Chronicle on Cuba - August 2004

US-Cuba Relations

August 1: Katrien Demuynck and Marc Vandepitte, two Belgians in their country´ s Committee of Solidarity with the Cuban Five, visited Cuban prisoner Gerardo Hernandez, in the US federal prison of Lompoc. According to Radio Havana Cuba station, the two Belgians joined US citizens Alice Jrapko and Bill Hackwell, coordinators of the National Committee to Free the Five, in visiting the inmate. (Prensa Latina, 1/8/04)

August 1: If thousands of Cubans again took to the seas as they did in the summer of 1994, they probably would not come straight to the United States. Today, the US Coast Guard repatriates any Cubans caught at sea who immigration authorities determine do not have a credible fear of persecution if returned to Cuba. Those who show they have a credible fear are sent to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, where they undergo further interviews. Most pass those interviews and then wait for another country to accept them. The United States will not take them in, however. That would send the wrong signal, said a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It would be incoherent for us to then bring these people to the United States because, again, the message here is safe, orderly, legal migration," he said. The policy also serves as a deterrent to mass migration, the official said. "I think it sends a signal to the Cuban people that the United States and Cuba, despite their many disagreements on many things, agree this is the only type of migration that should take place," he said. (Sun Sentinel, 1/8/04)

August 2: John Kerry and John Edwards are aiming to pick up some votes from the Cuban-American community after recent polls suggested that a portion of the traditionally Republican voting bloc may be up for grabs. Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, spent private time with some members of Miami's Cuban-American community. Democrats say  President Bush's get-tough policy on Cuba has backfired. Designed to choke off  Fidel Castro's government, the tight restrictions and limits on remittances have angered Cuban-Americans with family back on the island. (Fox News, 5/8/04)

August 2: The US government has repatriated 23 Cubans who tried to reach the shores of Florida in late July in a boat allegedly piloted by migrant traffickers, an official reported. Miami Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz said the migrants were returned to Bahía de Cabañas, in Cuba, after being intercepted at sea in late July in a nine-meter (38-foot) boat. (EFE, 5/8/04)

August 2: The Weisman Art Museum canceled an exhibition of conceptual art from Cuba because of international tensions and visa problems, the director of the museum at the University of Minnesota said. Museum director Lyndel King and two curators in Cuba had been working on the show, which was scheduled to open early next year, for four years. Nine artists were chosen and were expected to oversee the installation of their work and present talks in Minneapolis. Some of the artists also planned to create new artworks on site. But King said tensions between the United States and Cuba are running so high that the museum concluded it was impossible to do the show. (AP, 2/8/04)

August 4: Despite US efforts to strangle the flow of dollars to Cuba and fresh exchanges of acrimony between Presidents Bush and Fidel Castro, the cash-strapped Cuban government intends to make record US food purchases this year, according to its chief international shopper. "By the end of August, Cuba will have purchased in eight months as much as it did in the whole previous year," said Pedro Alvarez, head of Alimport, the government's food procurement enterprise. Cuban purchases from what is now the nation's biggest food supplier, already nearing the $300-million mark by the end of July, are set to exceed $440 million this year, Alvarez said in an interview. That would represent at least a 25% increase over last year's purchases from U.S. producers. More significant, say analysts in both countries, the expanding food trade represents broader spending by the Cuban government on vital staples for the monthly food ration on which most in this country of 11.2 million depend for survival. (Los Angeles Times, 4/8/04)

August 4: Controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 will be eligible for next year's US Academy Awards, after a pirate version screened in Cuba was ruled "not authorised". According to Oscar rules, documentary films are disqualified from the awards if they are shown on TV or the internet within nine months of release - so film makers were mortified when the movie appeared on Cuban TV. But Fahrenheit 9/11's American distributor has insisted the broadcast was "not authorised" and it has been given the all clear by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences spokesperson John Pavlik. Pavlik says, "If somebody steals your movie and puts it on TV, we're not going to penalize you for it." (World Entertainment News Network, 4/8/04)

