Chronicle on Cuba - December 2004

Exile Community

December 15: A granddaughter of Fidel Castro pledged allegiance to the United States at a giant citizenship ceremony in Miami Beach. Alina "Mumin" Salgado, 26, daughter of Alina Fernández, one of Castro's daughters in exile, was among the 6,000 people who became US citizens at one of two mass naturalization ceremonies at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The new American declined to comment. (The Miami Herald, 17/12/04)

December 16: South Florida's prominent sugar-producing Fanjul family is seeking ''trading with the enemy'' sanctions against Sotheby's, claiming the famed auction house knows -- but won't tell -- the whereabouts of a family painting expropriated by Fidel Castro's government. The “Malaga Port” seaside rendition by Spanish impressionist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida is believed to have been smuggled out of Havana within the past 16 years and obtained by an art dealer in Italy. The Fanjuls, who left behind most of their possessions when they fled Cuba following Castro's rise to power in 1959, would like to recover the artwork that hung on the second floor of their Havana home. (The Miami Herald, 16/12/04)

December 19: After four years of planning, work is set to begin on an airport memorial for the anti-Castro aviators who died in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Cuban Pilots Association president Amado Cantillo, who fought with the invasion force on the beach, said the idea came when he realized that the Liberation Air Force was the only group from Brigade 2506 that didn't have its own memorial. ''We came back and there were monuments for the infantries and monuments for the Navy,'' Cantillo said, ``and no monuments for the pilots.'' When construction begins, likely by next spring, a four-column monument made of white Carrara marble will be erected. It will stand 20 feet tall and 30 feet long and wide. Inscribed on the columns will be the names of the fourteen men who died fighting Cuban forces -- along with the other pilots from Brigade 2506. (The Miami Herald, 19/12/04)

December 28: Beginning in 2005, Cuba will increase to $350 the cost of issuing a passport to Cubans living abroad -- a three-fold increase compared to current rates. The new rates will enter into force on January 1 st and will affect all Cuban residents outside the island. (El Nuevo Herald, 28/12/04)

December 29: Time's up, it seems, for the Che Guevara watch at the New York Public Library. The week before Christmas, the library stopped selling the watch, which had infuriated many Cuban-Americans and others who complained of what they called the continuing transformation of the murderous Guevara into a pop-culture icon. A spokeswoman for the library, Tina Hoerenz, said, "Once an item is out of stock, we take it off the Web site, and in this case we don't have any plans to reorder it at this time." The library would not provide further comment, and neither apologized for having sold the watch nor acknowledged the outrage of Cuban-Americans and others who sent letters to the library protesting the watch's sale. (The New York Times, 29/12/04)

December 30: Representatives of theplatform Cuba Democracy Now presented a document comprised of 15 points to the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos during an hour meeting to discuss human rights under Fidel Castro's regime. It was the second such meeting following one in October with the opposition platform, which links groups of dissidents and Cuban exiles. On that occasion, Moratinos urged the opposition to have confidence in the new policy of detente with Castro conducted by the government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. But members of the opposition group presented the Spanish foreign minister with a major programme of support for Cuban dissidents. (AFP, Europa Press, 28/12/04)