Chronicle on Cuba - January 2006

US-Cuba Relations

January 3: TV and Radio Martí are preparing to hit the skies this spring with a new broadcasting airplane they hope will improve their ability to break through the jamming and the Cuban government monopoly on the island's mass media. The aircraft will replace a Pennsylvania National Guard Commando Solo C-130 that has been transmitting to Cuba for four hours on weekends. The aircraft has also been used to broadcast to Iraq and Afghanistan. TV and Radio Martí usually broadcast from a blimp tethered in the lower Florida Keys, but it was knocked out by last year's hurricanes and has not been replaced. Cuba has been largely successful in jamming the signals since the radio opened in 1985 and the TV station followed in 1990. Supporters say the addition of the mobility and broadcasting strength of the new aircraft, expected to be delivered in the spring, will give the station the technological punch needed to overcome the jamming. (The Miami Herald, 3/1/06)

January 3: A German documentary to be aired on January 6 claims to have found new evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald shot United States president John Kennedy on the orders of the Cuban secret services. "It was [Fidel] Castro's vengeance for the CIA bid to assassinate him with a poisoned pen," award-winning German filmmaker Wilfried Huismann said about the film that will be aired on ARD television. Huismann's film, “Rendezvous with Death”, features claims by a disgruntled former ally of Castro, Oscar Marino, that Oswald had assassinated Kennedy in a plot hatched by the Cuban secret services in the US state of Florida. The theory of Cuban involvement was mooted after Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas, Texas on November 22 1963, one year after the Cuban missile crisis, but largely dismissed. (ISI, 3/1/06)

January 7: Cuba is vigorously denying charges that it had a role in US President John F. Kennedy's assassination and insists the CIA, the Mafia and Cuban exiles were behind the slaying. Official weekly Granma International denied allegations made in German filmmaker Wilfried Huismann 's documentary "Rendezvous with Death" that Cuba's spy agency paid Lee Harvey Oswald $6,500 to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. "One of the assassination's collateral objectives was to destroy the Cuban Revolution. But that goal was not achieved, and is the secret reason why the conspiracy continues, 42 years later," Granma International editor in chief Gabriel Molina said in an article. According to the article, the documentary "seeks to divert media attention" from the case of anti-Castro activist Luis Posada Carriles, who is under arrest on immigration charges in El Paso, Texas, and whom Cuba accuses of multiple terrorist acts, including blowing up a Cuban airliner, killing all 73 passengers, in 1976. (EFE, 7/1/06)

January 7: International Baseball Association (IBAF) president Aldo Notari said that his organization will not sanction the World Baseball Classic if Cuba is not allowed to participate. "Without Cuba, IBAF will withdraw its approval of the event," Italian Notari stated. "And if the IBAF does that, national federations will not be able to register their teams for the World Baseball Classic." Notari made this statements in Chicago, where he is taking part in the NCAA's Trainers' Convention. "There is an article in the Olympic Charter saying it clearly: any kind of discrimination on political, racial or religious grounds is unacceptable," said Notari before flying to Lausanne, Switzerland. (ESPN, 7/1/06)

January 9: A husband and wife who worked at a Florida university were accused of being covert agents for Cuba and feeding information on US government officials and anti-Castro exile groups to Havana for nearly 30 years, according to an indictment. Carlos Alvarez, a psychology professor at Florida International University, and his wife Elsa Alvarez, a social worker at the school, were ordered to be held without bond on charges of acting as foreign agents for Cuba without notifying the US government. "If these two individuals were freed I believe they would go to Cuba," US Magistrate Andrea Simonton said as she refused pleas from their lawyers to grant bail to the graying, bespectacled 61-year-old professor and his wife, who is 55. US authorities said the couple, both naturalized US citizens from Cuba, admitted in voluntary interviews with FBI agents in June that they funneled information to Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence for decades -- Carlos Alvarez since 1977 and his wife since 1982. (Reuters, 10/1/06)

January 10: The Bush administration is cracking down on Americans who have violated the embargo against Cuba, targeting a "solidarity" trip to Havana in July 2005 by the New York-based pro-Castro group Pastors for Peace. The Treasury Department sent administrative subpoenas to more than 100 people who traveled to Cuba last summer with the activist group - a first-step enforcement action that could lead to up to $65,000 in fines being imposed on each traveler. The founder and executive director of Pastors for Peace and its parent organization, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, the Reverend Lucius Walker, told the press that the subpoenas were sent to most of the people who went on the "caravan," as the annual missions to Cuba are called - a number Rev. Walker placed at more than 100. The letters from the Treasury, Rev. Walker said, consisted of a "wide-ranging" list of questions about the nature of caravan participants' travel to and transactions in Cuba, which are prohibited under the terms of America's embargo against the Castro dictatorship. (Reuters, The New York Sun, 10,11/1/06)

January 10: Cuba's government denounced the possibility that US immigration authorities will release anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, who is accused of terrorism by both Havana and Venezuela. The official Communist Party newspaper Granma said that the decision by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, to review Posada's status "does not surprise, but does outrage." Another government organ, Juventud Rebelde, described the United States as being "on the verge of another disgrace," saying that if Washington releases Posada it will put itself in the position of a "terrorist, which is what its president calls all those who help those who practice terrorism." Both publications echoed the views expressed by government officials on the night's edition of "Roundtable," the main public affairs program on state-run television. (EFE, 10/1/06)

