punishments are destroying him and if he continues where he is he will die…", Morejón added. Cuban prisoner of conscience, Dr. Oscar E. Biscet Gonzalez, who is serving a 25 year prison sentence, continues confined with a common criminal in a cell with no windows or light which he described as a "dungeon", for refusing to stand up to acknowledge the presence of prison guards and officials during the recount of prisoners. His punishment prohibits family visits, food supplies, toiletries, clothing, receiving or sending any correspondence, and going out in the sun. (NetforCuba, 4/1/04)

January 4: Cuba is reporting a 6.3-per-cent infant mortality rate in 2003, which it views as proof of its social development. The local daily Granma newspaper reports say that the rate ranks the island among the top in the world for healthcare, especially in terms of mother-child care. Cuba reported 136,772 new births, that according to preliminary data stands for 4,243 less than 2002, with 862 deaths occurring as a result of birth defects, especially in the heart, in addition to influenza, pneumonia and home accidents. (BBC, 4/1/04)

January 5: Cuba's baseball world was shaken up with the announcement that four top players, including two who had starred on the national team, were kicked off their clubs, reportedly for trying to defect to the United States and its juicy pro contracts. Sluggers Kendry Morales, Barbaro Canizares, Olympic pitcher Jose Ibar and Jose Miguel Abat, a rookie from Santiago de Cuba, have been removed from their respective teams for allegedly trying to flee the island secretly, a baseball official told the press. Morales and Canizares "were suprised by authorities in the central town of Caibarien as they were trying to leave the country illegally, presumably headed for the United States," a baseball official told the press. "They were immediately taken to a police station in that city, where they were briefly detained," added the official, who asked not to be named. Another sports official said that neither Kendry Morales nor Barbaro Canizares "is currently under arrest. Both are at their respective homes." No official statement has yet been made confirming or denying either of those two cases, nor that of Ibar, an Olympic team pitcher also caught trying to leave the island from the western province of Pinar del Rio, the official said. (EFE, 5/1/04)

January 7: "The design of novel anti-HIV compounds has now become a crucial area for scientists working in numerous interrelated fields of science such as molecular biology, medicinal chemistry, mathematical biology, molecular modelling and bioinformatics," scientists in Cuba explained. "In this context, the development of simple but physically meaningful mathematical models to represent the interaction between anti-HIV drugs and their biological targets is of major interest. One such area currently under investigation involves the targets in the HIV-RNA-packaging region." In a recent study, H.G. Diaz and colleagues at the Central University of Las Villas "applied Markov chain theory in an attempt to describe the interaction between the antibiotic paromomycin and the packaging region of the RNA in type-1 HIV." (Biotech Week, 7/1/03)

January 8: Hundreds of Cuban children have recreated Fidel Castro's triumphant entrance into the capital when his rag-tag group of followers overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in the 1959 revolution. The march into the city was part of the celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of the Cuban revolution which ushered in the Western Hemisphere's only communist government. School children taking part in the "victorious caravan", as it was dubbed by Cuban officials, left the city of Santiago de Cuba and ended their march at the capital's Freedom School which was the Batista regime's main military barracks. (EFE, 8/1/04)

January 10: Cuba tightened its controls over the Internet, prohibiting access over the low-cost government phone service most ordinary citizens have at home. The move could affect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Cubans who illegally access the Internet from their homes, using computers and Internet accounts they have borrowed or purchased on the black market. Cuba's communist government already heavily controls access to the Internet. Cubans must have government permission to use the Web legally and most don't, although many can access international e-mail and a more limited government-controlled intranet at government jobs and schools. Now Cubans will need additional approval to access via the nation's regular phone service. Since few Cubans are authorized to use the Internet from home _ only some doctors and key government officials _ the new law amounts to a crackdown on illegal users. (AP, 10/1/04)

January 11: A new Cuban domestic opposition group, the self-styled "National Unity Front" (NUF), demanded the release of all Cuban "political prisoners" and that "free, democratic elections" be held. The Front gathers 34 political opposition movements and organizations. (El Nuevo Herald, 11/1/04)

