Chronicle on Cuba - March 2006

US-Cuba Relations

March 1: Reverend Lucius Walker, head of the US religious-solidarity organization Pastors for Peace, arrived in Havana heading a group of nine young Americans who will study medicine in the Latin American School of Medicine for free; this adds to the more than 80 US citizens who are already studying there. (AIN, 1/3/06)

March 1: A group of Cuban migrants who reached an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys in January only to be sent back to their homeland began preparing to legally travel to the United States after a US judge ruled they could return. The 15 men, women and children were completing applications for Cuban passports and had scheduled a meeting at the US Interests Section in Havana. It was not clear, however, whether the island's communist government would allow them to leave. (AP, 1/3/06)

March 1: In a press release issued by the office of US Senator Mel F. Martinez (Republican-Florida), the senator applauded the decision of a federal judge allowing 15 Cubans to return to the US. The Cubans had reached the Old Seven Mile bridge in the Keys, but since the bridge was no longer linked to land, the Coast Guard ruled that the Cubans had not reached US soil and took them back to Cuba. "I applaud Judge Federico Moreno's decision. I wish our policy could have reflected this judgment before the victims in this case were sent back to a nation controlled by a dictator”, Martinez said. "This ruling is further evidence that we need to review the wet foot/dry foot policy. We also need to broaden the discussion to encompass the Migration Accords. It's unilaterally violated by Cuba while we observe the most painful part of it”. (US Fed News, 1/3/06)

March 1: During 2005 d rug seizures in Cuba declined to their lowest level in ten years, according to a report released by the US Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, says that the Cuban government reported the seizure of 2,477 kilograms of illicit narcotics, which included 2,194 kilograms of marijuana, 282 kilograms of cocaine, 2,579 plants of marijuana and 19,197 marijuana seeds. “Cuban officials profess their interest in developing with the US government bilateral agreements to combat drug trafficking, terrorism and the trafficking of migrants; however, such agreements are not possible until the Cuban regime abandons its totalitarian character and its role as a state sponsor of terrorism”, the reports said. [International Narcotics Control Strategy Report ](EFE, 1/3/06)

March 2: Cuban academics hoping to attend a gathering of Latin America experts in Puerto Rico were denied visas by the American government, marking the latest in the current US administration's trend of shutting out Cubans. Some 55 philosophers, economists, and historians were told they'd be unable to travel to this month's Latin American Studies Association congress in San Juan. Visa requests for four academics were still pending, said Sheryl Lutjens, an American political science professor at Northern Arizona University. ''These people represent strong scholars who think critically and who are often experts in their area where there are no others,'' said Lutjens, who co-chairs the association's Cuba section and is currently visiting the country. ''This is alarming.'' Academic exchange between Cuba and the United States has diminished over the last two years since the administration of President Bush started tightening long-standing trade and travel regulations against the island's communist government. (AP, 2/3/06)

March 2: The regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is renewing its attacks on free speech in Cuba, warns a press advocacy group called the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA). In a statement, the Miami-based group said the Castro regime "continues using perverse methods to silence critical voices and gag any slight attempt at freedom of expression" in Cuba. The group said it has received in recent weeks complaints from a number of Cuban independent journalists who say they have been subjected to harassment by the staging of neighborhood "repudiation" rallies outside their homes. Holding such rallies, said the IAPA, is a technique used by Cuba's state security apparatus "in an attempt to intimidate and demoralize those who dissent from the official political line.” Part of the Castro regime's official wave of repression has been the harassment of journalists Oscar Espinosa Chepe and Jorge Olivera Castillo, said the IAPA. The two journalists were paroled from jail because of health problems after they had been imprisoned in March 2003 along with 73 other people, among them dissidents and independent journalists. The IAPA also reported the Castro regime's harassment of numerous other independent journalists in Cuba. (USINFO, 7/3/06)

March 2: In a rare display of cooperation between two generally antagonistic nations, soldiers from the US Southern Command (Southcom) provided assistance to five Cuban doctors injured in an auto accident in Honduras. Southcom, which is based in Miami, said its personnel treated the Cuban doctors after the accident near the Soto Cano air base in Palmerola. "Soldiers and Airmen provided immediate medical treatment to four Cuban citizens injured in the accident and air-evacuated the victims to a Tegucigalpa hospital for further medical care," Southcom said in a statement. The doctors, who are in Honduras on a medical mission, were traveling from Tegucigalpa to Comayagua when the accident occurred, Southcom said. All the injured Cuban doctors reportedly were recovering. (EFE, 2/3/06)

