Chronicle on Cuba - December 2005

Domestic Affairs

December 1: One of 75 dissidents arrested in a spring 2003 crackdown was released for health reasons, bringing to 15 the number of those since freed on medical parole. Mario Enrique Mayo Hernández, an activist from the central-eastern province of Camaguey, walked free, his sister Marilú Mayo Hernández told the press. While in prison, the Cuban dissident, as a desperate prison protest, took a knife to his face and body carving into his forehead the letters "I," for "inocente" ("innocent"), and "L," for "libertad" ("liberty"). Mayo Hernández is the only member of the original group to be freed this year. The other 14 were freed last year, half of them in December 2004. The sister said Mayo Hernández, a 41-year-old attorney, got a one-year medical parole for his high blood pressure and emotional problems. The other 14 also were freed early for medical reasons. (CNN, The Washington Sun, 1/12/05)

December 1: Cuban pro-democracy activist, Martha Beatriz Roque, said to the press on the release of Cuban dissident Mario Enrique Mayo that the regime was probably concerned about the consequences of his dying in jail. Mr. Mayo's health was deteriorating which, according to the international free-speech organization Reporters Without Borders, included "glaucoma in the left eye, high blood pressure, pulmonary emphysema and prostate inflammation, as well as acute depression." Ms. Roque, who was rounded up during the March 2003 crackdown and is free under the same conditional release terms as Mr. Mayo, cautioned that her fellow democracy activist had not been granted total freedom. She also called for the release of other prisoners of conscience unjustly detained by Mr. Castro. "There are many, many more," Ms. Roque said, citing the 60 remaining prisoners from the March 2003 crackdown in addition to "the hundreds of political prisoners in our jails." The Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) also expressed their satisfaction for the release of Mayo and called for the release of all the other political prisoners. “We are very happy that Mayo was released under health parole, although he and our relatives deserve an unconditional release,” Miriam Leiva said. (AFP, The Washington Sun, 1/12/05)

December 1: The Documentation and Scientific-Technical Information Center of Las Villas Central University opened links to 12 world scientific databases. The new service is part of the Center’s development of its computing systems. (Prensa Latina, 1/12/05)

December 1: The fight against corruption launched by Fidel Castro includes other “social evils” like illegal access to satellite television. Since the beginning of October, the Cuban government has conducted numerous operations in the provinces of Havana and the City of Havana to dismantle networks of users with unauthorised access to foreign television channels by means of parabolic antennas. Dubbed “Operation Spider”, the police raid started in neighbourhoods south of Havana province and has been extended to the capital’s municipalities of Old and Central Havana. (El Nuevo Herald, 1/12/05)

December 1: The president of the National Assembly of Cuba, Ricardo Alarcón, indicated that Cuba is in a phase of “deepening socialism”, which entails “a struggle for democracy”. According to Alarcón, Fidel Castro is the leader “fighting” this battle, together with “the young people of Cuba’s student organizations”. In this sense, said Alarcón, “it is about representative democracy against participatory democracy”. (EFE, 1/12/05)

December 1: Transgenic rice, sweet potatoes, corn and tomatoes are under study in Cuba. These products could be ready for the market in three years and its licenses would be given for free to poor countries to fight hunger, said one of the island’s top scientists. Carlos Borroto, deputy director of Cuba’s Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, anticipates that “in the next three or four years our transgenic crops meet all bio-safety requirements and can be commercialized.” Borroto said that all the Cuban transgenic products are in a field study phase and none has yet hit the market. (Reuters, 1/12/05)

December 1: The police detained social-democratic dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa and two of his collaborators for several hours, after being the subject of an “act of repudiation” by supporters of the regime. The detention took place after the dissidents called the police for protection, since they were being attacked opposite to the head office of the opposition digital magazine “Consensus”, in Havana. “As we arrived at the police station, suddenly we were arrested. When they released us they had written a report against us for public disturbance and gave us a fine”, said Cuesta Morúa. (Encuentro en la Red, 5/12/05)

December 2: The relatives of political prisoner Víctor Rolando Arroyo denounced that after his long hunger strike less than two months ago Arroyo has not received any more medical attention. The relatives informed that they have sent four letters to the Council of State denouncing this situation but have not received any response. (Cubanet, 2/12/05)

