Chronicle on Cuba - May 2006

US-Cuba Relations

May 1: Fidel Castro charged that the US characterization of his country as a terrorist nation was cynical and shameless as Washington had harbored violence-prone Cuban exiles for decades. The US State Department, in its annual terrorism report, once more included Cuba as one of six terrorist nations, along with North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan. "The Department of State has in a cynical and shameless fashion accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of friendliness toward terrorism and Cuba of being a terrorist country," Castro said during a more than four-hour May Day speech. Washington accused Cuba of harboring and aiding terrorists from Spain and Colombia, as well as fugitive Black Panthers and Puerto Rican independence militants from the United States. Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally, was fingered for allowing Colombian guerrillas in its territory, being too friendly with Iran and Cuba, and not supporting the US led war on terrorism. Castro charged the United States had organized terrorist attacks on Cuba, from the 1976 bombing of Cuban commercial airliner to dozens of bombings and shootings over the years. "Will this report conclude the endless chain of gross lies by the president of the United States about terrorism? No!" Castro told hundreds of thousands gathered in Havana's Revolution Square. Castro accused the Bush administration of being behind Panama's 2004 pardon of former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles and three others found guilty of planning to assassinate him during a 2000 Latin American Summit. (Reuters, 1/5/06)

May 2: The US Coast Guard announced the repatriation of 74 Cuban migrants by one of its cutters. Thirty five of the 74 migrants were intercepted on a grossly overloaded 32-foot go-fast vessel that was trying to enter the US illegally. The vessel was disabled by the Coast Guard, 20 miles southeast of Islamorada. Two suspected smugglers were taken into custody and turned over to Customs and Border Protection agents. (Sun Sentinel, 2/5/06)

May 3: Legislation aimed at banning public and private universities and community colleges from sponsoring trips to Cuba and other US-designated terrorist nations is on its way to the governor. The Florida House passed a bill, filed by state Representative David Rivera, a Miami Republican. It already cleared the Senate. ''To me, this bill is so uncomplicated,'' Rivera said to his colleagues in the House, who voted unanimously in support of the measure. "Taxpayer money should not be used to support or subsidize terrorist regimes -- period.'' Rivera sponsored the legislation after the January arrests of Florida International University professor Carlos M. Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, an FIU counselor. The couple is accused of being unregistered agents for Cuba. (The Miami Herald, 3/5/06)

May 3: Vigilantes from the Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources put six Cuban immigrants under arrest. The Immigrants arrived by illegal means to Isla de Mona, local Police reported. The group, comprised of three men and three women arrived in the island from the Dominican Republic. (EFE, 3/5/06)

May 3: In the United States, power is in the hands of a terrorist regime which makes use of hypocritically anti-terrorist discourse and policy as tools to achieve world domination, said Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon. During an international solidarity-with-Cuba conference, attended by over 1,000 delegates from 60 nations, the top Cuban parliamentarian said that while the United States continues its war on Iraq and Afghanistan and looks for excuses to launch other military actions against the so-called “dark spots of the world”, it harbors international terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. But the top hypocritical US attitude is that of holding the Cuban five in jail, the five Cuban youths who infiltrated South Florida-based terrorist groups, in an effort  to prevent those organizations from repeating violent actions against the Cuban people, similar to those undertaken by Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, Alarcon said. (ACN, 3/5/06)

May 3: Two French members of an environmental group landed a home-built twin-propeller ultralight plane in Key West after flying across the Florida Straits from Cuba, raising concerns by Homeland Security officials who detained and questioned the two men. After questioning, officials said, the two men were to continue on their way -- with a stop scheduled in Sebring for maintenance of the plane before trekking to Africa. Zachary Mann, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, said the plane drew attention from Homeland Security because it took off from Cuba, which the US State Department has designated a terrorist state. (The Miami Herald, 4/5/06)

May 3: In remarks to the 36th annual Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, the US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated that Cuba is the only undemocratic country in the Hemisphere. “Next month, when the 34 democratic members of the Organization of American States will gather in Santo Domingo, there will be only one empty seat at the table, a seat that will one day be filled by the free people of a democratic Cuba”. (MartiNoticias, 3/5/06)