March 2: Cuba is moving to develop its offshore oil and gas resources, which would result in development closer to Florida's coast than the US government allows, Representative John E. Peterson (Republican-Pennsylvania) warned. "Offshore oil and natural gas drilling, sanctioned by the Cuban government, occurs within 60 miles of Florida's southern borders. Moreover, the drilling potential within the existing Cuban basin is such that oil wells will, in the near future, be as close as 35-40 miles from the Florida keys," he said. The island nation cannot develop its offshore energy resources itself, so it enlisted the help of Canadian, Chinese, Indian, Spanish, Venezuelan, and Norwegian companies, Peterson said. With their help, Cuba has pumped $1.7 billion into its energy industry since 2004, he said at a breakfast sponsored by Dow Chemical Co. and The Hill newspaper. The proposed 5-year Outer Continental Shelf leasing plan being developed by the US Minerals Management Service and a bill before the US Senate would establish a 100-mile oil and gas leasing buffer off Florida's coast. Most of the state's congressional delegation supports another bill that its two US senators, Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson, introduced on February 1 that would effectively push new offshore exploration 260 miles from Tampa Bay. "Any way you slice it, Cuba, with the help of its foreign enablers, is drilling closer to sovereign American property than we are," Peterson said. (Oil & Gas Journal, 2/3/06)

March 2: Thirty-one US-bound Cuban emigrants died when the overcrowded boat in which they were traveling capsized some 20 miles off the coast, Havana television reported. Three people survived the tragedy, which supposedly took place in late December but was not reported by Cuban TV until now. A Cuban TV channel put together an extensive news report on the tragedy, one of the island's most serious ocean accidents in recent years. Local TV did not specify the date of the shipwreck, but sources said it happened at the end of December when 34 Cubans boarded a speedboat to try and get to the United States illegally. Daysel Alfaro Blanco, one of the three survivors, said in the TV report that the boat only had the capacity for 10 people. Some 20 miles off the coast, she said, the boat began to have engine and steering problems and then drifted without power until it finally capsized. "When it turned over, there were 14 of us hanging onto the boat, and everyone was very nervous and they started to drown. Many had heart attacks, and the others couldn't take it anymore and (let go)," she said. (EFE, 2/3/06)

March 3: Jose Ramon Fernandez, president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, said he hoped the team representing the island in the inaugural World Baseball Classic will play at the level the Cuban people expect of it. Cuba named its final 30-man roster for the event, baseball's equivalent of the World Cup. "The team is very good, has a spirit of cooperation and (...) fair play, with a blend of youth and experience and an enormous desire to give their all in the event," Fernandez said. Fernandez, who is also vice president of the Communist-ruled island's Council of Ministers, said the fact the roster was announced "means there are no problems with visas." The Bush administration on January 20 reversed an earlier ruling and said Cuba may play in the Classic, with the money from the event that would have gone to Havana to be donated, as suggested by the Castro regime, to a Hurricane Katrina relief fund. (EFE, 3/3/06)

March 4: A top Cuban official blamed the United States for the predicament of a group of migrants sent back home after reaching an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys. The US government said the bridge did not count as dry land because chunks of it are missing and it no longer connects to US soil -- and it sent back the 15 men, women and children in January. Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon criticized the US "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy. Under the policy, Cubans who reach US soil are generally allowed to stay, while those stopped at sea are returned. It encourages illegal and dangerous immigration, Alarcon told journalists. "Ask them if one has to risk their life, going to strange places like the bridge, to make a judge order (the US government) to grant a visa?" he said. The fate of the 15 who reached the bridge was not clear. The migrants were completing applications for Cuban passports, and had a meeting scheduled at the US Interests Section in Havana. Alarcon declined to say whether the island's communist government would allow them to leave. (AP, 4/3/06)

March 6: More than 100 members of Congress have signed a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow questioning changes in his department's rules that have halted the ability of some religious organizations to travel to Cuba. “We understand the complicated political reality that exists between the United States and Cuban governments," reads the March 3 letter spearheaded by Representatives James P. McGovern (Democrat-Massachussets), Jeff Flake (Republican-Arizona) and Barbara Lee (Democrat-California). "However, we believe it is inappropriate and unacceptable for politics and government to serve as a hurdle and now as a barrier to faith-based connections between individuals. If anything, these connections foster greater religious freedom in Cuba and contribute to a severely-lacking free-flowing exchange of ideas between the two countries," the letter states. The concerns addressed in the three-page letter with 105 signatories are also scheduled to be the subject of a Capitol Hill meeting on March 15 among politicians, administration officials and religious leaders. Affected groups include the National Council of Churches, the American Baptist Churches USA and the Alliance of Baptists -- which no longer have licenses -- and organizations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA) whose Cuban travel has new restrictions. Some of these groups have traveled to Cuba for more than a decade to meet with partner churches and attend conferences in the communist island nation. (The Washington Post, 6/3/06)

