Chronicle on Cuba - April 2005

Domestic Affairs

April 1: In a rare appearance on state TV, Cuba's top Catholic leader informed the communist country of Pope John Paul II's health problems, paying tribute to a leader he called a "moral reference for humanity.'' For many, Cardinal Jaime Ortega's comments were their first word of the serious downturn in the pontiff's health. Ortega praised the pope for coming to Cuba, calling the visit "unforgettable.'' He said that the pope also spoke his mind about differences of opinion with Fidel Castro, calling for openings in the island's political system. John Paul also urged the world to reach out to Cuba. "He came to Cuba as a messenger of truth, of love, of hope,'' Ortega said. (The New York Times, 1/4/05)

April 3: Cuban Catholics gathered in Havana's towering cathedral for Mass, led by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the island's top Roman Catholic churchman. Church bells had rung out on Cuba to announce the death of Pope Paul II, the only pontiff ever to visit the country. Ortega extolled John Paul's virtues and his message of peace, love and justice, saying, "The pope stirred humanity, just like Jesus did.'' The cardinal passed through the church after Mass greeting members of the crowd, some of whom kissed his hand. Ortega plans to celebrate a funeral Mass for the pope at the Havana cathedral on April 4, and then travel to Rome to attend the pope's funeral there and participate in the conclave of cardinals that will elect John Paul's successor. Though he clearly did not want to mention himself as a candidate, Ortega did not reject the possibility that the future pope could come from Latin America. Granma, the Communist Party daily and official government voice, devoted extensive coverage to the pope's death. (AP, 3/4/05)

April 4: Fidel Castro, paying his last respects to a man he called an "indefatigable warrior" for peace and the world's poor, attended a funeral mass for Pope John Paul II in Havana Cathedral. It was only the second time Castro had attended a service in the cathedral since his 1959 revolution. Castro, dressed in a dark business suit instead of his customary uniform, was accompanied by members of Cuba's ruling Communist Party hierarchy for the two-hour ceremony. At the start of his funeral mass homily, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana and Cuba's top Catholic prelate, thanked Castro and his government for the "heartfelt" way they had reacted to the Pope's death. State-run television has given wide coverage of the funeral preparations in Rome, presenting the Pope as a world leader who cared for the poor and opposed modern capitalism and the war in Iraq. The mass was also attended by the highest ranking government and communist party authorities, including the President of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcón, Vice-President Carlos Lage, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, Culture Minister Abel Prieto and other officials. (Reuters, Radio Habana Cuba, 4/4/05)

April 5: Inmates in a Cuban prison set mattresses and other materials ablaze in violence that left several prisoners seriously injured. The disturbance, later controlled by Cuban authorities, was the second in less than 20 days at the Combinado del Este Prison, which houses from 4,000 to 5,000 inmates according to unofficial sources. Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation, learned of the disturbance from prisoners' relatives who were contacted by authorities. Cuba's government issued no official report on the incident at the prison in Havana, and it was unknown how the disturbance was controlled. Sanchez said that the unrest was the result of excessive sentences, poor food and insufficient medical care at the prison. (AP, El Nuevo Herald, 8/4/05)

April 7: “We have brought about a revolution to bring freedom and dignity to the individual, and I thinks it’s insulting not to respect a person’s right to believe”, said Fidel Castro at the Havana International Conference Centre upon the death of Pope John Paul II. “Every revolutionary or politician should respect the beliefs and sentiments of individuals, whatever they are, because we have not fought to disrespect human beings”, he added. (Juventud Rebelde, 8/4/05)

April 7: Fidel Castro said his government is willing to “support” the activities of the Catholic Church but only “legal and truthful activities.” The leader also indicated that “in recent years tensions between the Catholic Church and the State have diminished.” (AFP, 7/4/05)

April 7: The Cuban National Capitol (Capitolio Nacional) is once more illuminated. Its gardens, pavements and cupola are displaying a new lighting system. Neighbors, passersby and visitors to the capital could once again enjoy, after more than 20 years, an illuminated Capitolio, fruit of the restoration plan underway for the building. The system comprises 302 lights, extending from the lantern at the highest level of the building (92 meters) on which the white cupola rests, to lights in the exterior gardens. (Granma International, 7/4/05)

April 8: A photo exhibition of John Paul II was inaugurated at the "José Martí" Memorial, in Havana’s Revolution Square. It includes pictures of Fidel Castro’s visit to the Vatican, 1996, and the Pope’s visit to the island two years later. (Granma, 8/4/05).

