Chronicle on Cuba - November 2005

Domestic Affairs

November 1: The absence of medical staff sparked a public disturbance in the emergency ward of a hospital in Arroyo Naranjo, Havana. Approximately 200 patients awaiting medical attention protested violently forcing the police to intervene. The mobilization of doctors towards missions in Venezuela and other countries has affected public health services in the island. (Puente Informativo, 1/11/05)

November 3: Non-violent opposition organizations delivered an open letter to the Provincial Court of Villa Clara demanding the cessation of acts of harassment against dissidents in the city of Santa Clara. More than twenty civil society organizations endorsed the demand. (Cubanet, 3/11/05)

November 7: The municipalities of Centro Habana and Habana Vieja are experiencing a wave of arrests by the police and other bodies of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior. Most of those arrested are young Cubans who are residents in other provinces and have been sent back to their places of origin. An activist of human rights said the arrests may respond to recent aggressions perpetrated against foreign tourists. (Cubanet, 7/11/05)

November 8: Institutional relations between the Catholic Church in Cuba and the State “can be improved," if consideration is given to the fact that both pursue "the common good of society at large," affirmed the magazine “Palabra Nueva”, of the archdiocese of Havana. Palabra Nueva states that any plans for the celebration of 70 years of relations between Cuba and the Holy See "should entail an improvement of relations between the Cuban State and the Church." (AFP, 8/11/05)

November 8: Cuba's most prominent dissident urged the island's Communist government to take part in a public discussion of a plan for reform that calls for dialogue and the release of political prisoners. The project is outlined in a document titled "Common Ground, a Path and Hope for Cuba," drafted over two months with contributions from dozens of dissident organizations, opposition leader Oswaldo Payá said in an interview with the press. The document calls for the "immediate and unconditional" release of political prisoners, respect for human rights, freedom of association and peaceful protest, freedom of speech, free elections and political pluralism. It also proposes a process of national reconciliation and forgiveness that averts "vengeance and settling of scores" and a model of economic freedom "grounded in humanism and social consciousness." (EFE, 8/11/05)

November 8: After several decades without erecting temples in Cuba, the Catholic Church began work on a new building for the San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminar School, in the outskirts of Havana. According to sources with the Archdiocese, the project is being financed with donations made to the Church, without involvement of the Cuban State. (AFP, 8/11/05)

November 9: Health condition of political prisoners get worse, a dissident human rights organization said, and called for their immediate release. In a document issued to the press, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) mentioned the cases of Héctor Palacios, 64, Nelson Aguilar, 60, and Omar Pernet 60, sentenced to 13-25-years in jail and who have been recently hospitalized for long periods of time. Others, like Ricardo González, 35, José Luis García, 40, Julio César Gálvez, 60, and Francisco Chaviano, 52, have remained in the hospital of the Combinado del Este prison, in the outskirts of Havana. (AFP, 9/11/05)

November 11: The 18th edition of the Cuban Festival of African roots, Wemilere 2005, will honor the Republic of Mali and late Cuban singer and twice Grammy nominee, Lazaro Ross. The Festival, slated in Guanabacoa, 7 miles from Havana, will gather more than 200 musicians, dancers, researchers, sculptors and painters from different countries. Wemilere, which means Orisha celebration in the Yoruba language, aims to preserve and promote African-Cuban identity and culture. (Prensa Latina, 11/11/05)

November 11: Cuba's computer technology policy gives priority to the social uses of information technology and telecommunications, while excluding private access to tools like the Internet. "As we are able to afford them, new areas will open up," the Cuban minister of Information Technology and Communications, Ignacio González Planas, assured the press at an Internet forum organized by the foreign ministry. González Planas did not, however, clarify whether those "new areas" would include the possibility of access by Cuban citizens to the Internet from personal accounts on their home computers. According to official information, there were 335,000 computers in Cuba at the end of June this year, or 2.98 computers per 100 inhabitants. But only 13 out of every 1,000 Cubans had access to the Internet in 2004. González Planas stated that economic conditions in Cuba prevent mass access to the Internet, and therefore the government has elected to make such resources available for social use, through collective centres, e-mail and web-surfing rooms, schools, universities and computer youth clubs. "This is definitely more effective and more citizens can have access than if, for example, we installed connections in a few homes, which only a small élite could afford and would use up a large part of our band-width," said González Planas. However, the e-mail and web-surfing rooms are few and far between, and are mainly located in the tourist hotels. Furthermore, they only accept convertible pesos (local currency equivalent to the US dollar), and they do not always admit Cuban citizens. ( IPS , 11/11/05)

