Chronicle on Cuba - October 2007
Terrorism
October 4: United States defence secretary, Robert Gates, repeated in Santiago de Chile that his country is analyzing the possibility of shutting down the base in Guantánamo, Cuba. “I have said on several occasions that I would like the detention facilities in Guantánamo closed,” he said to the media. (EFE, 4/10/07)
October 12: The US military is reviewing its decision to classify hundreds of Guantanamo Bay inmates as "enemy combatants," a step that could lead to new hearings for men who have spent years behind bars in indefinite detention. Navy Captain Theodore Fessel Jr., the lead officer at Guantanamo for the Defense Department agency that oversees the panels, said authorities have begun seeking new or previously overlooked evidence that may warrant new hearings after the process came under fire. (AP, 12/10/07)
October 16: The guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), called Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, a “political hurricane” and Fidel Castro “warrior of love”. In a statement posted on a web page that often publishes FARC’s bulletins, the rebel group highlighted Chavez’s recent visit to Fidel Castro. Under the title “The sower of conscience,” the article describes that during the recent encounter of the two leaders in Havana, Chávez “listened to the ionized voice of Fidel, the man of planetary stature, the unwavering warrior of love, say repeatedly: Hugo, you are a sower of conscience.” (El País, 17/10/07)
October 22: Attackers threw sticks of dynamite at a house next to the Venezuelan consulate and at a residence for Cuban doctors in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, but no one was wounded, officials said. Bolivia's leftist president, Evo Morales, has formed close ties with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba 's Fidel Castro since taking office in January 2006. Opposition to Morales is strongest in eastern regions, and especially Santa Cruz. Cuba's ambassador to Bolivia said the attack was the second to target Cuban doctors working in the poor South American country in recent weeks. "A month and a half ago there was a similar attack with a tear gas grenade thrown against another house where Cuban doctors live (...) This is the second attack," Ambassador Rafael Dausa told local radio. (Reuters, 22/10/07) |