January 10: The US government made an appeal to all Cubans not to migrate by illegal means to the US. “We, again, appeal to the Cubans not to risk their lives on the high seas. The United States remains firmly committed to safe, legal, and orderly migration from Cuba”, the US State Department Spokesman, Sean McCormack, said. McCormack was answering questions from journalists after the repatriation of 15 Cuban migrants who made it as far as the 7-mile -- the old 7-mile bridge in the Florida Keys. (BBC, 11/1/06)

January 11: Cuba solidarity groups The Venceremos Brigade and the Pastors for Peace Foundation confirmed that US authorities have fined hundreds of their members a total of $1.5 million for traveling to Cuba. The US Treasury Department contacted 200 travellers associated with those groups and linked them to acts of civil disobedience for their visits to Cuba. In total, the fines issued against the activists add up to over $1.5 million. (Axis of Logic, 12/1/06)

January 11: The most provocative piece of a federal case against a pair of Florida International University employees claims the Cuban government directed the couple to recruit young Americans to spy for Fidel Castro. But three US government sources say they have no evidence Elsa and Carlos M. Alvarez accomplished that part of their mission. The husband and wife confessed last summer that they were asked to become recruiters, but their known help to Castro was limited to collecting information about exile groups, the sources said. Moreover, the indictment against the FIU couple does not accuse them of any recruiting activity despite widespread speculation among exile leaders and some media reports. ''There was never any kind of recruitment,'' said Uvi Shabbel, a 42-year-old Pembroke Pines resident who went on an exchange trip with Alvarez in 2000. Shabbel said she was among six FIU graduates then in their 30s who went to Cuba on a two-week trip Alvarez organized with Puentes Cubanos (Cuban Bridges), that paired young American professionals with their counterparts in Cuba.
Shabbel's mother, FIU researcher Uva de Aragon, was also an organizer, as was Cuban Bridges founder Silvia Wilhelm. (The Miami Herald, 11/1/06)

January 11: Florida International University President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique urged patience from the community in his first public statement since two of his employees were charged with spying for Cuba. ''My personal and professional interactions with the Alvarezes gave me absolutely no indication of any of the activities outlined in the indictment,'' Maidique said in a written statement. Carlos M. Alvarez, 61, has been an education professor at FIU since 1974. His wife, Elsa, 55, has worked there as a psychological services counselor since 1999. Federal prosecutors accused them of providing the Cuban government with information about exile groups for decades and not registering as foreign agents. They are not accused of revealing government secrets. (The Miami Herald, 12/1/06)

January 11: Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda thinks Cuba will be allowed to play in the inaugural World Baseball Classic. Lasorda, who led the United States to the 2000 Olympic gold medal at Sydney and is an ambassador at large for the event, was in Tokyo to promote the 16-nation, World Cup-style tournament to be held in March. "I think they (the Treasury Department) are just trying to stop Cuba from making money because of sanctions," Lasorda said at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. "Because they [the Cubans] have offered to give their earnings to the victims of Katrina I think they will be allowed to play." (The Globe & Mail, 11/1/06)

January 11: Cuba said that the US government prevented American writer William Blum from traveling to the island for next month's international book fair. Blum, according to Cuban media, planned to travel to Havana to present his book "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II." The writer said in a letter to the head of Cuba's Editorial Oriente publishing company, Aida Bahr, that he would not be able to participate in the book fair, the official daily Granma reported. "The same US government of which I speak is preventing me from attending," Blum wrote. Blum worked for the State Department until 1967, when he resigned to protest the Vietnam War. He is the founder of The Washington Free Press, an alternative newspaper. (Prensa Latina, EFE, 11/1/06)

January 11: Interagency working groups, tasked by the US Department of State’s Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba, will prepare a second report for the US President by May 2006. “This new report will include a strategic plan to provide specific US Government support for a democratic transition in Cuba”, the spokesman for the Department of State, Sean McCormack, said. “The strategic plan will cover the period from when the President determines that a genuine transition government is in place to the date when free and fair elections are held in Cuba”. “The plan will establish the US Government's goal and objectives for supporting Cuba's transition to democracy, and identify the required assistance, resources, and lead US Government implementing agencies and international partners”. McCormack added that, “the inter-agency working groups will focus on the following areas: democracy and governance; humanitarian assistance; economic growth and infrastructure; and security and the rule of law”. “The Commission will also develop additional recommendations for helping the Cuban people hasten the day when they will be free”, McCormack said. (US Fed News, 11/1/06)

January 11: A good cigar could be an economic boost for Nebraska, that is the reasoning behind a bill introduced by State Senator Pam Brown of Omaha. Under Legislative Bill 1034, the state could accept Cuban tobacco or tobacco products -- such as those highly prized Cuban cigars -- in payment for agricultural or medical products sold to that island nation. The tobacco products, in turn, would be sold at retail outlets chosen by lottery. Brown said she figures that Nebraska could trade a bushel of corn for two to five cigars at Cuban prices, then turn around and get several times that value at retail. Genuine Cuban cigars are advertised on the Internet for $20 to $70 apiece. Brown said she might consider an amendment to allow payment in Cuban rum as well. (Omaha World Herald, 12/1/06)

January 12: The Puerto Rican Police informed that a group of eight Cuban immigrants coming from the Dominican Republic arrived at the Carabinero area, in Isla de Mona. According to the authorities, the group made up of six men and two women, was in good health and was taken to the municipality of Aguadilla by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents. (EFE, 12/1/06)

