Chronicle on Cuba - March 2004

US-Cuba Relations

March 2: The US Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs released the 2003 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) which describes the efforts of key countries to attack all aspects of the international drug trade in calendar year 2003. The report states that in the case of Cuba the “regime security officials did take a much more aggressive posture with respect to all activities deemed “illegal,” including narcotics trafficking, beginning in the first quarter of 2003.” [See International Narcotics Control Strategy Report] (US Department Press Release, 2/3/04)

March 2: While a number of positive developments are occurring in the Western Hemisphere, the region also faces many challenges in such countries as Haiti, Colombia, Venezuela, and Cuba, says Roger Noriega, the State Department's assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. In a testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Noriega offered an analysis of the most important events affecting the nations of the hemisphere. For communist Cuba, Noriega said US policy is to encourage a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy characterized by strong support for human rights and an open-market economy. The United States will support Cuba's "embattled civil society and increase our efforts to break the information blockade" imposed on the island by the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, said Noriega. In addition, he said the United States will provide a "voice to Cuba's independent journalists and human rights activists." (AP, 3/3/04)

March 3: Cuba signed an agreement with the Port of Houston to ship more of its American food purchases through Texas, in a deal that could give the communist-run country trade clout in a key political state. Cuba has been eager to spread its purchases through more than 35 states to increase domestic pressure against the embargo. The Port of Houston, the second largest in the United States and the world's sixth largest in tonnage handled, is the 18th American port to ship food to Cuba. The No. 1 departure point for American ocean travel to Cuba could be Texas when US travel restrictions against the communist island end, the port authority's chairman said. "I suspect that when everything opens up, a lot of cruise lines will want to come here," said James Edmonds, chairman of the Houston port commission. "It will be a great race." "We see that in this part of the world Mexico, Central America, Cuba is our future," Edmonds told a news conference. (AP, Reuters, 3/3/04)

March 3: A one-page advertisement supporting the five Cubans imprisoned in US jails, planned and paid for by solidarity groups, appeared in The New York Times, confirmed Gloria de la Riva from the US Committee to Free the Five. De la Riva explained previously that, in spite of all the obstacles, more than $50,000 had been raised to pay for the advertizement in the daily. She also highlighted the generous contributions from Miami residents, whose committee made the most generous contribution of the campaign: $10,000. (Granma International, 3/3/04)

March 4: The Cincinnati Ballet has signed two former soloists from the National Ballet of Cuba to dance for the company in the 2004-2005 season. Dancers Adiarys Almeida and Cervilio Amador both have defected to the United States. Almeida left the Cuban National Ballet while the company was on tour in New York in October. Amador left the company while it was performing in Daytona Beach, Florida. (The Cincinnati Post, 4/3/04)

March 5: Cuba's highest profile dissident, Osvaldo Payá, urged his compatriots "to take a step against fear" and begin the transition from totalitarianism, something he said must be impelled from within the island and not from Washington. "The regime is in its final stages. We're already poised for change; that's why we have a pressing need to prepare for the transition," Paya said. It is necessary for Cubans to "take a step against fear. It's the basis for peaceful change. It doesn't mean lashing out against the oppressor, but rather saying 'no' to submission," he added. This change must be made with the help of "all Cubans, those on the island and those abroad," the dissident said. According to Paya, the US government's announcement last October regarding the creation of a Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which is to promote a peaceful transition to a representative democracy and a free market economy, was an "error." "We have to 'de-Americanize' the vision of the solution to Cuba's problem. Changes in Cuba should be carried out by the Cubans themselves," Paya said. "The United States can offer solidarity and moral support, but to presume that the transition can be effected (from the outside) is both unrealistic and inappropriate. The transition must be carried out by Cubans themselves, who must decide what form it will take and see it through," he added. (EFE, 5/3/04)

March 5: The Cuban Foreign Ministry has denounced the Bush administration for taking new actions against five Cubans imprisoned in separate US jails as their March 10 hearing appeal approaches. In a statement, the Cuban authorities rejects a US Department of State decision to only allow Cuban diplomats in Washington to visit their jailed fellow countrymen once every three months. [Una nueva infamia] (Prensa Latina, 5/3/04)

