Chronicle on Cuba - September 2006

US-Cuba Relations

September 2: In what seems an unlikely undertaking for one of the world's last communist strongholds, Cuba is sinking more than $5 million into restoring the hilltop villa overlooking Havana where "Papa" Hemingway lived, wrote and caroused from 1939 to 1960. As part of its effort to court hard currency tourists, the government is also playing up the Caribbean country's past as a haven for Mafia mobsters. Guests checking in at the Nacional hotel, which in its heyday was home to crime bosses such as Meyer Lansky and Al Capone, are invited to tour "the suites where the gangsters lived" and the cavernous room downstairs in which they had dinner. At Finca Vigia, the termite-ravaged villa where Hemingway lived, workmen were recently replacing sagging ceiling beams and fixing a leaky roof. Pilar, the 13-metre boat he used for the marlin fishing expeditions that inspired “The Old Man and the Sea”, was also undergoing restoration.  Anger has been provoked by Washington's refusal to allow the Boston-based Hemingway Preservation Foundation to commit funds to the restoration project. Hemingway enthusiasts consider the house and contents to be an American cultural gem, even though they are located on foreign soil. Washington argued that contributing money would violate trade sanctions against Cuba by helping to boost tourism and keep its communist regime in power. (The Sunday Times, 2/9/06)

September 5: The sharp political rhetoric between Washington and Havana, including allegations of Cuban government harassment of the US Interests Section in the Cuban capital, does not resonate at Guantánamo. Navy Captain Mark Leary, Guantanamo base commander, holds a monthly meeting with his Cuban counterpart -- an orderly ritual that has gone on for about a decade as a way of ensuring that the 17.4-mile fenced border remains calm.  At the most recent meeting with Cuban Navy Captain Pedro Román Cisneros last month, ''there was nothing brought up about Castro's health or anything like that,'' Leary said. ''I thought if it was going to be brought up, it was going to be brought up by the Cubans,'' Leary said. It wasn't. Instead, the military men followed their typical ''very pragmatic, very practical'' dialogue about issues like construction projects near the fence.  The US Navy's post-Castro immigration-control plan was not altered by the news about the power changeover either, Leary said. ''We had actually been reviewing it,'' he said. ``It's continually reviewed.'' (The Miami Herald, 5/9/06) 

September 5: Canada would play an important role in helping Cuba make a transition to democracy, in the wake of Fidel Castro’s recent illness, by showing the regime in Havana and the Cuban population that they could benefit from a change to democracy, said a high-ranking US official. In an interview with Quebec’s daily Le Soleil, the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, said “democratic countries that have links with Cuba, like Canada, are in a unique position to talk with the regime and the Cuban people”. (AFP, 5/9/06)

September 7: Calling its action "a necessary public witness," the Alliance of Baptists, a Church World Service member denomination, has challenged a US government allegation that the denomination violated the terms of its license to travel to Cuba for religious work. The alleged violation could result in a $34,000 penalty for the small denomination. The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) charged, in a July 5 letter to Alliance of Baptists Executive Director Stan Hastey, that five churches traveling on an Alliance license "provided itineraries that did not reflect a program of full-time religious activity." In explaining the Alliance's decision to fight the charge, Hastey called the government allegations "a political ploy to satisfy anti-Castro Cuban Americans," and declared, "It is important that the first national religious body cited for violations of policy respond publicly rather than settle quietly." (CWS, 7/9/06)

September 7: The United States will not attend the summit in Cuba of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that will gather some of its most hostile critics just 90 miles from US soil, the top US diplomat in Cuba said. Michael Parmly said the United States had not taken up an invitation to attend the summit of 116 developing nations as an observer as it has in the past, noting that Washington had a better relationship with previous host Malaysia than it does with communist Cuba. ``We simply did not pick up the invitation,'' Parmly told the press. The summit is expected to endorse Iran's nuclear energy program and condemn Israel's bombing of Lebanon and US trade sanctions against Cuba. Parmly said he would be surprised if the summit did not come out with a statement in support of Iran, but Washington would consider such a statement ``unfortunate.'' The United States attended the last summit in Kuala Lumpur as an observer with 30 other mainly industrialized nations and the United Nations. ``South-South cooperation is an interesting idea. I hope that does not mean they think we are no longer interested in North-South cooperation. The more that is done on that score the better,'' Parmly said. (The New York Times, Reuters, 8/9/06)

