Chronicle on Cuba - September 2005

US-Cuba Relations

September 1: Cuba's parliament, led by Fidel Castro, set aside politics momentarily and stood for one minute in silent homage to the victims of Hurricane Katrina -- before quickly returning to normal business and condemning the US occupation of Iraq. "The whole world should feel that this tragedy is its own," National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon said. "The news pained and saddened Cubans. In their name, we wish to express our profound solidarity with the people of the United States, state and local authorities and the victims of this catastrophe," Alarcon added. Castro, dressed in his trademark green military fatigues, stood with his head down for the minute of silence. (Reuters, CNN, 1/9/05)

September 1: The Cuban parliament declared that the US government will violate international terrorism accords if it does not extradite an anti-Castro militant to Venezuela for allegedly plotting a Cuban jetliner bombing that killed 73 people. The resolution, approved unanimously by lawmakers, comes as the Cuban-born Luis Posada Carriles fights attempts to extradite him from the United States to Venezuela, where he is a naturalized citizen and once served as a top intelligence official. (AP, 1/9/05)

September 1: What is taking place in the case of Luis Posada Carriles is a legal farce and an insult to the many victims of this international terrorist, noted a Granma newspaper editorial. Posada's attorneys are trying to take advantage of the Bush administration's growing hostility toward Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, by claiming he would not receive fair treatment in the South American country where he allegedly organized the bombing of a Cuban airliner that took the life of 73 persons. "It is evident that everything has already being settled between the defense and the prosecutors," assured Granma. (Ahora, 1/9/05)

September 2: Fidel Castro has offered to send help to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. At a nightly roundtable program on state-run television, Castro said his nation was ready to send 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine and equipment. "Others have sent money; we are offering to save lives," he said. Castro -- an enemy of US President George W. Bush and frequent subject of condemnation from the White House -- said he would not comment on the US government's response to the tragedy because "this is not the time to kick an adversary -- while he's down." Castro said the doctors he was offering have international experience. (CNN, 2/9/05)

September 4: Fidel Castro put on display some 1,500 doctors equipped with medical supplies in hopes of persuading the United States to allow them to treat victims of Hurricane Katrina. Castro, in a televised meeting with the doctors, said the United States had not responded to his offer to send medical workers and 26 tonnes of supplies to the devastated US Gulf Coast. The Cuban leader read out news stories describing a lack of medical attention for Katrina refugees and those still trapped in Louisiana and Mississippi a week after the storm hit. "These doctors could all already be there providing their services," Castro said. "Forty-eight hours have passed and we still haven't received any response to our offer (…) we will wait patiently as many days as are necessary," he said. (AP, 4/9/05)

September 6: Cuba protested at the United Nations the US government denial for a second consecutive time of a visa for an island delegation to attend the 2nd World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in New York, which started on September 5. "The Cuban Mission to the UN likes to express its vigorous protest over the arbitrary decision and total disagreement with this attitude," said a statement delivered to the US mission to the UN. The Inter-Parliamentary meeting was scheduled for September 7-9 to follow-up the first conference of this kind, held in New York in 2000, along with the Millennium Assembly. (Prensa Latina, 6/9/05)

September 6: The United States gave longtime foe Cuba the cold shoulder over its offer to send more than 1,500 doctors to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, which created a humanitarian disaster after pummeling the US Gulf Coast. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said US officials were reviewing Cuba's offer but the US Department of Health and Human Services had indicated there was a "robust" response from US doctors who have volunteered to help. Asked whether this meant Cuba's doctors would not be needed, McCormack replied: "No, I'm not saying that. What I'm trying to do is describe for you the facts of what the response has been. And in terms of the international offers of assistance, our criterion is: What's needed?"

