Chronicle on Cuba - May 2008

Domestic Affairs

May 1: The head of communist Cuba's powerful labor union called for more efficiency and harder work in the face of rising world fuel and food prices as hundreds of thousands of workers joined the traditional May Day march. The secretary-general of the Cuban Workers Confederation, Salvador Valdes Mesa, also exhorted workers massed in Havana's broad Revolution Plaza to adhere to the principles of ailing ex-president Fidel Castro "We Cubans have great challenges before us,'' Valdes told the crowd, saying workers needed to rout out "inefficiencies and weaknesses'' in the workplace. Many wearing red or white T-shirts, the marchers flowed down a major boulevard and past a parade stand, waving Cuban flags and hoisting banners exalting the Castro brothers. While Fidel's image was more common, for the first time there were some posters with photographs of Raul Castro. Wearing an olive green uniform, Raul Castro smiled and waved from the stand but did not speak as he oversaw the first major event on the communist-run island since he permanently assumed the presidency. Some Cubans had hoped the government would use May Day to announce more reforms. Cuban authorities said that 500,000 people took part in the parade. (The Miami Herald, BBC, 1/5/08)

May 1: The Italian news agency SIR has reported that more than 100 seminarians will be able to study in the new seminary of the Archdiocese of Havana, the first to be built in 50 years in Cuba. Construction of the new seminary began in July of 2006 and will be some 10 miles outside Havana, on 54 acres of land. The old seminary will be transformed into a cultural center dedicated to the Servant of God Fr. Felix Varela. “Under the name that will identify the future institution will the following phrase be inscribed, perhaps in parenthesis: ‘Old Seminary of St. Charles and St. Ambrose’,” said Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino. (AGI, 1/5/08)

May 2: Well-known dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez) accused Raúl Castro of lying when the Cuban ruler claimed that there has not been a single case of torture in Cuba. In a letter to the leader, publicly released by the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directory, Antúnez commented on the speech delivered by Raúl Castro on April 28, calling it "deceitful and cynical." The leader had announced the commutation to lengthy jail terms in several death penalty cases. According to Antúnez, a 17-year veteran of Cuban political imprisonment released in April, 2007, in Cuba and its prisons in particular, there is not “one single case of torture;” instead, there are thousands upon thousands of human beings for whom the real torture are the daily cruel and degrading treatment and wretched living conditions inflicted upon them by the prison guards with total and vulgar impunity. (EER, 2/5/08)

May 2: Computers went on sale to the general public on the communist island and potential consumers were lining up outside store windows to gawk and consider buying.
President Raul Castro's government had authorized the sale of personal computers to average Cubans more than a month ago, but they were not made available. Computer sales are the latest of a series of measures Castro has taken to make life easier for ordinary Cubans. Except for some trusted officials and state journalists, most Cubans are banned from accessing the Internet at home. So many of these new computers may never be connected to the Web. (AP, 3/5/08)

May 2: Cuban dissident Rigoberto Zamora Rodríguez received a two-year prison sentence by the Municipal Court of Bayamo. He was convicted on charges of failing to acknowledge the authority of Fidel Castro. Four young individuals were detained on January 11 for publicly shouting out antigovernment slogans. However, the only one convicted was Zamora, who will be serving out his sentence at Las Mangas correctional facility, in Granma. (Cubanet, 16/5/08)

May 4: It is Cuba that stands to be most affected when baseball comes off the Olympic program after the Beijing Games this summer. “To win in the Olympic Games for an athlete, for a baseball player, is like touching the sky, so I don’t want to think that this will be the last time baseball is represented,” said Yulieski Gourriel, a star infielder and son of the former Cuban player Lourdes Gourriel. “The World Baseball Classic is very important, but it is not like the Olympic Games.” Cuba is already preparing to find its baseball success in other places, like the World Baseball Classic next year. There is no other choice for the Cubans, who showed in the inaugural Classic in 2006 that they could compete with the world’s best and All-Stars from the major leagues. Baseball in recent years has far outshined boxing, which is no longer thought to be at the same high level in Cuba. “Baseball in Cuba is the culture, passion and happiness,” Christian Jiménez, a top Cuban sports official, said. “It’s the blood of our people.” The Cubans have won three of the four Olympic gold medals since baseball became a medal sport in 1992. (The New York Times, 4/5/08)