January 12: Paul Archey, who is Major League Baseball's senior vice president for international matters, returned from a one-day visit to Cuba as part of the bid to have the country included in the World Baseball Classic. "It was a frank and productive meeting," Archey said. Archey would not say why he met with several Cuban baseball officials, but he was probably gathering information that had been requested by the United States Treasury Department. Major League Baseball resubmitted for a license for the Cubans last month after the first license application was denied because the team would have made United States money from the competition. That violates the embargo against Cuba. (The New York Times, 13/1/06)

January 12: Florida Republican Congressmen Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff criticizing the US Coast Guard for sending 15 Cuban migrants back to Cuba even though they had physically reached the Florida Keys after leaving the communist run island. ''These Cubans did in fact reach land by reaching the Seven Mile Bridge,'' said the letter. "Accordingly, the apprehension of the Cuban refugees by the Coast Guard is uncalled for, inflammatory, and violates US policy and precedent. We respectfully urge you to immediately parole these Cuban refugees into the United States.'' The 15 migrants, including women and children, were found on an old bridge called the “Seven Mile Bridge”, south of Marathon Key in the Florida Keys. But Washington officials decided that the bridge was not connected to land so the US Coast Guard decided to send the Cubans back. (Human Events Online, 12/1/06)

January 12: The Bush administration has big plans for the island of Cuba once Fidel Castro is out of power. The designated man to conduct the complicated task is US Cuba Transition Coordinator Caleb McCarry. As his title implies, McCarry already has a protocol that the United States wants to follow that he believes will ensure the best interest of the Cuban people. "The dictatorship has a succession plan," said McCarry to the press. "The problem is the succession plan does not address the deprivation of the Cuban people." In his interview, McCarry pointed out that different actions are already underway to undermine the current dictatorship, the travel ban being one of them. McCarry says that Americans are traveling dramatically less to the communist island and that has so far prevented approximately $500 million from reaching the island - money he says goes straight to Castro's coffers. (CBS4 News, 12/1/06)

January 12: A federal judge suggested that the US government made a foolish error when it sent back 15 Cubans who had landed on an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys. US District Judge Federico Moreno said he would not rule immediately on the emergency lawsuit filed on the Cubans' behalf, but he questioned the government's reasoning. Under the government's long-standing "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach US soil are generally allowed to stay, while those stopped at sea are returned to the communist island. In this case, the government said it sent the Cubans back to their homeland because the bridge no longer connects to land. "So the question is whether this bridge is US territory." Moreno told Assistant US Attorney Dexter Lee. "I'll follow the law, whatever it is (…) but the average person would say that's a ridiculous distinction" of whether the bridge was US land. The judge called the abandoned bridge, built by railroad magnate Henry Flagler and wrecked by a 1935 hurricane, "as American as apple pie." (AP, 12/1/06)

January 13: The activities of a Florida International University mental-health counselor accused of operating as a covert agent for the Cuban government came to the attention of Congress as early as 1982 when she worked for the University of Miami, according to congressional records. Florida investigators warned the federal government that several Cuban exiles in Miami, among them Elsa Prieto Alvarez, were providing sensitive information to Cuba's communist government just as Miami was struggling to absorb more than 125,000 Mariel refugees, hundreds of them prisoners with serious criminal backgrounds and patients with severe mental illnesses. Prieto Alvarez's lawyer, Jane Moscowitz, said that her client ''never furnished any such records to the Cuban government.'' Testifying in 1982 before a US Senate subcommittee investigating Cuba-related terrorism in South Florida, Sergio Pinon, then an agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, accused Elsa Prieto of sending along to Cuba private information on mentally ill patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital. (The Miami Herald, 13/1/06)

January 13: A little-known group of Cuban Americans has emerged as part of the background of one of the two Florida International University employees accused of spying for Cuba. Elsa Prieto Alvarez, 55, was a member of the Antonio Maceo Brigade -- a controversial organization founded 27 years ago by children of Cuban exiles who fled the Cuban revolution soon after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. Prieto Alvarez and her husband, Carlos Alvarez, 61, have been accused of providing the Cuban government with information about exile groups and not registering as foreign agents. Prieto Alvarez's membership in the brigade surfaced in congressional testimony by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents in 1982. Long denounced as Castro agents by die-hard anti-Castro exiles, brigade leaders have described themselves as sympathizers of the revolutionary ideals of a small country unfairly besieged by a hostile United States. Brigade leader Andrés Gómez could not be reached for comment, but over the years he has denied any control by Cuban intelligence officers. (The Miami Herald, 13/1/06)

January 13: A US judge has agreed to review a controversial decision by the Coast Guard to deport 15 Cubans who reached a disused bridge in the Florida keys. Cubans who reach dry land are allowed to stay in the US. In this case the group was sent back because the damaged bridge was no longer attached to land. The federal judge reviewing the case in Miami, Federico Moreno, said even these critics would find it difficult to understand the government's decision to repatriate the 15 Cubans. "So the question is whether this bridge is US territory," he told the government's attorney Dexter Lee. Mr Lee said the government would ask the court to dismiss the case. (BBC, 13/1/06)