April 8: Some 500 films from 13 countries will compete at the III International low-budget Film Festival to take place in the eastern Cuban municipality of Gibara, according to organizers. Filmmakers from Mexico, Spain, Brazil, France, Argentina, Bolivia, Iran, Algeria, Russia, Italy, Australia, Finland and Cuba will compete in the categories of fiction and documentary. (EFE, 8/4/05)

April 11: An inmate who suffered severe burns in an uprising at Cuban prison has died, officials said. Freddy Ibanez, 35, died in a Havana hospital, badly burned when rioting prisoners doused fellow inmates with gasoline. Inmates at the Combinado del Este Prison set mattresses and materials ablaze in violence that left several prisoners seriously injured on April 5, said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation. "According to our investigations and despite the strict official silence regarding the riots of March 19 and April 5, it is very probable that several inmates died as a result of those incidents," said the communique from commission head Elizardo Sanchez. An official at a mortuary in west Havana confirmed Ibáñez's body was expected to arrive there. Sanchez said that Interior Minister Abelardo Colome Ibarra went to the prison on the occasion of the latest disturbance, accompanied by several army generals and police commanders. (CNN, EFE, Reuters, 11/4/05)

April 11: Dissident Jorge Olivera is waiting for an exit permit from the Cuban government to leave to the US. The independent journalist managed to get a visa to the United States in 2002, and was preparing to head north when he was picked up in a government crackdown on political activists in March 2003. After serving 21 months, Olivera was released from prison in December for medical reasons. He has been ready to leave the country ever since but is still waiting on an exit permit from the Cuban government. "It's like I'm still jailed," Olivera told journalists. "Here I am still, deprived of my rights." Olivera's wife and two sons are also ready to leave the island, and started the necessary paperwork last fall. But they couldn't get exit permits because Olivera was still in prison. All Cuban citizens need permission from their government to leave their homeland. Olivera, 43, said immigration officials told him on January 6 the exit permits would be ready in no more than 45 days. The maximum period passed more than seven weeks ago. (AP, 11/4/05)

April 12: Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said in Havana that the rhythm of the Revolution's recovery is irreversible as the result of “a historic and collective heroic feat of the many contributions of the Cuban people”. The Cuban official closed the Civic Society Meeting in Defense of Cuba´s Sovereignty and Human Rights, which was held in Havana. The event's final declaration strongly condemned Washington's policy toward Cuba. [Statement by Cuban organizations at the meeting on Civil Society] (Radio Habana Cuba, 13/4/05)

April 13: Cuban Minister of Culture, Abel Prieto, said in Madrid that dissident Raúl Rivero was convicted “not for thinking differently, but for collaborating with a foreign power which has declared war on Cuba.” Prieto added that “there are no crimes of opinion in Cuba,” in reply to questions from journalists at the International Press Club. Prieto also said that there has never been “any case of extrajudicial execution, or torture or mistreatment of prisoners” on the island.” (EFE, 13/4/05)

April 14: In a nation dominated for generations by Fidel Castro and the Communist Party, one group is emerging as a refuge for those chafing under the constraints of daily life on this Caribbean island. Widely popular before the 1959 revolution, Cuba's Masons suffered a precipitous decline in the ensuing decades, but the group has since recovered its appeal as some Cubans look for an alternative to the uniformity inherent in the nation's one-party system. Cuba's Masons say discussions about democracy, human rights, abortion, globalization, cloning and other issues of the day are common, though members refrain from talking about the island's politics inside the nation's 316 lodges, or meeting places. Some Masons say the organization has a history of promoting civil liberties and could play a role in Cuba's political future, though top Masons say their mission is to foster ethical conduct and brotherhood. The group risks getting sucked into the battle between authorities and the island's weak and divided dissident movement. Twelve of the 75 opposition figures imprisoned by Cuban authorities in 2003 are Freemasons. All but one--independent journalist Jorge Olivera--remain incarcerated. (Chicago Tribune, 14/4/05)