September 8: At least 10 South Florida journalists, including three from El Nuevo Herald, received regular payments from the US government for programs on Radio Martí and TV Martí, two broadcasters aimed at undermining the communist government of Fidel Castro. The payments totaled thousands of dollars over several years. Those who were paid the most were veteran reporters and a freelance contributor for El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language newspaper published by the corporate parent of The Miami Herald. Pablo Alfonso, who reports on Cuba and writes an opinion column, was paid almost $175,000 since 2001 to host shows on Radio Martí and TV Martí. El Nuevo Herald freelance reporter Olga Connor, who writes about Cuban culture, received about $71,000, and staff reporter Wilfredo Cancio Isla, who covers the Cuban exile community and politics, was paid almost $15,000 in the last five years. Alfonso and Cancio were dismissed after The Miami Herald questioned editors at El Nuevo Herald about the payments. Connor's freelance relationship with the newspaper also was severed. (The Miami Herald, 8/9/06)

September 8: The United States Interests Section in Havana denied visas to two Cuban economists to attend a meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) in Puerto Rico. The Cubans were scheduled to attend a board meeting of the economist’s association at the end of August. The visas were denied with the pretext that the presence of the two professionals in Puerto Rico would be detrimental to United States interests. The US denied visas to Roberto Verrier Castro, first vice president of LACEA and president of the Cuban Association of Economists and Accountants, and to Esther Agulera Morato, permanent secretary of LACEA and VP of the Cuban organization. (Granma, 8/9/06)

September 8: The Alliance of Baptists has filed a formal challenge to a Treasury Department fine for allegedly violating the United States' economic embargo on Cuba. Alliance officials sent the response on August  31 to the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, which monitors violations of the embargo. In July, OFAC officials informed Stan Hastey, the Alliance's executive director, that the group would be fined $34,000 for violations of the terms of the organization's travel license to Cuba. The agency alleged that members of five church missions teams traveling under the license between 2003 and 2005 violated the embargo by engaging in tourist activities while in Cuba. The Alliance disputes those allegations. Hastey said that, of the members of his board who responded to his e-mail inquiry about whether to fight the fine, "no one dissented." The Alliance, a fellowship of 117 moderate-to-progressive churches with a $374,000 budget, has a longstanding missions partnership with the Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba. The partnership pairs local Alliance congregations with counterpart Cuban churches. (ABP, 8/9/06)

September 8: US law blocks most travel to communist-led Cuba, but the Caribbean nation will be represented at an international travel show in Orlando, Florida. A US-based group known as the Travel Industry Committee on Cuba will promote travel and business links with the neighboring island at a convention, September 10-12, spearheaded by the American Society of Travel Agents, the world's biggest travel agent group. More than 2,000 travel sellers and more than 1,000 consumers are expected at the show that will feature booths representing companies and countries from around the world. John McAuliff, coordinator of the Travel Industry Committee on Cuba, said by telephone that his group wants Washington to lift its 40-year-old restrictions on US travel to the island, just as it liberalized US food sales to Cuba. The move would open new business opportunities for US travel companies. (Sun Sentinel, 8/9/06)

September 9: Former President of Spain, Felipe González; the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias; and former Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez, offered to mediate between the United States and Cuba, said former US diplomat Otto Reich, who saw no need for this type of negotiation. “We are very thankful”, but neither “the United States, nor Cuba need a mediator”, said Reich.
 (EFE, 9/9/06)