January 16: US Representative Bob Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey) sent a letter to US President George Bush with several recommendations to change current government’s "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy regarding Cuban immigrants. The letter expressed Menendez’ concern “about the treatment of Cuban asylum seekers intercepted at sea”, and recommended “legal counsel from recognized Volunteer Agencies” aboard the Coast Guard vessels that intercept Cuban migrants to the US. “If it is determined that it is not feasible to have legal counsel on board US Coast vessels, all Cuban nationals intercepted at sea should be taken to GITMO for their cases to be properly evaluated and for the refugees to be afforded procedural rights consistent with Cuban nationals who seek asylum on land”, the letter said. (NetforCuba, 16/1/06)

January 16: A top Cuban official said that the jailing of two Florida academics on charges they spied for Cuba for three decades was "strange" and "worrisome." In the government's first public reaction to the case, Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon questioned the timing of the married couple's arrests, which came as a federal appeals court prepared to rehear arguments in the case of five other Cubans accused of being secret agents of the Cuban government. "This story comes across as strange and very worrisome because the FBI has supposedly known since June what they said about their activities," Alarcon told journalists of Carlos Alvarez, 61, and his 55-year-old wife, Elsa. "So why come out with this case now? Obviously it has to do with something that goes beyond these two people," Alarcon said. "They are trying to create an environment of McCarthyism to influence the Atlanta appeals court," Alarcon said of the newest arrests, referring to the case of the five Cubans imprisoned in the US under charges of espionage. (AP, 16/1/06)

January 16: The United States used quotes from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. as the latest prop in its ideological war with Fidel Castro's communist government. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up," shone in bright orange letters from an electronic display moving across the top windows of the American diplomatic mission in Havana. The quote from King's famous 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington was followed by articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A spokesman for the US Interest Section said the message, focusing on human rights, spoke for itself. A Christmas display at the US mission in 2004 included a lit-up number 75, in reference to the pro-democracy activists jailed by Cuba in March 2003. The Cuban government retaliated with huge billboards showing pictures of hooded and bloodied prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a swastika and the words "Fascists: made in USA." The billboards are still up on Havana's Malecon sea-wall opposite the US mission. (Reuters, 16/1/06)

January 17: Taking an historic and welcome step toward further normalization of grain trade between Cuba and the United States, Cuba’s food buying agency has committed to purchase half a million tons of US wheat in the next calendar year. Representatives from U.S. Wheat Associates, the industry’s export market development organization, traveled to Cuba to meet with the leadership of Alimport, the Cuban government’s official food importers. Recognizing the quality of US wheat and related products, as well as the performance of American wheat growers and processors, Alimport agreed to purchase 500,000 metric tons of wheat from American exporters in 2006. ( Primedia Inc, 17/1/06)

January 17: Communist Cuba signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Grains Council agreeing to buy up to 700,000 metric tons of corn from its members this year. Council chairman Davis Anderson said that his association agreed to work with American growers belonging to the council to come up with individual deals to sell corn to Cuba's food import company Alimport. If completed, those deals could mean more than $100 million in sales benefiting thousands of growers in states including North Dakota, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa, Anderson said. (AP, 17/1/06)

January 17: The National Association of Hispanic Journalists has invited Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's national assembly, to participate in a question-and-answer session with reporters during this summer's convention in Fort Lauderdale. NAHJ Executive Director Ivan Román told the press that the invitation to Alarcón went out in the last few days after a planning committee selected several high-profile Hispanic leaders to invite. ''There will be people who will be upset about this in Miami, and we know that, but we are journalists availing ourselves of an opportunity to interview people in power and who are newsmakers, that is what we do,'' Román said. "Nothing has been confirmed. We don't know if it's even going to happen.'' (The Miami Herald, 17/1/06)

January 18: Democrat Robert Menendez was sworn in as senator for New Jersey, taking over the term of Jon Corzine, who was sworn in as governor this week. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was the first New Jersey Latino in the state legislature and in Congress. He represented the state's 13th district and was the chairman of the House Democratic caucus. (CNN, 18/1/06)

January 17: Pressure is mounting on President Bush to overhaul America's "wet-foot/dry-foot" policy on Cuban migration, as cries from lawmakers in Washington and Florida - and the desperation of a hunger striker in Miami - fuel an intensifying furor over the administration's deportation of 15 Cubans who risked their lives seeking freedom in America earlier this month. At a press conference in Miami, the president's brother, Governor Bush of Florida, said the wetfoot/dry-foot policy "makes no sense," and said he expects it will be reviewed by the president. Wet-foot/dry-foot - implemented in 1995 pursuant to a pact between President Clinton and Cuba's dictator, Fidel Castro - was adopted after Mr. Castro unleashed about 40,000 Cuban refugees in 1994, overwhelming the American Coast Guard. (The New York Sun, 18/1/06)

January 17: The government of Fidel Castro has approached Venezuela and Bolivia in an attempt to "counter" international pressure to put an end to its "totalitarian system," said US Undersecretary of State Thomas A. Shannon. "I would say that Castro's government is in its last stages," affirmed Shannon, in charge of Western Hemisphere affairs. He indicated that the Cuban government itself has admitted that it is under "unrelenting pressure to become a democracy, particularly if it goes into a transitional phase." "What we see in the Cuban diplomacy is an effort to find a way to counter this pressure," Shannon told the press. Shannon said that the United States "will continue to focus on the promotion of that democratic transition (…) and there are countries that are already prepared to work with us" when the transition takes place. (AP, 17/1/06)

