Chronicle on Cuba - October 2006

Exile Community

October 2: Marta Fernandez de Batista, the widow of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, died at her home, her son said. She was 82. She died at her West Palm Beach home, Roberto Batista told the press. She had suffered a heart attack on September 8 and was hospitalized until last week, when she returned home under hospice care, her son said. Her husband was pushed out of power by Fidel Castro's rebels more than 47 years ago, leaving Havana in the middle of the night on January 1, 1959. The former dictator, then 58 years old, fled first to the Dominican Republic, then Portugal, and finally Spain, where he died in 1973. Fulgencio Batista had a home in Daytona Beach and donated an extensive art collection to the city. His wife had lived in Palm Beach County since the 1980s. (AP, 4/10/06)

October 3: An overwhelming majority of Cuban Americans and Cuban exiles think that an ailing Fidel Castro will never return to power and that a transition could take hold within four years, according to a new poll examining the attitudes of South Florida's Cuban community. Those are among several findings in a poll of 600 Cuban and Cuban American adults in Miami-Dade and Broward counties conducted September 14-20 by Bendixen & Associates. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. Seventy-four percent of Cuban Americans believe Fidel Castro is terminally ill, and 14 percent think he will recover from illness but never return to power. With Cuba's Defense Minister Raúl Castro now in charge of the communist island, 55 percent of Cubans surveyed think a ''major transition towards democracy'' is a major probability, and 30 percent believe it's a minor probability. Asked if they approve or disapprove of the way Bush ''has managed the situation in Cuba since Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother,'' 51 percent approved, while 28 percent disapproved and 21 percent didn't know or didn't answer. The results of one question in particular may catch the attention of Washington and of Raúl Castro's temporary government in Cuba. Seventy-two percent said the United States should ''negotiate'' with a ''new Cuban government [if it] shows an interest in a gradual improvement of relations with the exile community and with the United States.'' Only 20 percent said it should not negotiate. (The Miami Herald, 3/10/06)

October 7: More than 100 mourners bid farewell to Cuba's last first lady. Marta Fernandez Miranda de Batista was the second wife of ousted Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. She died after a heart attack in September left her homebound. She had also suffered from Alzheimer's. She was 83, according to one of her sons. Marta Batista's death is symbolic for the thousands of Cubans, who like her have never been able to return home. Married to the last president to hold office in Cuba before Fidel Castro rose to power, she was one of the first exiles to flee as a result of the Cuban revolution. A procession of cars followed the hearse a few miles to St. Juliana's Catholic Church where a Mass was held in her honour. "Many years ago she put into practice her faith," said Father Jose Angel Crucet, one of three priests to conduct the Mass. "She established schools in the fields, and hospitals, and the Saint Barbara sanctuary." The Mass in her honour ended with a song that touched on the themes familiar to so many Cuban exiles. "On the sand, I left my raft," mourners sang. "With you Lord, I seek a new home." (Sun Sentinel, 8/10/06)

October 10: Cuban exile organizations in South Florida working together with dissidents on the island launched a five-point plan designed to bring democracy to Cuba -- without budging on controversial issues like negotiating with the current leadership. The document is an important historic step, because it demonstrates an unusual level of cooperation between dissidents and prominent Cuban exile groups, its signers said. The resolution was signed by the Cuban Patriotic Forum, an umbrella exile group, and the dissident Cuban organization Assembly to Promote Civil Society. The Patriotic Forum includes the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, the Cuban Liberty Council, Cuban Municipalities in Exile and others. The resolution advocates for: a) Freedom for all political prisoners and an end to harassment of all kinds to internal opposition; b) the installment of a transition government that establishes democracy in Cuba, that respects human rights and offers the following freedoms: economic, press, religion, to associate, to assemble and to protest peacefully; c) the establishment of a constituent assembly that provides a new constitution submitted to a popular vote; d) recognition of political parties and multiparty elections; e) the reestablishment of the rule of law, making sure that ``every Cuban is protected from whimsical decisions that could lead to social discontent.'' (EFE, 10/10/06)

October 12: High officials from the incumbent Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) met with representatives of the People’s Party, made up of Cuban exiles. According to an ARENA press release, the Cubans talked with the president of El Salvador, Elías Antonio Saca, who is also ARENA’s leader. The communiqué indicates that the Cubans later met with members of the National Executive Council (COENA), the highest body within ARENA, the ruling party in El Salvador since 1989. (ACAN-EFE, 12/10/06)

October 19: Cuban activist Rosa Berre, an advocate of independent journalism in Cuba, passed away in Miami after losing her battle against cancer. She was 64. The protracted disease did not prevent her from devoting all of her energy to the project she had launched in exile to promote the outflow of freedom of expression from the island: the Cubanet news agency, founded in 1994. (El Nuevo Herald, 20/10/06)

October 23: The similarities between Hugo Chavez's restrictions on civil liberties and the erosion of rights in Fidel Castro’s regime have bred a political and social affinity among Venezuelan and Cuban immigrants. Venezuelans attend anti-Castro rallies in significant numbers, and Cuban exiles abound at anti-Chavez demonstrations. Cuban exile organizations have allowed Venezuelan groups to operate out of their offices, many of which now display Venezuelan flags and other symbols of the South American nation on their walls. And just as Castro has mentored Chavez, Cuban exiles are showing Venezuelans how to become a potent lobbying group in the United States. They are introducing Venezuelans to their many friends in the U.S. Congress and the media. They are also helping anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela by providing funding, political campaign advice and firsthand stories to the media about oppression in Cuba and the ineptitude of the Castro regime. "They are masters of getting the movers and shakers in Washington, D.C., to listen to their concerns and support their cause," Manuel Kohn said of the Cuban exiles as he sat in a meeting room at the Union City headquarters of the Union of Cuban Ex- Political Prisoners. (The Record, 23/10/06)

October 26: Cuban exiles demanded in Miami the immediate release of Luis Posada Carriles as they believe that he is the target of "a political maneuver" aimed at pleasing the governments of Cuba and Venezuela. Some 60 activists, ex-political prisoners and sympathizers with Posada Carriles gathered at the House of the Prisoner, in Little Havana, to endorse a declaration that deems it unjust and abusive to keep him imprisoned for more than a year in Texas. (El Nuevo Herald, 27/10/06)

October 28: In December 2001, Cuban officials abruptly summoned Alberto Rodriguez to a meeting at the Ministry of Transport and told him he was being sent to work at a shipyard on Curacao. Over the next three years, Rodriguez claims he and dozens of other men were held as virtual slaves, forced to work long hours for pennies a day in dangerous conditions. Rodriguez, who escaped in October 2004, and two other Cubans who were sent to the shipyard say they suffered serious injuries, were not permitted to move freely in Curacao and were forced to watch videotapes of hours-long speeches of Fidel Castro "extolling the virtues of the Revolution."  "They humiliated us. They exploited us," Rodriguez said in an interview. Now, Rodriguez and the others have filed a federal lawsuit in Miami seeking unspecified damages from the Curacao Drydock Co. for what they claim was a conspiracy in which Cuba provided low-cost, forced labor in return for hard currency desperately sought by the communist Havana government. "Curacao Drydock Co. knew that the Cuban laborers that the Cuban government provided to it were not free individuals but subjects of the Cuban totalitarian regime, who were compelled to perform the will of the Cuban state," said their lawsuit, filed by Miami attorney John Andres Thornton. (AP, 28/10/06)