December 2: In an escalation of his campaign against corruption on the island, Fidel Castro vowed to eliminate those sectors of society that do not live off their salaries. During a long speech on the 30 th anniversary of the Cuban military intervention in Angola, Castro warned that the campaign had just begun, and said that there is a large number of volunteers and students in order to stop Cubans who live off illegalities. [Fidel Castro’s speech] (Reuters, 2/12/05)

December 4: Inside the decades-old Teatro Mella in the bustling Vedado neighborhood, 19 photos of jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie greeted visitors and announced that Cuba remains a jazz mecca. The exhibit's scenes of Gillespie in Cuba were a fitting backdrop for Havana's 22nd annual International Jazz Festival: The island's musicians, along with Canadian, Brazilian, Argentine and other artists, sought to emulate the legendary bandleader. They delivered an impressive series of concerts dedicated to keeping jazz alive in a country where tough living conditions make performing, recording and touring difficult. The opening gala at the Mella, featuring a big band of Cuban performers, set the festival's tone with Afro-Cuban versions of standards such as “Fly Me to the Moon”, “Thank You Very Much” and “Embraceable You”. The band's blaring horns, thundering percussion and improvisational solos made a highlight of a Spanish version of “A Night in Tunisia”, a song Gillespie popularized. (Sun Sentinel, 5/12/05)

December 4: In Santa Clara, a group of ten oppositionist women dressed in white marched along some of the city’s main streets calling for the freedom of political prisoners. The women, members of the illegal Marta Abreu Feminine Movement (MFMA), gathered at the “Nuestra Señora del Buen Viaje” church, and marched to the downtown “Leoncio Vidal” park. (Cubanet, 7/12/05)

December 5: Most Cubans prefer the idea of democracy to that of dictatorship and believe that their lives and that of the nation would be better if significant political change came about in the nearly 47-year-old one-party state, according to a poll carried out clandestinely on the island by a Spanish non-governmental organization. Solidaridad Española con Cuba (Spanish Solidarity with Cuba) presented in Madrid the results of what it called "the first scientific study of public opinion" in the Caribbean nation in more than four decades. The NGO's president, Ricardo Carreras, told reporters that pollsters talked to 541 Cubans across 13 provinces between October 8 and November 3. Respondents said that Cuba's "principal problem" is the prevailing combination of high living costs, low pay and a lack of good jobs. Second on Cubans' list of worries is food, specifically the recurring shortages of dietary staples. Eighty percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that "several or many changes could improve the current situation" on the Communist-ruled island. The "majority of Cubans," according to the poll, support the Varela Project, which contemplates a national referendum on democratization, freeing political prisoners and allowing a significant role for private enterprise. A majority of respondents supported the idea of an amnesty for Cuba's roughly 300 political prisoners, while endorsing the right of a group of prisoners' wives known as the "Women in White" to stage peaceful protests against their husbands' incarceration. Most of those polled said they preferred democracy to dictatorship, with the latter defined in the survey as a system where "all political power in is the hands of one man." (EFE, 5/12/05)

December 5: The Cuban Communist Party, the island's only political party, asked its members to engage in "more direct and responsible" participation in party activities and to change their "methods and style" during its Havana Provincial Assembly, the official daily Granma reported. The publication of the party's Central Committee said that during the conference, the organization made "encouraging improvements in the performance of the party in the province," a process in which "critical evaluation predominated." The Havana Provincial Assembly was the final and most representative meeting in a series of conferences held over the past several months by the party's provincial organizations. "The report presented at the meeting shows objectively (a number of) weaknesses, among them the insufficient links of some leadership cadres to the base, which affects their ability to know about deficiencies, monitor, supervise and act in an agile and efficient manner," Granma wrote. The newspaper said that at the meeting the party dealt with "fundamental questions" including working methods and style, the policy governing cadres, the party's student and public organizations, the state and the government, in general, as well as "different ills associated with crime, illegalities and signs of corruption." (EFE, 5/12/05)

December 6: The 27 th New Latin American Film Festival kicked off in Havana with a gala event in the Charles Chaplin theatre and the words of event organizer Alfredo Guevara, who called the gathering a festival of friendship, art and intelligence. Welcoming participants, Guevara spoke of a new era for Latin American cinematic art, tracing the roots of this new vitality back four decades to the Viña del Mar Film Festival in Chile and the Mérida Film Festival in Venezuela. Among those present at the gala opening were Cuban Culture Minister Abel Prieto; Omar Gonzalez, president of the Cuban film institute (ICAIC); and writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is also the president of the Latin American New Film Foundation. The festival, with 103 feature films, documentaries and animated films in competition, was officially inaugurated with the Argentine movie “Iluminados por el fuego”, by director Tristan Bauer. (Granma, 7/12/05)

