Chronicle on Cuba - June 2007

Domestic Affairs

June 1: Fidel Castro has almost completely recovered from the stomach surgery he had last year, the head of the country's National Assembly said. Speaking in a US TV interview Ricardo Alarcon gave no indication of when the Cuban leader might return to power. But he said Mr Castro was over the worst after a series of operations, including what he described as very delicate surgery. Mr Alarcon also said Mr Castro was reading and writing a lot. "I think, in a way, he practically has fully recovered," Mr Alarcon told the CNN network. "The problem was a very delicate surgery," he went on. "He had to have several surgeries. But it was a very risky situation. Now it is not anymore." (BBC, 2/6/07)

June 1: The health of several members of the group of 75 dissidents sentenced to up to 28 years in prison in 2003 has deteriorated noticeably, denounced independent journalist Miriam Leiva, a member of the Ladies in White. Leiva, quoted the wives of Léster González Pentón, and Pablo Pacheco, both sentenced to 20 years in jail. Alfredo Pulido López, sentenced to 14 years, Norman Hernández, sentenced to 25 years and Ricardo González Alfonso, also suffer from serious illnesses. (EER, 1/6/07)

June 2: Fidel Castro received visiting Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh, Cuban television reported. "It was a meeting that ratified the warm ties that unite our nations," said an official statement read on the evening news broadcast. The statement said Castro and Manh met for two hours, discussing themes "of mutual interest and especially about Latin America and the Caribbean." Nong Duc Manh "expressed satisfaction with Fidel (Castro)'s recuperation and conveyed to him his people’s solidarity and affection," the communiqué added. State television several hours later showed a brief videotape of the meeting, but the footage was not immediately made available for use by international news organizations. (AP, Prensa Latina, 2/6/07)

June 3: Human rights activists, José Ramón Herrera Hernández, member of the dissident Eastern Democratic Alliance (Alianza Democrática Oriental), and his wife María Cristina Leiva Fuentes, were victims of a cruel beating at the hands of two male individuals who are members of the paramilitary Rapid Response Brigades in Antilla, Holguin province. After the beating, the activists were taken to the National Revolutionary Police Station (PNR) by local authorities. “This act was a farce, something premeditated”, Herrera said. “Major Roldán of the PNR was already waiting for me”, the activist further explained. Herrera Hernández suffered severe bruises over his entire body and has a fissure in his nasal septum. His wife also suffered severe bruises as a result of the beating. (Cuban Democratic Directorate, 7/6/07)

June 4: The latest video clip of Fidel Castro was shown on state television to promote an interview of the convalescing leader to air on June 5, his first formal interview since taking ill 10 months ago. The brief clip showed Castro and the host of the nightly "Round Table" TV program, Randy Alonso, sitting across from each other in rattan chairs in an interview evidently conducted over the weekend around the same time Castro met the visiting Vietnamese Communist Party chief. Alonso said his interview with 80-year-old Cuban leader would be shown the following night on the same show. In the interview, Castro comments on his meeting with the visiting Vietnamese delegation and "other themes of interest," Alonso said. (AP, 4/6/07)

June 5: Fidel Castro reminisced about old times in Vietnam but offered no comment on his own country in a televised chat -- the first lengthy look at the Cuban leader 10 months after surgery forced him to cede power. Castro, 80, credited a better diet for his improving health and joked that a 70-year-old Japanese man recently climbed Mt. Everest. His face seemed more filled out than in recent photographs, and he smiled often but spoke slowly and in short phrases, slurring his words at times and drawing labored breaths. He gave no indication that he would return to govern Cuba, saying only that he will continue writing articles called "Reflections of the Comandante" in the Cuban press. Castro spent most of the 50-minute ''conversation'' with Randy Alonso, host of the nightly news program “Round Table”, recounting his weekend visit by Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh. He also announced that he will hold more “conversations” by TV in order to discuss “a few topics” that cannot be summarized in the “Reflections”. “This is a new way of expressing myself”, he said about these kinds of “small round tables”. The cameras showed close-ups of his head, hands and feet, but no full-body views. And while there has never been any official and detailed version of his illness, Castro claimed the public knows enough. ''They say [my health] is a state secret; what state secret? I said very clearly where things stood,'' he said. (The Miami Herald, Reuters, EER, 6/6/07)

June 6: Acting President Raul Castro said his brother Fidel looked "magnificent" in his first television interview since falling ill, quipping that the recovery would make his own job easier. "Now I can start working less," Raul Castro muttered to reporters during the inauguration of a Cuban-Canadian gas plant, displaying his dry wit. Raul was accompanied by Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and executives of Canada’s Sherritt International Corp. (Canadian Press, AFP, 6/6/07)