September 9: Supporters of five Cuban men convicted in 2001 of spying on the United States for the Cuban government met to talk about their efforts to raise money and awareness of the defendants' long-running legal battle. Advocates of the so-called Cuban Five insist that Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando and René Gonzalez were not spying on anyone except right-wing exile organizations they believed to be planning attacks on Cuba. ''In the case of these five men, as in the cases of many other prisoners, this government pays no attention to justice,'' said Andres Gomez, of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, speaking in Spanish. Prosecutors have long maintained that wiretaps, documents and witness testimony provided more than enough evidence of the five's guilt. About 70 people crowded into the Key Largo room at the Embassy Suites to listen to impassioned speeches by Gomez and Max Lesnik, director of Radio Miami. (The Miami Herald, 10/9/06)

September 11: Two anti-Castro activists in their 60s pleaded guilty to a weapons-conspiracy charge on the eve of their high-stakes trial in Fort Lauderdale federal court -- a jury proceeding that could have ended with imprisonment for the rest of their lives. Instead of running that risk, Cuban exiles Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat cut plea deals on one count of conspiring to possess illegal weapons, which carries a five-year maximum prison penalty. The men, who remain in custody, face sentencing on November 14. Alvarez, 65, and his friend Mitat, 64, avoided the distinct possibility of going to trial before a Fort Lauderdale jury and being convicted of possessing illegal weapons, too. Those charges, coupled with the conspiracy charge in the original indictment, carried a maximum of 20 years in prison. Alvarez is a longtime associate of Posada, a former CIA operative who is accused by the Cuban and Venezuelan governments with masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in which 73 people died. Alvarez arranged for travel documents for Posada and helped him come out of hiding in Miami in May 2005, even staging a press conference for the Cuban militant. (The Miami Herald, AP, 11,12/9/06)

September 12: Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles should be released from immigration custody because the attorney general has not classified him as a terrorist and his continued detention runs counter to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling barring indefinite detention for foreign nationals who cannot be deported, a federal magistrate ruled. In a 24-page decision, US Magistrate Norbert Garney in El Paso, Texas, wrote that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement should put Posada under supervised release because the federal government had failed to find a country willing to take the 78-year-old exile, who has Venezuelan citizenship. ''The court recommends that petitioner's request for habeas relief be granted and that petitioner be released subject to the terms and conditions of supervised release,'' Garney wrote. Garney's ruling is only a recommendation and will not lead to Posada's immediate release. He sent the recommendation to federal Judge Philip Martinez, who is expected to make a decision later -- either adopting or rejecting Garney's recommendation. (BBC, The Miami Herald, 12/9/06) 

September 12: A journalist whose freelance contract with El Nuevo Herald was severed said the newspaper's managers had known for years that she got paid by the US government for Cuban cultural shows she hosted for Radio Martí. She said managers never made an issue of it before. Freelance writer Olga Connor was among three well-known El Nuevo Herald writers -- the others were full-time reporters Pablo Alfonso and Wilfredo Cancio Isla -- who were dismissed or had their contracts severed for having violated the company's ethics policy for their work for Radio and TV Martí. The government-financed broadcasts are aimed at bringing news, information and entertainment to the communist island in an effort to undermine Fidel Castro's 47-year-old regime. ''At no time did any of the editorial management of the Herald indicate to me that this was considered a conflict of interest, and I continued writing for El Nuevo Herald until today,'' Connor wrote in Spanish in a letter to executives of The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and the two newspapers' parent company, The McClatchy Co. (The Miami Herald, 12/9/06)   

September 12: The Bush administration has created five interagency working groups to monitor Cuba and carry out US policy. The groups, some of which operate in war-room-like settings, were quietly set up after the July 31 announcement that the ailing Castro, 80, had ceded power temporarily to a collective leadership headed by his brother, Raul, US officials said. The groups' composition reflects both the administration's Cuban policy priorities as well as the belief that Castro's status as the island's undisputed leader is finished, regardless of the nature of his still-mysterious ailment. Eric Watnik, a State Department spokesman on Cuban issues, went further. Castro "will never come back to the position that he previously enjoyed," he said. US officials say three of the newly created groups are headed by the State Department: diplomatic actions, strategic communications and democratic promotion. A group that coordinates humanitarian aid to Cuba is run by the Commerce Department, and a fifth on migration issues is run by the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the groups' members work out of the same State Department office in what one person familiar with the operation described as a "control room." The State Department is reluctant to give details on the new interagency groups, saying the focus should be on the democratic transition they're trying to achieve in Cuba rather than on the US government process. (The Miami Herald, 12/9/06)

