Chronicle on Cuba - April 2008

US-Cuba Relations

April 1: Recent changes made by Raul Castro, the new Cuban President, to improve access to consumer products are "cynical" since most Cubans won't have enough money to buy them, a top US official said. "It's somewhat cynical that some time in the future they will have the right to buy a cell phone, if they are able to come up with the money", US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in one of the first reactions by the Bush administration to the recent lifting of restrictions in Cuba. Gutierrez, a Cuban-American, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are leading a commission trying to push for democratic changes on the communist-run island, and he thinks recent actions should not be seen as "reforms." "It's sad that after 50 years of suffering and 50 years living in fear with shortages and 50 years living with repression, Cubans now have the right to buy a rice cooker," he added. Stores started selling some of the electric goods that were previously banned in the socialist state, such as DVD players, with microwave ovens and computers expected in a day or so. (Reuters, 1/4/08)

April 1: Tom Casey, spokesman for the US State Department, has said that the ongoing wave of changes in Cuba is negligible. The US official told the media that while lifting the ban on Cubans' access to hotels would certainly be beneficial for a few Cubans, the majority of the population in the island would prefer to have freedom to express their ideas and to execute their political rights without fear of persecution. Casey said that the United States would be interested to see restrictions on civil liberties lifted in Cuba and full transition to democracy adopted. President Raul Castro has, in less than two months since officially becoming head of the Cuban state, implemented a series of marginal changes to everyday life in Cuba. (Global Insight Daily Analysis, 1/4/08)

April 1: The governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, proposed at the OAS a new relationship between the United States and Latin America, and urged Cuba to free all political prisoners and carry out democratic reforms. Richardson expressed the need to take on a more realistic approach toward Cuba and urged the United States to reassess the trade embargo in exchange for reforms on the island. The former democratic presidential candidate made his remarks during the Twenty Seventh Lecture Series of the Americas, in Washington. (OAS Press Release, Radio Martí, 1/4/08)

April 3: In Washington, the Spanish secretary of state for foreign affairs, Bernardino León, said the advisers of the three presidential candidates to the White House believe that Spain is a “reference and a partner and a key ally” with regards to relations with Cuba. The statements were made after he met with the foreign affairs advisers for the three presidential candidates. León said that both the democrat teams of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as that of republican John McCain “understand very well that Spain has to be a reference, a partner and a key ally with regards to relations with Cuba.” He also added that Obama’s advisers “obviously have a much more open position.” (EFE, 3/4/08)

April 4: Cuba must make bolder reforms, free political prisoners and improve human rights before Washington can engage President Raul Castro and end a half-century of isolation, a US official said. In an interview as part of a Latin American summit series, the State Department's top diplomat for the region, Tom Shannon, said recent reforms in Cuba showed pressure for change was building inside the communist island. "These things, as small as they are, are good but they are clearly not enough from our point of view," said Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Raul Castro, since officially succeeding his ailing brother Fidel Castro as president in February, has begun lifting some of the state's economic restrictions. Cubans can now buy computers, DVDs and other products, stay at tourist resorts and access cell phone service, all previously off-limits. Shannon said changes could not just be about what Cubans could buy. "We would urge the Cubans to be bolder, more audacious in their reform, and to ensure that as they undertake these reforms, that they build in a human rights and democracy (…) component," said Shannon. [Shannon: Building an Enduring Engagement in Latin America] (Reuters, AFP, 4/4/08)

April 5: A Miami jury has awarded almost $253 million in a wrongful death case against Cuba, the biggest such penalty to date against the communist government, local media reported. The Miami Herald said the Miami-Dade circuit court jury delivered its verdict on Friday after a civil trial that began on April 2. The Cuban government chose not to be represented in the courtroom, the Miami Herald said. The case involved Rafael del Pino Siero, a US citizen who was a friend of Fidel Castro but turned against him after the bearded revolutionary took power in 1959, the Herald said. It said Del Pino Siero, who broke with Castro over suspicions he was a communist, was captured while trying to help a Cuban escape to Miami in July 1959. He died in his Cuban prison cell 18 years later at age 51, leaving behind in Miami two children, Rafael del Pino Jr. and his sister Milagros Suarez. The jury award for Del Pino Jr. and Suarez was the largest such award handed down in the United States against Cuba since a court awarded $188 million to the relatives of three people killed when two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes were shot down in 1996 by a Cuban fighter. (Reuters, 5/4/08)