March 5: Cuba's Ambassador to the United Nations, Orlando Requeijo, has strongly criticized Washington's double-standard on terrorism -- "condemning terrorism in some cases and tolerating or justifying it in others." Speaking at a public hearing of the UN Security Council Anti-Terrorism Committee, Orlando Requeijo pointed to the total impunity enjoyed by those in Miami who, with the complicity of US authorities, openly raise funds for terrorist acts, open bank accounts with that objective, recruit terrorists and provide them with refuge. In contrast, the island's UN ambassador cited the case of the Cuban Five, arrested in 1998 and sentenced to harsh prison terms by a biased Miami court in 2001 for the "crime" of uncovering terrorist plots against Cuba. (Radio Habana Cuba, 5/3/04)

March 6: Controversial Cuban singer/songwriter Carlos Varela has been denied a US visa to enter the country to perform at the Guzman Center for the Performing Arts. The trip would have been Varela's second visit to Miami in the past six years. (The Miami Herald, 6/3/04)

March 7: Retired General Fabián Escalante, ex-chief of the Cuban security and intelligence services, said that the island "has a right to maintain the Miami Cuban-American Mafia under surveillance" through espionage operations. In that sense, Escalante justified the actions of the five Cubans arrested in the US in 1998 and convicted of espionage, who are currently serving prison terms ranging from 15 years to a double life sentence. (El Nuevo Herald, 7/3/04)

March 8: A federal judge has delayed sentencing six Cubans convicted of hijacking a passenger plane to Florida so that a key witness who apparently defected can be questioned about his testimony. US District James Lawrence King ordered prosecutors to ask Cuban flight attendant Abilio Hernández García whether he wished to change his testimony or meet with the defense. Hernández García traveled from Cuba to Key West with other crewmembers to testify against the six Cubans convicted on federal hijacking charges. Only Hernández García did not return to the island, slipping out of a hotel the day after the trial ended. "Defendants assert that Mr. Hernández García's testimony may have been influenced by the prospect of a return to Cuba," King noted in an order. He refused to order the government to reveal the flight attendant's whereabouts. (AP, 9/3/04)

March 10: Since January, over 3,900 Cuban immigrants have been intercepted or rescued at sea before touching US coasts, the US Homeland Security Department reported. (Europa Press, 10/3/04)

March 10: Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcón has accused Washington of promoting illegal migration from the island in an attempt to justify a military invasion. Speaking with reporters, the Cuban leader said that Havana is concerned about the recent US decision to suspend regularly scheduled talks on migration issues. The talks are slated every six months -- alternately held in New York and Havana -- to discuss the 1994 and 1995 migration accords signed between the US and Cuba. In January, the United States announced it would not take part in the talks scheduled for Havana that month, subsequently inferring that negotiations slated for New York in July would also be scrapped. (Radio Habana Cuba, 10/3/04)

March 10: The US government has prevented a group of 70 medical professors, doctors and other scientists from attending an international symposium on coma and death taking place in Cuba, according to some of the doctors involved. They affirmed that the ban, which they were informed of just a few days before the event, is the latest move by the Bush administration to limit their collaboration with persons in countries like Cuba that are considered hostile by the United States, The New York Times reported. (Granma International, 11/3/04)

March 10: Although the three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Appeals Court can delay decision on the case of “the Cuban Five” for several months, the defense team expressed great optimism after the oral hearing. "They [the prosecution] had no answers to the Court´s questions!" noted Paul McKenna, one of the defense attorneys, recounting prosecutor Christine Heck-Miller´s failure to produce any evidence implicating Gerardo Hernandez in the incidence of the Cessna planes shoot down when they repeatedly flew over Cuban territory. Lawyers for the five Cuban spies argued that they were unfairly convicted in a flawed 2001 trial that never should have been held in an anti-Castro hotbed like Miami. Federal prosecutors countered the trial was fair, the judge gave the defense plenty of chances to seek a new venue and the life sentences handed down to three of the spies were justified. The three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals asked pointed questions about the government's evidence underlying the murder conspiracy conviction of spy ringleader Gerardo Hernández. (Prensa Latina, The Miami Herald, 11/3/04)

March 10: "Those who fight for liberty know that the American people and America's leaders are their allies," said Assistant Secretary of State for Democacy, Human Rights and Labor, Lorne Craner, in a testimony to the House of Representatives International Relations Committee. There is still much work to be done, however, in the area of human rights, according to Craner. "Backsliding" on key human rights issues in China, repression in Korea, and abuses in Cuba are just a few examples of ongoing human rights problems described in the country reports, he said. (US State Department Press Release, 10/3/04)