January 12: The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) stated in its semi-annual report, that 2003 was a distressing year due to the ”systematic transgressions” against the Cuban people's human rights. Among the most frequent offences against human rights, says the CCDHRN, are related to freedom of expression, information, press, the right to due process, and to protection from arbitrary treatment. “All of this contrasts strongly with the high priority the government of Cuba has placed on the expansion and perfection of the systems of education and basic medical assistance, which correspond to the field of social rights,” says the report. (IPS, 12/1/04)

January 12: A Cuban human rights group said that at least 10 of the island's 315 political prisoners are so ill that Fidel Castro's communist government should let them finish their sentences at home. The worst case is that of economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who has severe cirrhosis, followed by Martha Beatriz Roque, also an economist, who suffers from chronic diabetes, it said. Both have been moved to a military hospital due to their conditions. Many of the jailed dissidents are more than 50 years old and the frail health of some has been aggravated by hunger strikes. Some dissidents have been beaten in jail, the rights commission said in a semi-annual report. Cuba bars International Red Cross officials from visiting its jails. The Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission also called for the release of a blind dissident, Juan Carlos Gonzalez, jailed without trial since March 2002. (Reuters, 12/1/04)

January 12: Cuba ended 2003 with 750 sites in the Internet and some 1,100 domains .cu, a report of the Cuban Ministry of Computing and Communications (MIC) showed on January 12, 2004. According to the same report some 270,000 computers are operating on the island, 65 pct of them are connected to the Internet. The report also showed that the accounts of e-mails were more than 480,000 and that the Cuban Internet users increased every year. According to the report, the use of the information technologies and communications in the country is low and must increase in the next years. Most of the island's residents who can send and receive international e-mails, do not have open access to the world wide web. (Latin American News Digest, 13/1/04)

January 13: In Cuba, cell phones are a symbol of status and power, a way to slip into the wireless world, if only for a moment. But they're hard to get in a place where the telecommunications industry is so tightly regulated. And they're expensive to operate, as much as $5.85 per minute. Still, many Cubans are dying to be connected. Technically, Cuba's state-run cell phone companies can offer service only to foreigners or to Cubans who are authorized to go wireless. Thousands now have service. But some ordinary Cubans find ways around the rules, usually by persuading a visitor or tourist to help them. Cuba's leading cell phone company is government-run Cubacel. Its local rates range from 30 to 70 cents per minute. Callers are also charged 30 to 66 cents for incoming calls. Long distance is pricier, from $2.45 to $5.85 per minute - serious money in a place where most people earn just $10 or $12 per month. The high rates and strict regulations have prevented Cuba's cell phone industry from growing more rapidly, some telecommunications experts say. Mobile phones remain scarce on the island, despite their allure. (The Dallas Morning News, 13/1/04)

January 13: In an interview with the Italian digital magazine Korazymque, the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, pointed that leaving the country has become the dream of a lifetime for many young Cubans. "With regards to emigration, there is an individual project but there is no collective plan. People from all sectors --from Catholics to the children of high government officials-- share this dream. The greatest threat to our future is posed by massive emigration," said Ortega. (El Nuevo Herald, 18/1/04)

January 14: Weeks after meeting with Fidel Castro during a vacation in Cuba, Bogota's mayor said the 77-year-old Cuban leader's health appeared to be deteriorating. "He seemed very sick to me," Luis Eduardo Garzon, a former communist union organizer, told Caracol Radio. "You could tell he had physical limitations, especially in his speech." (AP, 14/1/04)

January 14: In Cuba, there is a veritable underground cyber-market, which includes the design, production and placement of pages on web sites outside of Cuba, advertising rental property, tour guides, art galleries and private restaurants on the island. A web page of this type can cost 600 to 800 dollars to post. For every legally connected computer, there could be 10 or more with illegal Internet access, according to estimates by communications experts. (IPS, 14/1/04)

January 14: A large portion of the Cubans with electronic mail accounts connect with servers at their places of work, allowing them to download or send messages without going beyond to the Internet itself. Economists consulted on this matter say it would be much more beneficial for the country to open up Internet services for everyone who is interested, instead of maintaining high rates payable only in dollars. A full-time connection can cost 230 to 300 dollars a month, depending on the Internet service provider. Communications authorities assure that the Fidel Castro government would be willing to make Internet access available to the general public, but that there are major economic barriers that have forced the government to give priority to certain sectors of the population and to what is known as "social use". According to Ignacio González Planas, minister of information technology and communications, "The country's policy of giving priority to access from institutions is based on technical limitations." (IPS, 14/1/04)