May 4: Jose Castelar began rolling cigars when he was five. Now, at 64, the Cuban expert hopes to finish rolling a 20-meter (65-foot) stogie by May 7 to garner his fourth world record from the Guinness Book. "I can't tell you exactly how far I'll get, but my goal is to beat my former record of 20.41 meters (66.9 feet)," Castelar, knicknamed "Cueto," told the press. He rolls his mega-cigar out of premium tobacco leaves, making a long, slender tube about 4 centimeters (1.6 inches) across. He works non-stop, eight hours a day since he began his record-seeking attempt. Nothing distracts him, not even the hustle and bustle of the 28th International Tourism Fairground that is going up near his workplace at the colonial fortress of San Carlos de la Cabana. His mega-cigar, once finished, will be shown at the fair beginning May 5. (AFP, 5/5/08)

May 5: Former prisoner of conscience, Pedro González Acosta, was detained at the police station of San Juan y Martínez, Pinar del Río, where he was warned that he would sent back to prison should he fail to put a stop to his antigovernment activities. González Acosta, 42, was released on March 14 after serving 2 ½ years in prison, convicted of being a potential danger to society. (Cubanet, 5/5/08) 

May 5: The "Longest Rumba in the World" is one of the most outstanding events of Cubadisco 2008 International Fair. On May 2, hundreds of Cuban drummers and folklore dancers began a marathon rumba (over 300 hours) in Holguin that will extend to the entire country. This Cubadisco will also honor two of the greatest Cuban drummers, the late Chano Pozo and Tata Güines. Rumba, of African origin, is sung and danced accompanied by drums or wooden boxes and keys. It is a mainstay of Cuban carnivals as well. (Trabajadores, 5/5/08)

May 5:  Young opposition activist Erick Jesus Valdés Álvarez was imprisoned on April 25 at the State Security center in Versailles, Santiago de Cuba. Valdés Álvarez had been summarily convicted in October 2007, of being a potential danger to society and sentenced to 3 years’ correctional labor without internment, for his activism with the Movement Youth for Democracy. It is not known why the sentenced was changed to time in prison. (Cubanet, 5/5/08)

May 5: Cuba's new government is moving to shore up institutions in the absence of longtime leader Fidel Castro. Speaking at a meeting of the Communist Party in Villa Clara province, Cuban vice president Jose Ramon Machado said the revolution's continuity depended on a stronger party. "A strong party (…) is the formula we must work on to guarantee the continuity of the revolution which has been called for by Fidel and Raul Castro," Machado was quoted as saying in Granma. Another institution the government is looking to strengthen is Cuba's parliament, which announced the creation of 12 commissions to study everything from food production to national defense. "The creation of the working commissions of the National Assembly comes at a time in which our country engages in an effort to deepen socialism, to make modifications and changes that will allow us to have a better and more efficient society without changing our independence or our system," National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said. (Sun Sentinel, 6/5/08)

May 5: The Miracle Mission, an international program promoted by Cuba and Venezuela that has provided eye operations for close to a million patients since July 2004, has now come to the aid of Cuban prisoners, official media reported. Miracle Mission coordinator in Pinar del Rio, Osmany Correa, told the Communist Party daily Granma that 100 inmates have received eye operations in this western province as part of the program. The region thus becomes "the first in the country to provide preventive care to its convict population for problems that could have caused the irrevocable loss of sight." The Miracle Mission began in Pinar del Rio for the general population in April 2006 and since then 21,000 patients have been operated on and close to 31,000 were given visits with specialists, Correa said. (EFE. 6/5/08)

