Chronicle on Cuba - March 2005

US-Cuba Relations

March 1: San Diego port officials have hired a leading government ethicist to look into the newest commissioner's recent trip to Cuba, where he signed a trade agreement without the port's authorization. Port Commission Chairman Bill Hall said Bob Stern will evaluate whether Kourosh Hangafarin's actions in Cuba posed any ethical problems, including whether he stood to gain financially. The agreement Hangafarin signed is not binding without approval of the San Diego Unified Port Commission at a public meeting, but port officials moved quickly to resolve the matter. Hall said the federal departments of Treasury, State and Commerce had been contacted to see if they have concerns. (Union Tribune, 1/3/05)

March 2: The United States should view with "concern" the advance of leftist movements in Latin America, the head of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, said in an interview with the press. "The least the United States should do is to look with concern upon the changes in Latin America," Alarcon said, emphasizing the importance of the coming to power in Uruguay of the Broad Front headed by Socialist Tabare Vazquez. Alarcon said that Latin America "is the region of the world that is the vanguard in the alternative struggle to globalization." He called US President George W. Bush "ignorant, with an insurmountable arrogance, but with bombs and the means to destroy." The legislative chief also referred to recent measures announced by the US Treasury Department to force Cuba to pay in advance and in cash for purchases of US agricultural products. "The objective is obvious: to try and oppose the sale of U.S. agricultural products to Cuba," Alarcon said, adding that "the only loser" with that policy is the US exporter. (EFE, 3/3/05)

March 3: The transition to a democratic Cuba is already under way, said the US State Department's Roger Noriega. In a prepared testimony before a US House of Representatives panel reviewing the situation in Cuba, Noriega said that compared to just a few years ago -- "despite the brutally repressive nature" of the Cuban regime's tactics -- "there are now more opposition activities" occurring throughout the island nation. Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said that although these activities are "in many ways limited and fragile, I believe that we will be able to look back at them years from now and see that they were indeed significant and the precursor to a Cuban future free of misery and repression." The official said that during the previous week, he told a group of Cuban-American supporters of a free Cuba that each of them knows something that most of the rest of the world does not: "the transition [to democracy] in Cuba is already under way." [Testimony of Roger Noriega] (USINFO, 3/3/05)

March 3: During a hearing by two House International Relations Committees US Congress was sharply divided over policy to Cuba. Farm state lawmakers from both parties and liberal Democrats say more than four decades of US embargoes have failed to end Castro's dictatorship and that policies of engagement are more likely to produce changes. But Cuban-American lawmakers and Republican congressional leaders favor Bush's hard line. Bush, seeking to deny Castro US dollars, has tightened the embargo, making it harder for Americans to travel to or do business with Cuba. Democrats charged the Bush administration has failed to develop a coherent Latin American policy, and said its effort to isolate Cuba while engaging with other non-democratic government was inconsistent. Representative Diane Watson of California suggested initiating "strategies to talk with Fidel Castro,'' and said the United States needs "to clean our act up'' in dealing with many other non-democratic countries. (The New York Times, 3/3/05)

March 3: Three Cuban dissidents addressed a congressional committee by telephone from Havana, praising President Bush's policies and denouncing Fidel Castro. The dissidents at the hearing endorsed Bush's approach. They were Martha Beatriz Roque, an economist, Rene Gomez, an attorney, and Bonne, an electrical engineering professor. Roque rejected suggestions by Democratic lawmakers that the United States negotiate with Castro. ``He only hears what he wants to hear,'' she said. Roque also said visits by American tourists wouldn't help ordinary Cubans and would lead to more prostitution and drug trafficking. The hearing was aimed as much at an international audience as a domestic one. US officials have been disappointed that the European Union recently lifted a suspension on high-level contacts with Cuba that was imposed after the 2003 crackdown. (The New York Times, 3/3/05)

March 3: The White House is intent on waging yet another campaign of provocations against Cuba, warned panelists on Cuban television and radio current events program, "The Round Table." AIN News Agency reported that the sign of the new escalation came in a report issued by the US State Department on the situation of human rights around the world in which it alleges that the Cuban government is "a stain on the hemisphere's democratic process". Cuban journalists charged that the document seeks to condition public opinion to accept a condemnation of the island during the forthcoming session of the Geneva- based United Nations Human Rights Commission. (Radio Habana Cuba, 3/3/05)