December 6: Elián González, the Cuban boy thrust into the centre of an international custody battle six years ago, celebrated his 12th birthday listening to a speech by Fidel Castro. Gonzalez, wearing his school uniform, sat next to Castro at the political event recalling the island's successful campaign to gain custody of the boy from the United States. The speech occurred in the coastal city of Cárdenas, where Elián lives with his father, stepmother and younger half siblings. Castro told the crowd he was proud of Elián, saying the boy had become ''a leader'' at his school as well as a karate devotee in the central city some 85 miles east of Havana. (The New York Times, 7/12/05)

December 6: A large crowd of passengers protested angrily before railroad and police authorities at the central station of Cuban Railroads in Havana when a scheduled train was cancelled. After the protest, past midnight, the travelers were asked to board a train, which after 15 minutes stopped in the outskirts of Havana where it sat till dawn. (Cubanet, 13/12/05)

December 7: A Cuban journalist detained without charge for nearly five months has lost 30 pounds (13.5 kilograms) in prison and is suffering from serious health problems his wife told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Oscar Mario González, a journalist with the independent news agency, Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, was arrested on July 22. His wife, Mirta Wong Sio, said she was worried about his worsening health. González, 61, suffers from osteoarthritis in his neck and back pain. He has problems sleeping and needs sleep medication, Wong said. González’ lawyer hasn’t been allowed to see the official documentation regarding the charges against her defendant. CPJ News Release, 7/12/05)

December 8: Those crazy about cinema wait all year for Havana's international film festival, which brings movies from around Latin America and the world to some 20 screens in the capital in December. The festival serves as a window to the rest of the globe for those living on an island where few get the opportunity to travel and television programming is run by the state. Many Cubans even save up vacations days to watch a half a dozen films per day at the festival, and make long lines in front of movie theaters. "I'm an economist, but I love the movies and took off time to be here," Jose Luis Martinez said outside the Payret Theater across the street from Havana's historic Capitol Building. "I'm going to see as many movies as I can, probably about 40." The theater seats aren't that comfortable, and there's no extra butter for the hardly fresh popcorn sold outside. But with tickets selling for just two Cuban pesos per film -- about 10 US cents -- Cubans go to the movies in droves. More than 80 feature-length films, including documentaries and animated movies, will compete in the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Most were produced in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Cuba, but European flicks and independent films from the United States also are shown. (AP, 8/12/05)

December 9: The illegal Cuban Liberal Movement issued a communiqué warning about the rise of repression against dissidents. The MLC condemned an incident in Gibara, province of Holguín, where two activists of this dissident organization “were brutally beaten by paramilitary elements” and later taken to the provincial prison. (Cubanet, 9/12/05)

December 12: Leading dissident Oswaldo Paya and his Christian Liberation Movement ( Movimiento Cristiano Liberación) criticized the “silence” amongst Cuban exile organizations regarding denunciations made by the MCL of human right abuses on the island. “It is amazing that even among the Cuban exile community; the echo of our voices has been almost extinguished after many of our denunciations”, Paya said in a statement distributed to the press. “This silence amongst powerful circles of the exile against our Movement and our work, especially against the Varela Project, closes more as the repression against us grows within Cuba”, the statement added. (AFP, 12/12/05)

December 12: Alida Viso Bello, wife of independent journalist Ricardo González, one of 75 dissidents imprisoned in the spring of 2003 in Cuba, made an international appeal in favour of the release from prison of her spouse given “his serious health condition”. The communiqué was addressed to the democratic governments, prominent individuals and non-governmental organizations of the world. (AFP, 13/12/05)

December 13: According to Pedro Sáez, the Cuban Communist Party’s first secretary in Havana province, Cuba will celebrate the 47th anniversary of its Revolution with dancing shows, sports competitions and performances of theatre groups in all municipalities, among other activities. There will also be activities to encourage the most prominent workers in the sphere of production and services, as well as recognitions for their effort in benefit of the whole society. January the 1 st marks one year more of the defeat of Batista’s dictatorship and the triumph of the Rebel Army lead by Fidel Castro in 1959. (AFP, Prensa Latina, 13/12/05)