November 12: Cuba is home to some 11.2 million residents, three-quarters of whom live in urban areas, according to the communist island's third census since the 1959 revolution that launched Fidel Castro to power. The census, taken three years ago, showed Cuba's population grew by almost 1.5 million since the last census in 1981, according to the Communist Party daily Granma. It was not clear why it took three years to report the data compiled in September 2002. The average age of Cubans is 35, though nearly 15 percent of the population is aged 60 or older, state-run newspapers reported, citing the census results. The population is split equally by gender, but Juan Carlos Alfonso, who directed the census, predicted that women will be the majority on the island within a few years, according to Juventud Rebelde, Cuba's communist youth newspaper. An increasing number of Cubans are of mixed ethnicities, with a quarter classified as mestizo in the survey. There is electricity in about 95 percent of all homes, while 96 percent of households have cooking facilities. The census found there are slightly more than three people per household on the island. (AP, 12/11/05)

November 13: During negotiations prior to the Information Society Summit in Tunisia, Cuba will pursue allowing advantages of the Information Society to be universalized, official sources declared. Cuba´s Vice Minister of Information Technology and Communications Jorge Luis Perdomo told journalists that, "the digital divide between rich and developing countries can only be ascended with the concepts of social justice, people's involvement, equity and solidarity as basic principles. Cuba has always defended the idea that the massive use of ICT is not a purpose, but rather a powerful instrument to achieve development, Perdomo stressed. For this reason it is necessary to establish a fair international economic order based on real participation of all peoples, to adopt decisions for their well-being and future, he said. (Prensa Latina, 14/11/05)

November 14: La Villa de San Cristobal de La Habana, Havana’s full name, is preparing to celebrate the 486th anniversary of its founding with a huge effort to clean up and rebuild after Hurricane Wilma spawned the worst flooding of its long history. Once known as the "Pearl of the Caribbean," this island's main city with its 2.2 million inhabitants is shaking off the effects of the hurricane. Most of the coast-hugging road is already passable to pedestrians and Havana residents can once again stroll along the Malecon for a breath of fresh air during the long blackouts suffered almost daily by a large part of the city. Any good tour of the Malecon must end, or begin, in Old Havana, the heart of the city and its main attraction. Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982, Old Havana contains more than 3,000 buildings of historic or architectural interest within its 142 hectares (325 acres). Many Havana residents are sure to be present at midnight on November 15 on the Plaza de Armas to commemorate the founding of the city. There, they will pass three times around the plaza's nigh-sacred ceiba tree, throw a few coins into the air and ask the city's patron, St. Christopher, to grant them a wish. Among those in attendance at the long-standing ceremony will be Eusebio Leal, the city historian and the moving force behind the recovery of old central Havana, who says that the city "is a piece of the memory of Cuba, of the Americas and the world." (EFE, 14/11/05)

November 15: Elsa Morejón, the wife of political prisoner Dr Elías Biscet, reported to the press that the director of Combinado del Este Prison in Havana, Lieutenant Colonel Miguel Azcuy, informed her and Biscet’s relatives that he is currently in “Maximum Severity System: Phase 1” and that as long as he refuses to put on the uniform of common prisoner, he will not receive any privileges; his situation in prison could get even worse. The prison director confirmed that due to a new administration at Combinado del Este Penitentiary, the situation of the Cuban doctor changed after August, 2005. Dr. Biscet, who suffers from hypertension, chronic gastritis, and high cholesterol, has not been able to receive the food items his family brings him. The number of family visits has been reduced, and instead of being every 45 days, the visits will now be every four months (two hours long), during which time Dr. Biscet will be able to receive his items of personal hygiene and some food. (Puente Informativo, 15/11/05)

November 15: Political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez) began a hunger strike, reported his sister, Bertha. Antúnez is confined along with dangerous inmates, in overcrowded conditions of that propitiate violence. He’s demanding a cell transfer and his right to family telephone calls. Antúnez has been in prison for 15 years. (Encuentro en la Red, 17/11/05) 

November 16: Delegates participating in the 5th Continental Congress on Natural Medicine sessioning in Havana will discuss the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties of this country's Vimang medicine. Vimang is a mango-based natural product created by the Cuban Chemical Center to fight diseases such as lupus erythematosus, diabetes, lymphomas, leukemia and skin conditions. The natural medicine sold in over 20 nations is also effective against joints and muscular pains. (Prensa Latina, 16/11/05)