June 6: A study on the Cuban nuclear family published today by the official newspaper Juventud Rebelde reveals a “reconfiguration” of family behavioural patterns on the island. In an interview with the media, Patricia Arés, a Doctor in Psychological Sciences and president of the Cuban Society of Psychology, said that “we presently observe a significant shift towards the maternal figure due to the large number of single-parent homes where women assume all the responsibilities”. According to the expert, economic problems “have had an impact on this shift in family roles. The parents of 70 per cent of Cuban children are divorced,” she added. (World Data Service, 6/6/07)

June 7: The daughter of Cuban political prisoner of conscience, Guido Sigler Amaya denounced that her father’s life is in danger. Due to the inhumane prison conditions he is forced to endure Guido is suffering from more than ten serious illnesses: oral infection with bleeding sores on his gums and tongue, hypertension, renal and duodenal cysts, chronic gastritis and migraines, dilatation of the aorta, partial loss of vision, inflamed prostate, premature aging, excessive weight loss, difficulty in ambulation, dehydration, thrombosed hemorrhoids with one surgical intervention and more planned. Yusleidy Sigler made an urgent plea via telephone to the international community on June 2, 2007, calling upon all governments, dignitaries, human rights and religious organizations, Cuban exiles, and all people of good will, to speak up on behalf of her father’s freedom. Sigler Amaya was sentenced to serve 20 years in prison, alongside 74 other independent peaceful civil rights activists during the Cuban government crackdown carried out during March-April 2003. (Payo Libre, 7/6/07)

June 9: Cuba has begun its second national campaign against the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the dengue transmitting agent, a defensive operation to preserve human lives.
The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, in coordination with local residents, will carry out hygienic-health tasks to avoid mosquito propagation, including the cleaning up of dumps and green areas, Granma daily reported. (Prensa Latina, 9/6/07)

June 10: The Episcopal Church broke new ground in Cuba by ordaining its first woman bishop in the developing world at a ceremony that mixed incense with rhythmic Caribbean music. The Reverend Nerva Cot said she will bring a feminine touch to leadership of her church's small but growing congregation in communist Cuba, where religious worship was freed a decade ago. A dozen bishops from North, Central and South America and Europe attended the consecration of Cot and Ulises Aguero as suffragan, or auxiliary, bishops at Havana's Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The Cuban church is part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion. "This is an important date for the Anglican Communion because there are so few women bishops among us, only 11," said Canada's Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, who headed the ceremony. "There is a vitality and a deep enthusiasm in Cuba that is an important gift to a church that has too often been very conservative," Hutchison told reporters. Christian Cubans are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and the Episcopal Church has only 5,000 baptized followers in the country. (Reuters, 10/6/07)

June 10: Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo insists he is not a man without a country, but Cuba barely tolerates his presence and the United States has threatened to jail him should he return to Miami. "My story is unique," said the rail-thin self-proclaimed revolutionary, now a graying 72. "I love my country, but I am like the ham between the pieces of bread in a sandwich. I'm in between the extremists on the left and the right."  After living in the US, in 2003 he visited Cuba, announcing that he would stay in Havana and attempt to form an opposition group. The Cuban government has tolerated his presence, although it has never given him formal legal status to remain on the island. He was even invited by the government to attend a conference on migration, but has not obtained permission to open an office for his opposition group. While Cuba allowed him to stay and has not arrested him, Menoyo has not fared as well with the American government. In 2004, the US Treasury Department, which enforces the decades-old embargo against Cuba, sent Menoyo a letter warning that he could face prosecution for violating U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba should he return to America. The agency also froze the bank account of Cuban Change in Miami. Menoyo simply shakes his head over the situation. He faces $250,000 in fines and up to 10 years in prison if he returns to America and is convicted of the charges. "I'm fighting and working for democracy and liberation in Cuba, and that has turned me into a criminal in the US," he said. (Cox News Service, 10/6/07)

June 10: Thirty percent of men and more than 31 percent of women are overweight in Cuba, according to an official study. The investigation was carried out by the Institute of Food Hygiene and Nutrition in joint collaboration with the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported. The survey carried out to analyze the nutritional status of the population revealed that one fourth of Cubans have a higher than normal rate of adiposity, indicating higher risk associated to some chronic diseases. Experts alerted there is a close relationship between the nutritional status and the incidence of several pathologies like arterial hypertension, squeamish cardiopathy, diabetes mellitus and certain types of cancer, among others, the newspaper said. (Juventud Rebelde, 6/6/07)

June 11: The Fifth Congress on Culture and Development began at Havana's Convention Center with the participation of more than 400 foreign personalities, researchers and academics from some 40 countries around the world, who will focus their discussions on the preservation of cultural diversity. Under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Organization of Ibero American States and the Cuban Ministry of Culture, the meeting is being attended by ministers and vice-ministers from Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia. The first day of this biannual event included the opening of a plastic arts exhibit of Cuban contemporary art and the inaugural ceremony. Other events that will be taking place in parallel with this four-day congress are the International Meeting on Cultural Heritage, Context and Preservation; the Second Encounter of Cultural Development Observatories and the third International Round Table of the movement Culture Monde as well as a forum on libraries of the South and the 2007 edition of the Video and Community Image Contest. (AIN, 11/6/07)