December 13: The Cuban government is not allowing members of Cuba's "Ladies in White" opposition movement to travel to Strasbourg, France, to receive the European Union's top human rights prize, the women said. For two years, the women dressed in white have marched in silence every Sunday along a Havana avenue to demand the release of their husbands and sons who are political dissidents jailed by Fidel Castro's government. The Cuban women are joint winners of the 2005 Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought, which will be awarded at a ceremony in the European Parliament. “Immigration authorities have my passport and told me I would get it back on December 30 when I would know if I could leave," said Julia Núñez, wife of pro-democracy activist Adolfo Fernandez. "We will continue denouncing abuses," Nunez said. (CNN, 13/12/05)

December 14: Cuba hasn't exactly been tolerant of homosexuality. In the late 1960s, Cubans were sent to labor camps for being gay, with homosexuality derided as an illness of the capitalist past. Even today, Cuban transvestites are sometimes detained and threatened with prison. But a new tolerance over the past decade has led to what many believed they would never see on the island: an exhibit by Robert Mapplethorpe, the controversial American photographer known for his homoerotic images. The ''Sacred and Profane'' exhibit, which opened at a recently restored gallery in the heart of Old Havana, features 48 photographs spanning Mapplethorpe's career. The exhibit doesn't include Mapplethorpe's roughest images. Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcón, one of Cuba's highest ranking officials said Mapplethorpe ''achieves the transmission of a purely artistic message and sense.'' ''Frankly, this really doesn't strike me as a sexual exposition,'' he told the press. ''Nudity is found in cultures dating much further back than the United States or Cuba. Classicism is full of the nude human body.'' Several Cuban artists have started tackling some of Mapplethorpe's themes in the last decade, including Rene Peña and Eduardo Hernández Santos. Peña is among a dozen photographers with an exhibit called ''Descartes'' opening in a Cuban gallery. (The New York Times, 14/12/05)

December 16: Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), asked bishops, priests, religious persons and non-believers, to defend the victims of the acts of repudiation against the internal opposition, “to avoid injustices and confrontation”. “We urge you (...) to defend from your pulpits the victims of these abuses, to defend the people of Cuba”, said the dissident leader. (Cubaencuentro, 16/12/05)

December 17: The Cuban Higher Council of Social and Humanistic Sciences (CSCSH) announced it would reenergize the Scientific Humanities Forum to encourage research and cooperation among domestic entities. CSCSH Executive Secretary Dr. Juan Luis Martin said harmonization of research and higher education centers, schools, and groups of researchers based on a definite agenda would be one of their actions. We seek greater exchange among people researching social problems such as indiscipline and corruption, said Martin. (Prensa Latina, 17/12/05)

December 17: The group of Cuban women known as Ladies in White sent an open letter to the Cuban National Assembly. The group of women, relatives of political prisoners sentenced to long terms in jail during the crackdown on dissidents of March 2003, requested from Cuban parliamentarians to discuss the release of their loved ones as part of their agenda for the 23 rd and the 24 th of December. (Cubanet, 27/12/05)

December 18: Members of the Cuban Parliament started to assess the year’s development, as well as economic and social predictions for 2006, in their respective working commissions. Top government officials have been summoned by Parliament to respond to questions on key issues of national life. A full parliamentary plenary is scheduled for December 22 when deputies will discuss the country’s economic and social results of 2005. Presentation of the regulations for the Economic and Social Plan and the budget proposal for 2006 is also anticipated. The legislators will also elect 273 examining magistrates who will oversee justice in the Supreme Court for the next five years. (Prensa Latina, 18/12/05)

December 18: Eight years after Communist Cuba restored December 25 as a national holiday in a gesture to Pope John Paul II, there is not much Christmas spirit to show for it. Cubans have not taken to saying "Merry Christmas," which is not surprising since the atheist state had the holiday crossed off the calendar from 1969 to 1997. Most use "Happy Holidays" as their greeting and tend to see New Year's Eve as a bigger seasonal holiday. That's when Fidel Castro's government celebrates the anniversary of the revolution that brought him to power in 1959 and authorities put on street fairs with salsa music and cheap beer. This year, for the first time, authorities have allowed a choir of 93 singers from 28 Christian churches to sing Christmas carols in Cuba's main cities and broadcast a performance on state-run television. (Reuters, 18/12/05)