January 15: Speaking with the press, Cuban Information Technology and Communications Minister Ignacio González Planas said that in Cuba, there are over 480,000 e-mail accounts and nearly 100,000 Internet users. He added that Cuba maintains 1,100 .cu domains, and 750 Websites or portals. "Currently, there exist 270,000 computers in the country, 65% of which are network-connected," the Minister pointed out. (AP, 16/1/04)

January 16: Communist Cuba is betting on its merit as the world's top medal winner per capita to win a bid to hold the 2012 Olympics in Havana, officials said. While other cities publicised their bids for the Games with fanfare and costly presentations, cash-strapped Cuba did nothing to mark the closing of the applications deadline and promote Havana's case, regarded as a long shot. Havana deserves to have the 2012 Games on Cuba's merit in sports," Cuban Olympic Committee official Ernesto Pino said. (Reuters, 16/1/04)

January 16: Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, a political prisoner, declared prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was sentenced to 6 more months in prison, after a summary trial. Rodríguez Lobaina had begun a protest for the arbitrary situation he is in, after having completed more than half of an unjust sentence imposed on him back in March 2000. He began a hunger strike to obtain national and international attention to his imprisonment for promoting democratic ideas and respect for the human rights. In response, authorities tried him summarily and sentenced him to 6 more months in prison, for the supposed crime of vandalism, alleging that Rodriguez Lobaina had broken a door at the Yaya police station. (Puente Informativo, 27/1/04)

January 17: The life of the 50 years old political prisoner Carlos Miguel López Santos is in danger. He has been on a hunger strike since December 10, protesting that after having completed his sentence prison authorities refuse to release him from prison. López Santos has not ingested any food in the last 38 days. (Puente Informativo, 18/1/04)

January 18: Imprisoned last spring for opposing Cuba's one-party state, Oscar Biscet has spent the first nine months of his 25-year sentence in solitary confinement or with hardened criminals, enduring insufficient food and unsanitary conditions, according to his wife and letters smuggled out of prison. "The characteristics of the cell violate the law," Biscet, 42, wrote in a November letter. "There are no windows. There are only walls. Always in darkness ... The sky can't be seen." Biscet has spent weeks at a time in a small cell, sleeping on a thin mattress and using a hole in the floor as a toilet, said his wife, Elsa Morejon. "I haven't seen my wife and my father in more than four months," he wrote, saying most family visits had been denied. (Chicago Tribune, 18/1/04)

January 18: The Cuban Information Technology and Communications Minister, Ignacio González Planas, denied that his country is restricting Internet access for Cubans. He said that the "social use" of online access provided in the island is the "most democratic and widespread" among Third World nations. (El País, 19/1/04)

January 19: Yankees righthander Jose Contreras says his family was barred from leaving Cuba, the newspaper La Prensa reported. Contreras told the newspaper that Cuban officials twice refused permission for his wife, Miriam Murillo, to go to Nicaragua and that she will have to wait four years before applying again. He told La Prensa that Nicaragua had issued visas to his wife and two daughters, but that they had expired. Contreras has a legal residence in Nicaragua. “While they call me a traitor, I don't feel that I'm a traitor," Contreras told La Prensa. "I have not committed any offense, any crime. I took the decision to leave the island. It was a personal decision, and my daughters and my wife should not have to pay any price. They aren't guilty of anything, even if any guilt exists. (AP, 20/1/4)

January 19: According to Nathan Shachar, a reporter for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, though many Cubans have Internet access at work, their web surfing activities are closely monitored, which accounts for increased online traffic on weekends, when there is less control. (Cuba Nuestra, 19/1/04)

January 20: Isabel Ramos Martínez, mother of the political prisoner Arturo Suárez Ramos, who began a fast on December 8 for the freedom of all political prisoners to demand that medical attention be given to her son in prison, shaved her head as part of her protest. (Puente Informativo, 20/1/04)