March 8: A leading association of scholars devoted to Latin American studies and based at the University of Pittsburgh is asking the US government to rethink its decision to bar Cuban scholars from the group's convention. The visa denials cover 55 participants from that country who were to attend the Latin American Studies Association's International Congress in San Juan, Puerto Rico on March 15-18. They are the latest in a long line of athletes, academics and others from Cuba and the United States who have seen their travel plans between the two countries blocked by Washington amid ongoing tension with Fidel Castro's Communist government. In a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the association said its mission is to "foster intellectual discussion, research and teaching on Latin America" that promotes better understanding and civic engagement. "Our ability to fulfill this mission is seriously compromised by the systematic denial of visas to our Cuban colleagues," the letter stated. The letter, dated February 28, was signed by leaders including association President Sonia E. Alvarez, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was resubmitted to Washington with the names of 1,534 member scholars, according to staff at the association's Pitt headquarters. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/3/06)

March 8: The speaker of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, termed the US administration program known in Cuba as “the Bush Plan”, as annexionist and genocidal. Speaking at the Jose Marti Anti-Imperialist Tribune, the legislative leader spoke against the US scheme for an alleged transition in Cuba. He pointed out that President George W. Bush recently threatened to update the document, which was presented in 2004 by a commission led by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. “W e will never return to the past; this country, its men, women and children will never go back to that system of dishonor, discrimination, and misery that Bush has proposed to impose on Cuba with his plan of occupation," said Alarcon. (Prensa Latina, Granma, 9/3/06)

March 8: Six undocumented Cuban migrants arrived on Mona Island, an uninhabited islet that lies between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and is part of the territory of this US commonwealth, authorities said. Sgt. Jose Luis Rivera Morales said that the migrants - three men, a woman and two children - were in good health. The preliminary police report said the Cubans were dropped off on the island by the owners of a boat operating from the Dominican Republic. Traffickers frequently bring Cuban migrants to Mona, taking advantage of Washington's "wet foot, dry foot" policy, which mandates that Cubans who reach US soil may remain and apply for permanent residence while those intercepted at sea are generally returned to their homeland. A dozen Cubans reached Mona Island the day before, and a party of 23 arrived there on February 24. It is now common for the Cubans who come to Mona to contact family members already in Puerto Rico - presumably by cellphone - so the latter can alert authorities to retrieve the migrants. (EFE, 8/3/06)

March 8: The United States denounced the human rights records of familiar foes Cuba and Venezuela in an annual report that noted improvements in Colombia, Washington's top Latin American ally. The US State Department's human rights report charged that the record of Fidel Castro's communist regime "remained poor," while the Venezuelan government was criticized for its treatment of the media and political opponents. Havana's "human rights record remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous, serious abuses," the report said. "At least 333 Cuban political prisoners and detainees were held at year's end." Cuban citizens were denied the right to change their government, while "government-recruited mobs" frequently harassed political opponents, it said. Detainees, including human rights activists, were beaten and abused with impunity, the report said. [Country Reports on Human Rights: Cuba] (AFP, 8/3/06)

March 8: The top American diplomat in Cuba lashed out at what he called "a sinister wave of repression" on the island by the Castro government during a press conference timed to coincide with the release of the US State Department's annual Human Rights Report. Michael E. Parmly, chief of the US Interests Section, said the Cuban government continued to engage in "systematic violations of fundamental rights," and continued to sponsor mob actions designed to squelch dissent. "Acts of repudiation are occurring all over the country," said Parmly. "When a government-mobilized mob gathers at the home of a free-thinking Cuban and offers hateful chants, threats or violence, the victim suffers enormously, as do family members." There was no immediate response from the Cuban government, which in the past has ignored such reports. [Statement by COM Michael E. Parmly] (Sun Sentinel, 9/3/06)

March 10: Security workers confiscated posters from fans at the World Baseball Classic, the day after an anti-Castro sign appeared in the stands of a Cuba-Netherlands game, provoking an international incident. The controversy has escalated with the velocity of a major league fastball since a spectator raised a sign saying ''Down with Fidel'' behind home plate -- an image beamed live to millions of TV viewers, including those in Cuba. Private security officials confiscated all posters from spectators entering Hiram Bithorn Stadium for the Cuba-Puerto Rico game, including one showing a Puerto Rican player hitting a baseball that bore the image of Fidel Castro's head. But a top police official said his officers would not enforce the ban. ''I have been clear that here there is freedom of expression and the police of Puerto Rico will not interfere at any time with any type of expression,'' Puerto Rico Police Chief Pedro Toledo said. (AP, 11/3/06)

March 10: Several hundred people, most of them young and members of various athletic teams, rallied in front of the US Interests Section in Havana to protest what the Castro government has called "the cynical counter-revolutionary provocations" aimed at the nation's baseball team during the World Baseball Classic round in Puerto Rico. The gathering was prompted by a scuffle that erupted in the stands during Cuba's 11-2 win over the Netherlands when a demonstrator held up a sign reading, "Abajo Fidel," which means "Down with Fidel." Among several speakers at the protest was Olga Ledia Castillo Fernandez, the mother of Cuba's 21-year-old slugger Yulieski Gourriel. She sent "kisses and hugs" to her son and then urged the team "to continue firmly moving toward victory."
The Cuban government, in a front-page editorial in the communist party daily Granma, accused US and Puerto Rican authorities of supporting the anti-Castro protesters. (Sun Sentinel, 11/3/06)