May 6: Cuban authorities have refused to give a travel visa to a Cuban blogger who was to have flown to Spain to receive a top journalism award, the writer told the press. "I have canceled tonight's flight" to Madrid, writer Yoani Sanchez, 32, told the press, after learning that she would not be given authorization to make the trip. "It's another way to remind us that we are like little children who need to get our parents' permission to leave the house," she said. The blogger now apparently will not be able to personally receive the prestigious Ortega y Gasset prize given out each year by the Spanish newspaper “El Pais”, which she was to have been given on May 7. In April, “El Pais” announced it had awarded the prize to Sanchez, whose blog "Generacion Y" chronicles everyday Cubans' daily woes. An “El Pais” official in Madrid told the press that the island's communist government had been "complicating" Sanchez's exit. (AFP, 6/5/08)

May 6: Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, the archbishop of Havana, said that he considers recent changes in communist-ruled Cuba "promising." In a brief statement to the press after meeting with Zaragoza Mayor Juan Alberto Belloch, the prelate emphasized the recent improvement in relations between the Catholic Church and the state headed by new Cuban President Raul Castro. The cardinal said that the regime is initiating a new phase with a series of "promising" changes, above all in the economic and social spheres. Ortega y Alamino heads a delegation made up of 13 Cuban bishops and archbishops which is making a stop in this northeastern Spanish city on the trip from Rome back to Havana to visit the Pilar basilica with an eye toward preparing for the Marian triennium of the Virgen de la Caridad, the patron saint of the Caribbean country. (EFE, 6/5/08)

May 6: Reina Laura Tamayo Rangel, a member of The Ladies in White and mother of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, joined a group of peaceful opposition activists in a demonstration outside the Provincial Prison in Holguín, in support of a strike carried out by Zapata Tamayo, in protest against repeated violations of his rights by the prison authorities. Reina Laura and 11 human rights activists were demanding that Orlando be allowed family visitation and food brought in by his relatives. They were also calling for an end to the degrading treatment of the inmates at the hands of the prison guards. The prison warden allowed Reina Laura a few minutes’ talk with her son, and agreed to allow her to visit him soon if the protests were stopped. Zapata Tamayo was sentenced to 18 years in prison last April, 2003. (Cubanet, 12/5/08)

May 6: Looks like it will be close, but no giant cigar, for Cuba's stogie-rolling king Jose Castelar. The 64-year-old former world-record holder has teamed up with five assistants, using nearly 93 pounds (42 kilograms) of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98-foot (30-meter) cigar. Castelar set Guinness Records for the world's longest cigars in 2001, 2003 and April 2005, when he completed a stogie measuring 20.41 meters, just shy of 67 feet. He said he is shooting for a fourth title. But Castelar, who learned the art of cigar-making from an uncle at age 5, is likely to fall short this time: Guinness says Puerto Rican cigar-maker Patricio Pena crafted a whopping 41.2-meter (135-foot) stogie last year. Competition from cigar rollers in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is stiff but friendly, driving Castelar to keep rolling. ''I'm working to take it to the maximum,'' he said. ''We'll be back in two years with a longer one.'' (AP, 6/5/08)

May 8: The latest edition of the Archdiocese of Havana’s publication “Espacio Laical” features an extensive article on the new government of Raul Castro and argues that he is the only one capable of producing changes that are both gradual, dramatic and profound.  The article “Construir un Posible en la Infinidad” by Lenier Gonzalez Mederos, states that Raul Castro must face the challenge of formulating a “bold and creative agenda to reverse the political, social and economic problems that have been increasingly accumulating in our country.”  Because he was one of the original masterminds of the Cuban revolution, he is in a unique position to “open new horizons for Cuba.”  Intellectual leaders and the Catholic Church have expressed confidence in the new Cuban leadership, pressing it for gradual change,” the article continues, “and they have communicated to the political leadership in a climate of trust and respect the issues that in their judgment need to be changed.” Most Cubans, the submission says, agree that change should come gradually in order to “preserve stability in the country and the achievements that have been made in social rights, which are valued greatly by the populace.”  In addition, it said, Raul Castro has been given a vote of confidence by governments throughout the world that have taken his promise of change seriously. [Construir un PosibleenlaInfinidad](CNA,8/5/08)