June 11: Experts and directives from the coordination and exchange Internet network Cuture.Mondo are holding their third meeting in Havana. The network includes Web portals from Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia and Oceania. The gathering will be held in the context of the 5th International Congress on Culture and Development underway in the Cuban capital until next June 14.  Participants in the meeting will focus on the potential and need of Latin American and Caribbean countries to further promote a diverse image of their intellectual and artistic products. Representatives of the UNESCO regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as experts such as Valdimir Skok, of Canada, among others will be attending the meeting. (AIN, 11/6/07)

June 12: Several police officers showed up at the house of human rights activist, Mayda Bárbara Jordan Contreras, in Marianao, Havana and, without explanation, took her to a police station. After being put in a cell, she was taken to a hospital with early signs of cardiac arrest and was later released. Authorities demand that she sign a “control” warning every month. (Cubanet, 12/6/07)

June 12: One of Cuba's leading "prisoners of conscience" remained in jail despite growing concern about his health due to "inhumane prison conditions," his family and dissidents told the press. Speaking by telephone from Las Mangas prison in eastern Cuba, Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Paneque told his mother, Moralinda Paneque, that he was taken to hospital after experiencing "an excruciating pain in the abdomen." "Through an ultrasound, the prison doctors diagnosed him with having a cyst on the upper region of his bladder," his family and fellow dissidents said in a statement. Dr. Garcia Paneque's latest health problems came after dissidents and family members claimed that his weight dropped from 86 kilograms (189 pounds) to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) because of "intestinal mal absorption syndrome", that causes him to suffer from severe chronic diarrhea and abdominal cramps. In a statement, his family and dissidents said "poor conditions in prison" were to blame for his deteriorating health as he "must consume food in poor state, does not go out in the sun" and "is under great psychological stress due to beatings, harassment, humiliations and ill treatment he is receiving from common prisoners with whom he is confined." The physician, journalist and librarian was among nearly 80 people, including active Christians, who were arrested as part of a crackdown on dissidents in 2003.  Dr. Garcia Paneque, 42, was eventually sentenced to 24 years in prison on charges of "serving foreign powers," under laws governing the protection of the Cuban State. (BosNewsLife, 12/6/07)

June 13: Nearly 700 delegates from 65 countries attending the 5th International Congress on Culture and Development are due to tackle global networks, industries and cultural diversity. The second day of the Conference was characterized by speeches on Hegemony and Identity by writers Eliades Acosta, Hector Diaz Polanco, Reynaldo Gonzalez and Adolfo Colombres, among others. Speakers unanimously repudiated the US intervention in Iraq, child labor, racism, hegemony, profiteering and the lack of solidarity inherent to capitalism. (Prensa Latina, 13/6/07)

June 13: The director of the Cuban National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), Mariela Castro Espín, denied that her centre would support the creation of a gay pride organization on the island. In a statement published on the Internet site of CENESEX, dated June 8, Mariela Castro advises that “(…) we must fight (...) not through the creation of “gays-only” organizations, which could lend itself to misinterpretation since such groups would themselves constitute, to some extent, a repetition of an exclusivist behavioural pattern, discriminatory of the rest of society and other forms of sexual diversity,” she said. (EER, 13/6/07)

June 14: The Martin Luther King Center in Havana, Cuba, is at the forefront of promoting Christian social responsibility and progressive change throughout the region. Within Cuba, the organization is involved with the distribution of medicines, HIV prevention programs, and housing projects. In the spirit of popular education, it runs extensive training workshops to empower Latin Americans and promote social involvement. The center also participates in various international solidarity movements such as the Landless Worker’s Movement (MST) and the World Social Forum. In an interview with the journal “Yes!”, Joel Suárez, the general coordinator of Cuba’s Martin Luther King Center discussed the center’s three founding pillars: the Cuban Ecumenical Movement, Popular Education, and international solidarity. He also explains the lead-up to Cuba’s constitutional change in 1992, which ratified the secular nature of the state. (YES!, Summer 2007)

June 14: Homage was paid to Che Guevara, the “Heroic Guerrilla”, on the occasion of the 79 anniversary of his birth and the 40th of his fall in combat. “I want to say to the youth that they cannot be timid anymore when studying Che’s work. People have to seize his thoughts, like they have to seize the entire history of the Revolution,” said Dr. Fernando Martinez Heredia at a conference on the “Ideology of Che and Today’s Challenges.” This gathering, held June 12 at the University of Havana, marked the beginning of the colloquium “Che’s Permanance”— celebrating his 79th birthday and the 40th anniversary of his death in combat. "Since Fidel initiated the process of the rectification of errors and negative tendencies, until today, the thinking of Che has returned. Thousands of Cuban know it and others seek it out and study it; but there is a lot lacking for it to be an intellectual and political instrument that is fully taken advantage of. "With absolute security, he stated that from Che —from an ethical side deeply bound to politics— we can be aided in the fight against corruption that has taken so many forms and tentacles; but to combat it, we must especially examine its causes and forms in order to get to its roots. (Juventud Rebelde, 14/7/07)