August 5: Fidel Castro has lost his ''prophetic, charismatic and inspirational abilities,'' leaving the island's political stability uncertain, the CIA's former top Cuba expert said. Castro is ''no longer invincible,'' said Brian Latell, now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was addressing the annual meeting of the Miami-based Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE). Latell said Havana's leader, who will turn 78 on August 13, has ''lost his prophetic, charismatic and inspirational abilities,'' and as a result has become more constrained by aides, who now even write some of his speeches. That implies that Cuba's political stability is uncertain, and that its people could even face chaos or a ''conspicuously military regime'' if Castro's leadership continues to deteriorate, Latell said. Latell was among four panelists who addressed the opening session of ASCE's three-day conference in Miami. ASCE is largely made up of academics and business people interested in Cuba issues. (The Miami Herald, 5/8/04)

August 5: US Reverend Lucius Walker has announced that his government has reached an understanding to allow US students attending the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana to continue their scholarship program. In a letter to students, parents, friends and supporters of the Latin American Medical School scholarship program, Walker said the permission resulted from persistent hard work, calls and letters and faxes to the State and Treasury Departments. He also cited the caring and strategic interventions by members of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses; the specific intervention of Secretary of State Colin Powell; the avalanche of concern expressed by parents and friends of the medical students, and by members of IFCOs national network of supporters. (Prensa Latina, 5/8/04)

August 5: A recent report from the RAND Corporation offers some insight into some of the post Castro scenarios in Cuba. Authored by researchers Edward González and Kevin McCarthy, the 154-page study identified five potential problem areas in particular, including an aging population, a growing racial divide, a stunted economy, and an alienated younger generation. The report contains some potentially controversial contentions, including the observation that the military may be the institution to take control of the country after Castro leaves power in the island. It includes eight chapters in total, including one that deals with the pressing need for industrial restructuring in Cuba, one on the changing demographics of the country, and an executive summary for those looking for a general overview of the author's findings. (Cuba-Info, 5/8/04)

August 8: A shipment of 15,000 tons of field peas arrived in Cuba from the US state of Illinois. The peas are sent from several locations in partnership with the Illinois International Trade Center. ( Radio Habana Cuba , 8/8/04)

August 8: US theater personality and social activist Julie Belafonte, wife of popular performer, Harry Belafonte, inaugurated Havana's First International Audiovisual Festival for Children and Adolescents. In the opening event, Julie Belafonte, who was named the Festival's Honorary President, said that the gala will be held every two years. (Radio Habana Cuba, 8/8/04)

August 10: Four Cuban migrants traveling on a homemade boat came ashore at a Hilton hotel pier, the US Border Patrol said. The four men landed at the pier in Key West, four days after they told authorities they departed from the province of Havana. They came on a homemade wooden boat powered by an American-made tractor engine, officials said. (Sun Sentinel, 10/8/04)

August 10: The US Department of the Treasury took further action against Fidel Castro's regime by identifying Melfi Marine, a shipping company controlled by the Cuban government, as a Specially Designated National (SDN) of Cuba. "With this step, we continue to restrict the Cuban government's access to capital by identifying and isolating companies controlled by Castro," said Juan Carlos Zarate, Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing. "The Castro government uses money to enrich itself and perpetuate its totalitarian regime at the expense of the Cuban people." Melfi Marine was incorporated in Panama in 1981 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cimex, identified by the Treasury Department in February 2004 as a SDN of Cuba. (Office of Public Affairs, 10/8/04)

August 10: The UN High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has sent a report to the US State Department, outlining the reasons why it believes that the five Cuban political prisoners jailed in the United States are being arbitrarily detained. According to reports received in Havana, the US State Department has responded to the report. The UN group will study this response and announce its considerations during the next period of sessions, which run from September 13th through the 17th in Geneva, Switzerland. (Radio Habana Cuba, 10/8/04)

August 10: Porter Goss, recently designated US CIA director, has never spoken publicly about the decade he spent with the CIA, except to say that he was deployed in Miami during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. "I had some very interesting moments in the Florida Straits," he told The Washington Post in 2000. It is not known how long Mr Goss stayed in Miami or whether his CIA role went beyond the missile crisis. It appears, however, that his service began after the CIA's clumsy first attempts to explore ways of assassinating Fidel Castro. Then the agency is said to have contacted the Mafia for advice. (The Times, 10/8/04)