March 11: Italian shipping group Grimaldi said it would launch a ferry line between the United States and Cuba. The ferry line, which will connect Key West with Havana, will be served by cruise-ferry vessels, La Suprema and La Superba, of Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV), a subsidiary of Grimaldi. The two ships, which meet the security requirements of the US Coast Guard, can connect the two cities in four hours and thereby run four ferry routes a day, Grimaldi said. (ANSA, 12/3/04)

March 11: USAID administrator Andrew Natsios declared that his country would continue financing oppositionist groups within the island. In a conference at the University of Miami, the Agency for International Development official admitted that the agency has already paid $28 million for projects in Cuba, with $7 million earmarked for 2004 "to help unify humanitarian, civic and religious groups with a government-in-transition that respond to the interests of the United States." The government of the United States, he said, is ready to give whatever assistance is necessary. (Prensa Latina, 11/3/04)

March 12: High government officials said in Miami that the objectives of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, created by President George W. Bush, do not include developing projects for political transition in the island. According to Otto Reich, Special Presidential Envoy for the Western Hemisphere, the Commission was created to ensure that different branches of the US government are ready to provide assistance to the Cuban people, should they request it, once the dictatorship is gone. (El Nuevo Herald, 12/3/04)

March 13: John Kerry promised to make of Florida a battleground for his quest to oust President Bush. Asked about what he will do about Cuba, Kerry was ready with the bravado appropriate for a challenger who knows that every answer carries magnified importance in the state that put President Bush into office by just 537 votes. ''I'm pretty tough on Castro, because I think he's running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,'' Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview. Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: ``And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.'' Only problem is that he voted against it. (The Miami Herald, 14/3/04)

March 13: Old church records show that the once-dominant Calusa tribe that vanished from Florida three centuries ago might not have been wiped out, a researcher says. Several dozen members of the tribe, nicknamed "The Fierce Ones," escaped to Cuba in the early 1700s after Spanish soldiers and other tribes overran their region, said John Worth, an anthropologist and director of the Randell Research Center, part of the Florida Museum of Natural History. Most died of typhus or smallpox within three months of reaching Cuba, but archives of a church in Guanabacoa, near Havana, show at least one Calusa woman survived and gave birth to two daughters in 1729 and 1731, said Worth. (AP, 14/3/04)

March 13: During their trip to Cuba, Hollywood couple Ed Harris and Amy Madigan visited the International Film School in San Antonio de los Baños. (AFP, 13/3/04)

March 16:A recent Journal-World series on the US crackdown on travel to Cuba is being brought to the attention of Congress. Representative Dennis Moore (Democrat-Kansas), is sending copies of the newspaper's "Trading With the Enemy?" series to all 434 of his colleagues in the US House of Representatives. A spokeswoman said the distribution was intended to stimulate renewed debate on the travel and trade embargo with Cuba. "Congressman Moore has long been a supporter of opening markets in Cuba, because he believes it will help our farmers and companies be more competitive globally," said spokeswoman Christie Appelhanz. (The Lawrence Journal, 16/3/04)

March 16: Two Florida Republicans representing President Bush's reelection campaign questioned whether John Kerry has had contact with Fidel Castro and Spain's ``new Socialist government.'' The comments from US Representatives Mario Díaz-Balart of Miami and Mark Foley of West Palm Beach came during a conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush campaign to chastise the Massachusetts senator for his evolving positions on Cuba. ''We would never make a comparison between a democratically elected government and a dictatorship,'' said Bush spokesman Reed Dickens, in an interview after the conference call, distancing the campaign from the remarks of its surrogates. ``What we will point out is Senator Kerry makes serious accusations without the facts to back them up and has historically and consistently been wrong on Cuba.'' The Bush campaign conference call was part of a broader GOP strategy to paint Kerry as dishonest and waffling on key foreign policy issues, and to preemptively halt new efforts by Democratic strategists to court traditionally Republican Cuban-American voters in part by assailing Bush's own record on Cuba. (The Miami Herald, 17/3/04)

March 17: Washington has barred 300 Cubans involved in last year's crackdown against dissidents from the United States, State Department officials said, but the move was dismissed by critics as an empty election-year gesture. State Department officials told the press the policy targeted judges, prosecutors, witnesses and police who participated in a three-week roundup of scores of dissidents that began March 18, 2003. "None of these 300 people are ever coming to the United States, period," said a State Department official, who asked not to be named. "It shows those who participate in the abuse of human rights should know the United States will remember it for a long time." [New US Policy to Deny Visas to Participants in March 2003 Show Trials] (Reuters, 18/3/04)