June 14: Cuba could become the first Caribbean island nation to recognise the civil and inheritance rights of gay and lesbian couples, if a proposed reform of the Family Code is approved. "I can't guarantee that it will reach parliament this year," said sexologist Mariela Castro, director of the governmental National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX). "That is our hope, but it does not depend on us, and of course, it is facing a great deal of resistance," she told the press. Opponents of the measure set forth arguments like "Cuban society is not prepared" or "this is not the right time." Castro, meanwhile, recognises that "laws by themselves are not sufficient to bring about real change," although they are indispensable for the design of public policies. Drawn up by the non-governmental Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) with support from CENESEX, the draft reform of the Family Code has been presented to the Political Bureau, the highest body of the ruling Communist Party. "We are waiting for approval in order to introduce it to parliament as a draft law," said Castro. The proposal would give homosexual couples the same civil and inheritance rights as heterosexual couples. However, it does not mention gay marriage, because a change of that magnitude would require a lengthy process of reforming the constitution, which was last amended in 1992. "That proposal will be made when the time is ripe. For now, it is sufficient to reform the Family Code, which is recognised as a branch of Cuban law," said Castro, who is the daughter of Raúl Castro, acting president while his brother Fidel convalesces from a series of intestinal operations. Article 36 of the Cuban constitution rules out the possibility of homosexual marriage by establishing that "marriage is the voluntary union between a man and a woman." (IPS, 14/6/07)

June 15: Rafael Capote Martínez, a layman, has been appointed as the new director of the catholic magazine 'Vitral', reported the bishop of Pinar del Río, Jorge Serpa. Capote is the former director of the diocesan library and a collaborator of the Centro de Formación Cívica y Religiosa. Monsignor Serpa made the announcement during an interview regarding the status of the Fellowship for Assistance to Prisoners and Their Relatives, a diocesan organization which former leaders believe the Bishop has “dismantled.” “We have never said anything about ending the Fellowship,” said Serpa. (EER, 15/6/07)

June 15: Volleyball players from Cuba and the Dominican Republic received doping bans from the international volleyball federation. An FIVB anti-doping panel found Cuba's Osmany Juantorena Portuondo guilty of breaking the federation's medical regulations and gave him a two-year suspension. The ban was backdated to November 18, 2006, when Juantorena first received a provisional suspension. FIVB did not say which substance Juantorena had taken. (AP, 15/6/07)

June 16: Marta Beatriz Roque, the Cuban economist who has become one of the most prominent dissidents in that country, led a peaceful march to demand the release of Jose Antonio Mola Porro, a political prisoner sentenced to two years in jail. Roque, who has herself been imprisoned and harassed for her efforts to bring democracy back to Cuba, led a group of over 70 dissidents who demanded the unconditional release of Mola Porro, who was released in 2006 but was taken back to prison in November of that year for participating in the Congress of Independent Libraries. Last May 14 he should have been released, but without any trial he was sentenced to another year in prison. The unprecedented peaceful march led by Roque reached the Attorney General’s office of the Camaguey Province, where Mola Porro’s wife presented a request for his release, while the 70 dissidents remained outside under intense scrutiny by state police officers. (CNA, 19/6/07)

June 16: On the eve of Father’s Day, the Ladies in White marched along streets of the populated neighborhood of Centro Habana. A group of thirty-five women walked several kilometers in the Cuban capital followed closely by cars and officials of the State Security who took pictures of the group. (Cubanet, 19/6/07)

June 18: Vilma Espin, wife of Cuba's acting president Raul Castro, died in Havana, aged 77, state TV reported. She was a key figure in the Cuban revolution and the long-standing head of the Cuban Women's Federation, which works to advance women's rights. Born into a wealthy family, she fought as a guerrilla alongside Fidel Castro and his younger brother Raul in the Sierra Maestra mountains. She married Raul in early 1959 and was often described as Cuba's "first lady". Espin reportedly died after a long battle with an undisclosed illness. Cuba's top leaders will pay homage to Espin with a solemn gathering at the Karl Marx theater in Havana, along with leaders of the Federation of Cuban Women and other representatives of Cuban society. Formal homages to Espin were scheduled for all day June 19 across the island, and Cuban flags will be lowered to half mast at all public buildings and military bases. No state funeral will be held. According to Espin's wishes, her ashes will be placed in a mausoleum in eastern Cuba's Sierra Maestra mountains that contains the remains of other rebel fighters, including her friend Frank Pais, who recruited her into the movement. That private family interment will be held with full military honors, according to a statement by the leadership of Cuba's Communist Party and government. "Her name will be linked eternally to the most significant achievements of Cuban women through the Revolution," the government statement said. (BBC, AP, CBS,  Granma, 19/6/07)