September 12: Cuba has entered partnerships with four foreign companies to look for offshore oil in the Gulf of Mexico, as US companies are unable to compete for deals because of Washington's four-decades-long embargo on the Communist-run state. "We are beginning a new phase," Cuba's petroleum director Fidel Rivero Prieto said, upon signing two blocks with India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp.'s overseas arm ONGC Videsh.  Industry sources said Malaysia's state-run Petroliam Nasional Berhad, Norway's Norsk Hydro ASA and an unidentified company, perhaps from Venezuela or China, have joined the search this year. US companies are barred from exploring for oil in Cuba's offshore zone. But the possibility of striking oil just 145 kilometres off US shores has companies urging Washington to ease the 1962 embargo against Fidel Castro's leftist government.  Kirby Jones, president of US-Cuba Trade Association, said, "Cuba officials have stated many times that they are willing to discuss partnership with US energy companies."  He said bills are pending in the US Congress to allow US companies "to enter into discussions with Cuban officials as soon as possible." A Cuban Foreign Ministry official said such discussions with US companies would be welcome. (Reuters, 12/9/06)

September 12: Nine Cubans who escaped from a Tijuana detention facility and fled to the San Ysidro border crossing reportedly have requested political asylum in the United States. Ten Cuban men and a man from Guyana, all of whom were facing possible deportation, broke through a fence at a detention center. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that nine of the Cubans made it to San Ysidro and requested asylum. It's unclear what happened to the other Cuban. The Cubans, who were smuggled into Mexico, had been in Mexican custody while officials decided whether to deport them to Cuba. (AP, 12/9/06)

September 12: Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles, who is one step closer to release from US immigration detention, wants nothing more to do with violence against Fidel Castro's communist government, his lawyer said. After a judge in El Paso, Texas, agreed that Posada should be released, his attorney Eduardo Soto said Posada would accept virtually any conditions, including a prohibition against contact with Cuban exiles in Miami who still seek Castro's violent overthrow. As proof, Soto gave reporters a written statement from Posada renouncing such attacks. "I consider that the Cuban government is in a very deteriorated condition, inexorably reaching its end, and I sincerely believe that nothing would help to go back to the past with sabotage campaigns and actions to precipitate its fall," Posada, 78, said in the statement. (AP, 12/9/06)

September 13: Cuba let loose a blistering indictment of US foreign policy as top diplomats from more than 100 developing countries at the Non-Aligned Summit hammered out policy stands to counter US might. "They would impose a genuine worldwide dictatorship through war and economic power," charged Carlos Lage, vice president of Cuba's Council of State, in a heated speech to delegates that lashed out at US "hegemonic power."  Lage slammed the United States as a "morally decadent empire."  "The ideas of limited sovereignty, humanitarian intervention, preventive war and regime change are fascist; they are not modern theories to defend freedoms and fight terrorism," he argued. Two days after the United States marked the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terror strikes, Lage appeared to lay some blame at Washington's feet.  He argued that "terrorism is a consequence of injustice, lack of education and culture, and of poverty (…) and hegemonic power. It is not the consequence of radical ideologies." [Discurso del vicepresidente Carlos Lage] (AFP, 13/9/06) 

September 13: Cuba blasted the United States, accusing it of protecting terrorists, and criticized a bid by a Texas judge to free Luis Posada Carriles, a jailed Cuban exile wanted in Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jet that killed 73 people. Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly and Cuba's former ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington is violating international accords by refusing either to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela as requested, or try him on the bombing charges. Alarcón said the refusal reflects a broader US plan against the communist-led island. He also cited a plea bargain in a federal court in Fort Lauderdale that reduced prison sentences to two anti-Castro activists and associates of Posada Carriles in exchange for guilty pleas to conspiracy charges. Prosecutors contended that Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat, both staunchly anti-Castro Cuban exiles, maintained caches of weapons, including one in the Bahamas, to use in attacks on Cuba. "[That's] a strange way to remember the victims of September 11," Alarcón said at a news conference, noting both the plea bargain and bid to free Posada came on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. Alarcón spoke as Cuba hosts the 14th summit of the Nonaligned Movement. (Sun Sentinel, 14/9/06)

