Chronicle on Cuba - August 2007

Exile Community

August 1: Ignoring official warnings and counsel from colleagues, Cuban news photographer Cristóbal Herrera Ulashkevich showed the world embarrassing photos of Fidel Castro out of professional pride, he said. As a freelance photographer for The Associated Press in Havana, Herrera captured two crucial images of Castro's health slide: his fainting spell while making a speech in 2001 and his dramatic fall after another speech in October 2004. The two sets of photos appeared in media around the world, boosting Herrera's professional standing but also putting him on the road to forced exile in Costa Rica -- because security forces did not like his images. ''I am condemned to forced exile,'' Herrera, 36, told the press. ``The Cuban government barred me from returning to my country, without explanations.'' ''We had no other option left,'' he said. ``This is the price for doing photojournalism in Cuba.'' Herrera, his wife and 2-year-old daughter left Costa Rica this spring and crossed the Mexico-US border. They arrived in Miami in May, looking for a better life. (The Miami Herald, 1/8/07)

August 1: Cuban exiles in Miami say their one-year campaign to encourage civil resistance on the island has been a success. ''The campaign has taken off,'' said Orlando Gutiérrez, national secretary of the 200-member Directorio Democrático Cubano, or Cuban Democracy Directory, in a news conference. ``The struggle increasingly has public support.'' Last year, 10 Miami-based exile groups came together to start broadcasting television, radio and online ads featuring well-known Cuban exile artists to the island. Fliers and bumper stickers were distributed. Short ads starring artists such as Jon Secada and -- most recently -- singer Amaury Gutiérrez and TV personality Boncó Quiñongo were aired. The objective: To get Cubans to stop cooperating with their government, Gutiérrez said. The groups provided dozens of examples, many from independent journalists inside Cuba, of civic resistance in the past year. Another indicator of success, Gutiérrez said, is Raúl Castro's speech on July 26, in which he chided ''social indiscipline'' stemming from wage protests. (The Miami Herald, 2/8/07)

August 1: The serious limitations to free trade unions in Cuba, and the arbitrary detention of independent trade unionists, were exposed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS at the request of the Cuban Democratic Directorate. The OAS entity also heard a report on political prisoner Francisco Chaviano, confined in the Combinado del Este prison for more than 15 years. (Martí Noticias, 1/8/07)

August 3: Cuban-American business leaders called for the creation of a 300 million dollar fund to help build private enterprise in Cuba once the communist-run state adopts what they called "inevitable" reforms. The proposal, presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Studies on Cuban Economy (ASCE) in Miami, is based on the Enterprise Funds that invested US grants in small and medium sized corporations in eastern European countries when they emerged from communism in the 1990s. The Cuba Study Group, an organization made up of Cuban-American business and community leaders, suggested that the US government, the European Union and private companies should each provide 100 million dollars for the "Cuban Enterprise Fund." The group made it clear the money would only be available once Cuba adopts reforms. US laws currently would not allow for the funds to be sent to the island, and Cuban legislation prohibits such private investments. (AFP, 3/8/07)

August 4: Dozens of opponents and leaders from 45 organizations from the expatriate community took to the streets of south Florida to mark the 'Day for Non Cooperation in Cuba Campaign'. The campaign calls for non cooperation with the regime both “inside and out of the island”. (El Nuevo Herald, 5/8/07)

August 5: Jose Miguel Battle Sr., former godfather of the Cuban mob, died in federal custody at a dialysis facility in South Carolina, his attorney confirmed to the press. He was 77. Battle, who had been suffering from liver failure, diabetes and cardiac problems, was awaiting a spot in federal prison to serve out his 20-year sentence on racketeering charges, attorney Jack Blumenfeld said. Battle was the reputed leader of ''The Corporation,'' a Cuban organized-crime group that made millions from decades of illegal bookmaking, “bolita” lotteries and drug trafficking. Known as ''El Padrino,'' or Godfather, Battle directed the large organization with ties from New York to Latin America. (The Miami Herald, 6/8/07)

August 8: Members of the Democracy Movement gathered in front of a federal Government building in support of the 44 Cubans on a hunger strike on the Naval Base at Guantánamo. The strikers are demanding to be sent to the United States or a third country. (EFE, 8/8/07)