March 3: The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba said that US immigration authorities rudely treated its top prelate, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, during a visit to Miami. A US official said only routine procedures were followed. "During the exchanges with immigration officials, the treatment received by Cardinal Jaime Ortega was brusque and discourteous," read a communique issued by Cuba's Catholic Bishops Conference. "Nevertheless, it must be clarified that there was no type of reference made to the cardinal's beliefs about the political situation in Cuba or in the United States," said the statement about the prelate's February 25 arrival. It added that US immigration officials never mentioned a "deportation order," as was suggested by some media at the time. Ortega was traveling on a diplomatic passport issued by the Vatican and a multiple entry American visa from the US Interests Section in Havana. (AP, 3/2/05)

March 4: The president of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, has asserted that Cuba will defend its sovereignty in the April elections amidst US plans geared to destroy the island´s electoral system, the local press highlighted. Alarcón made his statement while talking to a group of young Cubans, who will exercise for the first time their right to vote in the April suffrage to elect deputies to municipal assemblies (local governments). (Prensa Latina, 4/3/05)

March 4: The US government denounced that although the Cuban government has taken “a much more aggressive posture with respect to all activities deemed illegal, including narcotics trafficking, since 2003”, the primary focus of this stepped-up activity has been "the repression of political activities, including the continuing arrest and detention of civil society activists". The statement was made in the latest report by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the State Department. [International Narcotics Control Strategy 2005: Caribbean] (El Nuevo Herald, 4/3/05)

March 7: Cuba's foreign minister rejected a recent U.S State Department report criticizing the island's human rights record, saying that the United States has no moral authority to judge other countries after its own scandals over treatment of terror suspects. "We exhort American authorities to worry about their own problems,'' Felipe Perez Roque told a news conference. "Cuba recognizes that there are violations of human rights in our country, but they are at the Guantanamo Naval Base, in territory occupied against Cuba's will,'' Roque said of the U.S. base used as a giant prison for terror suspects. The February 28 US report on rights practices in Cuba acknowledged there had been no extrajudicial killings or disappearances of opponents on the island last year. But it took Fidel Castro's government to task for violations of civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, press, assembly, as well as the imprisonment of dissidents. The news conference was called to discuss the annual spring meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where a U.S.-backed resolution to condemn Cuba's rights record is presented every year. (The New York Times, 8/3/05)

March 7: The main US cities will stage demonstrations on March 19 demanding the release of the five Cubans incarcerated in US prisons. Participants at the Global Day of Action will carry Cuban flags and banners in support of the groups defending Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René, whom the FBI arrested in 1998. (Radio Habana Cuba, 7/3/05)

March 8: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco arrived in Havana for a three-day trade mission aimed at boosting food sales to Cuba at a time when the Bush administration is tightening sanctions and seeking to limit trade with the island. Louisiana's ports rank first in shipping commodities such as wheat, soy and corn that make up the bulk of exports to Cuba. But most of that food is not grown in Louisiana. State officials and local agribusiness executives are hoping a visit from their chief executive will help cash in on lucrative sales that have made Cuba the United States' 25th largest export market. [See also Exile Community] (Sun Sentinel, 8/3/05)

March 9: Easing a tension that had built up in the days leading to her Cuba visit, Governor Kathleen Blanco met with State Department officials who had requested she spend time with them to get "the other side of the story." Blanco and a small group accepted an invitation to join Chief of Mission James Cason for a private meeting in his sumptuous residence in Havana. Blanco's nod to Cason did not extend to accepting the Interest Section's invitation to meet with Oswaldo Paya, a soft-spoken dissident whose vision of a new Cuba has inspired supporters to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. "I think any elected official coming here should have some basic knowledge of how the situation in Cuba really is," Paya said after dropping in on Cason earlier in the day. "It's important they hear an alternative voice to the government." (Times Picayune, 9/3/05)

March 9: Kourosh Hangafarin ended a short but stormy tenure on the Port Commission by submitting his resignation to San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy, who accepted the offer. Hangafarin, 45, was sworn in February 1 and became embroiled in controversy February 25 when he went to Cuba and struck an unauthorized trade agreement with a Cuban import-export company on behalf of the port. At a Port Commission meeting, Hangafarin said he was confident that the investigation would show he was only trying to find a new revenue source for the port and did nothing wrong. (Union Tribune, 10/3/05)