May 4: Fidel Castro was furious when Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $550 million last year. This year, the magazine upped its estimate of the communist leader's wealth to a cool $900 million. Castro, who says his net worth is nil, is likely the beneficiary of up to $900 million, based on his control of state-owned companies, the US financial magazine said in its annual tally of "Kings, Queens & Dictators" fortunes. (Reuters, 4/5/06)

May 5: With efforts to open Florida's coast to energy exploration gaining momentum, more Florida lawmakers are turning their sights south, filing legislation aimed at blocking Cuba from drilling for oil near the Florida Keys. US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, and 14 other House members -- 11 of them from Florida -- joined in introducing a bill that would deny visas to any employees of a company or entity that "contributes to the development of Cuba's oil-exploration program.'' Their bill, a companion to Florida Democratic Senatorl Nelson's Senate bill filed earlier, would also impose sanctions on any individuals -- or companies -- who invest $1 million or more to help Cuba develop its oil and natural gas resources. ''My colleagues and I have been working tirelessly to prevent our own companies from ruining Florida's pristine beaches and delicate ecosystem by exploring and drilling for oil off our coast,'' Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. ``To now have this murderous and totalitarian regime say it wants to drill just 45 miles from Key West is beyond the pale and totally unacceptable.'' Her co-sponsors include US Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Díaz-Balart, both Miami Republicans; Clay Shaw, Republican-Fort Lauderdale; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat-Weston, and Mark Foley, Republican-Palm Beach County; Katherine Harris, a Senate candidate, and Jim Davis, a Democratic candidate for governor. (The Miami Herald, 6/5/06)

May 8: The US government condemned the repression suffered by Cuban dissidents and the campaign orchestrated by the Havana authorities to harass and intimidate some of them. "The Cuban government recently directed mobs to intimidate and harass peaceful dissidents including Hilda Molina, Felix Bonne, and members of the Sigler Amaya family," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement. He added that on April 25 former political prisoner and the head of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, Marta Beatriz Roque, "was attacked in her home and prevented from attending a U.S.-sponsored event." "The United States reiterates its support for these brave individuals and all those in Cuba who are being deprived of the freedom they desire and deserve," McCormack said. The official US statement, he said, came several weeks after the third anniversary of the so-called "Black Spring," an allusion to the harshest wave of repression launched in recent years in Cuba between March 18-20, 2003. (EFE, 8/5/06)

May 9: The US has attacked the newly-formed United Nations Human Rights Council after countries such as Cuba were elected to its 47-member body. Cuba, China and Pakistan are among many nations considered to have poor rights records which have joined the new body. The US envoy to the UN, John Bolton, said the council looked set to inherit the flaws of its predecessor, the discredited UN Human Rights Commission. (BBC, 9/5/06)

May 10: Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles has refused to testify on behalf of his friend Santiago Alvarez and another man who are both charged by federal officials with possessing a cache of weapons. US District Judge James Cohn ordered Posada, 76, to appear as a defense witness at the trial of Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat, set to begin in Fort Lauderdale. Posada, a close friend of Alvarez, was expected to counter testimony from a key government witness that Alvarez helped smuggle Posada into the United States last year. In court documents, Miami attorney Eduardo Soto, who represents Posada, asked Cohn to exempt his client from appearing in court. If not, Soto said Posada would assert his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when called to the stand to avoid incriminating himself. (Sun Sentinel, 10/5/06)

May 11: Attempting to use gas price frustration to crack a Cold War-era ban on US trade with Cuba, Idaho Senator Larry Craig wants to allow American companies to sign deals with the Caribbean island nation to explore and develop oil deposits in its waters. "It's time America began to understand that our (...) prohibition on trade with Cuba has accomplished just about zero and that policy needs to be changed," Craig said in a telephone interview before introducing legislation to permit US oil drilling deals with Cuba. "China, as we speak, has a drilling rig off the coast of Cuba." US companies are prohibited from doing business with Cuba under the 45-year-old embargo imposed after Fidel Castro came into power and the US cut off all diplomatic relations with the country. But since the discovery of oil deposits off its northern coast two years ago, Cuba has signed drilling deals with companies from Canada, China, India and Norway. In February, Cuban officials told US oil executives at a meeting in Mexico they want to double their drilling capacity and explore for more oil offshore. (AP, 11/5/06)  