August 11: Sysco Corp, the largest US food services distributor, signed an agreement with Cuba to increase food sales, which go primarily to the island's tourist trade. As part of the agreement, David Dickson, president and CEO of Sysco Food Services of Central Alabama, signed a letter of intent with the Cuban food import agency Alimport and pledged to lobby for the lifting of US trade sanctions against the communist-run country. Since entering the Cuban market in November, Sysco Alabama has sold $500,000 worth of 195 food items to Cuba, including canned fruit and vegetables, tomato puree and other products. Dickson declined to say how much the sales would total. In June, Sysco acquired International Food Group Inc. of Plant City, Fla., to expand its presence outside of North America. (Reuters, Houston Business Journal, 11/8/04)

August 11: Three Cuban American members of Congress accused a San Francisco charity of helping "finance Fidel Castro's Internet network" with funds provided by the philanthropic foundation of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. The charity vehemently denied the accusation. The three Republicans -- Florida Representaives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, his brother -- stressed the link between the Heinz Endowments and the Tides Foundation, a charity in the Presidio that funds more than 200 environmental and social justice projects. The Heinz Endowments doled out $8 million in grants between 1994 and 2003 to the Tides Foundation and its affiliate Tides Center. The link to Cuba, the legislators say, is through the Institute for Global Communications, another San Francisco organization that brings Internet and computer networks "to grassroots organizations worldwide working for peace, human rights, environmental sustainability, women's rights, conflict resolution and worker rights." The institute had hired the Tides Center to manage its financial and administrative affairs. Christopher Herrera, communications director for the Tides Foundation, says that the Heinz grants were used only for environmental projects and that no one from the three legislators' offices contacted the foundation to verify their accusations. (The San Francisco Chronicle, 11/8/04)

August 11: Treasury Secretary John Snow said that his department was in the process of reviewing the many comments it had received over its new, tighter policy on Cuba travel. "I think the Cuban community is divided," Snow told the Sun-Sentinel during an interview. "Some feel strongly for the new regulations, some have reservations," said Snow, whose department oversees the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, which issues licenses for US travel to Cuba. The Treasury Department has received more than 2,000 comments on the new regulations, which may be tweaked before a final rule is published this fall. Snow said it would be inappropriate to say whether the rules might be changed, but said people's comments would be "well-considered in the final actions that are taken." "An awful lot of the money that ends up flowing down there is used to sustain and strengthen the regime," said Snow, although he said he had not yet seen any data on what economic impact the new restrictions were having. (Granma International, 11/8/04)

August 13: Fidel Castro sent a special birthday greeting and warm embrace to Rene Gonzalez, one of five Cuban prisoners jailed in the United States. It is an honor for me to have been born on a day like today, said the Cuban leader, who celebrates his 78th birthday on August 13th, the same date as that of Rene's. (AIN, 13/8/04)

August 16: John Edwards visited a family farm outside Springfield, Missouri, to assure rural voters of the Democratic presidential ticket's plans to assist farmers, but that does not mean allowing grain exports to Cuba, as some US farmers have sought. Touting a plan called "Hope for the Heartland," the North Carolina senator promised to provide seed money for new businesses, expand high-speed Internet access and make money available for more police officers and equipment to fight methamphetamine production and dealing in rural areas. Edwards said in response to a question that he did not support lifting embargos on Cuba. "We believe that [Fidel] Castro is a brutal dictator and we have to maintain pressure on Castro," he said, referring to the Cuban president. "We do believe in principle travel and allowing medical supplies into Cuba is a good idea and some of the policies that the administration has been engaging in recently, where they've cut off and restricted some of that, is a mistake. But we also think it's very important to keep the heat on Castro." (Washington Post, 17/8/04)

August 17: In a rare display of amity toward communist Cuba, the United States offered its longtime foe 50,000 dollars in disaster assistance and urged US-based humanitarian groups to send aid to the island after it was badly hit by Hurricane Charley. "The United States regrets the damage caused by Hurricane Charley and expresses its solidarity with the Cuban people, stated deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. "The Cuban people can count on America's support in these difficult times," he said in a statement. "We are working to assist the Cuban people with the humanitarian crisis they now face." (AFP, 17/8/04)

August 18: The United States sent 26 Cubans who attempted to reach the Florida coasts illegally back to Bahía Cabañas. The migrants were intercepted in six different groups. (El Nuevo Herald, 18/8/04)