January 17: The US Interests Section in Havana intends to “break the information blockade” suffered by Cubans by publicly disseminating messages about human rights and current news, US diplomatic sources said. The US mission said that it will present messages to the residents of the Communist island on a big, publicly visible electronic screen. The aim of the initiative, US officials told the press is to “break the information blockade that the Cuban people have been subjected to ... (and offer) uncensored information.” Cuba’s 47-year-old Communist regime runs all the island’s media – except for the illegal underground press. The Interests Section, U.S. officials added, “will continue using this means to communicate with the people of Cuba.” (The Daily Journal Online, 17/1/06)

January 17: Fidel Castro suggested the United States doesn't want to play Cuba in the World Baseball Classic, which is awaiting word on whether the US government will let the island's players take part. "We aren't afraid of anything," Castro said in a wide-ranging speech. "It's very difficult to compete against us in any area (…) not even in baseball do they want to compete with Cuba." Castro's comments appeared to refer to the inaugural World Classic, a 16-team tournament scheduled for March 3-20 and organized by Major League Baseball and its players' union. (AP, 18/1/06)

January 19: A pair of Florida International University employees pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in Miami federal court, and their lawyers later decried their detention in solitary confinement as pretrial punishment. The couple are accused of operating as covert agents for Cuba's communist government for decades, using shortwave radios, numerical-code language and computer-encrypted files to send information about Miami's exile community to Cuban intelligence commanders. Carlos M. Alvarez, 61, a tenured professor, and his wife, Elsa Prieto Alvarez, 55, a mental-health counselor, were denied bond on January 9 by US Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton. The South Miami couple is charged with failing to register with the federal government as foreign agents. If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison. (The Miami Herald, 19/1/06)

January 19: The head of Cuba's food import company promised to double the amount of Cuba-bound cargo coming through the Texan port of Corpus Christi by year's end after signing an agreement with port officials. Pedro Alvarez, the chairman of Alimport, also signed a letter of intent for the port's first shipment of chicken headed to Cuba. "We're going to do more than double the business with Corpus Christi this year," Alvarez told a news conference. "Eventually we hope to triple, then quadruple, business." The planned intensification comes as some Gulf of Mexico ports, such as New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi, are struggling to recover after last year's Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans continues to be one of Cuba's top ports, however, along with Houston and Galveston, Texas, Alvarez said. Some 50,000 metric tons (55,120 tons) of wheat and 20,000 metric tons (22,050 tons) of beans were shipped through the Corpus Christi port to Cuba last year. (AP, 19/1/06)

January 20: The US government has reversed course and will allow Cuba to play in a 16-nation baseball tournament in the United States in March despite broad economic sanctions against Havana, the US Treasury Department said. Treasury last month denied a Major League Baseball request for a license for Cuba to play in the World Baseball Classic, but reversed its decision on the condition that Fidel Castro's communist-run government receive no money. (Reuters, 20/1/06)

January 20: Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's National Assembly, is considering participating in a question-and-answer session with reporters during this summer's National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention in Fort Lauderdale. An invitation to Alarcón was hand-delivered to him personally by South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editor Earl Maucker in the last two weeks, said NAHJ Executive Director Iván Román. (The Miami Herald, 20/1/06)

January 20: Three Cuban-American members of Congress received a letter from the State Department confirming that officials will be meeting to discuss the controversial US-Cuba migration accords. ''We would be pleased to meet with you to discuss the Migration Accords, and to facilitate discussions with other agencies to discuss other relevant issues,'' said the letter signed by Jeffrey T. Bergner, assistant secretary of legislative affairs for the State Department. Bergner's letter was prompted by a note that Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, all Miami Republicans, sent to top Bush administration officials seeking a meeting to discuss the controversial ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' policy. (The Miami Herald, 21/1/06)

January 22: Fidel Castro invited US citizens too poor to afford eye care to come to his communist country for treatment. Washington's nemesis even offered to send an airplane to Florida to fly patients to Cuba. "I wonder if (the US government) will authorize our plane to pick them up in Florida, or if they prefer that they stay blind," Castro said. Castro said Cuba would be able to perform 150,000 eye operations "for the impoverished people of the United States." Cuba and Venezuela, which is led by another US irritant, President Hugo Chavez, have included Americans in their "Operation Miracle," which offers free eye treatment to six million Latin Americans over 10 years. (AFP, 22/1/06)

January 22: Fidel Castro accused the United States of trying to torpedo relations and harboring Cuban-born terrorists, then called a protest in front of the US diplomatic mission for January 24. Castro, in a three-hour televised appearance, charged that a huge electronic ticker tape mounted across the fifth floor of the US diplomatic mission in downtown Havana aimed to end minimal relations under which each country maintains Interests Sections in the other's capital. "The U.S. government (...) is deliberately trying to force a rupture in the actual diplomatic relations,'' Castro charged. "The gross provocation by the US Interests Section in Havana can have no other purpose (…) They know no government in the world could allow it,'' he said, noting his government's diplomatic protests had been ignored. Castro said he was taking measures to insure that food sales from the US were not interrupted, without explaining further. Castro also charged an immigration hearing for Cuban-born (Luis) Posada Carriles was aimed at granting him conditional parole. Posada, 77, has been held by the United States since May for illegally crossing the border into Texas from Mexico. "On January 24, when the status of the ferocious terrorist will be reviewed, the people of the capital will march with all their exemplary revolutionary discipline and unity in front of the interests Section of the fraudulent and bastardly government of George W. Bush,'' Castro said. [Fidel Castro’s remarks during his TV appearance] (BBC, The New York Times, 22/1/06)