March 10: As the Bush administration reviews the controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy, US Senator Mel Martinez said the best solution would be to bring all Cuban migrants to land and then determine if they can migrate to the United States or go back to the island. ''You bring them to land (…) everybody's dry-foot, and then you deal with them in a fair and open way,'' Martinez said at a news conference at the Biltmore Hotel. "I think that the human rights violations that are seen in Cuba make it immoral for us to be repatriating Cubans the way we are doing now.'' It's crucial for the government to undertake reforms to US-Cuba migration policy to make it more humanitarian and to serve the interests of the United States, he said. The United States should avoid another embarrassing Cuba migration episode, he said, such as the one that took place in January when 15 Cuban migrants found on an old bridge in the Florida Keys were sent back to Cuba because the Coast Guard decided that the unattached bridge did not constitute dry land. (The Miami Herald, 11/3/06)

March 11: A delegation of 18 faculty members, staff and students from Southern Illinois University will head to Cuba for a nine-day visit -- the school's second official trip to the country. SIU Edwardsville Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift and SIU Carbondale's Larry Dietz, a vice chancellor, will be leading the delegation. Officials said they hope to cultivate relationships that lead to more faculty and student exchanges as well as potential collaborations in areas such as health care, biotechnology, public policy, agriculture, architecture and theater. For about a decade, SIU has had a special license from the US Department of the Treasury to allow research and education-related trips to Cuba, said John Haller, vice president of academic affairs. SIU is one of only four US universities to have such a license, he said. (St. Louis Post, 11/3/06)

March 13: The Senate passed a resolution that proposes a study of the socio-economic impact on Puerto Rico of the "possible return" of Cuba to the community of democratic countries with a free economy. The piece of legislation also proposes to look into the role of the Puerto Rican industrial and commercial sectors, as well as the Puerto Rican managerial and professional class in the Cuban reconstruction, and recommends the creation of a "Puerto Rican Institute for the Cuban Reconstruction." (EFE, 13/3/06)

March 14: The Cuban government is preventing more than 500 Cubans with visas from leaving the country, the Miami Herald reported. Among the 553 Cubans seeking to come to the United States are senior government or military officials, who the Castro government reportedly views as defectors, said officials at the US mission in Havana. Cuban authorities require citizens with visas to also get an exit visa before leaving the country. "Although the government allows the departure of people classified as immigrants or who have refugee status in other countries, thousands of citizens who received documents to travel abroad were denied authorization to leave last year," says a report issued by the US State Department. (UPI, El Nuevo Herald, 13/3/06)

March 14: The latest Cuban emigrants - a group of 10 - arrived at Isla Mona, Puerto Rico, from the Dominican Republic. Cubans intent on leaving the Communist island for life in the United States are increasingly resorting to a circuitous route with a stop on this uninhabited Caribbean isle that, in addition to red-footed booby birds and other fascinating wildlife, has the key distinction of being US territory. Mona Island is a speck about halfway between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico that has become the new preferred port of entry for Cubans heading to the United States. Officials said several groups of Cuban emigrants have arrived in recent weeks on Mona, a natural gem measuring 40 square kilometers (about 15.5 square miles) that features a level of biodiversity that has earned it the nickname "Galapagos of the Caribbean." Police said the boat that carried the six men, three women and 5-year-old child to the island returned to the Dominican Republic. (EFE, 14/3/06)

March 14: The Bahamas released two Cuban dentists who had been detained on the islands for nearly a year despite having clearance to enter the US. David Gonzalez-Mejias and Marialis Darias-Mesa arrived in Florida, according to a spokesman for US Representative Connie Mack IV, a Florida Republican who had pushed for their release and threatened economic sanctions against the Bahamas. The pair were detained in the Bahamas since April 2005, when a boat carrying them and 16 other Cuban immigrants stalled in Bahamian waters. The US Coast Guard handed the immigrants over to the Bahamas, which has an agreement with Cuba calling for repatriation of Cuban nationals. Family members said the two decided to flee Cuba after Fidel Castro’s government repeatedly refused to let them leave for the US -- even though they had obtained visas three years earlier allowing them to emigrate legally. Their families were permitted to leave and had settled in Cape Coral and in Tampa. Cuba has for years refused exit visas for doctors, dentists and other health professionals. (AP,15/3/06)