August 19: Despite denials by US officials, Cuban parliamentarians insist it would be naive to discard the possibility of a US military aggression against the island -- with the aim of destroying the Cuban Revolution and imposing a so-called "transition." Jorge Lezcano, a top adviser to Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, also known as the Cuban Parliament, told Prensa Latina News Agency that recent US government statements reveal a concerted policy stemming from an annexionist way of thinking. As examples, Jorge Lezcano referred to a message from the US Department of State sent to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, warning that the US would adopt measures to counter any flow of immigrants from the island to Florida - - calling it a threat to its "national security." (Radio Habana Cuba, 19/8/04)

August 19: Fourteen Cuban migrants traveling on a wooden boat landed on Puerto Rico's Mona Island, officials said. The six men and eight women turned themselves in to Puerto Rican rangers who patrol the island, said Leila Andreu, spokeswoman for the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. (Sun Sentinel, 19/8/04)

August 20: Food imports from the United States exceeded 960 million USD according to Alimport enterprise, since sales of produce were authorized by Washington on December, 2001. Cuban authorities have so far payed 830 million USD, while the rest will be paid in the same way when merchandise is ready to be shipped to Havana. (Prensa Latina, 20/8/04)

August 20: The US Interest Section in Havana has stated that the US government does not have the intention to apply military measures against the Cuban government. In an official statement, James Cason, chief of the USIS denied that Washington is thinking about such measures. Cason reminded that president Bush has said that Washington wants a peaceful transition in the island, and wants the Cubans to be the ones who build it. (USIS Press Release, 25/8/04)

August 21: Cuban-American lawmakers cheered as US military aircraft transmitted Radio and TV Martí to Cuban audiences -- one of the Bush administration's new tactics to undermine the Castro regime. ''For the people of Cuba to get an unfiltered transmission of information is a great thing,'' said US Senate candidate Mel Martínez, who co-chaired the presidential commission that recommended the flights. ''It's a wonderful day for the enslaved Cuban people, and I'm sure Castro is enraged and finding new and devious ways to block the transmissions,'' said US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (Republican-Miami). (The Miami Herald, 21/8/04)

August 21: While the US government's TV Marti broadcast from an airborne C-130 cargo plane to the island for the first time, it was not likely seen by many amid ongoing electricity problems after Hurricane Charley. According to a survey, in various municipalities in the capital, the first attempt to introduce the channel to the island has not yielded the results its proponents had hoped for. Of the 43 neighborhoods in Havana, only Centro Habana and a small area of El Vedado had clear reception for less than four hours. "Some friends in Centro Habana called (…) to let me know they were watching TV Marti on channel 13," dissident Vladimiro Roca explained to Reforma. "They said they were broadcasting a very interesting debate program featuring Luis Zuniga, a Cuban American and member of the Cuban Liberty Council. But in Nuevo Vedado, where I live, there was only audio, no visual," Roca added. The broadcast went practically unnoticed due to the blackouts covering much of western Cuba as a result of Hurricane Charley, as well as the draw satellite broadcast of the Olympic Games in Athens, which is keeping awake those who have electricity. (AP, Reforma, 22/8/04)

August 23: Cuba rejected the US government's offer of $50,000 in post-hurricane aid, calling the gesture hypocritical, and the amount humiliating. "This cynical and hypocritical offer by the government of the United States to ease Hurricane Charley's effects ignores the damage caused over more than four decades by the economic war of successive [American] administrations against our country," Cuba's Foreign Ministry said in a statement published in the Cuban official media. The offer was announced by the US State Department in Washington on August 13, the same day Hurricane Charley battered western Cuba on its way to Florida. [Official Statement] (AP, 23/8/04)

August 23: The Houston-based Sysco Corp., the nation's largest food distributor, has scrapped plans to do more business with Cuba. On August 11, a Sysco subsidiary in Alabama signed a letter of intent to increase food sales to the island, but that letter has since been retracted because it contained language conflicting with corporate policy, Toni Spiegelmyer, a company spokeswoman said. The letter included a statement that both parties would work to normalize trade relations between Cuba and the United States. Sysco subsidiaries are not authorized to make political or government policy statements, Spiegelmyer said. (Houston Chronicle, 24/8/04)

August 23: A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit claiming federal agents used excessive force in an armed raid to seize Elian Gonzalez at the home of his Miami relatives four years ago. An order issued by US District Judge Marcia Cooke concluded the six agents who conducted the raid were legally immune to the lawsuit, and she found no constitutional violations. "We're pleased with the judge's decision," said Charles Miller, a Washington spokesman with the Department of Justice. (CNN, 26/8/04)