March 10: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco met with Fidel Castro for two hours just before her trade mission's departure from the island nation. "Out of respect for the president, the governor accepted the invitation," Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher said. Blanco, speaking upon her return to New Orleans, said she weighed the perception of her meeting with Castro after being criticized by anti-Castro activists for making the trip but thought going to the meeting was in the state's best interest. "We had just signed agreements with Cuba by $15 million of our goods, food and fiber products," she said. "We didn't want to jeopardize that by perhaps insulting the president of the country," she said. (Times Picayune, 10/3/05)

March 10: New restrictions on trade with Cuba imposed by the US government will mostly punish small and medium-sized US businesses exporting food to the island, the chairman of Cuba's food import agency said. A recent move to reinterpret how Cuba pays for American farm goods allowed under an exception to the embargo says the Caribbean nation must make full payment before the cargo leaves US ports. "These new measures go directly against American business people, and especially punish small and medium-sized businesses," Pedro Alvarez, chairman of the food import company Alimport, said while accompanying Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco on her final day of a visit to boost trade with the island. Alvarez said before the goods leave U.S. ports, Cuba will now have to extend letters of credit guaranteeing payment and send the cash once the goods are on their way. "We have no other alternative left to us," he said. (AP, 10/3/05)

March 10: The defense team of the five Cuban prisoners incarcerated in the US presented their appeal for a retrial outside Miami to three judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Atlanta one year ago. The Appeals process usually takes three months but the judges explained last March 10th that due to the complexity of the case against the Five, this appeals process would take longer to give a response. (Radio Habana Cuba, 10/3/05)

March 11: The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has presented "an additional $1 million award to the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies to continue the vital work of the Cuba Transition Project" now under way at the university, according to a press release. The newly authorized funding is an amendment to an existing cooperative agreement between USAID and the University of Miami. It will support a project described by USAID as "a pioneer academic program that examines the complex issues surrounding Cuba's eventual transition to democracy”. (USAID Press Release, 11/3/05)

March 16: Thirty-three US agriculture export firms and groups representing farmers exporting to Cuba petitioned the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control to allow existing contracts with the Cuban government for agriculture and food deliveries to proceed under the terms that were written before OFAC issued a rule February 22 to tighten up financial regulations on trade with Cuba. US firms have been selling agriculture and food products to Cuba since 2001 under a 2000 law that allows cash-only sales. (DTN, 16/3/05)

March 16: A top expert on US-Cuba trade announced that he had resigned, saying he was ''tired'' of dealing with the Cuban and US governments, careless journalists and "two-bit hustlers.'' ''I don't care what conclusions people draw; I would just like them to use accurate information,'' said John Kavulich, head of the New York-based US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council (USCTEC). "Integrity, accuracy, ethics seem to be increasingly less important.'' Kavulich and USCTEC have been regarded as the leading experts on US trade with Cuba and the Cuban economy since it was established in 1994. Its members are largely major U.S. companies exploring business opportunities in Cuba. (The Miami Herald, 16/3/05)

March 16: Cuba's embassy in Mexico issued a stinging rebuke of an article published in Forbes magazine, without mentioning the magazine by name, calling it "a repugnant example of a campaign of lies" by "an American magazine of decaying credibility." "It is a clumsy slander and a repugnant example of a campaign of lies perpetrated in the United States with the sole aim of justifying the criminal blockade of Cuba," the embassy said in a press statement. In a story published about the fortunes of rulers and heads-of-state, Forbes estimated Fidel Castro’s net worth at $550 million, but acknowledged "these estimates are more art than science." (AP, 16/3/05)

March 17: Fidel Castro has criticized Forbes magazine for the "infamy" of listing him among the world's richest people, with a net worth of $550 million. "Once again, they have committed the infamy of speaking about Castro's fortune, placing me almost above the queen of England," Castro said in a speech to top officials of Cuba's ruling Communist Party, military and police. "Do they think I am (former Zairian President) Mobutu (Sese Seko) or one of the many millionaires, those thieves and plunderers, that the empire has suckled and protected?" he said in reference to his capitalist archenemy, the United States. (CNN, 18/3/05)

March 17: At the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, the United States is circulating a draft resolution that seeks to keep Cuba in the list of systematic violators of human rights. The document calls for the case of Cuba to be considered again next year under item 9; that is, countries with massive and systematic violations of human rights and countries that need permanent monitoring. (AFP, 17/3/05)