September 14: The Havana summit is being closely followed in Washington, amid concerns over the close relationship that Cuba and Venezuela seem to be developing with Iran. Two Republican senators warned about what they called a troubling alliance.  Senators Mel Martinez of Florida and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at a news conference called for other nations at the summit to rebuff the trio.  ''We have a growing axis,'' Martinez said, which began with Cuba and Iran, but now includes the `increasingly undemocratic government of Venezuela. ''These folks are leading a dangerous and negative alliance which I believe will have a very negative impact on the world,'' Martinez said, charging that the leaders of the three nations are ``focused on anti-Americanism.''  Santorum suggested that the three will look to put aside their differences to concentrate on the United States. 'The idea that you look at communist Cuba and the radical Islamists in Tehran and say, `What do they have in common?' The bigger fight is not with each other, it's with us,'' he said. ``This is a grave concern for us. It's not just the movement out of the Middle East, but an attempt to create multiple fronts in this movement.'' (The Miami Herald, 15/9/06)

September 14: When Michael Parmly, America's top diplomat in Cuba, looks out the window of America's only diplomatic outpost in Havana this is what he sees: a billboard calling President George Bush an assassin, showing a picture of the president with bloody teeth like Dracula. Another sign comparing the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Hitler, still another with images of President Bush and Cuban exiled leader Luis Posada Carriles. The signs are clearly visible to the visiting world leaders. While there are no diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba, Parmly, the chief of the US Interest Section, says it's still diplomatically inappropriate and vulgar and that's not the only hostility he says his employees deal with.  “Homes broken into it, urine on the floor, dogs being poisoned. Things like that,” Parmly said. The Cuban government denies it's behind that, but the president of the Cuban National Assembly doesn't disavow responsibility for the signs. (CNN, 14/9/06)

September 14: While Cuban leader Fidel Castro's recent illness peaked the interest of major US firms, which once had grandiose dreams of investing in a free Cuba, they are not rushing to return to the drawing board of the 1990s, a leading Cuba expert said. Speaking at the Miami Herald's annual America's Conference, John Kavulich, senior policy advisor, US Cuba Trade & Economic Council, said even if Castro were to die, life in Cuba would not change drastically thanks to the Cuban government's relationship with Venezuela. ''Venezuela is absolutely the key,'' Kavulich said during discussion moderated by Miami Herald Chief of Correspondents Juan Tamayo, who formerly covered Cuba. ``Financially as long as (Chávez) backs Cuba, Cuba doesn't have to change.'' Kavulich said between 1994 and 2002, major US firms created Cuba teams, which reported directly to the CEOs, to explore business opportunities on the island. But after Cuba signed agreements with Venezuela and China, and the Bush administration hardened its policy toward the Castro government, these companies lost interest and began to look elsewhere. (The Miami Herald, 14/9/06)

September 15: The Bush administration proposed that Cubans hold a referendum to decide if they want to be ruled by Raul Castro, who is acting leader of the communist nation while brother Fidel recovers from surgery. Fidel Castro has long fiercely resisted any attempts by the US to interfere with his government, and Cuba is highly unlikely to accept the proposal, announced in Florida by US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. "I would say to the Cuban regime, 'why not ask the people?'" Gutierrez said at The Miami Herald's Americas Conference. "Why would a real leader be so insecure about giving his people a voice?" Gutierrez aides said the administration wanted the Organization of American States to organize the referendum. OAS officials had no immediate comment. Cuba has been excluded from participating in the group since the early 1960s, after Castro took power. Gutierrez, who was born in Cuba, said a referendum is not a "US-only idea" but one many countries around the world support. (AP, 15/9/06)