April 7: In 1999 Cuban diplomats in Washington tried to enlist a noted journalist and literary editor to spy on members of the Cuban exile community and prominent US citizens, among them Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Robert Menendez. According to Robert Eringer, representatives from the Cuban Interests Section tried to recruit him to obtain financial information on the three Cuban-American legislators and to infiltrate the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). In exchange, the Cubans promised him exclusive contacts and business opportunities on the island, according to Eringer. Eringer, however, was then working as an undercover FBI agent. The revelations of Eringer's Cuban connections are revealed in his upcoming book “Ruse: Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence”, expected to hit bookstores by mid-April. (The Miami Herald, 7/4/08)

April 7: Despite the embargo that cut most ties between the US and Cuba more than 40 years ago, all but 13 states — including South Carolina — take advantage of an obscure federal law that allows them to regularly sell agricultural products to Cuba. Since 2001, US farmers have sold more than $1.5 billion in food and timber to the island. In 2004, South Carolina took the first step toward establishing business relations with the island. A trade delegation visited Havana and signed a deal to export $10 million worth of agricultural goods, mostly chickens, to Cuba. Four years later, the deal is dormant. For now, South Carolina farmers are missing the boat. "The purpose of the whole trip was to sell South Carolina goods," said state Representative Chip Limehouse (Republican-Charleston), who was a member of that delegation. "It is a fairly complex transaction, and the Bush administration basically tightened things up. It's complicated and it's political." South Carolina's loss is every other state's gain. Pedro Alvarez, chairman and chief executive officer of Alimport, the Cuban government-owned import agency, said that since US law was changed to allow sales to Cuba, there have been more than 1,000 shipments of roughly 9.5 million tons of goods from the United States. Even the Communist state paper, Granma, is printed on paper from Alabama."Your competitors are here, definitely," Alvarez told S.C. Press Association delegates visiting Cuba recently. (Charleston Post Courier, 7/4/08)

April 8: With help from Eastern Europe to Latin America, a loud and clear chorus of international condemnation of Raúl Castro's regime can help set the stage for democracy to take hold inside Cuba, participants in a daylong conference in Coral Gables said. ''This can no longer be just about the US versus Cuba. Other countries must condemn the island, too,'' said US Senator Mel Martinez (Republican-Florida), who hosted the Cuba Democracy Roundtable at the Biltmore Hotel. Sitting on a long rectangular table were current and former US-Cuba policymakers, local politicians, exile leaders, Latin America and Eastern bloc diplomats and former Cuban political prisoners. Calling it ''a historic moment'' in Cuban exile history as the younger Castro's political hold seems to be weakening, Martinez said that after 49 years of Castro family rule, other countries need to help Cubans build a democracy. A show of solidarity from abroad will remind Cubans that they're not alone and that the United States, which Cubans have been trained to hate through the communist government's propaganda, is not their only ally. Petr Kolar, Czech Republic ambassador to the United States, said his country is joining forces with Cuban opposition workers to send that message. ''We want the Cuban people to know that life is better after communism. We are the success story (…) They deserve it, too,'' Kolar said during a break. (The Miami Herald, 8/4/08)

April 8: The coordinator for the US Cuba transition program, Caleb McCarry, will pressure the European Union (EU) into maintaining a hard line policy towards Cuba and reinstating its sanctions in June, criticized the official daily Granma. “McCarry (...) plans to visit Brussels, Belgium, this week with the intention of trying to force the EU to maintain a hostile position towards Cuba”, said Granma which called him “proconsul”. Granma indicated that the “long interventionist journey” of McCarry includes “Germany and Norway, as well as other European countries which he keeps secret, and could include Spain.” (AFP, 8/4/08) 