March 17: The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of YM BioSciences Inc.'s experimental TheraCIM drug in a clinician-sponsored study to treat a child with advanced brain cancer. The drug earlier achieved a 35-per-cent response rate in the second of three clinical trials conducted in Germany, allowing YM's European partner to proceed to pivotal testing. TheraCIM was developed in Cuba and has been precluded from clinical testing in the United States because of trade legislation with Cuba. (The Globe and Mail, 17/3/05)

March 17: The United States urged Cuba's government to release its political prisoners and promised to support Cubans who want to replace Fidel Castro's government with a democratic system. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement to mark the second anniversary of the Castro government's crackdown on dissidents that at least 300 political prisoners remain in Cuban jails serving sentences averaging 20 years. The 14 people released so far were in poor health but still are subjected to daily harassment, he said. (AP, 17/3/05)

March 18: The Bush administration is refusing to back down from its decision to start imposing payment restrictions on US exports to Cuba. In testimony before the House Agriculture Committee, OFAC Director Robert Werner reiterated the Bush administration's position that Cuba must start paying in advance of the goods leaving the United States, a move the Cuban government strongly opposes. Werner said that Cuba may use letters of credit through a foreign bank, which exporters say will increase the time and costs of transactions. (The Advocate, 18/3/05)

March 20: In April, the 6th Havana Film Festival in New York will pay homage to two cinema luminaries, Cuban Pastor Vega, and Brazilian Walter Salles. "This year, the festival presents award-winners from Havana's Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, as well as new independent films from and about Latin America," said festival spokeswoman Diana Vargas. During the festival, moviegoers will be able to see cutting-edge narrative, documentary, short films and classics not only from Cuba but also from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and the US. (New York Daily News, 20/3/05)

March 20: Cuba has rejected a US-sponsored 4-paragraph draft resolution that urges the UN Commission on Human Rights to keep the island under the scrutiny of the Commission. According to the Cuban official press, the draft resolution requests from the UNCHR to submit a report on Cuba during its current session and to keep monitoring the island through a special rapporteur. Washington submitted the draft by itself. For Cuban diplomats in Geneva, this represents a setback for Washington. The US document limits itself this time to recall a previously passed resolution. (Prensa Latina, 20/3/05)

March 20: UN Food Organization Rapporteur Jean Ziegler said in Havana that Washington's blockade against the island is genocide. Ziegler, a renowned Swiss lawyer and sociologist, denounced this policy as "a flagrant violation of human rights", adding that as a UN Rapporteur he has the right to ask governments for a response on certain policies, but the Bush administration had turned down a visa request when the world body requested the US State Department for permission so he could visit Washington to discuss the blockade issue. (Radio Habana Cuba, 21/3/05)

March 21: Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said that the United States will fail in its efforts to have Cuba condemned by the top UN human rights watchdog. "This will constitute the first defeat by the United States" in its annual efforts to condemn Cuba at the United Nations meeting, Perez Roque told a news conference. The Bush administration has said it plans to submit to the UN Human Rights Commission a resolution critical of Cuba's rights record. The commission, now meeting in Geneva, is expected to consider the US resolution on Cuba by mid-April. (AP, Prensa Latina, 2173705)

March 22: Cuban exile groups and South Florida legislators are hoping to turn political attention to human rights in Cuba. Florida's Hispanic Legislative Caucus members announced that they will mark the first "Free Cuba Day" celebration in the state Capitol in hopes of building awareness of human rights violations under Fidel Castro's rule of the island nation. "We want to expose what goes on behind communist Cuba's lines," said Representative Julio Robaina (Republican-Miami), explaining why various Cuban exile groups will descend on the Capitol at the invitation of the 15 members of the Hispanic Legislative Caucus. The daylong event, modeled after a similar recognition held by Hispanic members of Congress each year in Washington, is expected to include political speeches, the airing of a film documentary about the lives of impoverished children in Cuba and a series of exhibits, including a "refugee raft" and a "jail cell" reproduction. "It's a day of visuals so people can see what Cubans living with communism are going through, and their plight to freedom," said Robaina. (Sun Sentinel, 23/3/05)

March 22: The mastermind behind the ''truckonauts,'' whose gutsy voyages to freedom from Cuba aboard 1950s-vintage vehicles failed, has finally made it to Miami. He did it the hard way. By land. Luis Grass' first two attempts were aboard a modified 1951 Chevy truck and a 1959 Buick car. He made international headlines when photographs of migrants on the amphibious contraptions surfaced. Last week, Grass' third and successful attempt was by land, crossing the US border with Mexico. (The Miami Herald, 23/3/05)