April 17: Millions of Cubans elected municipal assemblies in local elections Fidel Castro defended as "the most democratic in the world." After voting at a Havana school, Castro told journalists that Cuban elections are impartial and free of fraud. “This election is the most democratic in the world, there is no doubt," Castro said. "No other country has a system like this." Cubans were electing 169 municipal assemblies across the island in elections that take place every 2 1/2 years. Preliminary results showed that 8,168, 253 Cubans, 96.27 percent, exercised their right to vote in the municipal elections. (Sun Sentinel, Prensa Latina, 18/4/05)

April 17: Fidel Castro claimed the dissidents in his country were only a fraction and comprised not even one percent of the population. In response to a question by a group of journalists gathered after Castro voted at municipal elections, about the planned congress of dissidents on May 20, the Cuban leader said that he has heard “nothing about this”. “The only ones informed are you and the only ones concerned about this are you," he told the journalists. "It is evident that what I know is what I read in your correspondences every day and I know you artificially flatter people who do not exist," Castro added. (ANSA, 17/4/05)

April 18: Cuba's opposition faces a new crackdown, the wife of a former dissident prisoner said, a day after Fidel Castro slammed EU support for a UN human rights resolution last week. "Cuban dissidents foresee a massive wave of repression in the immediate future," said Miriam Leiva, the wife of Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a political activist released from prison two months ago after nearly two years of detention. Chepe was one of 75 opponents of the Castro regime detained in 2003, of which 13 have been released for health reasons. In a written statement to the press, Leiva noted that the government has mostly rebuffed European overtures to resume a political dialogue on Cuba, refusing to free any of the other Cuban prisoners of conscience. (AFP, 18/4/05)

April 18: Some 15 years after first trying to get to Cuba, UK musician Rick Wakeman has finally made it to Havana, launching a weeklong trip in which he plans to give three concerts in the Cuban capital. Logistical challenges such as shipping music equipment to the communist-run island have consistently created barriers that complicated the trip, the former Yes star told a news conference. "I tried for quite a few years (...) but there was always some reason I couldn't come," said the keyboard player. "It really was an amazing feeling getting off the plane yesterday." Wakeman and the New English Rock Ensemble, or NERE, will perform at Havana's Karl Marx Theater, then at an open-air venue next to the Malecon, the city's famed seawall. The artist, who is scheduled to perform in Mexico and Costa Rica after his Cuba tour, declined to talk politics about the communist country, but pointed out he has turned down invitations to countries whose policies he disagrees with in the past. "I am here because I want to be here, and I want to be part of what Cuba is," he said. (AP, 18/4/05)

April 18: Cuban officials said that nearly 97 percent of registered voters in the country participated in municipal elections over the weekend. Justice Minister Roberto Diaz Sotolongo, who presides over the National Electoral Commission, said nearly 8.2 million Cubans, or 96.66 percent of those registered, went to the polls to elect 169 municipal assemblies across the island of 11 million. (The New York Times, 18/4/05)

April 18: Three prisoners were dead and 25 seriously injured after a riot in the Combinado del Este prison—the largest penitenciary in Cuba—while local authorities “have yet to report the incident,” said the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN). “We can confirm the deaths, as a result of burns, of inmates Javier Peralta, Alexis Tomes and Fredy Ibáñez,” said the organization. The CCDHRN released an unofficial list of the 25 prisoners who were sent to hospital and deemed seriously or very seriously injured after the incident. (AFP, 18/4/05)

April 19: Bells tolled in churches across communist Cuba after the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as pope. The first appearance of the new Pope Benedict XVI was shown live on state television in the country which until 1992 was officially atheist. Dozens of tourists gathered outside the main cathedral in Havana to hear the name of the new pope and a spokesman for the conference of Cuban bishops said "we are very happy" at the election of Ratzinger. (AFP, 19/4/05)

April 20: Cuba’s Finlay Institute announced the completion of clinic trials of a vaccine for cholera at the 12th International Fair "Health for All". Specialists from the institution said the product will soon be evaluated in Africa, where the disease is endemic. (Prensa Latina, 20/4/05)

April 20: Prominent dissidents in Cuba say they are being harassed by the government in advance of a gathering of dissident and pro-democracy forces scheduled to take place May 20 in Havana. Earlier this month, dissidents involved in planning the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba sent word that the government had embarked on an all-out effort to intimidate activists from attending the event. Three of Cuba's best-known dissident voices repeated those accusations in a telephone call to US lawmakers. "For us it is critical to receive international support because the Castro regime has focused its repressive apparatus on the leaders of the assembly at this point, so international support is critical," Martha Beatriz Roque, main promoter of the May meeting, said. Rene Gomez, another dissident leader in Havana, says they are fully prepared for additional government efforts to discourage attendance. (VOA, 20/4/05)