April 9: Cuban ambassador to Germany, Gerardo Peñalver, filed a protest on rejecting the visit to Berlin of Caleb McCarry, the Cuba Transition Coordinator at the US Department of State. “We reject this visit to Berlin and we have let the German government know through appropriate diplomatic and official channels,” Peñalver said. According to Granma news daily, the Cuban diplomat added that “Mr. McCarry is the embodiment of an illegal mandate that violates international law.” He recalled that McCarry has received $60 million in addition to another $200 million for his work to promote subversion and destabilization in Cuba. “We believe that it is our right to publicly denounce this new maneuver that aims at undermining Cuba’s recent efforts to improve its relations with the European Union,” Peñalver stressed. “We take this opportunity to recall that the Cuban people are the legitimate owners of their destiny and only the Cuban people have the right to choose their social, political and economic system without interferences of any kind,” he concluded. (ACN, 9/4/08)

April 9: Senator Christopher Dodd, one of the most influential Democratic lawmakers on Latin American issues, proposed a new strategic partnership with the region that he said should be kicked off with a new policy on Cuba. Dodd, who has endorsed presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said that so far US policy toward Latin America has focused too narrowly on trade, drugs and elections. He wants a new approach and says re-thinking the Cuba policy is a good place to start. ''The Strategic Partnership for the Americas which I have just outlined, can begin in one place- Cuba,'' said the Connecticut lawmaker and a well-known critic of the US embargo. He said policy toward Cuba has been ``agonizingly static for almost 50 years.'' ''I believe we must dramatically alter our posture towards Cuba, by ending the trade embargo, lifting travel restrictions and caps on remittances to the struggling Cuban people, and by engaging in bilateral and multilateral talks on issues of mutual interest,'' he said. (The Miami Herald, 9/4/08)

April 10: The US Interests Section in Havana said that the number of illegal Cuban emigrants trying to get to the United States increased over the past six months even as Fidel Castro formally ceded power to younger brother Raul after 49 years as the communist island's leader. US diplomats reported at a press conference that in the first six months of the current fiscal year, which began last October 1, at least 2,815 Cubans tried to travel by sea to Florida, of whom 1,194 were intercepted by the Coast Guard. The figure is 21 percent greater than during the same period in 2007 and it must be added to the around 5,500 Cubans who tried to enter the United States over the borders with Mexico and Canada or through airports, making almost 10,900 Cubans who tried or managed to get into the country illegally in the past six months. "That is the response of the Cuban people," one US official said, to the government of Raul Castro. The Interests Section acknowledged, however, that the increase in the number of trips by sea was due in part to the fact that now most of them are undertaken on high-speed motorboats rather than the "crude boats" or rafts used by migrants to leave the island some years ago. (EFE, 10/4/08)

April 10: The United States has begun issuing fast track visas to Cubans who have relatives living in America. The first three sets of travel permits were issued by the US Interests Section in Havana. The Cuban Family Reunification Programme is partly aimed at discouraging illegal immigrants. Current visa applications can take between three and seven years. The new scheme is aimed at processing claims in just a matter of months. Two families with young children were amongst the first to receive travel permits to join their relatives in the US. According to US consular officials in Havana, as many as 40,000 Cubans could be eligible under the scheme, which was first announced late last year. There is a longstanding agreement between the US and Cuba to allow 20,000 people to emigrate legally each year. (BBC, 11/4/08)

April 11: The US Coast Guard is searching the Florida Straits for a reggaeton musician who left Cuba on April 7. Elvis Manuel, a musician known for his anti-Castro views, left Pinar Del Rio, Cuba, with his mother and other Cubans, possibly in two boats. The Coast Guard intercepted a vessel and found Manuel's mother aboard, but Manuel was not there. They believe the group might have left Cuba on two boats. "This indicates that they were coming out on two vessels, which is a big concern," said Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement. "The other vessel might have, something might have happened to it." Cuban-American fans held a vigil on the MacArthur Causeway. In a letter sent to Emilio Gonzalez, director of citizenship and immigration services, state Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart asked that Manuel not be repatriated if he is picked up by the Coast Guard due to a fear of political persecution. (NBC6.Net, 11/4/08)