March 22: Cuban television's nightly round table discussed the case of the Cuban Five beginning with comments from the head of the British campaign to free them from US prisons. Father Geoffrey Bottoms visited two of the five men recently - Gerardo Hernández and René González - and described them as very firmly believing that their case, which is under appeal, will be won. Father Bottoms said that although the appeal had been a year in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the men were in good mental and physical health. (Radio Habana Cuba, 22/3/05)

March 22: Cuban Ambassador to Zambia Francisco Correa has denounced Forbes Magazine for listing Fidel Castro among the richest people in the world. Forbes Magazine placed Castro among the world's wealthiest people, with a net worth of US $550 million. Ambassador Correa in an interview termed the listing of Castro as a big lie whose sole purpose was to discredit Castro. "We denounce and criticize this very strongly; that this magazine wants to show the world that President Castro is a rich man when he has no wealth at all," Ambassador Correa said. (All Africa.Com, 23/3/05)

March 23: Jorge de Cárdenas Agostini, arrested in June on suspicion of supervising a team of torturers in Cuba, has been released from the Krome detention center, where he had been held for months awaiting deportation to Cuba -- a country that generally refuses to take back Cuban exiles. Sources familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini had indicated during testimony in a previous deportation case that he had worked for a Cuban intelligence unit and supervised a team that allegedly tortured dissidents opposed to Fidel Castro. Linda Osberg-Braun, the immigration attorney who represents de Cárdenas Agostini, has denied the allegations. She declined to discuss the case in detail on or the reasons for her client's release from the West Miami-Dade center last month. Officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have yet to release evidence linking de Cárdenas Agostini to specific acts of torture. (The Miami Herald, 24/3/05)

March 24: Cuba will continue buying US food despite stricter new Bush administration requirements for cash-in-advance payments, a senior Cuban official said. "The United States is a nearby market and prices are good. We will keep buying despite increased regulation, if prices, shipping and other costs remain competitive," said Miguel Alvarez, top aide to the president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón. Congress authorized cash sales of food to Cuba in 2000, a rare exception to the US trade embargo dating from 1963, which is aimed at pressuring Cuba's communist government. (Reuters, 24/3/05)

March 24: There's little hope Arkansas farmers will have access to an expanded market in Cuba in the near future, or for the Social Security system in the long term if something isn't done to fix it, US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said. Gutierrez, 51, who was sworn in last month, has pledged to help American exporters by negotiating more agreements for trade with other countries while striking out against unfair trade practices. During confirmation hearings, the Cuba native said foreign trading partners have to uphold their ends of agreements. Gutierrez said after a speech to about 70 people at the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce that he supports Bush's policy of severe restrictions on business with Cuba. "We require certain changes to happen in Cuba before opening broader trade relations," Gutierrez said. (AP, 25/3/05)

March 24: Two Republican lawmakers promised to try to ease US restrictions against Cuba, saying tourism and trade can do more to undermine Fidel Castro's hold on the country than current US policy. Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona said he will attempt to get Congress to eliminate funding for enforcement of the US travel ban against Cuba, allowing more Americans to travel to the communist island. "I don't think that for the next four years we can maintain this policy," Flake told a group of international journalists. Referring to US’ four-decade old policy of isolating Cuba, Flake and Representative Wally Herger of California said that US policy-makers needed to take a more creative approach. "We need to do what we did in Eastern Europe" by putting more Americans in contact with Cubans, said Herger. "Change will not come from the policies we've had in the past." Both lawmakers said they would also back other legislation aimed at making it easier for American food producers to sell to Cuba by easing new limitations on how communist Cuba pays for the goods. (AP, 24/3/05)

March 27: As relations between the US and Cuba sink to the lowest point in years, the two countries are cooperating in one key area of mutual interest: anti-narcotics operations. Despite increasing hostility and a lack of formal diplomatic ties, Cuba's top anti-narcotics officials regularly share information with the US Coast Guard on drug traffickers passing near Cuba en route to the Bahamas and the United States, according to US officials and a new State Department report. "There are opportunities for good communications on drug shipments, and there is evidence they will notify us and incidents where they are helpful," Asa Hutchinson said in an interview just before his retirement as Homeland Security undersecretary. "But overall, it is fairly limited in terms of the resource capability of Cuba and because of the lack of formal channels and relations between the two nations," said Hutchinson, who was previously director of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. (Chicago Tribune, 27/3/05)