June 19: Serene but visibly moved, acting President Raul Castro paid his respects to his late wife Vilma Espin Guillois at Jose Marti Memorial in Havana’s Revolution Square. Raul placed a red rose under a huge black-and-white photograph of Espin atop a red, white and blue Cuban flag. Top Cuban leaders filed past, each placing a single pink or yellow rose in her memory. Close to Raul, Alejandro Castro Espín, Coronel of the Ministry of Interior and one of the four children of the couple, was receiving condolescences on behalf of the family. There was no sign of Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public since he fell ill last July. Espin died at age 77. Authorities did not give a cause of death, but she was said to suffer from severe circulatory problems in recent years. Outside the towering Marti monument, thousands of Cubans began lining up to pay their respects, snaking across the broad Revolution Plaza under a broiling sun. For many, Espin's death recalled the twilight of the men and women who built Cuba's revolution. (AFP, EER, Sun Sentinel, 19,20/6/07)

June 19: Cuba’s top leaders joined Raul Castro and his children in homage to Vilma Espin, a pioneer in the fight for women's equality in Cuba, at a solemn gathering at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana. Formal tributes to Espin were held across the island, including one in her native Santiago. Espin was the most important revolutionary figure to die since Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro's closest confidant, succumbed to cancer in 1980. (Sun Sentinel, 20/6/07)

June 20: Fidel Castro paid tribute to his late sister-in-law, leftist guerrilla and women's rights pioneer Vilma Espin Guillois, writing that she "never backed down from any danger" and that her example is "more necessary than ever." Fidel did not appear at formal tributes in Espin's honor, but wrote about her in an essay called "Vilma's Struggles". "I have been a witness of Vilma's battles for almost half a century," he wrote, recalling Espin's days as a guerrilla fighter in Cuba's Sierra Maestra and her fight for gender equality once the rebels toppled the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista in January 1959. The statement was e-mailed to international journalists and was scheduled to appear in official media on June 21. [Vilma’s Struggles] (AP, 21/6/07)

June 21: Cuban authorities, who last May tightened the requirements for private travel abroad, announced a number of exceptions for the requirement of invitation letters. (AFP, 21/6/07)

June 21: Residents in the municipalities of San Juan y Martínez, Guanes, Sandino and the towns of Cortés and Bajada, in Pinar del Rio, are facing increased harassment from the authorities. Police officers are asking anyone approaching the coast for identification papers in an apparent attempt to prevent the constant illegal departures from the westernmost zone of the island. (Cubanet, 21/6/07)

June 21: Four veteran opposition leaders said little has changed in Cuba a decade after they were jailed for a bold critique of Cuban communism and issuing calls for peaceful protests of Fidel Castro's rule. "The Cuban government talks a lot, too much. (…) But it has done nothing to change or improve the people's situation." Roca, engineer Felix Bonne, economist Martha Beatriz Roque and attorney Rene Gomez Manzano released the critique a decade ago accusing the Communist Party of failing to offer pragmatic solutions to the nation's economic ills. They also made what was then the especially bold move of holding a news conference with foreign journalists. They urged Cubans not to vote in single-party elections, exhorted Cubans abroad to encourage their relatives on the island to undertake acts of civil disobedience, and asked foreigners to invest their money elsewhere. The dissidents, speaking to reporters at the residence of Michael Parmly, head of the US Interests Section, said they had not seen any significant changes since Fidel Castro fell ill 11 months ago. Roque denied allegations that she and her colleagues were financed by foreigners. "The problems of the Cuban people have to be resolved by us Cubans," she said. "The problems are Cuba's and no other foreign country should get involved in Cuban problems." "When I say that, I say that in the residence of the United States," Roque added, without any hint of irony. "But not even the United States has any reason to get involved in our problems." American officials said the dissidents asked to hold the news conference in Parmly's residence because of concerns the Cuban government would attempt to block the event if held elsewhere. Parmly, the head of the US Interest Section, declined to comment, saying of the dissidents that "this is their day." (AP, 21/6/07)

June 21: Cuban scientific and health institutions are conducting approximately 40 stem cell studies for the treatment of various diseases. The president of the National Commission of Regenerative Therapy of the Department of Public Health, Porfirio Hernández, said that more than 80 transplants have been performed on diabetics and patients with acute ischemic lower limbs, who have subsequently shown signs of a fast and effective recovery. (EFE, 21/6/07)