April 12: Cuban reggaeton star Elvis Manuel and nine others were still believed missing at sea. But the singer's mother and 11 other migrants were sent back to the island. Dana Warr, a Coast Guard spokesman, said the search for a second vessel had been suspended and there has been no sign of Elvis Manuel Martínez Nodarse and nine other people, who friends say left Cuba on April 7. Elvis Manuel's family maintained a vigil -- but grew increasingly concerned about the 19-year-old singer. ''I haven't heard anything from last night,'' his aunt, Mirtha Maria Nodarse of Miami, said. ``I called Cuba, but nobody knows anything. My family's waiting for me to find out for them.'' Ramón Saúl Sánchez, head of the migrant advocacy group Democracy Movement, said he gave the Coast Guard a list of aliases the migrants may have been using to help locate Elvis Manuel. Sánchez said the family in Cuba had yet to hear from Elvis Manuel's mother, Irioska María Nodarse. He feared she was being held by Cuban security agents. ''We fear that because his mother was the group's manager she is being held by state security,'' Sánchez said. (The Miami Herald, 12/4/08)

April 12: Cuba's top sports official accused the US government of masterminding protests to disrupt the torch relay for the Beijing Olympics, part of what he called a US plan to promote an international boycott of the games. American officials are behind "a ferocious" campaign against China, to convince the international community to boycott some or all of the games' events, Jose Ramon Fernandez, president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, told the press. "The promoters of all this are the United States," Fernandez said, noting that Cuba "fully supports China's right to celebrate the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing without interference of any kind." (AP, 13/4/08)

April 13: Federal prosecutors have begun cracking down on big-dollar smuggling operations that for years have hauled Cubans, Haitians and others into South Florida by boat. Federal authorities, alarmed by a series of migrant deaths at sea and signs of increasing smuggling operations from Cuba in the past three years, have begun cultivating informants to penetrate and shut down loosely organized rings that operate between South Florida and the Caribbean. They are also taking more suspects before grand juries and seeking tougher penalties. The new emphasis by the US attorney's office in Miami, with backing from agencies such as US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Coast Guard, comes after years in which immigrant smuggling across the Florida Straits received at best sporadic attention, and then typically only in cases involving deaths. By contrast, a 1-year-old federal task force has tackled a series of smuggling operations -- including eight cases announced this month -- that involved no calamities. Those recent indictments accuse 18 Cuban Americans of plotting to sneak more than 200 Cubans into South Florida by boat in separate operations since 2005. (The Miami Herald, 13/4/08)

April 14: US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen participated in a meeting in Miami, Florida, that was also attended by Luis Posada Carriles. According to Granma news daily, the meeting was organized by “a terrorist organization in Miami with links to the CIA”. The Granma article recalls that, among many other terrorist actions, Posada Carriles was the mastermind of the mid-air bombing of a Cubana airliner in 1976, which killed all 73 people onboard. The article adds that Ros-Lehtinen, “Bush’s top representative of his foreign policy in the US Chamber of Representatives”, participated in the meeting organized by the Cuban Political Imprisonment, an organization founded in August 2002 that groups counterrevolutionaries with a violent past under the direction of notorious terrorist Sixto Reynaldo Aquit, who masterminded a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1999 in Venezuela with the support of the Cuban American National Foundation, another Miami-based terrorist organization, Granma said. (ACN, 14/4/08) 

April 14: The Port of Miami, Miami-Dade County's second largest provider of jobs and income, may face stiff competition from Cuba, according to the port's director. In a briefing to Miami-Dade commissioners, Bill Johnson said investments and improvements scheduled for Cuba's Port of Mariel should pose a concern. "Competition today is already significant outside US borders on the cargo side," Johnson told the press. The Port of Mariel, west of Havana, is the focus of a feasibility study by Dubai World Ports (DWP), the third-largest container port business in the world. In 2006, the Arab-owned container port business based in the United Arab Emirates agreed to give up control of six ports in the United States, including Miami, that came with its purchase of a British shipping conglomerate. DWP plans to develop the Port of Mariel as a major cargo shipping hub. "We've been told it could be a quarter-billion dollar improvement at the Port of Mariel for cargo, and that's of great concern," said Johnson. "If it goes forward, the anticipated completion date is 2012, and that's right around the corner." (Local 10.Com, 14/4/08)