January 22: The head of the United States Interest Section in Havana, Michael Parmly, rejected Fidel Castro’s accusations about alleged Washington plans to break the bilateral migratory agreements. "It is not anything that we have thought of," said Parmly to representatives of the foreign press. Castro accused Washington of planning to break the current migratory agreement between both countries signed in 1994, after the so-called "Raft-people Crisis." (EFE, 22/1/06)

January 23: The former head of the Cuban State Security Service, Fabián Escalante, accused the German film maker Wilfried Huismann of “baseless” slander, after Huismann speculated in a documentary that he was somehow tied to the murder of John F. Kennedy. After the premiere of the documentary, Huismann claimed to have interviewed Escalante in Cuba in May, 2005 and asked him why he had traveled to Dallas on November 22, 1963, the day that Kennedy was murdered. According to Huismann, Escalante refused to answer. (La Jornada, 23/1/06)

January 24: Havana's billboard war saw more salvos fired as the US and Cuban governments stoked their decades-old confrontation with competing messages. Fidel Castro shepherded about one million people to a protest outside the US diplomatic mission in the Cuban capital in one of his government's periodic immense protests against Washington. But just as the 79-year-old leader was about to speak to the masses, American diplomats couldn't resist taking advantage of a captive audience and lit up the electronic ticker-tape billboard recently erected on the side of the building. ''To those who may want to be here, we respect your protest. To those who don't want to be here, excuse the bother,'' the sign declared in a reference to strong government pressures that ensure attendance at such protests is high. The sign was the latest in a public relations battle between Cuba and the diplomatic mission, officially known as the US Interests Section, each using billboards and displays to mock the other. ''To help Cubans shuck off their propaganda strait jacket, we have creatively used new measures to dialogue with them -- and the streaming, electronic billboard is just our latest initiative,'' US Interests Section chief Michael Parmly said. (The Miami Herald, 25/1/06)

January 24: Fidel Castro accused the United States of seeking to rupture the minimum remaining diplomatic ties with his country, addressing tens of thousands of Cubans before starting a march outside the American mission in Havana. "The rude provocations that have been undertaken from its Interests Office in Havana does not, and could not, have any other goal," Castro said from a podium before the sea of cheering people stretching out along Havana's Malecon coastal highway ahead of the government-organized march. "Bush: fascist! Condemn the terrorist!" the marchers chanted, most of them waving little red, white and blue Cuban flags and signs equating US President George W. Bush with Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, whom Castro accuses of a series of violent actions against the island. "Cuba will triumph!" they shouted. Among those Castro greeted before his speech was former Nicaraguan president and Sandinista Party leader Daniel Ortega. Also seen in the crowd was Castro's wife Dalia, his older brother Ramon and his eldest son Fidel Jr., along with top Communist Party leaders. The marchers included Elian Gonzalez, the boy at the center of an international custody battle in 2000, and his family, as well as relatives of five Cuban agents imprisoned in the United States. [Key remarks by Fidel Castro] (AP, 24/1/06)

January 24: With both sides claiming politics is interfering with justice, another deadline came and went in the custody battle over Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles. He remains in federal detention in El Paso, Texas. Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto, said he doesn't expect a decision in the next days on whether Posada, 77, will be released and allowed to stay -- as he hopes will happen -- in the United States under supervision or in another country, if another country can be found to take him. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reviewing the case. A federal immigration judge in September barred the government from extraditing Posada to Cuba or Venezuela because he might face torture. A decision now is expected by April. ''ICE is moving forward to carry out Mr. Posada's removal from the United States,'' ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said in a statement. "An immigration judge granted Mr. Posada deferral of removal to Cuba and Venezuela based on the Convention Against Torture. However, that doesn't impede ICE from removing Mr. Posada to a third country.'' (The Miami Herald, 25/1/06)

January 25: Fidel Castro confirmed that his country would play in the World Baseball Classic in Cuba's first official reaction to the US government's decision allowing the communist country to participate. ''We will be there, but I would never have thought I would have to answer that question,'' Castro told reporters who questioned him during a surprise visit at night to a construction site outside the US Interests Section in Havana. Still, Castro warned, ''that is if (the Americans) don't start in on messing around with not giving the visas, or if they go crazy.'' The Cuban leader said his country's team ''will play clean (…) to win or lose battling over there,'' during the inaugural World Baseball Classic. ''We're not going to say that we're the best,'' Castro said. ''They have taken away a lot of the best pitchers offering them millions of dollars,'' he added, referring to Cuban players who left for big-paying jobs in the Major Leagues. (The New York Times, 25/1/06)

January 25: Fidel Castro visited a mysterious new construction site outside the US Interests Section, but kept mum over what was being built in front of the mission -- a growing flashpoint for US-Cuba relations. Dressed in his olive green uniform and surrounded by security men, Castro made the nighttime visit one day after directing a massive march past the building to protest recent US actions aimed at Cuba, including a new electronic sign streaming news and human rights messages. "If I tell you, it will ruin the surprise," Castro told reporters who asked what workers were building. The Cuban president said he was there primarily "to greet the workers." Castro indicated he had no intention of breaking already limited relations between the two countries. "It is (the Americans) who will decide what happens to this Interests Section," he said. (AP, 25/1/06)