May 14: A number of 41 Cuban rafters have arrived to the Florida coast in what seemed to be a smuggling operation, the Coast Guard said. The group, 16 men, 14 women and 11 children, three of them under one year old, arrived in Cayo Rodríguez beach, close to Islamorada, in a speed boat, the spokesman for the Coast Guard, Steve MacDonald, said. (EFE, 15/5/06)

May 16: Risking fines and jail for "trading with the enemy," Benjamin Treuhaft, a New York piano tuner, has shipped 237 pianos to Communist-run Cuba since 1995 to replace old Soviet-made pianos damaged by tropical humidity and termites. He returned to Havana with 200 lbs (100 kg) of tools and a dozen music lovers to help tune the second-hand pianos donated by Americans through his non-profit "Send a Piano to Havana" program. The 58-year-old bandana-clad activist opposes US trade sanctions against Cuba on humanitarian grounds and has been to Cuba 16 times defying a travel ban for Americans. (CNN, Reuters, 16/5/06)

May 16: The State Department said the decision to halt weapons sales to Venezuela stems from a formal determination by the administration that the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is not cooperating with the United States in the fight against terrorism. At a news briefing, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack declined details but said the arms sales ban stemmed from, among other things, Venezuelan intelligence cooperation with Iran and Cuba and ties with the two main Colombian insurgent groups. "In our judgment, they over the course of the year developed a much closer and stronger intelligence-sharing relationship with the intelligence agencies of Iran and Cuba," he said. (VOA, 16/5/06)

May 17: Columbia University conferred an honorary doctorate on Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, the highest-profile advocate of democracy and human rights who has remained on the Communist-ruled island despite years of harassment by authorities. Paya was not able to be present at the ceremony. The award was bestowed in recognition of his peaceful struggle for human rights and democracy in Cuba. A vacant chair was set up in the graduation hall to represent and honor the dissident on a day when more than 11,000 Columbia students received their diplomas. University provost Alan Brinkley, who was responsible for presenting awards at the ceremony, told the assembled crowd of students, their family members and other guests that the seat was vacant because the Cuban government has not given Oswaldo Paya the necessary exit visa" to allow him to travel to New York. (EFE, 17/5/06)

May 19: A long-awaited update from the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, a keystone of President Bush's policies on the island, will not be delivered to the White House as scheduled on May 20 th, Cuban independence day, but should be in Bush's hands by month's end, US officials said. US officials have declined to comment on what changes the commission might recommend in its new report, although some Cuba-watchers in Washington have been speculating that the panel will recommend even tighter restrictions on trips by US academic and religious groups. Bush is expected to take some time to review the new recommendations and decide which ones he will implement, US officials said. (The Miami Herald, 19/5/06)

May 19: Ogallala farmer Cindi Allen has until the end of May to finalize a deal to sell part of her 2006 crop of edible beans to Cuba. The end of May is bean-planting time, she said, and the deal with Cuba will determine what she plants. Allen planted seeds for direct-from-the-farm bean sales in April as part of a 31-member Nebraska delegation on the latest agricultural trade mission to Cuba. She hoped to know shortly details about the types and volume of beans representatives of Alimport, the buyer for Cuba's 11 million people, want to buy and how much they're willing to pay. (AP, 19/5/06)

May 19: Gilberto Abascal, a key witness in a major weapons case against one of Fidel Castro's sworn enemies -- Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat-- was stopped by the Coast Guard 40 miles from Key West in 1999 as he attempted to return to Cuba. With him were a crock pot, a VCR and photographs of a Cuban exile paramilitary training camp in Miami-Dade County. At the time, US officials determined that Abascal and a married couple with him who brought along their 3-year-old, US-born daughter on the ''small pleasure craft'' were simply homesick, disillusioned expatriates, according to filed federal court records. The FBI decided there was no nefarious reason for the group to have photos of Alpha 66's Miami-Dade operations. Abascal and his friends were returned to Miami after they maintained that the photos were only meant to show dissidents on the island that exiles in Miami were continuing their fight to help free the country from communist rule. B ut Alpha 66's leader and the widow of the group's former leader disputed that notion. This latest twist in the weapons case against Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat comes as a grand jury convenes in Texas to evaluate how Alvarez's friend, former CIA-trained operative and exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, entered the United States last year. Defense attorneys say Abascal's explanation for the Alpha 66 pictures is ''preposterous.'' They said a declassified FBI document on Abascal's trip on December 7, 1999, is further proof that he was cooperating with the Cuban government to target Alvarez and Mitat, whose federal trial has been delayed until July 17 in Fort Lauderdale. (The Miami Herald, 20/5/06)