September 15: Cuba's acting leader Raul Castro took the world stage with a scathing attack on a US plan for regime change in the Americas' only one-party communist country. "The United States has gone to such an extreme as to present a (regime change) plan (…) that contains a secret additional part" approved by US President George W. Bush, Raul Castro charged as he took a high-profile international role for the first time since taking the reins of power temporarily July 31 after his brother Fidel Castro underwent surgery. Raul Castro, 75, blasted what he called the "irrational aspirations" of the United States to dominate the world, and slammed its "insatiable thirst for strategic resources." "We represent two thirds of the UN's members, but we are not the decisive force we could be in international relations," Raul Castro told NAM leaders. "Let us join forces closely (…) in the United Nations and other international forums to demand economic justice," Raul Castro said. [Discurso de Raul Castro] (AFP, 15/9/06)

September 16: A Bush administration proposal for a Cuban referendum on democracy created a split between two Cuban American lawmakers, one who backed it and another who called it ``unfortunate.'' Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who is a Cuban American, officially unveiled the idea for a referendum on the final day of The Miami Herald's Americas Conference, held at the Biltmore Hotel. Gutierrez challenged the Cuban government to allow its people to vote in a referendum, asking if they want a democratic government, to be sanctioned by the Organization of American States. A report in The Miami Herald said the referendum would be on whether Cubans want to be ruled by Raúl Castro, but in his speech Gutierrez referred more broadly to democracy. ''Let the Cuban people determine their own destiny,'' Gutierrez said, adding that they could ``work with the [OAS] and others on a democratic referendum.'' Miami Republican lawmaker Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, in a rare disagreement with the Bush administration, called the idea ``unfortunate and inappropriate.'' Diaz-Balart alleged that a 2004 recall referendum in Venezuela won handily by leftist President Hugo Chávez was ''fraudulent'' yet, it was validated by OAS observers. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told The Miami Herald that Gutierrez had consulted with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before making the proposal and that the referendum was ``well within the boundaries of our policies.'' Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez also backed Gutierrez. ''We need to challenge the illegal transfer of power from one dictator to another,'' he said. (The Miami Herald, 16/9/06)

September 19: US President George W. Bush and UN chief Kofi Annan discussed ailing Fidel Castro's health and whether Cuba would become an "economic tiger" once he leaves the world scene, the White House said. Annan, who recently traveled to Cuba for the Non-Aligned Movement summit, gave Bush "a little briefing on his encounter" with Castro, national security official Mike Kozak told reporters. "They talked a bit about the future potential of Cuba as it develops and becomes a state with a free system and a free economy," said Kozak, whose brief is democracy, human rights, and international organizations. "This was not a long, deep, analytical thing. It was more, you know, 'what did you find in Cuba,' and then some general discussion about the future of Cuba. That wasn't a prediction on the health of the leader," he said. (AFP, 19/9/06)

September 19: The US government continues blocking with extreme measures the exchange between students from that country and Cuba. From October 2005 to date, only two Cuban academics were granted visas to enter US territory, Granma daily reported. An article released by the local daily recalled that Washington denied 65 Cuban experts the possibility of attending the conference of the Latin American Studies Association last March. According to the text, only those American students registered in an academic exchange program which has a license to travel, provided only by the Office of Foreign Assets Control from the Department of Treasure, can study in the Caribbean country. (Prensa Latina, 19/9/06)

September 20: INTL Consilium, a fund manager based in Fort Lauderdale, announced that it is sponsoring a seminar entitled "You Only Live Once: The Outlook for Economic Reforms in a Post-Fidel Cuba”. The seminar will be on September 28th at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Miami, Florida. Confirmed speakers include some of the country's most recognized Cuba experts including Dr. Frank Mora (National Defense University), Mr. Phil Peters (The Lexington Institute), Dr. Jaime Suchlicki (University of Miami) and Dr. Damian Fernandez (Florida International University). "While an overnight transition is unlikely, the process of change in Cuba will have important implications for investors and businesspeople," said Charles Cassel, Managing Director and one of the firm's two founders. "As an emerging market fund manager, we place a premium on understanding those changes early on -- and the opportunities that often accompany them. Russia and Eastern Europe have seen enormous growth since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. We are hopeful that Cuba -- and its people -- will likewise benefit from reform." (Business Wire, 20/9/06)