September 6: Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman Jose Luis Ponce said that Cuba has yet to receive a response to Fidel Castro’s offer to send to the US more than 1,500 doctors to help victims of Hurricane Katrina . Ponce said 1,586 Cuban doctors are ''ready to go.'' He spoke to press in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where Castro was attending an oil conference. (AP, 6/9/05)

September 7: The White House answered Havana's offer of aid to help victims of Hurricane Katrina by saying it hoped Fidel Castro would "offer freedom to his people." Castro, who often deploys Cuban doctors abroad, has offered to send 1,586 doctors and 34 tonnes of medicine to the United States to help in the aftermath of Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters to strike the United States. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the US State Department was handling overseas assistance offers but added: "In terms of Cuba, we would certainly hope that Castro would offer freedom to his people." The comments, which were not a rejection of Havana's offer, came after US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did not rule out accepting the assistance, saying it would depend on the needs in the region. (AFP, 7/9/05)

September 7: Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez said that the US government should accept Cuba's offer to send hundreds of doctors to treat victims of Hurricane Katrina, provided they are needed and ``reasonably well-trained.'' Martinez, the first Cuban American to serve in the US Senate, said he wondered if it was ''appropriate'' for Cuba to send the doctors, because many had already been dispatched to Venezuela and there was a shortage of medical help on the island. Cuba sends Venezuela doctors as part of payment for subsidized oil. “But if we need doctors, and Cuba offers them and they provide good service, of course we should accept them,'' he said in his Washington office. ``And we're grateful for that offer.'' (The Miami Herald, 7/9/05)

September 7: More than 50 Cuban migrants landed in the Florida Keys in recent days -- many of them rafters on homemade boats who likely took advantage of relatively calm seas to cross the Florida Straits, federal immigration officials said. On September 6 alone, three separate groups of Cuban migrants made it to Florida. US Border Patrol officials were also kept busy throughout the Labor Day weekend, according to US Border Patrol spokesman Robert Montemayor. ''I would say they saw an opportunity because of the weather and that's why we are seeing these smaller endeavors,'' Montemayor said of the latest attempts by rafters. Those apprehended were allowed to remain because they had made it to dry land. (The Miami Herald, 7/9/05)

September 7: The second world conference of parliamentary speakers kicked off at the United Nations headquarters in New York with the notable absence of the Cuban delegation after Washington denied visas to the Communist island's officials. Havana is not participating in the meeting, which is sponsored by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), after the US government refused to issue a visa to the head of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, despite his having presented his visa request documentation in time. Alarcón sent a letter to IPU secretary-general Anders Johnsson in which he complained that the United States failed to fulfill its obligations as the host nation for the UN seat. This is not the first time that Washington, which is not a member of the IPU, has hindered the presence of Cuban lawmakers at international meetings on its territory. (The New York Times, 7/9/05)

September 8: The number of Cubans leaving the island illegally by sea is at its highest since the 1994 rafters' crisis, the top American diplomat in Havana said. The US Coast Guard has interdicted some 2,400 Cubans at sea so far this fiscal year ending September 30, more than double the number from the previous fiscal year, James C. Cason, the chief of the US Interests Section in Havana, said in a statement. Cason announced that the United States has fulfilled its obligation this fiscal year by issuing travel documents to 20,075 Cubans. He said that access to the government-controlled Cuban press would allow the American mission to better inform Cubans of their legal emigration options, but that "the Castro regime prefers to keep Cubans uninformed about their emigration possibilities." Cason called on the Cuban government to stop denying exit permits to hundreds of Cubans who have received US travel documents. He said Cuba has denied the permits to some 533 people this fiscal year, including 171 doctors and other medical workers. (AP, 8/9/05)

September 9: John Kavulich summarized his decade as a top US expert on the Cuban economy by saying that he went “from being the anointed one to the disappointed one,'' Kavulich, former president of a group whose members included huge US companies interested in trade with Cuba, resigned as head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, bitterly complaining about US and Cuban officials who put politics before profits, sleazy business practices and naive media reporting. In 2002 Kavulich made his final trip to Cuba, for the US Food & Agribusiness Exhibition, an unprecedented event that attracted 293 exhibitors from 32 American states. But as Cuban imports of US goods increased, Kavulich began going public with controversial issues. The trade council's newsletter was first to report that Havana was buying goods from specific US states in order to push their congressional representatives to vote for easing US sanctions on Cuba. It also first reported in 2003 that Havana was requiring US firms and some US politicians to sign ''advocacy agreements'' -- promising they would lobby Congress to ease the sanctions -- before Cuba would buy their goods. "I am witnessing an increasing lack of ethics (…) both in the United States and in Cuba.'' (The Miami Herald, 9/5/05)

