Chronicle on Cuba - March 2008

Security

March 10: The lawyer of a Cuban-born Mexican researcher said that his client has no ties to Colombian rebels whose camp was bombed in a cross-border raid earlier this month. The March 1 attack on the FARC camp in Ecuador killed top rebel leader Raul Reyes and 24 others, triggering a diplomatic crisis during which Ecuador and Venezuela sent troops to their Colombian borders. Five Mexican university students are believed to have been at the camp during the attack. Mexican authorities are investigating whether Mario Dagoberto Diaz, a naturalized Mexican citizen and engineering research professor in central Mexico, is a Cuban intelligence agent who helped Mexicans connect with FARC guerrillas. The Mexican government neither confirmed nor denied the information. (Sun Sentinel, 11/3/08)

March 12: Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was in Cuba in 1989 to meet with Cuban military officials, according to a former intelligence officer who escaped the island with his family to the United States. “Pablo Escobar was at my family's home in Havana on Feb. 22, 1989, and he took flowers to my mother as a gift because that day she was celebrating her birthday,'' said Daniel Abierno Govín, a former first lieutenant for Cuba's Interior Ministry (MININT). Abierno, 50, told the press that the meeting with the head of the Medellín cartel took place at his parents' home in the El Vedado neighborhood of Havana. “I saw him only once there and I can't say if he was in Cuba on other occasions, but I can assure you that he was at my house that day,'' stressed Abierno, who worked for MININT for 20 years. ``They presented him as a friend of my sister, Rosa María, and later I learned who he was.'' Abierno's sister, Rosa María Abierno Govín, was a captain in the Cuban intelligence agency and the only woman included in the 1989 case against General Arnaldo Ochoa and other high-ranking Cuban officials. She received a 30-year sentence, charged with bringing cocaine to the island through computer shipments. (El Nuevo Herald, 12/3/08) 

March 13: The 30th anniversary of the Cuban Military Mission in Ethiopia was commemorated in the Cuban Armed Forces’ Sala Universal with a cultural-political ceremony presided over by Politburo members Army Corps General Julio Casas Regueiro, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed forces, and Esteban Lazo Hernández. Army Division General Leonardo Andollo Valdés, Second Chief of Staff of the FAR, recalled events from the Cuban military effort in Ethiopia, code-named “Operation Baraguá” at the suggestion of Fidel Castro. (Granma, 13/3/08)

March 15: South African Minister of Culture Pallo Jordan thanked the Cuban people for its outstanding participation in the crucial victory of Cuito Cuanavale, in Angola, which led to the defeat of the Apartheid regime. Jordan opened the ceremonies to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic battle that ended on March 23, 1988. Celebrations included a motorcade named Through the Path of History, from Liberty Park, Pretoria, to Cuito Cuanavale. Cuban Ambassador Esther Armenteros highlighted the deep pride felt by the Cuban people for having contributed to the independence of the African brothers under the principles of internationalism. (Prensa Latina, 15/3/08)

March 25: “We reaffirm our commitment to defend the values and principles of the revolution and socialism with the same firmness and decision with which our compatriots fought for victory at Cuito Cuanavale," said General Samuel Rodiles Planas, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, in Havana. Rodiles spoke at the ceremony held at the Universal Auditorium of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) for the 20th anniversary of the monumental battle in Angola. The observance was presided over by President Raul Castro. Rodiles said that the unity of Cubans, Angolans and Namibians brought about the fall of the hated Apartheid regime in South Africa, besides consolidating the independence of Angola and contributing to the freeing of Namibia and Zimbabwe. (Granma, 20/3/08).

March 25: Eighty scholars from 10 Latin American, European and Asian countries will converge on Havana from April 21-23 for the 1st International Security and Defense Conference. Convened by the Center for the Study of Defense Information of Cuba (CEID), the participants will analyze topics related to security and defense on the global, regional and national levels. The main subjects of debate are tied to security and defense in the Americas; the existing challenges and threats; the building of a new reliable system on the continent; human security; civil-military relations and the role of the armed forces in society, the influence of the United States in the hemispheric system and the possibilities for integration in this field. Manuel Carbonell Vidal, vice president of the CEID told a press conference that the topics of the event will be related to war and peace; armed conflicts; the arms race; the illegal trafficking of conventional weapons and military bases, Granma newspaper reported. (ACN, 25/3/08)