March 28: The best way to promote freedom in Cuba remains trading and promoting tourism in Cuba. That's because personal freedom follows economic freedom, and Cubans want and need American products, Representative Jerry Moran said in Salina. Moran visited the island nation again last week, where he met two other congressmen on a fact-finding trip concerning markets for US agricultural products. Moran has been a strong supporter of easing economic sanctions on Cuba. He pushed legislation in 2000 that allowed Cuba to purchase American food, agricultural products and medical supplies for cash. "Cuba has become a market for US agricultural commodities that ranks twenty-third in countries we sell the most to," he said. "Since my amendment became law, nearly $1.4 billion dollars US agricultural commodities (have been sold)." (The Salina Journal, 29/3/05)

March 28: Many countries in Latin America are struggling to consolidate democratic reforms and respect for human rights, a State Department report said, reserving some of the strongest language for abuses in Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. The congressionally mandated report -- Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2004-2005 -- details US actions worldwide to promote democracy and respect for human rights. [Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2004-2005] (The Miami Herald, 29/3/05)

March 29: US Treasury Secretary John Snow downplayed the likelihood that a brewing political scuffle over agriculture exports to Cuba would hamper his ability to fill a swath of vacant high-level positions in the Treasury Department. "I'm sure we'll be able to work out whatever these issues are," Snow told reporters during a stop in Montana, the home state of Senator Max Baucus, who has threatened to block Treasury nominees in a spat over new rules about food sales to Cuba. "I want to sit down with the senator and talk through what his concerns are," he said. Treasury's new rules, which came into effect this month, require that Cuba pay cash for US food items before they are shipped, a change critics say could choke off sales to a key emerging market for American agricultural goods. (Reuters, 30/3/05)

March 30: The US Department of Homeland Security's US Coast Guard, 7th District, delivered a press release saying that the Coast Guard Cutter Key Biscayne repatriated 40 Cuban migrants to Bahia de Cabanas, Cuba. The migrants were from two groups stopped by the Coast Guard. The first group of 10 were on a raft that was located by the Coast Guard Cutter Decisive about 22 miles south of Key West, Florida. Another 30 migrants were interdicted during a failed smuggling attempt after their go-fast was located by an HU-25 Falcon jet from Coast Guard Air Station Miami about 24 miles south of the Marquesas islands. (US Fed News, 30/3/05)

March 30: According to non-confirmed sources cited by “El Nuevo Herald”, Luis Posada Carriles, has been in Miami for several days negotiating his permission to remain in the US with the American Immigration authorities. The Department of Territorial Security’s office of Immigration and Customs Control would not comment on the subject. Luis Posada Carriles was released from prison last August by a pardon bestowed by former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso. (Radio Habana Cuba, 30/3/05)

March 31: A Coral Gables immigration attorney hired to represent Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles said he plans to ask the Department of Homeland Security for asylum and parole for his client so he can live in the United States without fear of extradition. Attorney Eduardo Soto said he expects a tough battle on behalf of the controversial 77-year-old -- hailed by some as an anti-Castro icon, but wanted by two countries as a terrorism suspect. Posada, thought to be in hiding now in South Florida, has been accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976 when he lived in Venezuela and trying to kill Fidel Castro in 2000 when he visited Panama. ''I anticipate a huge struggle here, both on the immigration front and in other matters,'' Soto said, referring to the possibility that Venezuela may seek Posada's extradition as a result of his 1985 escape from a prison where he was held in connection with the airliner bombing. (The Miami Herald, 31/3/05)

March 31: In testimony before the House Agriculture Committee, the Director of the Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Robert Werner, reiterated the Bush administration's position that Cuba must start paying in advance of the goods leaving the United States, a move the Cuban government strongly opposes. Werner said that Cuba may use letters of credit through a foreign bank, which exporters say will increase the time and costs of transactions. "It's moronic. The Cubans are panicking like crazy," said Gary Frankston, a Metairie shipper who joined the Louisiana trade delegation in Havana. "OFAC is not making this easy for Louisiana businesses." The delegation to Cuba -- as well as anyone currently doing business with the communist nation -- is ensnared in a political tango between the US federal government and the communist country. (The Miami Herald, 31/3/05)