March 15: US Senator Mel Martinez (Republican-Florida) applauded the work of the US State Department in helping to free two Cubans doctors who were being wrongfully detained in Nassau, Bahamas. The State Department announced that Drs. David Gonzalez Mejias and Marialis Darias-Mesa were released. “To escape Cuba, with US visas in hand, only to be held in prison cells was unjust and painful to watch,” said Martinez. “I applaud Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s response and the efforts of Ambassador John Rood in persuading the Bahamian government to do the right thing in letting these individuals go free.” In a recent Foreign Relations Committee meeting, Senator Martinez asked Secretary of State Rice for an update on the situation of the two Cuban doctors interdicted by the US Coast Guard in Bahamian waters in April 2005 and subsequently turned over to the government of The Bahamas. (Netfor Cuba, 15/3/06)

March 15: Members of Congress opposed to the US embargo of Cuba are meeting with administration officials in Washington to discuss what they say are new restrictions on religious travel to Cuba, said Matthew Specht, a spokesman for Representative Jeff Flake, Republican-Arizona. Members of the Cuba Working Group are planning to meet with representatives from the departments of State and Treasury. More than 100 members of Congress and more than a dozen senators have sent letters to Treasury Secretary John Snow over the past weeks complaining about tightened restrictions on religious travel and asking for explanations. (The Miami Herald, 15/3/06)

March 15: A demand to put an end to the actions carried out by the United States in Iraq and other parts of the world has been signed by 420 prestigious intellectuals from 32 countries. The manifesto, being circulated internationally under the title “Stop the Hypocrisy in Human Rights”, demands the closing of the arbitrary detention centers set up by the US imperial forces. In Havana, the document was read at the Casa de las Americas by Cuban poet and writer Roberto Retamar who emphasized the support received by eight Nobel Laureates: Jose Saramago from Portugal, Nadine Gordimer from South Africa, Dario Fe from Italy, Harold Pinter from Great Britain and Wole Soyinka from Nigeria —all winners in the category for literature—; and Nobel Peace Laureates Adolfo Perez from Argentina, Rigoberta Menchu from Guatemala and Mairead Corrigan Maguire from Ireland. (Granma, 15/3/06)

March 16: Five Cuban migrants may have died in the past two weeks trying to make it to US shores, and the Coast Guard said it repatriated to Cuba 44 migrants picked up at sea in the last few days. The Coast Guard intercepted the first group of four migrants aboard a rustic vessel 67 miles south of the Dry Tortugas on March 5. Two days later, another group of 13 migrants was found on a on an old boat 66 miles south of Marquesas. Of those, two were transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, the Coast Guard said. On March 8, the Coast Guard found yet another ''rustic vessel'' with 13 migrants aboard 72 miles south of Key West. The migrants told the Coast Guard that their motor had broken down, that they had been adrift for almost two weeks -- including nine days without food and water -- and that one older Cuban had died during the voyage. That same day, the cutter Drummond intercepted another rustic vessel with seven migrants just four miles west of Dry Tortugas. ''The group of migrants stated four fellow migrants jumped overboard in an attempt to swim to land,'' the Coast Guard said in a news release. "The Coast Guard launched a massive 36-hour search that included the Cutter Drummond and several aircraft in response to a body found on Dry Tortugas, earlier that morning. The body found that morning is thought to be one of the four migrants who jumped overboard because the deceased migrant was found wearing a life jacket similar to those worn by the rescued migrants.'' (The Miami Herald, 16/3/06)

March 17: Cuba criticized the US offensive in northern Iraq, saying a victory sending the island's team to the World Baseball Classic semifinals had not blinded the communist government to news in the rest of the world. In an editorial titled "No Human Pain is Apart From Us," the Communist Party daily Granma said Operation Swarrmer in Iraq was conducted by "men, separated from any feeling of getting along in solidarity, made into animals by war." (CNN, 17/3/06)

March 17: Ten years after the controversial Helms-Burton Act tightened the US trade embargo on Cuba, one of its staunchest supporters now says that some of its key passages may need to be changed. Florida Republican Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who drafted parts of the law, said he's generally pleased with Helms-Burton because it took key elements of Cuba policy out of the president's hands and thereby allowed the embargo "to survive the second four years of the Clinton administration.'' But the law also contains "static'' - unnecessary provisions, he added. "Legislating is never a pretty process,'' he told the press. Diaz-Balart says he favors paring the conditions for lifting the embargo to three: Cuba must free all political prisoners and allow exiles to return, opposition political parties must be legalized, and the government must declare it will hold democratic elections ``in six months, one year, two years, three years.'' Diaz-Balart made it clear that if Raul met the three conditions, he would deal with Raul. "That's what I call static,'' Diaz-Balart said. "I don't care what the name is. The real name is legitimacy.'' (Knight Ridder, 17/3/06)