May 21: The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, supported the embargo against Cuba and reaffirmed that it helps to avoid that Fidel Castro’s dictatorship uses trade to finance and to strengthen his control over its people. Rice was answering a question by a journalist who asked if changes in the embargo that could lead to an increase in trade between the two countries, especially in the agricultural sector, could be expected. (MartiNoticias, 22/5/06)

May 22: A review committee made no decision about a controversial children's book on Cuba and will continue deliberating June 5. Miami-Dade School Superintendent Rudy Crew has urged some of its members to find a compromise that neither removes the book from library shelves nor leaves it for children to read unsupervised. But if no such compromise can be reached, Crew's spokesman suggested the superintendent would overrule any recommendation to ban the book, “Vamos A Cuba” (subtitled A Visit to Cuba). The book has drawn attention this spring for its rosy depiction of Cuba under Fidel Castro's regime. The father of a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary in West Miami-Dade filed a formal complaint, but repeated appeals have ended with the book staying in place. (The Miami Herald, 22/5/06)

May 22: A federal appeals court unanimously upheld the convictions of six Cubans accused of hijacking a Cuban passenger jet and diverting it to Key West. But the court overturned the sentences of two of the hijackers and remanded the case for resentencing. In March 2003, six Cubans took control of a plane flying from Nueva Gerona to Havana. They forced the pilots to head toward Miami, but were intercepted by US fighter jets before they arrived. The jet landed in Key West and the passengers were released without incident. At trial in US District Court in Key West in late 2003, the Cubans' defense was that the plane's crew was complicit in the plan to hijack the plane. The defendants claimed the hijacking was staged so that the pilot and co-pilot also could reach the US and gain political asylum under the "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy. The six men were convicted of aircraft piracy, conspiracy and interference with a flight crew. Their sentences ranged from 20 years in prison to just more than 24 years. They appealed. A three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim of convicted hijacker Neudis Infantes Hernandez that a 20-year sentence for aircraft piracy is cruel and unusual punishment. (Broward Daily Business Review, 23/5/06)

May 24: Governor Jeb Bush indicated he will sign a bill that would forbid professors and students from visiting Cuba and other nations accused of supporting terrorism. Bush's backing of the legislation, sponsored by state Representative David Rivera, a Miami Republican who represents a portion of Broward County, would make Florida one of the most restrictive states for travel by scholars. The bill bans faculty and students at public universities and community colleges from using "state or non-state funds'' to travel to any country deemed a sponsor of terrorists. Five countries would be considered off-limits: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. The bill does not specify penalties for violators. (Tallahassee Bureau, 24/5/06)

May 24: The Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister suggested that US president George W. Bush, wouldn’t be capable to read the 500 pages of recommendations made by the State Department on transition in Cuba. In the next few days, the US Commission for the Assistance to a Free Cuba, headed by secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will present its recommendations to Bush on how to end with Fidel Castro’s government, in power since 1959. The US president should study the recommendations and decide how to strengthen the 40 year-old-embargo against Cuba. "It has taken them too long. They said Bush is studying the report, which should be some 500 pages. But, to imagine that Bush is studying the report sounds strange”, Felipe Pérez Roque said laughing. Perez Roque was accompanying Fidel Castro at a live TV appearance. (Reuters, 24/5/06)