March 18: Engineer Félix Bonne Carcassés, leader of the dissident group Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba, has sent an open letter to the US Congressional Black Caucus, depicting the true situation of the black population under Fidel Castro. [Carta abierta al caucus negro de Estados Unidos] (Cubanet, 18/3/04)

March 18: A large majority of Hispanic Republicans in Miami-Dade County support President Bush in his reelection bid, but almost as many feel that he needs to get tougher on Cuba or risk losing their support, according to a new poll. The findings suggest that while the president remains popular among Cuban Americans, there is room for the Democrats to take advantage of their frustrations and siphon off some of their votes, the pollster says. (The Miami Herald, 18/3/04)

March 18: Cuba's national baseball team would play US major leaguers in a proposed "World Cup" tournament, a top Cuban baseball official says. But Cuba would demand the American pros be tested for performance- enhancing drugs. "If there is a tournament held, and the major leaguers would play, we would want to be there," said Rodolfo Fuentes, deputy director of INDER, the Cuban government entity that supervises the baseball program. "But it would have to be under Olympic rules and the rules of the International Baseball Federation (…) with respect to doping. (USA Today, 18/3/04)

March 18: US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, requested solidarity with “the courageous men and women in Cuba who champion democracy's cause”. In an official statement, Powell referred to last years’s imprisonment of 75 dissidents in Cuba. [Condemn Castro’s regime abuses] (Radio TV Marti, 18/3/04)

March 19: President Bush’s top political strategist assured Miami GOP activists that the administration is committed to economically strangling Fidel Castro’s government. In a speech that seemed designed specifically to soothe long-simmering tensions, senior White House strategist Karl Rove devoted more time to Cuba than any other issue -- drawing a standing ovation from the heavily Hispanic crowd at a Miami-Dade Republican Party fundraiser. ''Have no doubt, we will remain committed,'' Rove told the crowd at the Radisson Mart Plaza Hotel and Convention Centre in west Miami-Dade County. Referring to the president, he added: ``He knows, you know, we must not waver.'' (The Miami Herald, 20/3/04)

March 19: The United States has denied asylum to Ariel Diego Marcell, one of the Cubans who tried last July to reach the coast of Florida in a truck modified for seaborne travel. Marcell, 29, was one of 12 Cubans who set sail in a converted 1951 Chevrolet truck only to be intercepted by the US Coast Guard and repatriated to the communist-ruled island. He told the press that he received a letter from the US Interests Office in Havana informing him that his request for asylum was denied based on officials' judgment that he was not facing the threat of persecution in Cuba. (EFE, 19/3/04)

March 20: More than 10,000 Cubans decried the war in Iraq in a protest organized by groups associated with the ruling Communist Party, officials said. The protest took place in the town of Cueto, 700 kilometers (435 miles) east of Havana, as the world marked the one-year anniversary of the US-led war. Concerts, art exhibits and conferences to protest the war were planned throughout the Caribbean country of 11 million. "The grave situation created by the criminal aggression in Iraq can only be resolved with the unconditional end to the illegal occupation, and with the Iraqi people enjoying its right to absolute independence in a united Iraq free of guardianship," party leaders told the protestors in a statement. (AFP, 20/3/04)

March 21: Mike Campbell, son of former Republican Governor Carroll Campbell, is turning up the heat on Andre Bauer, a fellow Republican. At issue is Bauer’s recent trade mission to Cuba. There, Bauer and others signed an agreement with Fidel Castro’s regime for the export of $10 million of South Carolina agriculture products. Campbell, a potential challenger for Bauer’s job in 2006, opposed the deal, saying so in a newspaper column. Now, Campbell has taken his opposition to a new level. He has hired a highly respected Republican pollster to tap the sentiment of South Carolinians on the issue. What he found was that a plurality of voters -- 47 percent-- disapprove of the $10 million agreement; only 29 percent support the deal. That opposition crossed over political, racial and gender boundaries. A plurality of Republicans, Democrats and independents; whites and blacks; men and women opposed the deal, according to the survey conducted by McLaughlin and Associates. The poll of 400 likely voters was taken in February. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. Even farm households, who would benefit the most from the agreement, were split down the middle — 33 percent supporting the deal and 33 percent opposing. (The State.Com, 21/3/04)