April 15: Two Cuban men suspected of piloting an ill-fated migrant smuggling mission with reggaeton singer Elvis Manuel among the passengers are being held at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade County. Manuel has been missing since April 7; his mother, from Cuba, told the press he was lost when their boat sank; he is presumed missing at sea. The two unidentified Cuban men are being detained under an administrative smuggling charge, according to Victor Colón, assistant chief of the US Border Patrol in Miami. Under US law, immigration authorities have broad discretion to detain non-US citizens suspected of committing a crime. (The Miami Herald, 15/4/08)

April 15: The head of the US Southern Command, Admiral James Stavridis, told lawmakers the changes in Cuba under President Raul Castro were "interesting," but that only time would tell if they were real or "cosmetic." "I think it is too early to tell as yet, but it is interesting that Raul is opening some of the economic freedoms such as cellphones, access to tourist hotels, property rights," he told a congressional panel looking into his command's budget. "We need to watch to see if this is a sincere change or just cosmetic," he added. Stavridis was questioned on the reforms Raul Castro, 76, has introduced in Cuba since he took over as president from his ailing brother Fidel, 81, in late February. (AFP, 16/4/08)

April 16: Cuba's government said that recent reforms applauded by democracy advocates will actually strengthen socialism on the island, rather than undermine it. “There is no space for the dreams of adversaries," a strongly worded editorial in the Communist Party daily Granma stated. "There will be a more perfect socialism sustained and by a united people led by Fidel, Raúl and the party's leadership." The editorial seemed to have been provoked by the "Cuban Democracy Roundtable," a day-long conference held April 8 in the exile stronghold of Coral Gables, Florida, and hosted by US Senator Mel Martinez (Republican-Florida.). Martinez, the first Cuban US senator, was quoted by the Miami Herald as saying the international community should be prepared to react if Cuban dissidents "take to the streets" in protest. The Granma editorial scoffed at the conference as the work of "mafiosos" and alleged it was an attempt to subvert the Cuban government. "The Cuban Revolution is not a castle made of cards," the editorial stated, "but an impregnable fortress." (The Washington Post, 17/4/08)

April 17: The Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry (MINREX) denounced the US government conspiratorial inaction and the Bush administrations protection of Luis Posada Carriles. "Granma" newspaper published an official statement in which the MINREX recalls that May 8 will mark the first anniversary of the liberation of Posada Carriles in that country. The daily states that Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that order, rejecting charges the US government had brought against Posada. The terrorist had only been accused of committing fraud and lying to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to get his nationalization to the US, the publication stresses. "The judge said then: Terrorism is not the center of this case, it is migratory fraud. Terrorism and the decision whether a person must be or not termed as terrorist, hinge on the discretion of the executive branch," the declaration states. [Declaración del MINREX] (Prensa Latina, 18/4/08)

April 18: The Minnesota House approved a resolution asking the federal government to end a trade ban with Cuba. However, despite the overwhelming 86-9 favorable vote, many Republicans refused to vote as a protest of Cuba’s human rights history. The bill asks the federal government to end the 40-year-old trade embargo, which in 2000 was amended to allow limited sale of food, medical supplies and medicine. Representative Al Juhnke said Minnesota sold $20 million worth of those items to Cuba last year. Juhnke, who recently visited Cuba as part of a state trade mission, said lifting the trade restrictions would help the Cuban people. (Bulletin, South Washington County, 18/4/08)

April 18: The White House dismissed as "cosmetic" changes in Cuba under new President Raul Castro on issues like access to cellphones and the potential easing of travel restrictions. "They're cosmetic," Dan Fisk, the US National Security Council's senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters days before a three-way US, Mexico, and Canada summit in New Orleans. "We would hope that the international community, and I say that in the large terms, recognize that this isn't real change, this isn't fundamental change in the nature of the system," Fisk said. "And if you look at what the regime is doing in terms of the continued repression against dissidents and civil society activists, the iron fist is still very, very visible, especially to the average Cuban," he said. Fisk said US President George W. Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper were expected to discuss changes in Cuba when they meet on Monday and Tuesday in New Orleans. But while "all three countries agree" broadly on the need for "democratic evolution" in Cuba, "there are a lot of tactical disagreements and I'm not expecting that to change," said the US official. (AFP, 18/4/08)