September 12: Marisol Gari, an Orlando woman convicted of spying for the Cuban government, has been detained for possible deportation back to the island, her Miami attorney said. Louis Casuso told the press his client was detained two weeks ago and is now being held at a detention facility outside Miami-Dade County in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which carries out deportation orders. If deported, Gari, 46, would be the third person linked to the infamous Wasp Network expelled since the FBI busted the group in 1998. The Wasp Network, or “La Red Avispa”, was an alleged Cuban spy group uncovered by US agents. Five Wasp ringleaders were tried and convicted in Miami, though their case was recently reversed on appeal. Casuso said the deportation of Gari would be a betrayal of US government promises of protection in exchange for cooperation. Federal officials familiar with the case said US officials were sufficiently pleased to try to persuade immigration officials not to deport her. (The Miami Herald, 12/9/05)

September 12: An Orlando woman convicted of spying for the Cuban government and recently detained for possible deportation to Cuba, was suddenly released by immigration officials and allowed to return home, her Miami attorney said. Marisol Gari, 46, had been linked to the infamous Wasp Network uncovered in Miami-Dade by the FBI in 1998. The Herald published an article about Gari's detention. ''I think that's why she was released, I can't think of any other reason,'' said her attorney, Louis Casuso. His client, he said, was driven back to her house in Orlando. ''Her status now is that she's deportable, but she's home,'' Casuso said. A spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs enforcement declined to comment on the case. (The Miami Herald, 13/9/05)

September 12: Cuba complained to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the United States had barred its national assembly speaker from attending a meeting of parliamentarians at UN headquarters in New York. Washington denied a visa request from Ricardo Alarcon of Cuba to attend the second World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, a meeting sponsored by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. While the United States, as host country for the United Nations, is obliged to give visas to foreign officials for official UN business, a US official said the conference of parliamentarians was not a UN affair even though it used UN facilities. (Reuters, 12/9/05)

September 13: The United States has still not responded to Cuba's offer of 1,600 doctors to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, Cuba said. The response "has yet to arrive, and may never come," said a front-page government statement in Granma, the ruling Communist Party daily. (AP, 13/9/05)

September 14: Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly of the People's Power (Parliament) of Cuba, arrived in New York at the head of the Cuban delegation to attend the UN Summit for Financing Development, which opened in New York. The Cuban delegation arrived late because of delays by US authorities in issuing visas to enable their entry into US national territory. (Prensa Latina, 14/9/05)

September 14: Within one 24-hour period this week, 109 Cuban migrants landed on several of the tiny islands that form the Dry Tortugas of the Florida Keys -- bringing the number of Cubans landing in South Florida so far this month to more than 150. Meanwhile, the number of Cuban migrants interdicted at sea while en route to South Florida hit more than 2,000 -- the largest number in a calendar year since 37,191 were rescued during the 1994 rafter exodus. Overall Cuban landings are up as well. Since October 1, 2004, more than 1,800 Cubans have reached South Florida's shores. That compares to 955 who made the trip between October 1, 2003, and September 30, 2004, according to recent Border Patrol figures. Homeland Security officials acknowledge the rise in landings and interceptions, but said they don't believe the increase portends a mass exodus. The increase could be attributed to ''extremely calm seas out there,'' suggested Steve McDonald, a Border Patrol spokesman. (The Miami Herald, 14/9/05)

September 15: The US Treasury Department has refused a permit to the Rainbow Theatre group to travel to Cuba, where they were to perform during the 12th International Theater Festival in Havana. In a message to the event’s organizers, Carlos Barón, the group’s artistic director, expressed with deep regret and anger that "the US Treasury Department has denied us a permit to travel to Cuba and thus share with all of you during the upcoming International Theater Festival in Havana." (Granma International, 15/9/05)