December 19: The catholic diocese of Guantánamo-Baracoa, regretted in a communiqué the detention of missionaries and youngsters who were taking part in a vocational workshop. Father Lambert Okere, (an Italian citizen) had been detained for his response to social workers that refused to sell him gasoline for his vehicle. The communiqué also denounced another case in Guantánamo, in the context of the Vocational Claretian Workshop, when several youths who were heading to the outskirts of the city to meditate were arrested by a highway patrol. (El Nuevo Herald, 19/12/05)

December 20: The Cuban catholic priest José Conrado called “shameful” and “scandalous” the acts of repudiation against “defenceless persons”, in reference to the attacks against a dissident family in Palmarito de Cauto, Santiago de Cuba. Conrado considered it a “real cowardice to attack defenceless persons, who would not even raise an arm to defend themselves from the blows”. “The government must take responsibility and forbid publicly this kind of activities,” said the priest. (CubaEncuentro, 20/12/05)

December 20: A discussion on transexuality took place at the Parliamentary committees gathered in Havana when Mariela Castro, director of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), released results of a survey on gender identity in today’s Cuban society to the committees on Education, Culture, Science, Technology and the Environment, and Youth, Children and Women’s Rights. Mariela Castro said that for people with a non-traditional gender identity to fully develop their potential as a member of society, it is first necessary to identify them so as to assure that they receive adequate specialized assistance. She also noted the need in Cuban society of a profound understanding of gender and sexuality. (Granma, 21/12/05)

December 21: Cuba branded the country's best-known dissidents as US agents, using taped phone conversations, secret video footage and guilt by association during a televised broadcast to portray them as traitors. Longtime activists Oswaldo Payá, Martha Beatriz Roque and female relatives of already imprisoned government opponents, known as "The Ladies in White,'' bore the brunt of a 90-minute state-run television show during which official journalists used what appeared to be intelligence service materials in an attempt to discredit them. "They are a mix of parasites, habitual vagabonds, chameleons and ruffians, lacking charisma and mass support, that serve as an instrument of the empire,'' show moderator Randy Alonso said of the dissidents. Cuba's small opposition movement is rarely mentioned by the official and only media in the country and regularly branded by officials as in the hire of the United States. The state-run Cuban TV broadcast “The Roundtable” accused the Ladies in White of being "Pawns of the Empire," its disparaging term for the United States, and promoting activities aimed at supporting a US campaign to destabilize the Americas' only one-party communist regime. It charged that they were really "Ladies in Green" keen to snap up US greenbacks in exchange for opposing the Cuban regime. (Reuters, AFP, 22/12/05)

December 21: A Cuban court has imposed prison terms of between eight and 20 years on 10 citizens convicted of drug trafficking, the Cuban press reported. Receiving the longest sentences were Roberto Jiménez Benítez and Héctor Arias Biritan, who were handed 20 and 18 years behind bars, respectively, according to the official daily Granma. Two women found a 32-kilogram package of cocaine on the shore near the western town of Blanca Arena and contacted Benítez and Arias to try and resell the drug in Havana. Another defendant, Lázaro Omar Alvarez, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and the rest of the accused received jail terms of 8-10 years. (EFE, 21/12/05)

December 21: One of the Ladies in White, a group of women who are relatives of political prisoners, was warned by a police officer not to attend mass at the church of Santa Rita. Georgina González said that a police officer called Amed went to her house to reproach her for attending mass at Santa Rita, where the group meets every Sunday, and for visiting the house of the new chief of the US Interest Section in Havana. Georgina’s house has been the target of angry demonstrations by government supporters organized by Cuban authorities. (Cubanet, 22/12/05)

December 22: Known as the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, or CIGB, the institute is one of 52 government facilities dedicated to human, animal and agricultural research that have recorded a string of successes. Using more than $1 billion in state funding, Cuban scientists have produced a hepatitis B vaccine sold in more than 30 countries and streptokinase, a potent enzyme that dissolves blood clots and improves the survival rate of heart attack victims. The country also makes recombinant interferon that strengthens the immune system of cancer patients and a meningitis B vaccine. In the pipeline are products ranging from an injection that closes ulcers and improves circulation in diabetics to vaccines against cholera and hepatitis C, according to Cuban officials. Yet the country's production of milk, beef and other foods has fallen even as its scientists embark on years-long efforts to produce genetically modified rice, corn and other crops that are disease resistant. (The Miami Herald, 22/12/05)