April 18: New York Agriculture Commissioner Paul Hooker is leading a delegation of New York farmers to Cuba in the state's first trade mission to the country. Hooker says he plans to explore market opportunities during his visit from April 21-23. The goal of the trip is to encourage the export of New York fruits and vegetables to Cuba. The delegation includes: Kevin King of Empire State Forest Products in Rensselaer; John Cushing of New York Apple Sales in Castleton; and Lloyd Zimmerman of Black Horse Farm Inc. of Coxsackie. "Cuba relies on US imports and has expressed a keen interest in New York food and agricultural products," Hooker said. (The Business Review, 18/4/08)

April 18: Two Cuban nationals who tried smuggling 19 people into the country illegally will spend five years in prison, a federal judge ruled. Earlier this year, Daniel Espinosa-Ruiz, 41, and Carlos Pupo-Mendoza, 37, pleaded guilty to 19 counts of trying to bring people into the country for commercial advantage or private gain. Espinosa-Ruiz, the boat captain, also pleaded guilty to failing to abide by the orders of a federal marine officer to heave his vessel. Officials stopped the boat by disabling both engines with gunshots. (Sun Sentinel, 18/4/08)

April 21: There was no love lost between Representative David Rivera, a Miami Republican, and a group of Miami-based travel agents specializing in trips to Cuba. Rivera's proposal to increase state regulation of agencies selling trips to Cuba passed through a state Senate committee, but not before a heated debate from travel agents who came from Miami to speak on the issue. ''This bill is presented as an anti-terrorism bill, but what it does is stop travel from Miami and Cuba,'' Armando García, president of Miami-based Marazul Charters Travel, told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. Under Rivera's measure -- and a corresponding Senate version sponsored by Senator Carey Baker, a Eustis Republican -- any Florida travel agency selling trips to countries on the US State Department's list of terrorist nations, which includes Cuba, would pay up to $2,500 in annual registration fees with the state. They also would have to place a bond of up to $25,000. ''He's playing politics with an issue that has nothing to do with politics,'' said Maria Teresa Aral, president of ABC Charters. "This is about economic development.'' García and Aral contend that additional restrictions would force customers to fly from Mexico or the Dominican Republic to get to Cuba. Only Miami International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York are allowed by the federal government to carry flights to Cuba from the United States. If the measure is approved by the Legislature, the travel agencies plan to go to court. ''This will not end here,'' García said after the vote. (The Miami Herald, 22/4/08)

April 21: New York Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker arrived in Cuba armed with steaks, wine, cheesecake and a feast of other products from his state, as one of America's top food producers looks to crack the communist-run island's food-import market. But in case all that food doesn't whet Cuba's appetite, New York is betting baseball might. Hooker, leading the state's first official trade mission to Cuba, also brought an engraved wooden Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. bat and presented it to Pedro Alvarez, chairman of Cuba's food import company, Alimport. ''I think it's only fitting that you see here and now one of the great forest products that we make,'' Hooker told Alvarez at a news conference, adding that the pair spent part of the afternoon chatting about the New York Yankees. The island spent about $300 million to import US food and farm products through March and by the end of this year expects to buy a bit more than the $600 million it purchased in 2007, Alvarez said. Those tallies include expenditures for shipping, banking and transportation. (The Miami Herald, 22/4/08)

April 23: A New York farm mission is winding up a Cuba trip without firm sales of products to the island. Trade consultant Kirby Jones, who organized New York Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker's trip, says he hopes some contracts will be worked out after the group returns to the US. Hooker says Cuban officials are interested in New York apples, wines, and canned fruit. The Americans threw their Cuban hosts a dinner with New York-state produced products, including steaks and cheesecake. At a farmers market, delegation members sampled bananas and asked about tropical produce. The US embargo prohibits most trade with Cuba, but many American products can be sold directly to the island. (AP, 23/4/08)
 