January 21: At some Havana post offices, Cubans line up for hours for their turn in the "surfing room." When users get to one of the four computers, they can send and receive e-mail and surf an Intranet of Cuban Web sites, but access to the global Internet is barred. Getting online is not easy in Cuba, where the state strictly controls all Web servers and recently announced plans to crack down on illegal Internet access. E-mail accounts are available at the Cuban Postal Service, but writing to friends abroad comes at price: A three-hour prepaid card costs $4.50, one-third of the average Cuban monthly wage. At the recently opened Servi-Postal cybercafe in Havana's Miramar district, Cubans don't get to surf the World Wide Web. "The Internet is for foreigners. The Intranet is for Cubans," said Miguel Perez, managing the cybercafe in Havana's International Business Center where Cubans have to show identification and sign a contract to get an e-mail account. Cubans said some small cybercafes do allow them Internet access, including the National Academy of Sciences cybercafe where users are charged $5 an hour. (Reuters, 21/1/04)

January 21: The umbrella opposition movement Arco Progresista has released a report on political, economic and social developments in Cuba in 2003. The illegal Arco Progresista, which includes, among others, the Cuban Democratic Socialist Current, the Cuban Movement for Democracy, and the Social-Democratic Coordinating Committee, condemned the Cuban government's repression of its people, with particular reference to the arrests of 75 political dissidents in April last year. The report also had harsh words for the US initiative to create a new Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba with the express aim of hastening democratic transition on Cuba. The report said that Cuba must find democracy from within and did not need to be disciplined by the US as if it were a rebellious child. Arco's report also painted a bleak picture of the state of the Cuban economy, with a poor sugar crop and negligible growth in the tourism industry in 2003, and no signs of the US embargo being lifted. (EFE, 21/1/04)

January 24: In what is considered a milestone, a team of Cuban speleologists have discovered bones of the "Desmondus Rotundus" bat, commonly known as vampire bat, in western Matanzas province. Researcher Adrian Alvarez told the press that the remains were found at El Palenque mountain range, some 62 miles east of Havana. "The finding is of paramount importance in order to understand the distribution and characteristics of the species," stated Alvarez, who noted that vampire bats only attack sick animals, thus playing an important role in the biological and natural equilibrium. ( Radio Habana Cuba , 24/1/04)

January 24: Cuba's government has backtracked on plans to limit internet access for the Cuban population, Latin American newspapers reported. Cuban telecoms operator Etecsa said it has postponed the measure which was scheduled to come into effect this weekend, and did not set a new date. The law prohibits Cubans who pay their telephone bills in local currency from accessing the internet from their homes. Only government institutions, foreign companies and foreign individuals that pay their bills in United States dollars are excluded from the restrictions. Etecsa said the measure was designed to eliminate theft of passwords, "international degradation" and fraudulent, unauthorized use of the internet. (Business News America, 24/1/04)

January 24: Highly acclaimed Cuban actress Raquel Revuelta was buried at Colón Cemetery in Havana. According to the official media, Revuelta died at 79, "after a protracted illness." In the course of her 60 year-long artistic career, she portrayed numerous characters on stage, as well as in cinema and television. (El Nuevo Herald, 26/1/04)

January 26: Activists from 32 countries who oppose the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) met in Cuba to brainstorm on how to kill the hemispheric trade pact backed by the United States. Encouraged by growing resistance to the FTAA throughout Latin America, about 1,000 delegates from peasant, workers, student and political groups will spend four days planning demonstrations this year against the trade accord which Washington hopes to see in place by 2005. Fidel Castro, whose communist-run country is the only one excluded from the talks to dismantle trade barriers in the hemisphere, attended the opening session. "We are here to work for international union against globalization," said Quebec City student Thomas Frechette, sporting a red Che Guevara T-shirt. (Reuters, 26/1/04)

January 26: Even though as many Cubans on the island have serious misgivings about those in exile, a majority believe Cuban Americans should be able to return to their homeland to contribute to rebuilding efforts following a regime change, according to a study that will be released. The study, which relied on survey responses from recently arrived Cubans, attempts to understand the ''value system'' of Cubans who have lived under the 45-year communist rule of Fidel Castro in an effort to better prepare for a transition in the Caribbean nation. The results of the study, Understanding the Social and Political Value System of Cubans on the Island, will be released by the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. (The Miami Herald, 26/1/04)

