Chronicle on Cuba - June 2004

Security

June 3: Cuba has offered to Ukraine to make use of equipment from the unfinished nuclear power plant Juraguá. Evelio Saura Pedrol, chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Havana province, made the offer at the second round of Ukrainian-Cuban talks in Kiev, said the press service of the Ukrainian nuclear electricity stations operator National Nuclear Power Generating Company Energoatom. Construction of the Juraguá plant with four VVER-440 reactors, designed with Russia's active involvement and financing, began in 1983. It was initially planned that the first unit would be started up in 1995-1996. The project fully stopped in 1992, when economic relations with Russia were axed. (Novosti, 3/6/04)

June 24: Cuba reiterated the risks of using a US military airplane to escalate illegal radio and TV broadcasting to the island, claiming that it is a dangerous provocation by the US government, local press reported. The use of the airplane is included among the measures announced by US President George W. Bush in May, confirming that the possibility of a war confrontation against Cuba is a priority in the White House agenda. The use of a C-130 military airplane to make subversive radio and TV broadcasting more effective is a dangerous provocation that could be the prelude to a future invasion, Rodolfo Reyes, assistant director of Multilateral Affairs at the Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry, told the press. Reyes considers the use of that plane an aggressive and defiant measure, which violates regulations established by the International Telecommunications Union and the United Nations. (Prensa Latina, 24/6/04)