April 23: Cuba and the US have exchanged words following the brief detention of women who were protesting to call for their jailed dissident husbands to be freed. The Cuban government has accused the women of working for the US. Washington responded by saying the women had the right to free assembly, as guaranteed by human rights accords which Cuba has signed. The women's husbands are among 75 people imprisoned during a 2003 crackdown on dissidents. Some 10 women from a group known as the Ladies in White, were staging a peaceful protest to call for their husbands' release. The women were detained by the police, forcefully put on a bus and driven home. The Cuban press launched a series of attacks on the wives, accusing them of working with the US to subvert the Cuban revolution. State-run television showed photos of the women meeting the head of the US Interest section in Havana. Washington responded by issuing a statement deploring the police action. It said the women were exercising their right to free assembly as guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba recently signed up to. The statement also urged the Cuban government to unconditionally release those imprisoned in the crackdown. (BBC, AP, 23/4/08)

April 24: Cuba accused the United States and local dissidents of working together to subvert its government, the harshest warning it has issued to its opponents since a political crackdown in 2003. It said US diplomats in Havana have encouraged protests, hosted dissidents at receptions, invited them to take part in video conferences, provided them with access to the Internet and given them material support. "The United States Interests Section in Havana has been consolidated as the leading edge of the North American government's subversive policy and has strengthened its role as the general headquarters of the internal counterrevolution," the government said in a statement published in the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma. It was the second complaint of US interference since police broke-up a peaceful sit-in by 10 women near Havana's Revolution Square to demand that new President Raul Castro release 55 of the 75 dissidents jailed in 2003 that are still behind bars. The government said a statement issued by the Interests Section deploring the incident and expressing support for the women demonstrators was "irrefutable proof of US efforts to foment subversion in our country." "Cuba affirms its right to impede, neutralize and respond to these provocative actions conceived, financed and encouraged by the government of the United States and its Interests Section in Havana," it said. [Statement by MINREX] (Reuters, 24/4/08)

April 25: In an interview with CNN en Espanol, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat- California), said that "for years” she has opposed the embargo on Cuba. "I don't think it's been successful, and I think we have to remove the travel bans and have more exchanges -- people to people exchanges with Cuba," she said. (CNN, 27/4/08)

April 27: Coast Guard officials said they have called off the search for two missing Cuban migrants whose raft turned up on the Gulf Coast on April 25, about 300 miles south of New Orleans, far from the Florida Straits where most migrants are found. The two Cubans were among 12 people reported to be on the raft. Two other Cubans who were a part of the same journey were found dead, and the remaining eight were rescued. According to Coast Guard officials, authorities were alerted about the raft when crew members from an 800-foot tanker ship reported that they saw a raft ''in distress'' and that there were people in the water. It is unusual for Cuban migrants to turn up so far north, but this is not the first time, said Coast Guard Lt. Anastacia Visneski. (The Miami Herald, 27/4/08)

April 28: Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association, was part of a 20-member trade delegation that visited Cuba on April 21-23 for the state’s first official trade mission there. “I’m cautiously optimistic that something could happen this season,” said Allen, who added that storage supplies have been tight. Harvest of the new crop is expected to start the second week of August. “I’m more optimistic something could happen next season, should we decide to take it.” The US exported 1,612 metric tons of fresh produce to Cuba in 2006, valued at $1.1 million. Apples were by far the largest fresh produce export, representing 1,486 metric tons worth $887,000, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Cuban officials told Allen they receive about five containers a month of imported apples. Allen said he saw red delicious and golden delicious from Virginia during the three-day trip. Much of the fresh produce imported to the country goes to hotels and the tourist trade, such as high-end restaurants, he said. “We visited three grocery stores, and there wasn’t an ounce of fresh produce in any of them,” Allen said. “There were some open-air markets that had fruit, but I didn’t see any vegetables.” (The Packer.Com, 28/4/08)

April 30: With three days left in the legislative session, Representative David Rivera, a Miami Republican, was able to pass a controversial measure targeting travel agencies specializing in trips to Cuba. Florida-based travel agents selling trips to Cuba -- or any country on the US State Department's list of terrorist nations -- will have to pay up to $2,500 in registration fees to the state and provide up to $300,000 in bond money under Rivera's measure. The bill still must be approved by Governor Charlie Crist. Rivera's bill, sponsored in the Senate by Senator Carey Baker, a Eustis Republican, passed despite the protests of several Miami-based travel agents who visited the Capitol to lambaste the measure as ''political pandering.'' (The Miami Herald, 1/5/08)