May 8: Cuba's Driulis Gonzalez, Idalis Ortiz and Yurisel Laborde won gold medals in the women's competition in the Pan American Judo Championships. Gonzalez topped the field in the 63-kilogram category, Laborde won at 78 kilograms and Ortiz took the gold medal at 78 kilograms-plus in the 22-country regional event that determines team spots in the Beijing Olympics. Individual berths will be set later. "I'm proud for myself. I'm proud for Cuba, but mostly I'm just happy I did well," said Gonzalez, one of eight Cubans to medal. (AP, 8/5/08)

May 8: Sports development and strategies on communal services focused the Cuban Parliament’s constitutive debates in its seventh legislature, a process that started on May 5. The National Assembly of the People’s Power, the top Cuban legislative entity, created the working commission in charge of analyzing two of the country’s emblematic areas: health and sports. Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon stated that deputies must preserve and improve such "treasures"of the Cuban social system, Granma newspaper reported. Alarcon said legislators play an important role in the "difficult and demanding" process of improving society. Public Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer talked of the current health situation, as well as missions and aims of this sector. (Prensa Latina, 8/5/08)

May 9: Nearly half a million Cuban children will be vaccinated against poliomyelitis in the second stage of this year's immunization campaign, which runs until May 15. A founder and current consultant for the National Immunization Program, Dr. Miguel Angel Galindo, told the press that before the end of the campaign, a second dose of the vaccine (two drops taken orally) will be given to more than 343,000 children who are between one month and three years of age. In addition, the vaccine will be reactivated among nearly 142,000 nine-year-olds during that same period, said Dr. Galindo. (Ahora, 9/5/08)

May 10: Cuba's Bohemia magazine, which revolutionized Latin America's information panorama in the 20th century, marked its 100th birthday. Launched in the early days of independence from Spain, amid a country convulsed with the second US military intervention in six years, Bohemia appeared as a weekly illustrated magazine that followed the patterns of La Ilustración Española y Americana in Spain, Illustration in France and the Illustrated London News. Miguel Angel Quevedo de la Lastra, took over the magazine and turned it into a modern magazine, focused on national issues and open to the interests of an increasingly diverse audience. After the 1930s, Bohemia reached a circulation of up to 400,000 and was distributed not only in most of Latin America but also in the United States. When Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Bohemia's staff split between those who favored the freedom of information and democratic principles that Quevedo de la Lastra defended, and those who favored using journalism as a propaganda instrument at the service of the communist system. On July 17, 1960, Quevedo de la Lastra gathered his employees and announced he was going into exile. Quevedo de la Lastra committed suicide in Caracas on August 12, 1969. (The Miami Herald, 10/5/08)

May 10: Following Cuba's 1959 revolution and Fidel Castro's adoption of a Communist government that discouraged religious practices, Cuba's tiny Jewish community is thriving again. Daniel Motela, 28, leads a 200-member Jewish youth organization. "Many of them come and enjoy the group activities," he said. "But I think most come to continue their family traditions and learn more about the Jewish faith." Cuba now boasts three synagogues and a community center, along with small pockets of followers around the island. Several dozen Cubans with Jewish roots have converted, including adult men who agreed to the Jewish circumcision ceremony. The Sunday school now routinely draws 60 children each week. The community still lacks a full-time rabbi but is supported by rabbis from other Spanish-speaking countries who visit frequently. (AJC.Com, 10/5/08)

May 10: Cuba had a total of 9,304 diagnosed HIV and AIDS cases as of December 2007, with the majority of the patients being males, a high-level health official said. Some 80 percent of the carriers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are men, and 84 percent of these men are homosexuals, National Center for the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV director Rosaida Ochoa said. The health official discussed the island's AIDS situation at a press conference in Havana ahead of the celebration on May 17 of International Day Against Homophobia. As of October 2007, Cuba had 9,039 people infected with HIV, of whom 3,427 were sick and more than 3,000 others were receiving antiretroviral medications to fight the disease. Four men are infected with HIV/AIDS for every woman who has contracted the disease in Cuba, leading health officials to focus this year's prevention campaign on men who have sex with other men, while still maintaining the program that seeks to prevent the disease's spread among women, Ochoa said. A study conducted last year by the National Statistics Office found that HIV carriers experienced greater social rejection because of their sexual orientation than from being infected with the disease, the health official said. (EFE, 11/5/08)