March 17: The White House's latest National Security Strategy report listed Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia among the world's seven top trouble spots that could threaten US interests. The report identifies national security threats and suggests ways the United States should be prepared to respond. It reasserted the need to engage in preventive wars to thwart terrorists and hostile governments, a position initially stated in the 2002 report. The report casts Cuba's communist government as a regional menace, saying that in Havana ``an anti-American dictator continues to oppress his people and seeks to subvert freedom in the region.'' It makes only brief mentions of the Latin American countries and provides no evidence to back up the assertions. (The Miami Herald, 17/3/06)

March 20: Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan began a visit to Cuba. Farrakhan was welcomed by the head of the Cuban legislature, Ricardo Alarcon, the state news agency Prensa Latina reported. The US Muslim leader also is scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and other government officials and to visit the Latin American School of Medicine. Farrakhan - known for his controversial conspiracy theories such as that the New Orleans levee was breached during Hurricane Katrina because of an intentional explosion aimed at flooding the city and "getting rid of the poor people" - will also visit an art school and meet with Cuban athletes. In addition, he will meet with relatives of the five Cuban agents sentenced by a Miami court in 2001 to prison terms of 15 years to life for espionage. (EFE, 20/3/06)

March 20: Two Cubans have been jailed for 10 years in the US for planning a migrant crossing which ended in the death of a six-year-old boy, prosecutors said. The boy was in a boat with nearly 30 other Cubans when the vessel overturned, trapping him underneath. The judge imposed a maximum term on Alexander Gil Rodriguez and Luis Manuel Taboada Cabrere, citing a marked increase in illegal crossings. Both admitted conspiracy to encourage aliens to enter the US illegally. (BBC, 20/3/06)

March 20: A federal judge has approved a settlement allowing all but one of 15 Cubans who landed on the Old Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys to enter the United States. To make the deal possible, US District Judge Federico Moreno retracted his February 28 decision that the bridge qualifies as US soil. The Department of Homeland Security has to issue entry papers to 14 of the 15 Cubans repatriated after reaching the bridge on January 4. Immigration officials will not admit Lazaro Jesus Martinez Jimenez for reasons that were not disclosed. Fidel Castro's government issued passports for the 14 rafters, which indicates that the communist government will not prevent the immigrants from returning to the United States. (Sun Sentinel, Reuters, 21/3/06)

March 21: A Carnival cruise ship was poised to turn over to the Coast Guard 28 Cuban migrants it picked up on the high seas, after having stopped in Galveston, Texas, over the weekend, Coast Guard officials said. Meanwhile, the day before, another 19 Cuban migrants made it to dry land at Sand Key, according to Border Patrol spokesman Robert Montemayor. He said 14 were at the Border Patrol office in Pembroke Pines, and five were taken to a Miami hospital to be treated for dehydration and sun exposure. As for the 28 on the cruise ship, they most likely will be repatriated to Cuba unless they can convince US officials that they face political persecution and qualify for asylum. (The Miami Herald, 21/3/06)

March 21: Cuba gave its baseball team a hero's welcome and said the runner-up prize money from the World Baseball Classic would go to victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States. Fidel Castro relished the moment as a triumph over his bitter enemy, the US government, which had tried to prevent Communist Cuba from playing in the 16-nation tourney, citing four-decade-old sanctions against Havana. The Bush administration reversed that decision under pressure from the baseball world and after Cuba vowed not to take home any prize money. As runner-up, Cuba is entitled to 7 percent of the net revenue of the tournament. "Whatever we get will be used there for the martyrs of Katrina, be it one million (dollars), two, three or four," Castro said in a speech. "The money will go there without any doubt and with great satisfaction, because it will heighten the morale of our athletes." An electronic billboard that usually flashes criticism of Cuba's one-party state from the front of the US Interests Section in Havana congratulated the players for their sterling effort in the baseball tournament. (EFE, 21/3/06)

March 22: A Cuban militant accused of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner will remain in US immigration custody for the foreseeable future but efforts will continue to deport him to a country willing to accept him. Luis Posada Carriles was arrested in Miami in May after illegally entering the United States through Mexico and is being held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in El Paso, Texas. An ICE statement obtained by the press says that Posada "will not be released from the custody of ICE at this time'' and that further review was needed to determine where he could finally be sent. A federal immigration judge ruled last fall that Posada could not be deported to either Cuba or Venezuela, citing the possibility he could be tortured. That prohibition, according to the ICE statement, "does not impede ICE from removing Mr. Posada to a third country.'' Posada's attorney in Miami had no immediate comment on the decision. (AP, 22/3/06)

March 23: Venezuela's government has accused US immigration authorities of protecting a Cuban exile who Caracas wants extradited to face trial for a 1976 plane bombing that killed 73 people. The US Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency ruled that Luis Posada Carriles, who was detained by US authorities last May after illegally slipping into the country from Mexico, would stay in custody. Caracas rejected this attempt by the United States to avoid its request for extradition of Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan and former CIA operative. ``We again call on the White House to honor its international treaty obligations and either extradite or prosecute Luis Posada Carriles for 73 counts of first degree murder,'' the Venezuelan embassy in Washington said in a statement. (Reuters, 24/3/06)