January 28: Almost one million Cuban children participated in the IV National Reading Martí Competition that was dedicated this year to the literacy campaign currently underway in Venezuela. The director of the José Martí National Library, Eliades Acosta spoke of the Venezuelan people's "heroic effort" to eradicate the "humiliation of illiteracy". The National Library sponsors the competition and Acosta attributed its popularity to the interest of young Cubans in the life and work of the National Hero. (Radio Habana Cuba, 28/1/04)

January 28: Otto Rivero Torres, First Secretary of the Young Communists Union (UJC), publicly call to the celebration of the 8 th congress of the organization. “We are encouraged by that infinite faith of Fidel in people and his deep conviction that only those who fight have the right to victory”, the young leader said. “Cuba, attacked and blocked, is one of the favorite targets of the current US government”, adds the call and states that in view of such strategic challenge “it is necessary to make a deep and critical analysis of the present, looking to the future to make a better homeland”. (AIN, 28/1/04)

January 28: The work of outstanding Cuban scientists was recognised in an award ceremony in Havana. The Cuban Academy of Sciences (ACC) published the names of 57 prize-winning research scientists in the Biomedical, Agrarian, Technical, Natural, Exact, Human and Social science fields. The Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA) also nominated its foremost young scientist and awarded diplomas in the area of Technological Innovation. The Centre for Synthetic Antigens of the University of Havana received recognition for the development of the vaccine against haemophilus influenzae type B. (Radio Habana Cuba, 28/1/04)

January 28: Cuba's war on drugs led to the seizure of five tonnes of marijuana and cocaine in 2003 and the arrest of hundreds of people in a crackdown on domestic use, the Communist Party newspaper Granma reported. Cuba, which is tougher than other Latin American countries in combating narcotics, began a crackdown on domestic drug use last year, and 600 people are on trial, Granma reported. But, in recent weeks, Havana's courts have been busy trying drug cases, with lines of relatives waiting outside. Granma said Cuban offenders face jail sentences of up to 26 years. (Reuters, 28/1/04)

January 28: Ángel Tomás Iglesias, a Cuban member of the Board of Administration of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), told the FIVB president, Rubén Acosta, that Cuban volleyball, and even baseball, athletes would be allowed to relocate abroad and join teams from different parts of the world. (EFE, 29/1/04)

January 29: Leading Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya complained that the communist government failed to issue the exit permit necessary for him to attend a human rights ceremony in Europe. "I couldn't attend because the Cuban government kept me from traveling," Paya said of the ceremony in Brussels that awarded the European Union's top human rights prize to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on behalf of all UN workers. Paya's charges were contained in a letter sent to Pat Cox, president of the European Parliament, and later distributed to international journalists in Havana. (AP, 29/1/04)

January 29: Cuba refuted reports of a policy shift regarding national athletes signing contracts with foreign teams. In a statement to the media, Pedro Cabrera, Director of Press for the Cuban Sports Ministry, said that "Cuba will not "authorize the migration, transfer, or hiring of its athletes." (AP, 29/1/04)

January 29: Cuba will bid for the 2012 summer Olympic Games, the Cuban Olympic Committee (COC) announced. The COC will hold a news conference to discuss its bid and Committee president José Ramón Fernández said that the formal request to hold the 2012 Games in Havana would be submitted in May. (Radio Habana Cuba, 29/1/04)

January 29: The "Casa de las Américas" literary award, created 45 years ago and one of the most important and longest-standing of its kind in the continent, went this year to authors from Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, Martinique, and Brazil. (EFE, 30/1/04)

January 31: Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, former army commander in the early days of the Cuban Revolution, who resided in the US for years after serving prison time in Cuba, and who is now residing in Cuba, told the press in Havana that his request to Cuban authorities to obtain legal resident status on the island had been denied. He explained that two months earlier he had contacted the Cuban Foreign Ministry to communicate his intentions but was asked not to submit his application, as there would be no one available qualified or authorized to handle his case. (World Data Service, 31/1/04)

January 31: Teachers from several generations are gathering at the 3rd Pedagogy Congress, been held in Havana. (AIN, 31/1/04)