September 16: The US Department of Homeland Security's US Coast Guard, 7th District, issued a press release informing of the repatriation of 34 Cuban migrants to Bahía de Cabañas, Cuba. The US Coast Guard Cutter Pea Island said that the migrants were rescued in four separate cases. (US Fed News, 16/9/05)

September 18: José Pertierra, a Washington lawyer representing the Venezuelan government, said in Miami that if Luis Posada Carriles is neither deported nor extradited to Venezuela the Cuban exile militant could end up testifying in the retrial of five Cuban spies whose convictions were recently reversed on appeal. ''The five were sent [from Cuba] to penetrate extremist organizations in the United States that were financing the campaign of terror -- bombings [in Cuba] that Posada Carriles was organizing with money from Miami and the support of organizations in Miami,'' Pertierra said after addressing about 60 people, mostly sympathizers of the so-called Cuban Five. It isn't clear, however, just how closely the two cases are connected. Pertierra said the five convicted spies -- Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, René González and Antonio Guerrero -- were sent to Miami because of the 1997 bombings. But FBI documents indicated the Cuban agents had been under surveillance in Miami since at least 1994. (The Miami Herald, 19/9/05)

September 19: Fidel Castro lamented that the US government had not still responded two weeks after he offered to send nearly 1,600 Cuban doctors to help Hurricane Katrina victims, saying the team could have saved lives. "It hurts to think about it,'' Castro told several thousand doctors gathered for a combined graduation and the formation of Cuba's new international disaster team of experienced health workers. "Perhaps some of those desperate people, situated in the water and on the verge of dying, could have been saved,'' the Cuban leader said. "That's a hard lesson for those whose false pride and erroneous concepts have driven them not to respond, even late, to our offer,'' Castro said of American officials. (The Guardian, 20/9/05)

September 21: The United States snubbed Cuba's offer to send about 1,600 Cuban doctors to join relief efforts for the victims of Hurricane Katrina because enough American doctors have volunteered, a US official said. The offer of the Cuban government was not accepted because "there was not a match", State Department official Joseph Sullivan told reporters in Louisiana's state capital Baton Rouge. (AFP, 21/9/05)

September 22: Two 30-passenger aircraft will leave Miami International Airport in Florida with over 50 enthusiastic volunteers to travel to the island of Cuba to participate in a project whose goal is to build four playgrounds in one week for the children of Havana. These American volunteers will join local Cuban families to assemble and erect new swing sets, climbing structures, crawling tubes, triple twists, turbo towers, infant playhouses and many more pieces of the latest playground equipment. The project was the idea of an entrepreneur and real estate investor, Bill Hauf, who six years ago formed the nonprofit foundation “It's Just The Kids, Inc.” to fulfill the unrealized dreams of children. (Business Wire, 22/9/05)

September 23: A group of six US intensive care specialists were impeded to attend the international event “Ventilation 2005” in Cuba. The scientists, from universities in Washington, Texas, Pittsburgh and Loyola, were to attend this forum on mechanic ventilation and blood gases in the central Cuban province of Santa Clara along with more than 300 specialists from ten countries. (Prensa Latina, 23/8/05)

September 23: Ten Cubans who navigated the choppy waters of the Florida Straits and endured the bad weather resulting from Hurricane Rita were intercepted just a few miles from the coast. The would-be immigrants were traveling in a makeshift vessel when US Coast Guardsmen spotted them and prevented them from making their way to US soil. Television footage revealed how the Cubans - men between the ages of 20 and 40 - eluded capture for two hours before surrendering to US authorities. Francisco Delarros Carralero, a relative of two of the Cubans, told the Miami outlet of Spanish-language Telemundo television that the would-be immigrants were traveling from Cuba's Puerto Padre to the southern coast of Florida. (EFE, El Nuevo Herald, Sun Sentinel, 23,24/9/05)