June 21: A moderate Cuban opposition group, the Pro-Dialogue and Reconciliation Coordination, called on other dissident organizations and ordinary citizens to participate in a far-reaching forum-debate on the future of the island, an event to which organizers also plan to invite representatives of the Communist government. The group's coordinator, Fernando Sanchez, said at a press conference that the gathering, which began and is accessible via the Internet by opposition members outside the country, will study several documents written by the opposition and even one of the most famous speeches by Fidel Castro.  The head of the outlawed center-left Arco Progresista, Manuel Cuesta Morua, said that the "History Will Absolve Me" speech that Castro gave at his 1953 trial following his failed attack on the Moncada barracks will be analyzed because, in his judgment, it is the only political program drawn up by the revolutionary government. The aim is to "seek a rational platform for an exchange (of ideas) with the authorities, because the authorities don't have a plan for the country (…) the only defining document in terms of a political program and (…) project for society is 'History Will Absolve Me,'" he said, adding that government officials will be invited to the debate. 
Other documents to be studied are "The Fatherland Belongs to All" (Task Force of the internal dissidence movement, 1996); the "Varela Project" (Christian Liberation Movement, 2000) and "Cuba: Cuban National Reconciliation Task Force on Memory, Truth, and Justice," (University of Florida, 2003). Cuesta said "this is the right time" to launch a debate on the island's democratic future and respect for human rights in Cuba and added that the organizers are looking more for "unity of proposals than unity of minds," an allusion to other leaders of opposition organizations. (EFE, Reuters, 22/6/07)

June 22: Convalescing Fidel Castro issued a "reflection" on his recent essays entitled "Reflections of the Commander in Chief," outlining his dilemma over whether to write them longer or shorter. Although the first essays were long and dense, they recently have been more concise, something Castro said led to wider international news coverage of his musings. But he said he still wanted the chance to write extensively without monopolizing front page space in official newspapers. "This dilemma constitutes a headache for me," Castro wrote in an essay distributed via e-mail to foreign correspondents that was published in official daily Granma the day after. [A Reflection on My Reflections] (The Miami Herald, 23/6/07)

June 22: Vilma Espin, the former guerrilla fighter who was communist Cuba's most politically powerful woman, was laid to rest with full military honors. Her husband, acting president Raul Castro, placed an urn containing her ashes in a mausoleum in the Sierra Maestra, where Espin fought during the late 1950s against the government of Fulgencio Batista. Castro arrived at the Second Front in the Sierra Maestra along with family members, a small group of Espin's closest friends and other former rebels. The site northeast of the eastern city of Santiago houses the remains of other guerrilla fighters from the revolution led by Espin's brother-in-law Fidel Castro. The traditional Cuban composition "El Mambi" was played while the urn was transported on an open cart behind a vehicle to the mausoleum steps. Raul then carried the wooden container to the mausoleum wall, placing a lingering kiss on the urn, and letting loose a sob, before placing it in a niche to be sealed later. Cuba's national anthem was played and military riflemen delivered a three-gun military salute. Old recordings were played of Espin  singing nursery songs to her four children, along with another message for her husband, Raul: "I could not live without you." (AP, 22/6/07)

June 22: Creativity and fun livened up the sessions of the Ninth Salon and Colloquium on Digital Art, the end of which was marked by the exhibition of prize-winning audiovisual works. The program also included the documentary DeGeneracion (2006), by filmmaker Aram Vidal, which took part in the last contest of young filmmakers and was well received by critics. University professor, writer Jorge R. Bermudez, a leading specialist attending the event, highlighted the authenticity of this form of art, which has already boasted great results despite its tender age and its underestimation by purists. Victor Casaus, who chaired the organizing committee, announced that this gathering will be followed up by the "Sharing Dreams" event in October, when Cuban and US graphic designers will meet and exchange experiences. (Prensa Latina, 22/6/07)

June 23: Fidel Castro reached out to Cuban youth, warning that "If the young people fail, everything will fail" in an acknowledgment that motivating Cubans too young to remember his 1959 revolution is often a struggle. "None of you were alive when the Revolution triumphed," Castro wrote in a letter to the Communist Youth Union. "Its roots were sustained in every act of sacrifice and heroism of an admirable people, who knew how to confront all obstacles." He went on to write: "If the young people fail, everything will fail. It is my profound conviction that the Cuban youth will fight to stop that. I believe in you." His letter, which appeared in the Communist Party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde on June 24 and was read on state-run television, came in response to an optimistic letter the youth union sent to their "Commander in Chief." "The young people of this land believe, with profound conviction, in the free and sovereign future of Cuba; in the preservation of the work of art we built and the happiness of revolutionaries now and forever," the union wrote. [Response to the Message of the Young Communists League] (AP, 24/6/07)

June 24: Peaceful political opponents in the City of Havana founded the “Miguel Valdés Tamayo” People’s Human Rights Movement to intensify the struggle for democracy. 21 individuals attended the meeting held in the municipality of Guanabacoa, while 15 police officers in plain clothes kept watch outside, next to two State Security motorcycles. (Cubanet, 29/6/07)