November 17: Fidel Castro met with top leaders of Cuba's Roman Catholic Church to mark the nation's 70 years of diplomatic ties with the Vatican, the island's official media reported. The island's top Catholic churchman Cardinal Jaime Ortega, all of Cuba's bishops, and the Holy See's diplomatic representative in Cuba, Papal Nuncio Monsignor Luigi Bonazzi, were among church leaders who met with Castro and other government leaders, the Communist Party daily Granma reported. During a dinner hosted for the group by Castro, the Cuban leader recalled the historic visit by the late Pope John Paul II to the island in January 1988, and "expressed that the greatness of John Paul II was his wonderful way of seeing and understanding the problems of the world today," the newspaper said in a front page story. (AP, 17/11/05)

November 17: Almost 1,000 species of the endemic flora of Cuba, about a third of the existing total in the country, face extinction, according to census data released by news agency Prensa Latina. The research findings were presented by specialists from the Botanical Garden of Cienfuegos, the oldest herbarium in the country, during a scientific workshop organized on the occasion of the 105 th anniversary of its foundation. (AFP, 17/11/05)

November 17: Cuba said it was considering researching a vaccine against bird flu, warning that antiviral drugs available today are barely enough to protect "the rich people in rich nations" from a pandemic. "We have taken the first steps to think about a possible vaccine for animals and humans," the deputy director of Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Dr. Carlos Borroto, said. "We don't want to raise expectations because we are still studying this," he told reporters. Cuba has asked the World Health Organization for strains of the virus to begin work. Borroto said only two antiviral drugs made by multinational pharmaceutical firms had proved effective for bird flu, but were not being produced in sufficient quantities. (Reuters, 17/11/05)

November 17: Showing no visible signs of health problems and dressed in his fatigues, Fidel Castro told an audience of university students that he would not insist on remaining in power if he ever became too sick to lead the country. ''If I don't feel I'm in condition, I'll call the [Communist] Party and tell them I don't feel I'm in condition (…) that please, someone take over the command,'' he said. But Castro also indicated such a scenario was unlikely to occur soon, saying he exercises regularly "and don't neglect myself in any way.'' ''I could be like El Cid Campeador,'' Castro said, referring to the medieval Spanish warrior. "I would recommend that the [Communist] Party put me on a horse -- like Bush -- winning battles even after death.'' The Revolution needs the support of the people to take forward all of the measures underway at this time, not just to eliminate social inequalities, provide better living conditions and save resources like electric energy, but also to unleash a battle against crime and the breeding grounds for an infinite number of violations, Castro affirmed. Among mistakes that have been committed in the country, he criticized the erroneous idea of those who thought that they knew all about socialism, about how it is built, as if it were an exact science, pushing into the background a fundamental principle: the dialectics of materialism. [Fidel Castro’s speech] (The Miami Herald, Granma, 17,18/11/05)

November 17: After several days of interesting analysis on the therapeutical effects of homeopathy, the 5th Continental Congress on Natural Products and Medicine is winding up at Havana’s International Conference Center. Antioxidant action and the treatment of diseases produced by some virus and parasites were among the main issues tackled by experts from more than 10 countries attending the meeting. Other topics included economic benefits, security and low toxicity of natural-origin compounds. (Prensa Latina, 17/11/05)

November 18: For the 9 th time in less than three months, the house of non-violent opposition activist Alberto Moreno Fonseca, in Manzanillo, was stoned by Fidel Castro supporters with the tacit approval of on-looking local police. The demonstrators shouted slogans like, “Down with human rights!”, “Down with the worm nest!”, and “Long live Fidel Castro!” (Cubanet, 18/11/05)

November 19: A Cuban court sentenced three Jamaican men caught smuggling 1,340 pounds (610 kg) of marijuana to prison terms of up to 20 years, the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granama reported. Rudolph Allen Black, Malson Cambell and Robert Wallace were arrested last November after their speedboat ran out of fuel and was drifting near a key off Cuba's northeastern coast. Cuban officials said the men had thrown the bales of marijuana overboard. The drugs were recovered and later incinerated by Cuban officials. Cambell was sentenced to 20 years in prison, Black to 18 years and Wallace 17 years, Granma reported. (Reuters, 19/11/05)

November 20: With an outstanding performance of its super heavy weight Odlanier Solis, who won his third consecutive crown, Cuba recouped World Boxing title in Miangyang, China, by winning four golds, one silver and three bronzes. Under coach Sarbelio Fuentes, the Cuban boxers totalled 54 points to lead the competition, while reigning monarch Russia came behind with three gold and 41 points. (Prensa Latina, 20/11/05)