March 21: Republican candidate to the Senate, Bill McCollum, has proposed a plan to infiltrate spies in US tourists groups visiting the island. According to McCollum this would be a way to bring democracy to Cuba, as an alternative to US failure to internationalize the economic and tourist travel embargo of the island. McCallum said that he strongly supports an internationalization of the economic embargo and the travel restrictions to Cuba, which he believes should be embraced worldwide, as in the case of South Africa years ago. (El Nuevo Herald, 22/3/04)

March 22: A trading company and economic development groups are leading an export mission to Cuba to try to increase California's share of the island's import market. Gregory Estevane, president of Global Strategies Trading, said the company hopes to take representatives of about 20 Central Valley companies to Havana April 13-16, when the Cuban government has said it wants to negotiate and sign more than $100 million of contracts. Global Strategies Trading is a company that trades in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Estevane said it is also the trading arm of the World Trade Center in Los Angeles, and is affiliated with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. The trip is co-sponsored with the Tulane and Los Angeles economic development corporations, said Paul Saldana, president and chief executive of the Tulane County Economic Development Corporation. (Tribune Business News, 23/3/04)

March 22: The White House's top adviser on Latin American affairs said that countries of the region need to acknowledge the "total absence of freedom" in Cuba, urging his hosts to vote to condemn the island nation in the UN Human Rights Commission. "Unfortunately, it's been 40 years now that (Cuba) hasn't had any press freedoms in the least. It's important that Latin American nations recognize the total absence of freedoms in that country," Otto Reich, a special envoy of President George W. Bush, said at a press conference. The Cuban-born Reich met with Paraguay's foreign minister, Leila Rachid, to discuss the human rights situation on the communist island. (EFE, 22/3/04)

March 23: Cuba blasted a US State Department report that alleges the island's government ''chose'' not to devote sufficient resources to its war on drugs as ``vulgar and infamous.'' ''If the previous annual reports by the Department of State (. . .) had been tendentious and manipulative in their references to Cuba, the one announced March 1 in Washington is vulgar and infamous,'' the official Granma newspaper reported. The latest report by the department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, issued to little notice, said Cuba is doing little to stop drug smuggling and that its cooperation with U.S. efforts is sporadic and limited. [International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 2003] (The Miami Herald, 23/3/04)

March 23: The US government denied visas to two officials of the Cuban Institute of Sports to participate in the 10 th General Assembly of the Ibero- American Sports Council taking place in San Juan, Puerto Rico this month. A Cuban press release, issued in response to this most recent act of the US State Department, asserted that "In this manner, the Cuban Institute of Sports is once again being made the object of political and aggressive maneuvers against the island." (Radio Habana Cuba, 23/3/04)

March 24: Film students at Ramapo College, New Jersey, will get a chance to study in Cuba in a unique program. The three-credit course, "Cuban Cinema and Culture," will be offered at the International School of Film and Television in Cuba in June. Ramapo Professor Marta N. Bautis, herself a filmmaker, will teach the course and lead the trip to the island nation. "Given the travel restrictions, it is significant that Ramapo College is able to establish this program," said Dean Steven Perry of the School of Contemporary Arts. The Cuban school is located about 20 miles from Havana. Its philosophy is to have active filmmakers as teachers. The current director is Julio Garcia Espinoza, one of the founders of the New Latin American Cinema movement. Bautis, the Ramapo professor, is a documentary film producer. (The Record, 24/3/04)

March 25: With 99 Cuban and foreign enterprises participating, the 10th International Agricultural Fair opened in Havana. In this year's expo, both scientific and commercial activities will be featured. John Parker, participating as a representative of US farmers from the state of Florida, said that his visit was in part to monitor several agreements signed last year with the Cuban Agriculture Ministry. Speaking on behalf of North American farmers, Parker said, "We hope the 10th International Fair helps us to consolidate our bilateral relations." (Radio Habana Cuba, 25/3/04)

March 25: Three exhausted and dehydrated Cuban refugees were spotted bobbing on inner tubes in rough waters just off Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. As rescue and news helicopters hovered overhead, Good Samaritans and rescue workers ventured into the water to pull two of them onto the beach one block north of Commercial Boulevard. The third was plucked out of the water by Coast Guard rescuers about a mile farther north. The three were all that was left of a group of eight who set off from Jibacoa, Cuba seven days earlier on a makeshift raft of inner tubes roped together, with very little food and not nearly enough water. (Sun Sentinel, 25/3/04)