March 23: Major League Baseball denied a claim by Fidel Castro that his government will donate proceeds from the World Baseball Classic to US victims of Hurricane Katrina. In a speech on March 21, Castro boasted that the Bush administration's initial attempts to bar his country from participating in the tournament had backfired, and that Cuba's take from the tournament would go to "Katrina's martyrs.'' Patrick Courtney, a spokesman for Major League Baseball (MLB), which helped organized the tournament, said that the Classic's agreement with the Cuban baseball federation clearly stipulated that Cuba, unlike the other 15 participating federations, would receive none of the tournament's proceeds. ''To the contrary, at the insistence of the Treasury and the State Department, Cuba agreed, as a condition of its participation in the tournament, that `it will not receive any direct or indirect revenues and/or prize money,'' Courtney wrote in an email to the Miami Herald. ''Based on the agreement, Cuba doesn't have a cut of the proceeds from the tournament, and there is nothing for Cuba to donate,'' he added. (The Miami Herald, 23/3/06)

March 24: Cuba's prize money from the first World Baseball Classic has become a political football in Fidel Castro's 4-decade-old sparing match with the United States. Castro said he wanted to donate the money to victims of Hurricane Katrina but US officials say Cuba isn't getting any prize money. Cuba denounced "foul play" in a front-page editorial in the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma. A Major League Baseball official said the deal that allowed Cuba to play in the tournament, which was reached in February with the US State Department and agreed to by Cuba, made it "crystal clear" that Havana would not receive any share of the profits, even for charity. There may not be any cash left over to distribute to the WBC winners because the 17-day, 39-game tournament played at seven venues in Asia and the United States cost so much, an estimated $50 million. [Anuncian en Miami juego sucio contra Cuba] (Reuters, 24/3/06)

March 24: A group of Cuba migrants repatriated after reaching an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys under the "wet foot-dry foot" policy began the final paperwork to emigrate to the United States for good. Fourteen people from the original group of 15, who were returned to Cuba in January in a disputed action, each received an official US letter confirming they will receive humanitarian visas to emigrate to the United States. They include two children, ages 2 and 13. The letter, delivered during a three-hour meeting with American officials in Havana, is required to seek permission from their own government to leave the country. Without Cuban exit permits, they cannot leave the island. "If everything goes well, we should be able to leave toward the end of next month," said 28-year-old Alexis Gonzalez Blanco, who was among those returned in the much-debated decision. "I'm really happy," said fellow migrant Ernesto Hernandez, 48. "This is my dream." (AP, 24/3/06)

March 26: A group of Americans are headed to Cuba to help its government preserve the documents and the fishing boat of author Ernest Hemingway. Dana Hewson, a boat preservationist from Connecticut, is joining a group from the Boston-based Hemingway Preservation Foundation as they travel to the author's estate in Cuba, Finca Vigia. Hewson will examine the Pilar, the 40-foot (12.9-metre) boat that Hemingway used while he lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1960. The vessel, a Wheeler Playmate, is said to be the place where Hemingway created some of his greatest works, including “ The Old Man and the Sea”. It is stored under a metal roof on a former tennis court on the estate, about 20 kilometres from Havana. (CBC, 26/3/06)

March 27: Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan called the US embargo against Cuba "wicked" and said that American officials could learn much by studying the communist country's disaster preparedness plans. "We learned how they organize the people house by house, block by block," Farrakhan told international reporters of how Cuba painstakingly plans for hurricanes and other natural disasters. "They know every person in that community." After returning to the United States, he said, Nation of Islam leaders hope to meet with the mayors of American cities and leaders of black and other minority organizations to discuss incorporating some of what Cuba has learned into their own civil defense plans. (AP, 27/3/06)

March 28: Fourteen Cuban migrants sent back home after reaching an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys began the process to get their government's approval to return to the United States for good. One of the migrants, Elizabeth Hernandez, told the press in a telephone conversation from her home in Matanzas province that the group gave Cuban immigration officials their requests for exit permits necessary to leave the country. Cuban authorities in Matanzas, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Havana, said the migrants would receive an answer within 30 days, Hernandez said. (AP, 28/3/06)

March 28: Under fire from some Cuban exile quarters, Miami Republican Representative Lincoln Díaz-Balart is saying that he never proposed ''unilateral'' changes in the Helms-Burton law that regulates the US embargo on Cuba. Díaz-Balart told The Miami Herald in a recent interview that while he supports the law, he would favor lifting some of the sanctions if Havana freed all political prisoners, legalized opposition parties and promised free elections -- regardless of who rules Cuba. The Miami Herald stands by its story, and Díaz-Balart has not requested a correction or clarification. (The Miami Herald, 28/3/06)