December 23: The National Assembly of People’s Power, a rubber-stamp parliament that includes the country’s national and provincial leaders, held a remarkable end-of-the-year session that for the first time was open to diplomats and foreign journalists and dealt extensively, if delicately, with the inevitable. “In the Soviet Union, errors led to popular discontent among other reasons due to the bad performance of the economy,” Francisco Soberon, chairman of the central bank who has emerged as Mr Castro’s closest economic adviser, told the assembly. “To the extent that we do not achieve a steady improvement in people’s standard of living and sustainable development we risk that these formidable personalities [Fidel and Raul Castro] become the only pillar on which our system rests,” Mr Soberon, said. But the most extraordinary moment came when Felipe Pérez Roque, the foreign minister and a Castro protégé, took the leader’s place to deliver the closing speech. It was a broad-ranging discourse and optimistic review of the international and domestic situation, highlighting the need to prepare ideologically and politically for Mr Castro’s passing and new US efforts to “annex” the country. “Now we have the generation that made the revolution (…) even the enemy knows with them there will be no deals, but it is placing its hopes in the idea that it will be able to confuse, divide, buy or intimidate those who follow,” he said. Mr Roque received a standing ovation and one of Cuba’s most powerful figures, assembly president Ricardo Alarcón, urged people to study his “brilliant” remarks. [Intervención del canciller Felipe Pérez Roque] (Financial Times, La Jornada, 26/12/05)

December 25: The official Cuban radio station CMBF broadcasted a special Christmas worship in the morning and evening, sponsored by the Cuban Council of Churches. The night before all Catholic temples were packed with Cuban families attending the traditional Christmas Mass of the Rooster (Misa del Gallo). (Monitor, 27/12/05)

December 25: Sakharov prize-winning wives and mothers of jailed Cuban dissidents have demanded the release of their loved ones after a Christmas mass, and lashed back at Fidel Castro's communist government. The Ladies in White group attended Christmas Mass in Havana, decked out in white to draw attention to their cause. "We ask on this Christmas Day for freedom for our political prisoners and for the Cuban people to have a better future," said Laura Pollán on behalf of the group. "It's an extremely sad day for us, because Christmas is a family holiday," explained Pollán, wife of dissident Héctor Maseda who has been sentenced to 20 years in jail. "Since our husbands are not with us, our families cannot be complete." In reference to accusations made to the group by official journalists at the TV program The Roundtable on December 21, Pollán said that, “they should get an Oscar for best performance in a comedy." Pollán said that state media may have done them a favor. "They identified us publicly, and so a lot of people who may not have known about the Ladies in White now do, thanks to the State media", she said. "This Christmas, we are asking for peace, and love in our hearts, so that we are able not to be bitter or hate the people who are making us suffer." (AFP, 26/12/05)

December 26: Cuban dissident María de los Ángeles Borrego Mir, vice president of the illegal organization Hijas de la Virgen de Regla (Daughters of Virgin Regla), received a four-year sentence under the accusation of “potential danger” to society. The trial was held at Regla’s municipal tribunal, in north eastern Havana, and only relatives were allowed to attend. Borrego Mir is the first woman dissident convicted in Cuba under the alleged crime of “potential dangerousness”. (Cubanet, 27/12/05)

December 27: Cuban publishing houses are closing 2005 with an increase in the number of publications, which include local, national and world authors. In statements to the press, the vice president of the Cuban Book Institute, Edel Morales, highlighted the development achieved by national publishing houses such as Letras Cubanas and Ciencias Sociales. Morales noted the outstanding work of Arte y Literatura, which keeps pace with international contemporary literature, and Gente Nueva, which publishes works in great demand by children and youngsters. (AIN, 27/12/05)