November 23: Centered on the salary, pension and social welfare increases and the new electricity rates, Fidel Castro said the moment had come to announce the measures, and that they were crucial for the future of the country. Castro spoke on "The Round Table", a nightly TV and radio program hosted by journalist Randy Alonso. Castro expressed the urgency to adopt the conservation and salary measures before the end of the year, as part of the programs being developed by the Revolution. “This is a Socialist Revolution that seeks true equality”, something Castro said has not occurred with the history of humanity over the last four or five thousand years. The Cuban president said that the country needs to openly talk about these problems, that there is no culture of economics in Cuba and that most people don’t understand where money comes from. The Cuban leader said that the current problems affecting Cuban society can not be fought only by legal means, and that the extent of the problem must be met with a sizeable force of conscientious individuals, like social workers, joined by another considerable corps, that of the university students. Fidel recalled that no other society in history has advanced as quickly as Cuba in eliminating social inequalities in order to offer all its citizens equity, justice and the best possible standard of living. The Cuban leader said he trusted the values present in Cuban young people and spoke highly of the human capital developed by the island over the years, which he described as "our most valuable resource." This new offensive, designed to create a "totally new society," will never include anything that does not benefit "those who live on a salary, on a pension," Castro continued. (Granma, 24/11/05)

November 23: Fidel Castro criticized Cuban baseball players who have left the country for multimillion-dollar contracts in the major leagues, saying the island always finds better players to replace them. During a five-hour appearance on state television, Castro remarked on those players "who cannot resist the millions of the major leagues" and acknowledged that baseball "is the sport in which we have been beaten the most" when it comes to defections. Still, the 79-year-old leader insisted Cuban baseball has always survived the losses. "When one leaves, another 10 better players emerge," he said. Among those who have left are pitchers Orlando Hernández and José Ariel Contreras, who contributed to the recent World Series victory by the Chicago White Sox. (MercuryNews.Com, 24/11/05)

November 23: Dozens of young men and women were arrested in The Güinera neighborhood, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality of Havana, during a large raid launched by the National Police. The detainees filled four trucks that were taken to a police station in the Capri neighborhood. Apparently, the police operation was directed against individuals who neither worked nor studied, engaging instead in business activities deemed illegal by the authorities. (Cubanet, 23/11/05)

November 24: A rabble organized by the State Security Service, the Cuban secret police, foiled a meeting of non-violent opposition activists in the house of Martha Beatriz Roque, the president of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba. More than 20 people surrounded Roque's residence and prevented several visitors from entering the premises. (Puente Informativo, 24/11/05)

November 25: The National Revolutionary Police (PNR) announced that it will place close to 200 newly graduated additional agents in the densely populated municipalities of Centro Habana and Plaza de la Revolución, in the Cuban capital. More than 153 police officers and 26 patrol car drivers have been hastily put through police training courses. (World Data Service, 25/11/05)

November 28: Cuban born Oscar Visiedo says that when he helped bring the Internet to Cuba in 1992, he faced three daunting obstacles: the US economic embargo, technological shortcomings and ominous state security. Thirteen years later, steep prices and strict government controls largely keep ordinary Cubans from the World Wide Web, while the island's authorities still blame the embargo as the reason the country stalled on the information highway. So, even while the Internet boomed in Cuba - the government alone has at least 200 sites - usage remains among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere, and the hurdles remain unchanged. ''There is a fear - a fear that is practically pathological - of access to information,'' said Visiedo, who worked at the government office that introduced Cuba to the Internet, back when nobody there knew what it was. Visiedo currently lives in Miami. While Cuba boasts that it has computers in every school, a UN Human Development Report says nine of every 1,000 Cubans are Internet users, compared with 288 in Costa Rica and 44 in Honduras. Even Haiti, with 500,000 Internet users, has a higher rate. (The Miami Herald, 28/11/05)

November 29: The Catholic Church warned that the campaign against corruption launched by the Cuban government must not only target the administrative ranks, but it must also entail structural reforms and the rescue of society’s moral values. "A country that wants to be rid of corruption (...) must carry out structural reforms (...) to stop the cycle of vices and find remedy for this evil," the catholic magazine “Palabra Nueva” pointed out. (AFP, 29/11/05)