August 24: Cuban experts are working to restore over 1500 documents that once belonged to US writer Ernest Hemingway and which have been kept for years at his former residence of La Vigia, located on the outskirts of the Cuban capital. An agreement between the US Social Science Research Council and Cuba's National Council of Cultural Heritage provides for the restoration of Hemingway's letters, photographs and the originals of some of his most famous literary works. According to experts, the most common damage to documents include acidification and damage resulting from the hot and humid climate. (Radio Habana Cuba, 24/8/04)

August 24: A Cuban woman tucked herself inside a wooden crate the size of a small filing cabinet and had herself shipped from the Bahamas to Miami aboard a cargo plane. The woman, whose name was not released, will be allowed to stay in the United States. A cargo crew found her curled up inside the crate after unloading it at the Miami airport. "Certainly she's lucky to be alive," said Zach Mann, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. (CNN, 24/8/04)

August 25: A Miami state legislator wants to crank up the punishment for exiles who visit Cuba by taking away their health insurance and food stamps. The proposal by Florida Republican Representative David Rivera would not only cut off Medicaid and food stamps it would end housing assistance for a year. His bill is aimed at stopping recent arrivals who come to the United States, file applications for benefits and then visit Cuba. Rivera said the money spent on the trips only helps the Fidel Castro regime. (UPI, 25/8/04)

August 25: Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of democratic candidate to the US vice presidency, senator John Edwards, made comments on president’s Bush recent measures restricting travels and remittances to Cuba. ''To restrict visits among relatives damages the families and doesn’t hurt Fidel Castro”, Edwards said. “Those person to person contacts are essential, and are the basis on which the new Cuba will be built”, stated Edwards during an interview with the press, after a dinner at Hotel Biltmore organized to collect funds for the electoral campaign. (El Nuevo Herald, 26/8/04)

August 26: Six Cubans who spent two months at sea trying to reach Mexico to cross into the United States landed on Mustang Island on the Texas coast, the US Customs and Border Protection said. "They were somewhat malnourished and dehydrated," Eddie Flores, a spokesman for the agency's McAllen sector, told the press. Five of the six were treated and released from a Corpus Christi hospital. After being processed by the Border Patrol and having hearing dates set for Harlingen in a couple of months, two of the men were released to relatives from Dallas and three were placed on a bus to join relatives in Miami. The sixth person, a woman, remained hospitalized in stable condition. Border Patrol agent Felix Cantu said that the six left Manzanillo, Cuba, on a raft on June 25. He said they purchased their 30-foot boat, water and fuel in the Cayman Islands five days later. The trip took them hundreds of miles across the Gulf of Mexico. (AP,26/8/04)

August 26: Bush administration officials denied any role in the pardon of four Cuban exiles by the outgoing Panamanian government. In Panama, Moscoso — who has been close to the Bush administration — also denied that she had been influenced by the United States. "No foreign government has pressured me to take the decision," she told reporters. Reflecting the political sensitivities of the case, US officials declined to condemn the actions of the four men — who authorities said had planned to use 33 pounds of explosives to kill Castro — even though Bush has said the war on global terrorism is his top priority. "These are bad guys. The absence of a statement says a lot," said Julia E. Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It is the most preposterous violation of what this administration stands for." Sweig said direct White House involvement in the pardons was perhaps unnecessary. [For more on this, see Exile Community, Foreign Affairs, and Terrorism] (The Washington Post, 27/8/04)

August 26: Seeking to dispel any concerns that Cuban-American voters will stray from his side, President Bush pledged to push for democracy in Cuba before a Miami crowd chomping at the bit for a mention of the island. ''The people of Cuba should be free from the tyrant. And I believe that enforcing the embargo is a necessary part of that strategy,'' Bush said. ``My opponent has a different approach.'' It was Bush's second visit to Florida in two weeks, indicating how close the race is likely to be in the state. President Bush accused Senator John F. Kerry of abetting Fidel Castro's repression of Cuban dissidents. Bush charged that Kerry had once "even criticized some of the dissidents" and "said their efforts to promote democracy were counterproductive." Bush did not mention that Kerry had also said, in that interview, that he does not want to hurt the dissidents. As boos filled the partly empty Miami Arena, Bush added, "And he said they had brought down the hammer on themselves." Bush mocked Kerry for voting in favor of two versions of the Helms-Burton act of 1996, which tightened sanctions against Cuba, and then opposing the measure on final passage. "In other words, he voted for it before he voted against it," Bush said, repeating Kerry's explanation for his votes on an $87 billion budget bill to fund military operations in Iraq. For good measure, Bush repeated the line in Spanish: "Voto si, y despues voto no." (The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, 28/8/04)