September 20: Cuba accused the US of spending more on harassing Cuba's business dealings than on investigating the finances of the September 11 terrorists. Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernandez told ministers at the UN General Assembly that the United States is orchestrating "severe reprisals" against companies doing business with Cuba.  "The Bush administration has stepped up its brutally harsh measures against Cuba, with new economic sanctions that further intensify what is already the longest blockade human history has ever known," he said. "The very government of the United States recognizes that it is spending more today in persecuting and punishing those who have business dealings with Cuba than in monitoring the finances of those who attacked the Twin Towers." Lazo is part of the collective leadership running Cuba as Fidel Castro recovers from intestinal surgery. Lazo underlined Cuba's support for a country's right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, a reference to Cuban ally Iran. He also said that despite US "acts of aggression and the criminal blockade, the Cuban people shall never be defeated." (AP, 20/9/06)

September 20: Immigration authorities in Washington announced a plan allowing Cuban medical professionals to apply for US visas in third countries. An official who asked to remain anonymous told the press that the change in policy was designed to promote family reunification. The regulations are part of Washington's decision to change its immigration policy to allow certain Cuban medical professionals in third countries to apply for visas at any US embassy or consulate. The measure will benefit doctors and other health professionals who have been sent by the government of Fidel Castro to work or study in third countries, as well as their spouses and children under 21. A substantial number of those sent abroad by Havana on medical missions have sought to avoid returning to Cuba at the completion of their assignments. [Parole for Cuban Medical Personnel in Third Countries]  (EFE, 20/9/06)

September 20: Sixteen Cubans reached the United States in a rickety, old boat, but one man trying to cross the Florida Straits with them died, the Coast Guard said. The group reached Marquesas Key, and the Coast Guard learned in interviews with the migrants that one of their original group was missing. The body of a man in his 20s was recovered at sea a few hours later, Coast Guard Petty Officer James Judge said. The body was taken to the coroner's office, and a cause of death was not released. The 16 Cubans were turned over to the US Border Patrol. (Sun Sentinel, 21/9/06)

September 21: The president of Cuban National Peoples’ Power Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, denounced that US official declassified documents show the White House complicity in the death of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. Alarcon summed up at an act in Havana on occasion of the 30th anniversary of the death in Washington of Letelier, close collaborator of former President Salvador Allende, victim of the explosion of a bomb in his car. "Letelier and all terrorism victims will live whenever we are capable of make them live, demanding punishment for those murderers and their accomplices," Alarcon said. (Prensa Latina, 21/9/06)

September 21: Office of Cuba Broadcasting Director Pedro Roig, who oversees TV and Radio Martí, said that he runs his operation ethically and wants to start a national debate on whether journalists who work for news companies and also freelance for the government have a conflict of interest. Referring to a September 8 Miami Herald report that named several local journalists who had also been receiving payments from the US government for their work at TV and Radio Martí, Roig said his entity has nothing to hide because its very goal is to promote open debate on the island about Cuba's future.   ''I believe in the right that all human beings have to criticize their government without fear of repression,'' he said. ``In the end there's one message, for Cubans to understand that in a free society, different problems and themes are discussed, passionately, but at the end of the day, no one is imprisoned, and no one is going to get an act of repudiation done against them (…) We have the right to make mistakes, like The Herald has a right to make a mistake.'' (The Miami Herald, 22/9/06) 

September 22: A quest to see five Cuban men convicted in 2001 of spying on the United States freed from prison made it to the nation's capital, with advocates arguing the men were in this country to fight terrorism directed at Cuba. ''These five men had come to the [United States] (…) to infiltrate these terrorist right-wing groups that have threatened us in Miami for decades,'' said Andrés Gómez, of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, at a news conference. He spoke in advance of a planned protest for October 23, where supporters of the so-called Cuban Five plan to push for their release -- and for the United States to extradite Luis Posada Carriles, whom they accused of fostering anti-Cuba terrorism. (The Miami Herald, 22/9/06)
 