September 24: Some Cuban American leaders called for a review of the methods used to take 10 Cuban men into custody. The search of the Cuban rafters by the US Coast Guard was followed by Miami TV stations. Boats from the US Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security sprayed a water cannon at the 10 Cubans' homemade boat and repeatedly bumped it, spilling four of the men into the ocean at one point. Cuban American Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart said that if the United States was going to repatriate Cubans, then it should also blockade all oil going to the Caribbean island. ''The free world never threw anybody back over the Berlin Wall,'' he said. "I denounce this policy.'' US Senator Mel Martinez called wet foot/dry foot a "failure.'' Martinez added: "The tactics employed today also need review and clarification, but one thing is abundantly clear -- these men were desperate to seek freedom. My heart goes out to them.'' Diaz-Balart said he is asking the Bush administration to implement a policy where all refugees picked up at sea get an asylum hearing on dry land at the US military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said he would also be seeking answers about the way these particular migrants were treated by US authorities -- especially whether the boat from Homeland Security was justified in striking the Cuban men's boat. (The Miami Herald, 24/9/05)

September 25: The US Coast Guard has repatriated 107 Cubans it intercepted at sea in nine incidents over a 10-day period. One incident involved 34 people the Coast Guard found on a go-fast boat 27 miles south of Key West. Two of the people on board, suspected of being smugglers, are in the custody of Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard returned the rest to Cuba. (Sun Sentinel, 27/9/05)

September 26: Three groups of Canadian and American volunteers are preparing to fly to Havana to teach English to the Cubans. The 22-day programs are open to working or retired educators willing to pay their own costs, while donating their English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching skills. (PR.Com, 26/9/05)

September 26: Restoration has begun on the Cuban hilltop villa where Ernest Hemingway hung his hat and hunting trophies for 21 years, from 1939 to 1960. But as repairs progress, US conservationists say the project lacks funding and materials they are eager to supply -- assistance banned under the terms of the 40-year-old US embargo on travel and trade with the communist island. Boston-based Hemingway Preservation Foundation, which was denied a US license last year to help fund restoration efforts, sent a team of experts to Cuba to study needed repairs under a special travel license issued by the US Treasury Department. Even when they finish their feasibility study later this year, though, it's unclear how they will put their findings to work. The group will reapply to the Treasury Department for a restoration license in November, but has no guarantee of receiving one, Jenny Phillips, co-founder of the Foundation said. (Sun Sentinel, 26/9/05)

September 26: The extradition process of Luis Posada Carriles, presently detained in the United States, drew closer to an end with the judge giving the prosecution office two weeks to present its accusations against Carriles after his defence concluded its plea. An opponent of the regime of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Carriles is wanted in both Cuba and Venezuela on terrorist charges. (Global Insight Daily Analysis, 27/9/05)

September 27: The intensified US "economic war" on Cuba has meant more fines for Americans visiting the Communist-run island and foreign firms doing business there, a Cuban government report said. Sanctions adopted by the Bush administration since June 2005 to speed change in Cuba by denying it funds included a ban on the purchase of Cuban cigars and rum by US citizens, even in third countries, the report to the United Nations said. Pleasure craft owners leaving US ports for Cuban waters face fines of up to $25,000 or five years in jail, it said. The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control fined 307 US citizens in the first quarter of 2005, compared to 316 in all of 2004, for unauthorized travel to Cuba, the report said. The number of US tourists who visited Cuba dropped 40 percent last year to 51,027 from 85,809 in 2003, it said. More dramatic was the drop in the number of Cuban residents of the United States who returned to visit, which fell 50 percent from 115,050 in 2003 to 57,145 last year. (Reuters, 27/9/05)

September 27: A US immigration judge ruled that anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles may not be deported to Cuba or Venezuela, citing the UN Convention Against Torture as a basis for the ruling. Immigration Judge William Lee Abbott drafted the decision, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which said that Posada, 77, would remain in ICE custody as authorities considered how to proceed. "The judge's decision did not rule out the removal of Mr. Posada to another country," ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said in El Paso. The ruling was announced one day after the judge gave ICE attorneys more time to refute the assertions of the defense that Posada would be tortured if he were deported to Venezuela. (EFE, 27/9/05)