June 25: The 10 permanent Cuban Parliament commissions began analyzing important issues, prior to the ninth ordinary session period slated for June 29. The Constitutional and Judiciary Affairs group will debate the report of the Supreme Court and Attorney's office, and the fulfillment of recent resolutions and measures on labor discipline. The Economic Affairs group will review the course of the year's social and economic guidelines, agricultural producers' payment, efforts of international economic associations and substitution of imports. Deputies on Productive Affairs will analyze voters' statements to their delegates corresponding to the Ministries of Basic Industry and Food Industry, as well as those of Housing and Hydraulic Resources Institutes. Those linked to the Ministries of Domestic Trade, Tourism, and Informatics and Communication, as well as CIMEX Corporation, will debate the Service Commission labors. The Health and Sports group will debate ethics in health services, sports teaching system, Cuban participation in the coming Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro and the state of municipal services. The National Defense group will tackle the extension of open hours at various offices to provide services to the population. Education, Culture, Science and Environment will review continuity of studies in high schools and university, the national environmental strategy and progress in Culture-Tourism coordination. (Prensa Latina, 25/6/07)

June 25: A prominent Cuban dissident group launched a campaign to push for constitutional reforms that would allow for democratic elections and greater respect for human rights in the communist country. The campaign is the latest in a series of calls for political and economic changes by opposition groups on the island since Fidel Castro fell ill almost 11 months ago and temporarily handed over power to his younger brother, Raul. The most recent push is led Oswaldo Paya, a dissident who five years ago gained international notoriety by gathering 25,000 signatures calling for a referendum on civil liberties that became known as the Varela Project. The new project, dubbed the Cuban Forum Campaign, urges Cubans of all political stripes to join forces to demand free elections for a Constituent Assembly that would amend the constitution. "It is time for Cubans to open the doors of the future, using legal and peaceful means," Paya said in a joint statement with Minervo Chil Siret, a member of the Christian Liberation Movement that Paya leads. The campaign also calls on Cuba's opposition groups, which are fragmented and frequently infiltrated by government agents, to refrain from dialogue with the Cuban regime until it releases all political prisoners. [Cuban Forum Campaign] (Reuters, 26/6/07)

June 25: Dr. Luis Milán Fernández, prisoner of conscience since the crackdown on dissidents of March-April 2003, and a man who does not suffer from any emotional or mental problems, has been arbitrarily confined since February 18, 2005, to a psychiatric ward of the Prison of Boniato, in Santiago de Cuba. Dr. Milán Fernández is forced to share a cell with two or three mental patients who are suffering a variety of disorders (obsessive compulsive, schizophrenia, depressive neurosis who attempt to commit suicide, etc.). Penal authorities follow a pattern, changing his cell mates, sometimes leaving him alone. In addition, all those criminals who must be psychiatrically evaluated at the Prison of Boniato are always assigned to remain in Dr. Milan’s cell for weeks until the results of their evaluations are concluded. (Coalition of Cuban American Women, 25/6/07)

June 26: The second and final day of congressional committee sessions focused on vital issues of the Cuban reality, as part of the ninth legislature’s ordinary period. Energy saving, gradual solutions to housing problems, fulfillment of recent regulations on labor discipline, and social development of women and children are some of the issues on the extensive agenda. Among social and economic items, the Cuban lawmakers grouped in the ten permanent committees of the National People s Power Assembly will continue debating affairs of greatest repercussion for the population and country. Food production and organization of rural productive activity are on the program of the current Legislature, to officially open June 29. (Prensa Latina, 26/6/07)

June 26: The outlawed Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported the mysterious death in police custody of dissident Manuel Acosta. Elizardo Sanchez, head of the commission, told the press that police reported "verbally" to family members that Acosta, 47, apparently hanged himself before dawn of June 24 with his own trousers in a cell at a police station in the central province of Cienfuegos. Police called the death a suicide. "He died at a police facility where he was awaiting trial for an offense of pre-criminal dangerousness," Sanchez said, adding that Acosta had been arrested on June 22 and was set to appear in court on June 27. "He was alive on the night of June 23 and turned up dead at 5 a.m. next morning. He died in police custody and we can't rule out that he was the victim of police brutality," he said.
Sanchez said that Acosta was a man in "good physical and mental health" who never gave any indications that he might take his own life. He said that the authorities have not yet given results of the autopsy to his family. Acosta, who was buried on June 25 in the Cienfuegos town of Aguada de los Pasajeros, was a member of the opposition "Democracy Movement," spent two years in jail for contempt of court, and helped collect signatures for the Varela Project, an initiative for a referendum on democratizing the communist-ruled island. (EFE, 26/6/07) 