May 24: Fidel Castro branded the US government and Forbes magazine as "liars and slanderers," and demanded an apology for saying he had amassed a personal wealth of 900 million dollars. "They have to ask for an apology of the world public opinion for their lies against the Cuban revolution. They cannot remain silent. They must speak up," Castro told a live radio and television broadcast. Earlier this month, Forbes said Castro after 47 years in power had become the seventh wealthiest ruler in the world, having stashed away 900 million dollars by skimming profits from a Havana convention center, retail conglomerate Cimex and vaccine and pharmaceutical products firm Medicuba. (AFP, 25/5/06)

May 24: Cuba reiterated its invitation to US companies interested in participating in oil drillings in the Gulf of Mexico. “Yes, we have authorized those explorations, we are not excluding US companies”. “We say it publicly”, Fidel Castro said during a TV appearance. (AFP, 25/5/06)

May 25: The Cuban government has not allowed the US diplomats based in Havana to have access to two Cuban Americans detained last month after a violent incident in the north coast of the island. “The Cuban government has ignored our repeated requests of providing consular assistance to the detainees”, said Drew Blakeney, spokesman for the US Interest Section in Havana. "We haven’t been allowed access to the two survivors.” (El Nuevo Herald, 26/5/06)

May 25: In unusually frank criticism of US policy on Cuba by a top military officer, the outgoing head of the Miami-based Southern Command said he favors a top-to-bottom review of the policies, including a long-standing ban on most contacts between the US and Cuban militaries. The comments by Army General Bantz J. Craddock came just days before President Bush is to receive a major report on US policies toward the island, coordinated by the State Department but with input from other agencies, including the Department of Defense. ''One of the things that we as a government probably don't do well is to review our policies and our laws routinely, based upon the conditions in the world changing,'' Craddock said in response to a question about Cuba during a briefing for a small group of reporters. ''My judgment is we need to relook laws, policies more often to ensure that they still make sense, given the changing conditions in the world,'' he said, adding, "I don't want to make a judgment on whether or not to change [the Cuba policy], but I think it needs to be re-looked.'' Craddock added that it's time to review the laws ''stem to stern'' and not just the long-standing ban on military-to-military contacts beyond the regular talks on purely local issues between US and Cuban military officers along the fence surrounding the US Navy base in Guantánamo. (The Miami Herald, 26/5/06)

May 30: Cuban-American filmmaker Luis Moro expressed his disdain for the long-standing US trade and travel restrictions against Cuba in a very public way: he made a movie there. Moro's "Love and Suicide" was showing in East New York, New Jersey, after screenings last year in Los Angeles, Miami Beach and the Bahamas. It's linked to a personal crusade against the US embargo and it led US officials to investigate Moro for possible violation of US laws that make it almost impossible for most Americans to legally visit communist Cuba. If officials act against him, Moro says he will refuse to pay any fines, even if it means jail time. (AP, 30/5/06)

May 31: The National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service (the churches’ global development agency) have joined with other organizations to renew objections to new American government restrictions on travel to Cuba. "The current US policy toward Cuba restricts religious freedom and is contrary to the principles upon which our nation was founded," said the Reverend Brenda Girton-Mitchell, the NCC staff executive for justice and advocacy, during a news conference. She continued: "We reiterate our call on the US government to respect religious freedom and restore the less restrictive travel licenses that we have had for decades." Last year, the NCC and CWS, along with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, American Baptist Churches, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ Global Ministries, received notices from the US Office of Foreign Assets that their existing licenses for religious travel to Cuba would not be renewed. (Ekklesia.Com, 31/5/06)

May 31: A federal judge raised questions about the role of a Florida International University employee accused along with her professor husband of working as agents of the Cuban government, suggesting that the charges amounted to "character assassination" against her. US District Judge K. Michael Moore said it was unfair to Elsa Alvarez to assume that she was involved in all of the activities of her husband, Carlos Alvarez, particularly since there is substantial evidence indicating she was reluctant from the beginning and later opposed continuing their alleged surveillance on behalf of Cuba. "There's a lot of character assassination as to the wife because of what you have on the husband," Moore said at a hearing. "It strengthens your case if you can just lump her in there." Moore's comments came during a three-hour hearing on a request by Elsa Alvarez's lawyers that she be released on bail before trial scheduled in early 2007. (AP, 31/5/06)