January 25: Fidel Castro says Cuba is not afraid of an eventual rupture of the remaining tenuous diplomatic relations it has with the United States, something he claims is the objective of what he describes as recent US "provocations." "Cuba fears nothing," said the 79-year-old leader during a visit to the construction site in front of the US Interests Section in Havana. "When they decided on this nonsense (the electronic billboard) ... they cannot have had any other purpose than a provocation to destroy these tenuous ties (with Cuba)," the aging strongman said of US officials. The United States, Castro said, "has the aim of provoking the rupture of those minimal links of diplomatic relations." But he stressed that "if the relations are interrupted, we would lose absolutely nothing." "We are taking all the appropriate steps, all precautions to guarantee the supplies this country needs, to avert contingencies," he said, accusing Washington of seeking to destroy the budding trade between Havana and US farmers and ranchers who sell food to Cuba. Despite the 45-year-old US economic embargo against the Communist-ruled island, the Bush administration, citing humanitarian reasons, in recent years has allowed Havana to purchase foodstuffs and medicine for cash from US suppliers. (EFE, 26/1/06)

January 25: Bulldozers dug up a street in front of the US diplomatic mission in Havana apparently preparing to block the view of an electronic billboard carrying human rights messages that has angered Fidel Castro. Brigades of workers began the task hours after Castro and hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched past the mission to protest against the five-foot-high (1.5- meter) ticker that streams messages across the facade of the US Interests Section. US diplomats said Cuba's communist authorities were building a concrete wall or screen to obstruct view of the ticker, which displays messages to the Cuban people, news headlines like "Conservatives win elections in Canada", and quotes from Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Lech Walesa. "It is very clear that the Cuban government is building a wall to cut off dialogue," a spokesperson for the Interests Section said. Cuban officials said they were extending an open-air stage that has been the main venue for political rallies against the United States since 2000. "We are expanding the Anti-Imperialist Stage," an official overseeing the work said as an excavator ripped up the asphalt. Another said flag masts would be erected on a new square. (Reuters, 25/1/06)

January 25: Carlos M. and Elsa Alvarez spied on Florida International University President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique, giving details in at least one report to their Cuban intelligence handlers about a White House invitation Maidique received, according to a government affidavit. FBI agents executed a search warrant at FIU on January 12, and seized the Alvarezes' computers from their respective offices. That search was a follow-up to the FBI's discoveries in the Alvarezes' home computers, which were linked to those at their offices, according to an FBI affidavit. The document offers a first glimpse at the information the FBI believes the Alvarezes -- charged with failing to register as foreign agents -- provided to Cuban intelligence agents over the last three decades. The affidavit also attempts to link the professor's recruitment efforts to Puentes Cubanos, or Cuban Bridges, a nonprofit group that is not affiliated with FIU. ''Moreover, in 2002, the DI [Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence] assigned Carlos Alvarez to begin screening and evaluating students, some of them at FIU, that would be traveling to Cuba as part of an exchange program known as Puentes Cubanos,'' the affidavit said. "The DI was interested in which of these exchange students would be amenable to recruitment by the DI. Although Carlos Alvarez stated that he never received a follow-up request for actual names of potential recruits, he has stated to FBI agents that he would have provided that information if asked.'' (The Miami Herald, 25/1/06)

January 25: Two convicted Cuban immigrants were escorted into a federal courtroom, fully expecting a judge to put them behind bars for six years for their roles in a smuggling operation that ended in tragedy. But US District Judge K. Michael Moore delayed his decision, saying six years was not enough punishment under federal sentencing guidelines because a young boy drowned in the October 13 illegal crossing of the Florida Straits. Moore said he will make up his mind next month on the fate of Alexander Gil Rodriguez, 25, and Luis Manuel Taboada-Cabrera, 28, whose relatives and friends cried outside the courtroom. The two Miami men had reached quick plea deals in November on migrant smuggling offenses with federal prosecutors, who said they didn't have enough evidence to charge them with the death of 6-year-old Julian Villasuso. (The Miami Herald, 25/1/06)

January 26: Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban Parliament, denounced the torture carried out on hundreds of prisoners at the illegally occupied US Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba, in a debate about demilitarization in the Americas, during the 6th World Social Forum (WSF) taking place in Caracas, Venezuela. Alarcon demanded the elimination of all US military bases in Latin America and alerted that, since the US military is spread thin, Washington could hire mercenaries in the region to do its dirty work. We must do something so that the people of the United States reassume their massive anti-war campaign during the Vietnam War, said Alarcon. “That would force the Bush administration to withdraw the US troops from Iraq and prevent a similar situation in Latin America,” he added. (World Data Service, 26/1/06)

January 26: A search has been launched for 15 Cubans aboard a homemade wooden vessel that was spotted in the Florida Straits a day earlier, the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard personnel in a helicopter spotted the migrants about 46 miles southeast of Marathon in the Florida Keys. The Blackhawk crew lost contact with the vessel due to poor visibility and bad weather. The boat has not been located since. The helicopter crew reported the wooden vessel had no engine and was approximately 15 feet to 20 feet in length. The sea-state at the time was 4 to 6 foot seas and getting worse. It also reported all people on the vessel appeared to be wearing life jackets. Search efforts through the night included aircrews from Miami and Islamorada. At first light, a jet, a helicopter and a Hercules aircraft were launched to assist in the search. (Sun Sentinel, 26/1/06)