April 21: Cuban cinema's emblematic figure, Jorge Perugorria, is also passionate about art, and recently told the press that he is looking forward with excitement to an upcoming exhibition of his paintings in Florence. Perugorria, who is in the course of shooting the final scenes of the Spanish-Cuban co-production "Rosa de Francia" (Rose of France) under the direction of Spanish filmmaker Manuel Gutierrez Aragon, is also packing his bags for the trip to Italy. On April 28th, his one-man show opens at Enrico Coveri's Galleria del Palazzo in Florence. It features 30 canvases and 300 silkscreen prints of five original pieces. "Painting is something much more personal than film, because I think the actor is always bound by a script and a character, which is something more collective," said the actor, who shot to fame as the star of 1993's "Strawberries and Chocolate," directed by the late Cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea. (EFE, 21/4/05)

April 21: The Vicar of the Archdiocese of Havana, Msgr. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, said that the new Pope, Benedict XVI, will not be an obstacle to the relations between the Catholic Church and the government of Fidel Castro. The prelate was convinced that with Joseph Ratzinger relations between the Church and the Cuban government “will remain at their current level,” after the late John Paul II “raised them to a higher level.” (EFE, 21/4/05)

April 22: Two years after his arrest, dissident Rafael Millet Leyva still hasn't been tried. Millet Leyva, 39, is confined in the maximum security prison of "El Guayabo", Isle of Pines. "In September of 2004, I filed a complaint to the General Prosecutor of the Republic because they keep him in jail without due process”, María de los Ángeles Cruz Batista, Millet’s wife said. Rafael Millet Leyva, president of the Martin Luther King Civic Resistance Movement, was arrested on March 24, 2003, during the wave of repression unleashed against the dissidents in the island. He has been charged of placing signs in buildings against the government. Amnesty International has considered Millet Leyva a prisoner of conscience and has demanded the Cuban government for his release. (Lux Info Press, 22/4/05)

April 22: Elián González, 11, made his public speaking debut at a political rally, thanking the American people for supporting his reunion with his father in Cuba five years ago and making his "dream of being a free child come true." The former castaway read a prepared speech recalling the day US federal agents seized him from the home of Miami relatives and turned him over to his father, Juan Miguel González. "When I saw him I got very happy," Elian said. "I could hug him. I could see my little brother. That was the happiest day of my life. "I want to thank the American people for supporting our cause, which greatly contributed to my return," Elián said. (Sun Sentinel, 24/4/05)

April 24: Some 1 075 275 (93.35% of those called to vote) turned out to vote on the second round of the Cuban municipal elections in 1174 constituencies, according to the National Electoral Commission. Under the current electoral law, the second round of the municipal elections takes place when two or more candidates end tied in the first round. (Prensa Latina, 25/4/05)

April 26: A Cuban court handed down prison sentences of up to 18 years for 23 men who stormed the Mexican Embassy three years ago in a bid to flee the country, a human rights group said. Pedro Plasencia, whom prosecutors said master-minded the break-in, received the toughest sentence of 18 years, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said. The others got sentences ranging from three to 15 years for violating a diplomatic mission, damage to property and theft of the bus. The jail terms were called "excessive'' by the head of the rights group, veteran activist Elizardo Sanchez. "The accused hurt nobody and the Mexican government made no claim for minor damages to the metal gate,'' Sanchez said. (The New York Times, 26/4/05)

April 26: The National Electoral Commission decided to hold the third round of municipal elections in the only Cuban constituency that has yet to elect a delegate to represent its citizens in the People's Power Municipal Assemblies (local government). Candidates in Constituency 24 in the Cueto municipality, in the eastern province of Holguin, remain tied after two polling rounds. (Prensa Latina, 26/4/05)

April 27: The Democratic Solidarity Party (PSD), a dissident organization of liberal leaning groups in Cuba, confirmed it will attend a congress in May organized by the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba. The PSD thus joins other groups like the Christian Liberation Movement led by Oswaldo Payá, and Arco Progresista (Progressive Coalition). (AFP, 27/4/05)