August 26: Phil Singer, a John Kerry campaign spokesman suggested that Bush is lashing out against Castro because he's nervous about eroding support within a key voting bloc in the state that delivered him the presidency by just 537 votes in 2000. ''For 3 ½ years, he did nothing on Cuba, waiting until an election year to enact a policy that will do nothing to bring down the Castro regime but will hurt the Cuban people,'' said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer. "His policy has backfired, his support among Cuban Americans has dropped, so now he's launching negative attacks.'' Kerry spokesman said the senator "has never criticized the dissidents" and believes that supporting them is vital to restoring democracy in Cuba. (AP, The Miami Herald, The Washington Post, 28/8/04)

August 28: An American physician who bought wild dolphins from Cuba for aquatic parks in the Caribbean is facing a $70,000 fine by the US Treasury Department for violating the trade embargo against the communist nation. ''I've admitted the thing to the government and am paying a settlement.'' Dr. Graham Simpson, now living in Reno, Nevada, said. He said he was ''negotiating a fine of up to $70,000'' but declined to comment further. (The Miami Herald, 28/8/04)

August 29: The front-running Republicans in the US Senate race found one last area of disagreement: Democracy in Cuba. Standing at the Versailles Restaurant with exile community leader Rafael Diaz-Balart, former Congressman Bill McCollum bashed opponent Mel Martinez for his ''support'' of the Varela Project, a nascent Democracy movement in Cuba sanctioned by Fidel Castro. McCollum, speaking in the county that could give Martinez the edge if Hispanic turnout is heavy, called the Varela Project "a terrible undemocratic policy that I would never support.'' But Martinez said he doesn't favor the Varela Project. He said his opponent was misrepresenting a White House-sanctioned speech in which he spoke favorably of the movement but failed to condemn its founder, who opposes the embargo against the island. ''I have the same position as McCollum,'' Martinez said. "The Varela Project is not the answer to Cuba's problems.'' (The Miami Herald, 30/8/04)

August 30: The National Summit on Cuba, an educational forum where US leaders discuss the state of current relations with Cuba, will be held in October. "Tremendous opportunities exist for Florida and Gulf Coast businesses interested in exploring trade with Cuba.  The Summit provides an opportunity for these businesses to learn about current trade opportunities, to analyze the effectiveness of the trade and to seek ways to improve trade policy in the coming years," said Antonio Zamora, director of the Florida-Cuba Business Council, one of the Summit sponsors.  "The commercial interest, combined with the rapid and fundamental changes occurring within the Cuban American population and the near elimination of family travel, make Cuba a key crossover issue in a battleground state." (PRNewswire, 30/8/04)

August 30: President Bush's controversial crackdown on travel to Cuba is applauded in the approved 2004 Republican party platform, underscoring the campaign's belief it will help motivate Cuban-American voters. The document, which presents the party's overall principles, praises Bush's most controversial measures -- cutting back travel to the island from once a year to once every three years, as well as limiting gift parcels to immediate family members. The platform says the Bush panel that devised the measures "provided a plan for agile, effective and decisive assistance to the people of Cuba.'' The Republican platform also declares that ''Republicans understand that the Castro regime will not change by its own choice.'' And the document backs more money for Bush's plan to launch regular airborne broadcasts to Cuba and democracy-building efforts on the island. (The Miami Herald, (30/8/04)

August 31: Six Cubans who said they left the north coast of Cuba in a small motorboat were taken into custody after they came ashore at Key Biscayne's Crandon Park Beach. Sunbathers called authorities after spotting the six persons -- three men, two women and a 3-year-old boy. The six told the press that they were from Yaguajay, Sancti Spiritus, a small town on Cuba's north coast. (The Miami Herald, 31/8/04