September 25: Up to thirty percent of the food Cuba imports comes from the United States, that's more than from any other country. Despite the 47-year-old US trade embargo, today US companies are flocking to Cuba, all because of a loophole Congress approved in 2000 that allows for the sale of American food to Cuba. What started as a trickle has turned into a half billion dollar flood of sales each year. "I think it's substantial," said Kirby Jones of the US-Cuba Trade Association, in response to a question about US food sales to Cuba. "I think in the $100's of millions or billions of dollars." (CBS News, 25/9/06)

September 25: Cuba protested a US decision to deny a visa to its health minister, who had planned to attend the annual meeting of the Pan American Health Organization.  Dagoberto Rodriguez, Cuba's top diplomat in the United States, said the US action "violated the letter and the spirit" of the PAHO charter. He said it was the second year in a row that the United States has prevented Cuba's top health official from attending the meeting. In a statement to the opening session of the meeting, Rodriguez called the US policy a "vulgar hoax." (AP, 25/9/06)

September 25: Desperate Cuban relatives in South Florida sought information about their loved ones detained at sea by the US Coast Guard -- at least 108 migrants, an unusually high number of Cubans beckoned by relatively calm seas. The dozens of migrants were being held on board Coast Guard boats pending analysis of their cases -- among the first to be questioned under new Bush administration rules unveiled in August that promised to inform relatives of the condition of those being held. Anxious family members crowded into the Miami offices of Representative Lincoln Díaz-Balart to push for news about those they believe to be among the detainees. The group reportedly includes at least one minor, several mothers with infant children, and several doctors, according to family members and Díaz-Balart's office. (The Miami Herald, 26/9/06)

September 26: A 14-year-old West Miami-Dade boy ran away from home, boarded a plane and took a startling international flight alone to Havana, his father said. Alfredo Diaz, a 10th-grader at G. Holmes Braddock Senior High, cleared an American Airlines security check and boarded a Miami-to-Nassau flight on Thursday, even though the carrier requires escorts for anyone under 15. ''I can't believe my son was able to go through all that security and no one stopped him or asked him about being so young and traveling alone,'' said the father, who is also named Alfredo Diaz. As identification Alfredo presented his alien registration card, which shows his birth date as December 8, 1991 -- three months shy of 15 years ago. From the Bahamas, Alfredo likely used his Cuban passport, which he sneaked from his dad's strong box, for the flight to Havana, Diaz said. (The Miami Herald, 27/9/06)

September 28: The United States government's coordinator for transition in Cuba, Caleb McCarry, said that Cubans have to decide their own future "without interference" from other countries in a process of transition to democracy. McCarry said that democratic countries like the United States and Spain can help open up the island to democracy, and told Cubans they "they have nothing to fear" from Washington, which will help them achieve democracy if the transitional government asks it to. "This is the first time in 47 years when anything has changed, a moment in which we all have to create expectations that a transition is inevitable, and that Cubans receive the same message: that they have the option of a better future, that they should not be afraid, and that freedom is possible, as is reconciliation," the US official said. McCarry wrapped up a two-day trip to Spain, where he met with officials from the Foreign Ministry and members of the FAES Foundation, a conservative political think tank presided by ex-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. The purpose of the meetings was "to consult with other governments, hear their criteria and explain our policy." (EFE, 28/9/06)

September 28: Venezuela said that it has asked the UN Security Council for help in its demands that the US hand over a Cuban militant accused of planning the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said that his government is asking the Security Council to take action against Luis Posada Carriles, a militant foe of Cuban leader Fidel Castro who is wanted in Venezuela for allegedly plotting in Caracas the attack on the passenger flight that killed 73 people. "We came to ask the Security Council that it take part in the affair and to ask that US public opinion react to the (US government's) protection of this dangerous terrorist," Maduro told reporters at the seat of the UN in New York. Cuban born Posada Carriles, 77, a former CIA operative, has been jailed since May 2005 after entering the US illegally. (AP, 28/9/06)