Chronicle on Cuba - October 2007

Highlights

Domestic affairs: Cuban Communist Party and mass organizations debate the country’s main problems. Fidel Castro appears in a video taped during Venezuelan President’s visit to the island. Several dissidents are detained and further released without charges. Official press reports on different problems affecting Cuba’s education and health systems. Cuba celebrates 40th Anniversary of Che Guevara’s death in Bolivia. Nearly 8.2 million people, or 96.49 percent of registered voters, participate in municipal elections. A group of young people wearing wristbands with the word "cambio" is detained for hours.

Economy: Vice President Carlos Lage says Cuba’s electric power generating capacity meets national demand. Bilateral commerce between Cuba and Russia increases by sixty per cent so far in 2007. In the eastern provinces, numerous houses are damaged, coffee crop suffers, and several thousand peoples are evacuated due to continuous rain and flooding. Cuba and Venezuela sign new economic accords. Cuban authorities acknowledge that housing construction program has failed. 

Exile Community: Unidad Cubana issues “The Declaration from Miami”, a plan for democratic action in Cuba. Writer Carlos Victoria dies in South Florida.

Foreign Affairs:  High-ranking delegations from Guinea Bissau, Honduras, and Lesotho meet with Raul Castro in Havana. Fidel Castro meets for four hours with Hugo Chavez during the Venezuelan President’s visit to Cuba. At a ceremony on the signing of economic accords with Cuba, Hugo Chavez says Cuba and Venezuela could form a confederation of states. UN Special Secretary for the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, arrives in Cuba. Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, says that Cuba would be willing to “renounce its sovereignty” to integrate “into a larger Latin-American and Caribbean bloc of nations.”

US-Cuba Relations: A study on claims of expropriated assets by Cuba’s government is conducted by Creighton University as commissioned by the US Agency for International Development. Several dozen Cuban migrants are interdicted at sea and repatriated by the US Coast Guard. US President George W. Bush delivers a speech on policy toward Cuba. The UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to urge the US to lift its embargo against Cuba.