March 26: Cuba's Foreign Relations Minister Felipe Perez Roque has accused the United States as having reached new lows in its campaign to censure the island at the UN Human Rights Commission. Perez Roque charged that the United State's "most recent manipulation" was its attempt to recruit a third country to introduce a proposal denouncing Cuba before the 60th session of the UN body meeting in Geneva. Copies of that draft document were provided to journalists attending a Havana press conference. (Radio Habana Cuba, 26/3/04)

March 26: The father of the two underage children of the dehydrated "balsera" (raft-woman) rescued off the coast of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, north of Miami, has officially initiated the family reunification sponsorship process to have the children join him in the US. (El Nuevo Herald, 26/3/04)

March 27: The body of a man washed ashore at Hutchinson Island, Florida, is believed to be one of the five who drowned in an attempt to escape Cuba last week. Three others on the journey on the inner tube raft made it to shore in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Port St. Lucie Tribune reported. "A call to the Coast Guard revealed that a group of Cubans had been rescued south of here, and some were missing," a Martin County sheriff's report said. "This is likely to be one of the missing," it said. The body was dragged to shore after it was spotted. (UPI, 31/3/04)

March 28: With the support of several Hispanic lawmakers from Miami-Dade County, the Florida Legislature is considering tightening rules on travel to Cuba -- slapping extra fees on charter airlines that fly to the island and requiring state universities organizing educational Cuba trips to submit detailed itineraries well in advance. Representative David Rivera, a Miami Republican and chief sponsor of the measures, said the proposed fees on charter flights would help pay for improved security at Florida airports and seaports, while the school reporting requirements would crack down on tourist excursions masquerading as academic trips. Such tourist trips have been criticized by exile groups as helping prop up the regime of Fidel Castro. (The Miami Herald, 28/3/04)

March 29: In the US, government figures show there are about 200 businesses licensed to offer travel and shipping services to Cuba. Chris Robinson, desk officer for Cuban Affairs with the US State Department, said the businesses help fill an economic need in Cuba. Robinson said travel and shipping businesses that focus on getting packages and people to Cuba provide a valuable service, even though it's not lined with gold. Cubans in the United States annually send an estimated $800 million in cash, clothes, food and medicine to relatives in Cuba, said Antonio Jorge, professor of economics and international relations at Florida International University in Miami. (Tampa Tribune, 29/3/04)

March 29: Relatives of five Cubans imprisoned in the United States as political prisoners have denounced at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, for a second time, violations against their loved ones. Rene Gonzalez´s wife and daughter, Olga Salanueva and Ivette Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez´s wife, Adriana Perez, and Fernando Gonzalez´s mother, Magaly Llort, traveled to Geneva to hold meetings with Human Rights Commission´s officials. (Prensa Latina, 29/3/04)

March 30: After almost a decade of fighting, Bacardi is seeking to put an end to the long-running trademark dispute over the rights to the Havana Club brand. The rum giant, whose US headquarters are based in Miami, said it was filing a lawsuit in US district court in Washington, D.C. The suit asks the court to grant Bacardi exclusive US rights to the premium Cuban rum trademark and cancel the registration currently held by Cubaexport, a Cuban government entity. (The Miami Herald, 30/3/04)

March 30: In the latest Roundtable broadcast from Havana, Cuban political analysts recalled many Cubans have died trying to benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act, enacted by the US in 1966, after the US government denies them formal and safe ways to leave for the United States. The panelists looked into the tragedy of nine Cuban rafters that left a toll of 5 dead, 1 unaccounted for and 3 survivors. They said the survivors had hidden the existence of a ninth person on board the raft called Lázaro Contreras. This was found out because Contreras´ brother in Cuba reported Lázaro’s disappearance. The US media did not mention Contreras neither among the survivors nor the dead. The Roundtable informed that in the past three months and half the Cuban Coast Guard Service had thwarted 70 illegal exits, half of them carried out by human traffickers. (Prensa Latina, 30/3/04)

March 30: A federal judge in Manhattan said American trademark law protects Cuba's premium Cohiba brand of cigars and ordered a New York company to quit selling stogies under that name. Cohibas were originally created in Cuba as the personal cigars of Fidel Castro and were later given as gifts to visiting heads of state and other dignitaries. In 1982, Cuba began selling them internationally - but not in the United States, which has a trade embargo banning all goods from the communist island. A decade later, the magazine Cigar Aficionado, in its premier issue, anointed Cohibas as one of the world's great cigars - and that's when a New York company called General Cigar started marketing a high-end stogie under the Cohiba label. (New York Post, 30/3/04)