August 15: A decade after the Castro government shot down two airplanes belonging to the Cuban-exile group Brothers to the Rescue, the niece of one of the victims is bringing her uncle's story to the big screen in the documentary "Shoot Down." Cristina Khuly, a 37-year-old sculptress, watched for years as her mother led a civil suit against the Cuban government on behalf of Khuly's slain uncle and other victims' relatives. Khuly decided to make the film to find out what really happened to her uncle, Vietnam veteran Armando Alejandre Jr., as his plane was shot out of the sky over the Florida Straits. She also hopes understanding that piece of history will help both the US and Cuba in the future as they negotiate relations in a post-Fidel Castro era. "I wanted to tell the story, essentially have a record of what really occurred and have it be a window into our relationship with Cuba , and hopefully we can learn from mistakes that we've made," Khuly said. (The Boston Globe, 15/8/07)

August 16: Max Lesnick, a Cuban-born journalist who lives in the United States, received the 'Felix Elmuza' distinction granted by the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC) for his work in the defense and spreading of Cuba's reality. Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban Parliament, praised the courage of Lesnick in supporting the Cuban Revolution and against the US financial, commercial and trade blockade against the island. He added that this work, done from Miami, has more than once put the life of this journalist in danger. Alarcón highly commended the constant work of Lesnick in the campaign for the release of Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Rene Gonzalez, the five Cuban heroes who remain imprisoned in the United States. For his part, Lesnick thanked the Cuban Journalists Union and ratified his commitment to the cause of the Cuban Revolution and his homeland. (ACN, 16/8/07)

August 17: When it came time to discuss the male anatomy, the professor excused his female students from the class. It was 1940s Cuba, and Isabel Diaz, a student at the University of Havana Medical School, wasn't budging from her seat. By 1943, she had her medical degree and began a pediatric career that spanned two countries and a revolution. At 90, the Plantation resident who has treated two generations of patients in Florida will receive the Latina Pioneer Award at the sixth annual Hispanic Women of Distinction charity celebration. "I don't know why they're giving it to me," Diaz said recently with a laugh, never having thought of herself as a trailblazer. "In this country it's a simple formula: You work hard, you're organized, and you're disciplined. If you don't reach your goals, then you didn't want to in the first place." Humanitarian missions took Diaz to Honduras with doctors operating on children with cleft lip. She also dedicated her time to low-income children in Broward County, volunteering 15 years at Light of the World Clinic. She left her practice in 1992, but continued treating children at outpatient facilities of the North Broward Hospital District. A case of macular degeneration forced her to retire in 1999 at 82, four years after losing her son to cancer and her husband to heart failure within months of each other. (Sun Sentinel, 17/8/07)

August 19: He sits diligently at a wooden work-bench by the door, his hands busy, his eyes content. In front of him is the day's work so far -- small bundles of more than 50 Robustos, Churchills, Coronas and double Coronas. Alberto Hernandez reaches into a bag to pull out a moist brown leaf of Nicaraguan tobacco. He stretches and kneads the pliable frond, cutting off sections he doesn't need with a small, half-moon shaped blade called a chavetta. "I brought this with me from Cuba," Hernandez, 65, said at the Cigar Factory Outlet on Hanford Place, where he's taken center stage. "I've had it for ten years." For 45 years, Hernandez worked as a roller at the Partagas factory in Havana, which he left 14 years ago, and at a factory in the Dominican Republic, where he remained until six months ago when he immigrated to New York City. (The Advocate, 19/8/07)

August 22: Cuba's latest ballet phenomenon joined Miami City Ballet as a leading dancer. Rolando Sarabia, known as the ''Cuban Nijinsky'' at the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, made international news when he defected two years ago by walking across the border from Mexico to the United States. The wunderkind, who turned 25, became a principal dancer just a year after he joined the Ballet Nacional at age 16. Sarabia joined the Houston Ballet (where another Cuban ballet star, Carlos Acosta, also danced), but wasn't happy there. He got a taste of Miami audiences in performances with Pedro Pablo Peña's International Ballet Festival and recently launched troupe Ballet Classico Cubano. In spring, with the help of friend and fellow Cuban Luis Serrano, who recently retired from MCB, Sarabia auditioned in Miami. Now he's rehearsing dances by Balanchine and Tharp, happy at the prospect of performing for Cubans and to be with family -- he's got two aunts and four uncles here. “None of them are dancers -- they're all fat,'' Sarabia said during a rehearsal break. Not true of his younger brother and roommate Daniel, who defected in 2004 and has also joined MCB as a soloist. (The Miami Herald, 22/8/07) 