December 27: As hundreds of same-sex couples in Britain are taking advantage of a new law that allows them to enter into civil partnerships with the same rights as heterosexual marriages, gays and lesbians in Cuba are still struggling to achieve a bare minimum of social acceptance. Nevertheless, the issue of respect for sexual diversity has become increasingly visible in this socialist Caribbean island nation since the early 1990s, as part of a process that now seems to be irreversible. "There are things in life that can only happen when the right conditions have been created, but once the path is cleared, there is no going back," remarked Nelson Simón, a leading figure in modern Cuban homoerotic poetry, in an interview with the press. With several published volumes of poetry to his name, the 40-year-old Simón is one of the few Cuban intellectuals to openly profess his homosexuality. "Although it continues to be a ‘machista’ and ‘manly’ country with a very phallocentric culture, Cuban society accepts changes very easily, it is very mutable, very open and acts like a sponge when it comes to incorporating everything that comes along," he added. In 2005, gay and lesbian film festivals were held in a number of Cuban cities, Pinar del Río hosted the first sexual diversity cultural festival, and CENESEX (an official center for research on sexual matters) submitted a proposal for legislation on transsexual rights to the Cuban parliament. Nevertheless, the film “Strawberry and Chocolate” has never been shown on Cuban television. ( IPS , 27/12/05)

December 27: Cuban authorities discovered an abandoned boat containing more than a ton of marijuana in Cuba's biggest drug seizure of the year, the official daily newspaper said. The Communist Party newspaper Granma said the Cuban coast guard found the drug cache aboard a vessel surrounded by sharks and floating off Camaguey province's northern coast, about 300 miles east of Havana. The newspaper quoted Coast Guard Lt. Colonel Guillermo Guzman as saying the find was Cuba's biggest drug haul in 2005. No crew-members were found aboard, prompting authorities to speculate that they could have been swept overboard. (AP, 27/12/05)

December 27: Cuba honored five artists, including singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés and performer Rosita Fornés, with its 2005 National Music Awards. The prizes were handed out at a gala in Havana's Amadeo Roldan theatre. Awards also went to pianist Frank Fernández, musicologist Maria Antonieta Henríquez and choral director Cuca Rivero. Performing at the event were guitarist Pancho Amat and his El Cabildo del Son group, opera soprano Bárbara Llanes, pianist Pura Ortiz, the Children's Choir, the National Choir of Cuba and the National Symphony Orchestra. The evening also featured honoree Milanés teaming up with singer-songwriter Carlos Varela on their respective compositions "Días de gloria" and "Habáname". (AP, Prensa Latina, 28/12/05)

December 28: Cuba’s film industry is planning to make 10 feature films, seven joint productions with Latin America, and 15 documentaries next year, showing an increase in production from 2005. The figures mark a gradual recovery in the Institute of Art and Film Industry (ICAIC), an infrastructure that was severely affected by economic depression in the 90’s. Prospects for 2006 include the premier of a film by Cuban filmmaker Rigoberto López about the life of Benny More, a legendary figure of Cuban music. (Prensa Latina, 28/12/05)

December 30: Cuban poet Jesús Orta Ruiz, 83, popularly known as Indio Naborí, died in Havana. Orta Ruiz, who wrote an extensive number of poems marked by strong social denunciations, had been conferred the National Literature Award. He was born on the outskirts of Havana on September 30, 1922. His parents were poor farmers who cultivated their Spanish traditions and folklore in rural areas. This marked most of his poems. (Prensa Latina, 30/12/05)

December 31: A government message broadcasted on national television and radio at midnight and published on the official press on January 1 saluted the people and outlined the reasons Cubans have for celebrating the 47th Anniversary of the January 1st, 1959's revolution led by Fidel Castro. The note highlighted the Gross Domestic Product growth of 11.8 percent, the highest since 1959, and the construction of 700 public works as part of the social program called Battle of Ideas. The government’s communiqué said that in 2006 social workers will continue to play a key role in the war against waste, corruption and pilfering of state resources. The message concluded with stressing that 2006 is a decisive year to reach the military invulnerability through better defense training and preparation. (Prensa Latina, 1/1/06)

December 31: Amid a nationwide anti-corruption campaign, Fidel Castro unexpectedly showed up at a popular gas station in Havana to celebrate the New Year with a group of social workers who were doing their night shift. Castro welcomed the New Year that marks the 47th Anniversary of the Revolution, talking with a group of social workers and university students headed by Julio Martínez, first secretary of the Young Communist League. They all sang together the National Anthem when the clock struck 12 and 21 gunshots to salute the revolutionary anniversary was heard all over the city. (EFE, Prensa Latina, 2/1/06)