June 27: A "new bohemia or useful break time for Havana residents," is envisioned this summer under a summer reading campaign beginning July 6, Havana Cuba Book Institute deputy director Alpidio Alonso announced. Since books and reading are part of the strategy of Cuban cultural institutions, books from libraries and bookshops will be made available to passersby in the central Vedado neighborhood in Havana. Alonso made the announcement at a conference at the Havana-based Cuba Pavillion exhibition center, saying Jose Saramago and Walt Whitman will invade the summer holidays. (Prensa Latina, 27/6/07)

June 27: The situation of leptospirosis in Cuba, actions, results and analysis of a vaccine against that bacterial infection, are issues under discussion at the National Congress on this disease starting in Havana. Doctor Jose Antonio Fraga Castro, director of LABIOFAM (Biological Pharmaceutical Laboratories), said that over 200 delegates from the island are due to debate in the two-day meeting what the country has so far done to fight this disease. (Prensa Latina, 27/6/07)

June 28: Kilo 7, a maximum-security Cuban prison in Camaguey, is one of several in which journalist Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, now 37, has been held since April 2003. He is serving a 25-year sentence for crimes against the state that include writing articles critical of the Cuba's health, education and judicial agencies. Suffering from tuberculosis and a chronic parasitic infection, both contracted in prison, Hernandez Gonzalez is perilously underweight at just over 100 pounds, according to his mother, who adds that his illnesses are poorly treated. ``Mi hijo esta muy mal. Muy mal.'' Even on the speakerphone from Miami, Blanca Gonzalez's voice is unmistakably choked with emotion. In April, at her urging, Costa Rican legislators granted Hernandez Gonzalez a visa that could have gotten him out of prison and the country. But Cuban officials refused to honor the visa. So he continues to deteriorate, limited to one visit every two months from his wife, Yarai Reyes, and Daniela, the daughter from whom he has been separated since her first birthday celebration, on the day before his arrest. Hernandez Gonzalez was arrested on March 18, 2003, during a crackdown that netted 75 journalists and other alleged dissidents. At the time of his arrest, Hernandez Gonzalez was the head of the Camaguey College of Independent Journalists. ``It was a group established by Normando,'' says his mother. ``The headquarters was at my house, in Camaguey. They are all in jail now.'' (Bloomberg, 28/6/07)

June 29: The Attorney General's Office and the Supreme Court reported to the National Assembly's ordinary period of sessions led by Vice President Raul Castro. Attorney General Juan Escalona spoke on the penal policy and laws that reinforce individualized treatment so that sentences are in sync with the nature of the crime, antecedents and danger. During the session, lawmakers requested to the AG office more “coherent”,  organized and efficient tribunals at all levels. According to reports in the Cuban official media, during debates the Parliament fought for a more “coherent” judicial system. The member of the Supreme Court, Ruben Remigio Ferro, noted that the judiciary system suffers from instability and lack of experience of its personnel, especially of judges, which harms and provokes delays to justice decisions. The plenary also heard a statement by the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee that recalls that no one is above the law, congratulated the judiciary and called to reinforce its work. Cuban provisional president Raul Castro called it a “magnificent” report. Fragments of the discussions were broadcast by official TV. Foreign press was not allowed to attend the session. (Prensa Latina, EFE, Reuters, 30,2/6,7/07)

June 29: In his closing speech during the Ninth Ordinary Session of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, President of the National Assembly of the People’s Power, said in Cuba there will be a Socialist Revolution as long as the Cuban people exist. “And as long as our people exist, there will exist our Revolution, which will be increasingly socialist, just and free”, Alarcon said. "Nobody will be able to change our society because it is ours for the first time as a result of our struggle, our sacrifices, independence and freedom," he added, and recalled that Fidel Castro recently reminded President Bush that Cuba will never be a possession of the United States again, "because we will be able to resist and fight", the President of the Cuban Parliament said. (ACN, 30/6/07)

June 29: Police officers in Pinar del Río detained several women, members of the Latin-American Federation of Rural Women (FLAMUR). The women were at a bus station, ready to go to Havana, where they would deliver the signatures in support of their “With the Same Coin” campaign to the National Assembly of the People’s Power. “They searched us and impounded the bag containing 350 signatures collected among the population, all in plain view of those at the bus station,” said Dayamari Piñeira. FLAMUR is campaigning so that authorities allow payment in Cuban pesos at every commercial establishment, the currency with which the State pays salaries, and not in convertible currency. (Cubanet, 29/6/07)

June 30: First Cuban Vice President Raul Castro handed over the nation’s flag to the Cuban delegation that will participate in the 15th Pan American Games of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July. The Cuban leader exchanged views with the athletes, conveyed greetings from Fidel Castro and urged them to return victorious. For his part, Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo ratified that the objective of the team is to keep the second place in the medal table by countries and increase the number of medals obtained so far in continental events (711). The Cuban delegation groups 483 athletes with an average age of 23 years. (CAN, 30/6/07)