September 28: Federal prosecutors asked the full 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the case of five suspected Cuban spies whose convictions and sentences were tossed out last month by a three-judge panel of the court. US Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said in a statement that the three-judge panel's decision runs counter to previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions in similar cases, although he did not elaborate. "Consideration by the full court is necessary to secure and maintain uniformity of decisions in the 11th Circuit'' with the nation's highest court, Acosta said. The petition asks for rehearing by all 12 active members of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit, which considers federal appeals in cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia. The case could possibly reach the Supreme Court. (Sun Sentinel, 28/9/05)

September 28: Venezuela blasted as "vile and sinister'' a US ruling that a Cuban exile wanted in connection with a 1976 airliner bombing could not be deported for trial in Caracas. "They have taken a decision as vile and sinister as the actual act of terrorism. Once more the US government has been unmasked as a farce in the war on terrorism,'' Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters. "The saga of the Bush family is always linked to terrorism,'' he said. Rangel said attorneys were working on a legal response to the decision. (The New York Times, 29/9/05)

September 29: At a time when interceptions of Cuban migrants have doubled, the United States has accused Cuba's government of refusing to comply with 1995 migration accords designed to prevent another exodus to Florida. Cuba doesn't try to stop migrants on vessels while they are still in Cuban territorial waters, and it refuses to issue exit permits to many citizens who receive US travel documents allowed by the accords, according to a recent US State Department report. More than 500 potential migrants awarded one of the 20,000 entry visas the US grants each year haven't been allowed out. Among them: 171 doctors. Cuban officials, for their part, have accused Washington of dragging its feet on visas, trying to deliberately spark an exodus in an effort to topple the Castro government. (The Miami Herald, 29/9/05)

September 29: Cuba accused the US government of protecting a Cuban exile wanted for the bombing of a passenger plane while prolonging the imprisonment of five Cubans accused of spying. In the case of Luis Posada Carriles, the decision showed the "falsehood and hypocrisy" of the US government's "supposed anti-terrorist crusade," Cuba's ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma said in an editorial, in the first official Cuban reaction to the ruling. "The same government that has unleashed wars and sent its soldiers to die in the name of the fight against terrorism is today protecting one of the most notorious terrorists of our times," the front-page editorial said. A US immigration judge ruled that Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative and anti-Castro militant, could not be deported to Cuba or Venezuela where he is sought for trial in the 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Meanwhile, the US Federal Office requested the revision of Atlanta Court of Appeals judgement in Florida, which last August 9 reversed the convictions of the five Cubans and demanded a new trial. “Cuba will continue denouncing the cruel kidnapping of Gerardo Hernandez, René Gonzalez, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez for them to be released," concluded the text. (AFP, 29/9/05)

September 29: Baseball officials said they expect Cuba to participate in the first World Baseball Classic in March. ''They're not formally in yet,'' said Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players association. ''There's a process that you have to go through to play with the Cubans, through the United States government. The license has been applied for. We're hopeful for a favorable response. I personally don't believe that the participation of Cuba poses any problems,'' he said. (AP, 29/9/05)

September 29: Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle five years ago, calls Fidel Castro his friend but also says he hopes someday to see his Miami family again. ''Despite everything they did, it was wrong, they are (still) my family (…) my uncles,'' the boy said in the interview with CBS's ''60 Minutes''. The boy in the interview said he considers Castro ''not only as a friend, but also as a father.'' CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco said ''60 Minutes'' interviewed Gonzalez for 70 minutes three weeks ago at a museum in Cardenas, Cuba, the boy's hometown. He said the boy's father was present, but there were no Cuban monitors or officials and no ground rules. In the interview, Elian said he had always told his US relatives he wanted to go back to Cuba. (The New York Times, 30/9/05)

September 30: Six of 10 Cubans whose search by the US Coast Guard was broadcast on television in Miami have been sent back to Cuba, officials said. Federal officials said the other four Cubans were taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for possible entry into a third country. The 10 were stopped by the US Coast Guard off Haulover Beach. (NBC6Net, 1/10/05)