August 24: In the year since the Cuban government announced Castro had ceded power to brother Raúl following intestinal surgery, rumors he's on his deathbed keep boiling over and dying down, creating a roller coaster of emotion for exiles and islanders. In Miami, tearful callers told Ninoska Pérez of Radio Mambí they were sure this was it, and Pérez, as usual, said, ``The moment will come, but this is not the moment.'' At Aaction Home Health in Hialeah, office workers were abuzz because one heard that people in Havana were taking to the streets in anticipation of the news. At the University of Miami, media relations officers worked the phones in search of confirmation. The rumors reached fever pitch last weekend. Calls flooded Miami Mayor Manny Diaz's office. UM's Cuba experts were on high alert. “When the rumors started again, my phone rang off the hook,'' says Andy Gomez, senior fellow at UM's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. ``It was everybody. Friends, family, the State Department. People went nuts. '' The older generation in particular is coping, says Radio Mambí's Armando Perez Roura, a longtime Cuban radio personality who has been poised to break the news of Castro's demise for decades. ''This is definitely the calm before the storm,'' Perez Roura says.  ''Both in Cuba and in exile, you can breathe a very tense calm,'' says Ramon Colas, who helped start “Bibliotecas Independientes” (Independent Libraries) in Cuba and left the island in 2001. Oscar Haza, host of WJAN-America TeVe Channel 41's popular “A Mano Limpia” (The Gloves Are Off) hears the anxiety in the voices of viewers who call in to check on the rumors. Knowing how desperate the Cuban exile community is for confirmation of Castro's death, Haza has tried to find a way to calm folks people whenever new rumors get them riled. 'I say, `Don't pay attention to all the rumors. When you tune in and you hear me say `Ya,' you will know that means 'Ya.' '' (The Miami Herald, 25/8/07)

August 25: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama criticized President Bush's Cuba policy to rousing applause at the same Little Havana auditorium where Republican Ronald Reagan once campaigned. Across the streets from the auditorium about 35 protesters held signs condemning Obama's stance on lifting travel restriction to Cuba. The group of mostly older Cuban-Americans, one woman in a kerchief and curlers, another carrying a puppet ghost, were mostly members of the extreme and marginal exile group Vigilia Mambisa. Laura Vianello, a member of the group, said Obama's proposed policies toward Cuba were a huge mistake. She said families have always been able to send humanitarian aid but should not be allowed to visit family on the island more frequently. "If they stayed there then maybe they were communists," she said of the relatives of Cuban-Americans who remain on the island. Meanwhile in front of the auditorium, about 20 young Cuban American students waved placards in support of Obama. Among them was Giancarlo Sopo, 24. The Miami native, now a student at Harvard University, said his entire family had come to hear Obama's speech, and it was the first time his grandmother and his parents were considering voting for a Democrat. "We've been engaged in a failed policy with Cuba for the last 50 years. And we need to change it," he said. (WFTV.Com, AP, 25/8/07)

August 26: In a morning rife with rumors about Fidel Castro's demise, Gloria Estefan gave the first live performances of songs from her new CD, “90 Millas”, on a pier behind the Westin Key West Resort, two blocks from the famed 90-miles-from-Cuba marker. One of the songs, the poignant “Esperando (Cuando Cuba Sea Libre)” (Waiting -- For Cuba To Be Free), drew tears from some of the older Cuban-American fans who had joined their idol. Dressed in a white pants ensemble and her hands adorned with multicolored beads, Estefan acknowledged Cuba's African traditions -- signified by all-white clothes and beads. ''We are Catholic,'' the Miami diva said, ''but we still put out a glass full of water, just in case,'' a reference to the island's -- and Miami's -- Santería practices. ''Let me play the congas,'' a raucous fan yelled from the back of the crowd of fans that served as a backdrop for the singer. ``I just came in on a raft yesterday!'' (The Miami Herald, 26/8/07)

August 28: A Cuban exile who admitted to storage over 1,500 guns and other weapons in his house as a plan to overthrow Fidel Castro, received a five-year in prison sentence.  Robert Ferro, 64, was also fined with 75,000 dollars in a trial presided by federal judge Virginia A. Phillips. During the proceedings, Ferro said that the Florida based organization Alpha 66 Brigade knew about the weapons. A representative of Alpha 66, a paramilitary group that for decades has planned Castro’s overthrow, denied that Ferro was a member of the group. (AP, 28/8/07)

August 31: There were many doubters of the Corrieri della Sera report about Raúl Castro’s visit to Italy. ''This story is absurd,'' said Max Lesnik, a Miami anti-embargo activist with close ties to Havana. ``It seems to me to be a fantasy.'' Raúl Castro, he added, ``can travel, but does it seem logical that a person (…) who is in charge of a nation would go on vacation to play golf -- never mind that his brother is sick in the hospital. Raúl Castro has never played golf in his life.'' Lesnik stressed that Mariela Castro and her Italian husband, Paolo, live in Havana, so there would be no reason for the grandchildren to be living in Italy, as the newspaper reported. (The Miami Herald, 1/9/07)