January 26: The US Treasury Department began a crackdown on illegal travel to Cuba, suspending the license of one of South Florida's largest Cuba travel agencies -- La Estrella de Cuba. The move could affect tens of thousands of people who have been searching for ways to travel to Cuba from the United States in the wake of the Bush administration's tightened travel restrictions imposed in 2004. Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said that the Office of Foreign Assets Control is conducting on-site audits at agencies that do business with Cuba, aiming to complete 25 audits this year. ``Instances of serious license violations may result in license suspension, cease-and-desist orders or penalties imposed under the Trading With the Enemy Act.'' (The Miami Herald, 27/1/06)

January 26: An electric sign streaming news and human rights messages across the facade of US diplomatic offices in Havana will stay put despite objections by the Cuban government, the top US envoy to the island said. "We will continue to communicate to the Cuban people using all sorts of methods (including the sign)," US Interests Section chief Michael Parmly told journalists at his Havana residence. Parmly said that the messages were not intended to be provocative, adding that the United States did not intend to break ties either. "I prefer not to talk of breaking relations," he said. "We have the intention of continuing our presence here, as long as they let us." In response to the sign, Castro launched a massive protest march past the Interests Section, then started a mysterious construction project directly in front of the offices the next day. Castro himself paid a surprise visit to the site, though he kept mum over what was being built. "Yes, I've noticed that something's being built in what used to be (our) parking lot," Parmly said. "It looks rather massive, with significant construction equipment. I can only wonder what's happening to construction elsewhere in the city, but that's not my affair." Parmly said his staff had started taking bets on what the structure was going to be, but he declined to share the theories. The Cuban government also surrounded the American mission with several billboards in reaction to the electric sign. "Someone's got a vivid imagination," Parmly said of the signs, calling others that used foul language "crude" and "disappointingly insulting to the Cuban people." (AP, 26/1/06)

January 26: Human rights organizations and the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus protested a decision by the Bush administration to back a measure introduced by Iran denying two gay rights groups a voice at the United Nations. Among countries with which the United States sided were Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, nations the State Department has cited in annual reports for their harsh treatment of homosexuals. (The New York Times, 27/1/06)

January 26: Despite the state's dry conditions, Oklahoma wheat is still valuable enough to spur a $4 million deal with Cuba. Officials from the state Agriculture Department recently returned from Cuba with a verbal commitment that the Caribbean island will purchase nearly 1 million bushels of wheat from the state. Mark Hodges, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, said though this year's crop may be a challenge, state wheat growers will be able to produce enough for the sale. (Tribune Business News, 26/1/06)

January 26: Cuban officials may ask the United States to grant visas to the island's two Grammy nominees so they can attend the February 8 awards show in Los Angeles, a request that will likely be denied. Mayito Rivera was nominated in the best salsa and merengue category for “Llego la hora” and Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal was nominated in the traditional Latin tropical music category for “Buena Vista Social Club Presents Manuel ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal”. "I think it's sad because artists have nothing to do with the disaster of politics," said saxophonist César López, who leads the popular jazz group Habana Ensemble, which visited Miami and New York in 1998 . (Sun Sentinel, 26/1/06)

January 30: The current state of Cuban affairs, the sale of Spanish planes to Venezuela and the new political landscape in Bolivia were some of the issues that US Undersecretary of State for Latin America Tom Shannon tackled with Spanish Foreign Affairs officials. After Madrid, Shannon will travel to Brussels, Paris and Rome. (AFP, 31/1/06)

January 30: Cuba's Communist regime was progressing rapidly with a construction project designed to block citizens' view of pro-democracy messages and news items scrolled across huge screens on the fifth floor of the US diplomatic mission. Dozens of giant masts went up opposite the US Interests Section in Havana, apparently intended to support banners that would obstruct the line of sight from the square to the "offending" messages. The capital has buzzed with rumors about the nature of the project since work got under way at the site, but the appearance of the construction points to the creation of a field of flags on what used to be a parking lot for US diplomats. (EFE, 30/1/06)

January 30: The President of the People´s Power Assembly (Parliament), Ricardo Alarcon, considered the process against the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in the US a farse. According to Alarcon, Bush cannot act correctly in this case since he is stained by his collaboration and relations with assassins as part of his historical plans to attack Cuba. (Prensa Latina, 30/1/06)

January 31: The organizers of the World Baseball Classic have resisted publicizing Cuba's 60-man roster for the 16-team tournament because the country has still not completed its agreement to compete in March. But the Cubans released the names to the news media in Havana. The Cubans have a roster that is familiar to anyone who saw them win the 2005 World Cup in the Netherlands. Of the 24 players who were on that team, 23 are on the roster for the World Baseball Classic, which runs March 3-20. The Cubans have to trim their roster to 30 players by March 2. (The New York Times, Globe & Mail, 1/2/06)

January 31: A Cuban top official lamented the death of Coretta Scott King, the widow of late human rights leader, Martin Luther King, and said that it was an “irony” that such loss happened when the US president was to address the nation. “I don’t know what the emperor will say in his State of the Nation address in a day like this one that brought the sad news of the passing away of Coretta Scott King", the president of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, said. “Black people in the US will not be listening to him, but paying respect to Coretta”, Alarcon added. (AFP, 31/1/06)