November 29: Fidel Castro is mobilising tens of thousands of young people and threatening a Cultural Revolution-style humiliation of corrupt officials in what the Cuban leader characterises as a-do-or-die struggle against graft, pilfering and the "new rich". Thousands of student-age youths have taken over petrol stations and started working in refineries and riding in fuel trucks to monitor an industry where up to half of this precious resource was being stolen, according to receipts since the take-over began a month ago. Busloads of young people, armed with clipboards and energy-saving light bulbs, have appeared in some neighbourhoods as part of an energy-saving drive that includes stiff increases in prices. They hand out the bulbs while taking a census of the electrical appliances in each home, which they then characterise as well off, normal or poor - raising fears in the former that they are being classified as the "new rich". (Financial Times, 29/11/05)

November 29: The Cuban Communist party launched an assault two years ago on "corruption and illegalities'' within its ranks and the state administration as it recentralised economic activity and control over hard currency after what it characterised as "liberal errors" in the 1990s. Bureaucratic corruption and a booming black market are nothing new in state-run economies like Cuba's, but Fidel Castro said recently that market-oriented reforms such as decentralisation, authorisation of small private initiatives and circulation of the dollar alongside the peso, among other emergency measures taken after European communism's collapse, "increased these ills to the point where they have taken on a certain massive character (…) and inequality has grown". Oscar Espinosa, an economist recently released from prison after serving time for dissident activities, said the current campaign would simply create more hardship and more illegal activity. "What we need here is market reform, like in China or Vietnam. By returning to command economics and repression, they are simply throwing gas on the fire," he said. Raúl Castro, the defence minister and second in the Cuban hierarchy after his older brother Fidel, is reported to have told party officials 18 months ago: "Corruption will always be with us, but we must keep it at our ankles and never allow it to rise to our necks." (Financial Times, 29/11/05)

November 29: The State Security Police confiscated "counterrevolutionary" material, after conducting a search in the house of an independent journalist in in Isle of Pines. Carlos Serpa, an independent journalist and director of Lux Info Press, reported that the police was looking for publications issued by the Information Bridge Cuba-Miami Independent Press Bureau. "The search -conducted under a heavy military operative-lasted three hours and they confiscated two radio recorders, documents of the independent press bureau, “The New Herald” newspapers, and Lux-Info- Press Magazines as well as “Cartas de Cuba” Magazines. Pictures were taken of the confiscated material in front of two witnesses. The police told Serpa he was “following the steps of Favio Prieto Llorente”, an independent journalist sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003. (Puente Informativo, 29/11/05)

November 29: The 29th Congress of the Central American and Caribbean Pharmaceutical Federation opened at Havana’s International Conference Center. During the event, Cuba detailed new vaccines and clinical trials, as well as described more than 40 years of research that has allowed pharmaceutical professionals to contribute knowledge to the improvement of health in Cuba and abroad. Dr. Eneida Pérez Santana, president of the Cuban Pharmaceutical Science Society and the organizing committee of the event, said that more than 300 delegates from 17 countries, including Cuba, participated in the Congress. (Granma International, 29/11/05)

November 29: Traffic accidents are the first cause of death among Cuban teenagers, who accounted for 40 % of accidental fatalities in 2004, according to Department of Public Health (MINSAP) estimates. Accidents involving bicycles accounted for 57 % of the deaths, particularly among teenagers 10 to 14 years old. (EFE, 29/11/05)

November 30: Amid a surging wave of repression by the Cuban government, Cuba's political prisoners increasingly are resorting to "acts of desperation" - including hunger strikes, suicide attempts, and self-mutilation - in a cry for international recognition and solidarity, and to advance the cause of the island's liberation. "The prisoners are pleading to the world to pay attention as they work for liberty," said one of Cuba's leading prodemocracy activists, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello. Late last month, Mario Enrique Mayo, a lawyer and independent journalist, locked away for more than two years in the Kilo 7 prison in Camaguey, demanded freedom from his jailers by taking a knife to his face and body. Mr. Mayo was one of 75 dissidents rounded up by the Castro regime in March 2003. In another act of self-mutilation, a prisoner of conscience in the Canaleta prison in Cuba's Ciego de Avila province, Manuel Fiallo, cut himself to protest prisoners' lack of medical care, according to a Cuban prison diary published in recent days on a Miami-based Cuban pro-democracy site, Payolibre.com. The leader of Cuba's Damas de blanco movement, Laura Pollan Toledo, told the press that other recent examples of those who carried out self-mutilation included Juan Carlos Herrera and Prospero Gainza Aguero, two of the 75 imprisoned in 2003. Mr. Herrera, Ms. Pollan said, has beaten himself repeatedly in prison to protest the horrible conditions suffered by detainees. Mr. Gainza, she said, sewed his mouth closed in an act of protest, rendering himself unable to speak or eat. (The New York Sun, 30/11/05)