March 29: Federal agents planted a bug in the bedroom of a Florida International University a couple of years ago, netting evidence to charge them as unregistered agents for the Cuban government, according to court records. The FBI also wiretapped the home phones of Professor Carlos Alvarez and his counselor wife, Elsa Alvarez, from at least late 2001 until last summer, collecting electronic evidence on practically all of their conversations. The reams of intercepts included mundane exchanges and even the private musings between husband and wife. The FBI's eavesdropping of the couple's home goes far beyond what was first known about evidence in the case, which included alleged ''confessions'' to federal agents last summer and the confiscation of the Alvarezes' home and FIU computers. The surveillance evidence surfaced as part of their lawyers' efforts to revoke the couple's detention before their scheduled May 8 trial. But the Alvarezes' lawyers say the ''majority deals only with mundane activities of daily life'' -- such as conversations about the Alvarezes' dinner plans, the tenting of their South Miami home for termites and meetings at their Catholic church. (The Miami Herald, 29/3/06)

March 29: During an intense grilling on Capitol Hill, the Swiss banking giant, UBS was accused of engaging in a pattern of resistance to congressional inquiries, as lawmakers cited years of non-cooperation with congressional probes into improper transactions between the bank and terrorist regimes. The hearing of the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight, chaired by Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, was a long-awaited public examination of UBS's alleged money laundering for state sponsors of terrorism, including Cuba and Iran. At the hearing, the witness provided by UBS, managing director Michael Herde, offered few specifics in response to lawmakers' inquiries, at times appearing to provoke interrogators already seemingly irked by the Swiss bank. Mr. Herde did disclose that UBS decided in November, after years of congressional inquiries, to end its business in countries against which America maintains sanctions. He added that the bank was in the middle of closing down its accounts in Iran and Cuba, a process a spokeswoman, Christine Walton, later said would be "around 80%" complete at the end of April. (The New York Sun, 30/3/06)

March 30: Trial of two Cuban-American academics accused of acting as agents of Fidel Castro's government will be delayed until early 2007, in part because of a legal fight over secret recorded conversations involving the married couple. The trial of Carlos Alvarez, 61, and Elsa Alvarez, 55, had been set to begin in May. But US District Judge K. Michael Moore said at a status hearing that he would postpone the trial until sometime in January 2007. One key reason for the delay is that defense attorneys are challenging whether the FBI lawfully obtained warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to eavesdrop on the pair. Prosecutors said it will take months for federal officials to produce the information about those thousands of intercepts being sought by the Alvarez lawyers. (AP, 30/3/06)

March 30: A handful of US college students are getting a firsthand look at Fidel Castro's Cuba. As the Bush administration tightens the US trade embargo on the communist-run nation, students, academics, religious groups and even Cuban-Americans with family on the Caribbean island are finding their travel to Cuba increasingly restricted. "They're trying to find more ways to get tough with Cuba," said Philip Brenner, a Cuba expert and associate dean at American University in Washington D.C. "This is a foretaste of more restrictions that will prevent Cubans and Americans from dealing with each other at all," he said. Brenner helped arrange a four-month visit to Cuba by nine American University students who say they are at times puzzled by the contradictions between Cuban government rhetoric about the benefits of a socialist society and Cubans' lack of material wealth. "I've traveled a lot and for me it has been very frustrating," said 21-year-old Jessica Skinner, of Grand Junction, Colorado. "I came here being very anti-embargo and now that I'm here, I'm confused." (AP, 30/3/06)

March 30: A daily updated website on the case of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, including important declassified documents released by US authorities that clearly link Posada to the Barbados downing of a Cubana Airlines DC-8 that killed all 73 people aboard in 1976, may be accessed at http://www.familiesforjustice.cu and http://www.familiesforjustice.net in English and Spanish. The Relatives of the Barbados Plane Bomb Victims Committee publishes on the homepage a selection of news items and analysis on the case by Cuban and foreign authors, said Camilo Rojo, the son of one of the DC8’s crew. Rojo is on the committee’s executive board. Included are a group of personal testimonies with details on the lives of the relatives of the victims of the plane sabotage. (Granma, 31/3/06)

March 30: The US-Cuba Trade Association has formed a Florida chapter and will hold a statewide conference on April 13 for all Florida-based companies interested in trade with Cuba called "Doing Business in Cuba." The event will be held at the Citrus Club in downtown Orlando. The focus of the conference will be on the potential for immediate trade in medical, agricultural and food products. In October 2000, Congress passed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act, making it legal for US companies to sell such products to Cuba. Since then, US companies have conducted almost two billion dollars worth of trade with Cuba. This statewide conference will feature for the first time a live question & answer session via teleconference, during which attendees can interact with Cuban trade and business officials speaking live from Havana. (PRNewswire, 30/3/06)