May 11: President Raul Castro's daughter, Mariela, is organizing Cuba's second anti-homophobia festival this week to boost public awareness of the country's long-marginalized gay community, this time with the approval of her dad's government "There's political support for this educational strategy. It's the best thing that's happened to us," Mariela Castro said about the backing the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) she heads is receiving from Cuba's Communist Party. She said Raul Castro, 76, "is helping us a lot (…) not only because I'm his daughter, but because I've earned his respect by working at my job carefully." The week-long festival in Havana and six of Cuba's 14 provinces, aims to increase public awareness about gay rights through television programs, movies, theater, debates and book fairs, culminating with the International Day Against Homophobia, on May 17. Besides the educational efforts, Mariela's group is also busy reforming Cuba's Family Code and has proposed in parliament a bill on freedom of gender -- the right to choose one's gender, and the right to "legal union" for gays. (AFP, 11/5/08)

May 11: The Cuban president's daughter told a Spanish newspaper that Cubans should be free to leave the country as they wish. Mariela Castro made the statement in an interview with the La Vanguardia. She said, "It is not necessary to deprive people of their right to leave. I think we should grant permission to all those who want to leave". Mariela believes her father, Raul Castro, who succeeded Fidel in February, wants to bring in reforms but "slowly". This is while the Spanish daily El Pais cited an unnamed government official in April as saying that Raul Castro will soon give the green light to migration reform, simplifying exit and entry permits and ending the requirement for people to get permission to leave the country. This potential shift would be the most significant one up to now by the 76-year-old president, who took office in February and has already ended several smaller prohibitions. (Tehran Press TV, 11/5/08)

May 12: The head of Cuba's National Centre for Sexual Education, Mariela Castro, has revealed that 30 gender reassignment operations have been approved. She told the press "we're getting ready a team of surgeons from Belgium" to perform the procedures. Gender reassignment surgery has been effectively banned in Cuba since 1988, when the first such procedure caused an outcry. Ms Castro, who is the daughter of President Raul Castro and niece of former leader Fidel, was speaking ahead of a week-long anti-homophobia festival to be celebrated in six provinces of Cuba and the capital, Havana. (AFP, 12/5/08)

May 12: Nearly 15,000 people enjoyed three weekend concerts by some of Cuba’s most outstanding troubadours headed by singer- songwriter Silvio Rodriguez in the Karl Marx Theater in Havana. The author of the popular song “El Necio” (The Stupid) relived songs that have made him so popular in nearly 40 years of work. The Karl Marx hosted the closing gala of the “Expedicion” project, a tour of 16 penitentiaries of the country, started by Silvio Rodriguez and fellow artists in January. (ACN, 12/5/08)

May 12: A month after new President Raul Castro authorized the sale of computers, Cuba's Ministry of Information Technology and Communications ruled out opening up the Internet to the communist island's citizens in the short term. Deputy Minister Ramon Linares Torres acknowledged to the press that the reform has unleashed expectations about "what's going to happen with the development of computers in Cuba." He said, however, that due to connection problems and "the restrictions, one cannot think that access to the Internet will be made either cheaper (…) or easier." "The lack of resources for making the service broader will continue to exist," he added, noting that Cuba still has only 10 telephones for every 100 residents. The communist-ruled island connected itself officially to the Internet in 1996, but the government has restricted access of individuals to the Web because, it says, the US economic embargo limits the conditions and quality of the connection. "There are many homes that still don't have a telephone and the local computer platform would not support an avalanche of connections, and also there are no financial resources to develop it," he said at the event inaugurating World Telecommunications Day and the Information Society in Havana. (EFE, 12/5/08)

May 12: The accusations of the Cuban government against domestic dissidents have increased in recent weeks in the official media, something that opposition members consider to be a new campaign against them. "I think that there's an offensive by the government and I believe that this is a moment in which there must be flexible positions because here the opposition is peaceful," Miriam Leiva, a founding member of the Ladies in White, a group comprising relatives of 75 dissidents rounded up and jailed in the spring of 2003. "On both sides (Washington and Havana) attitudes and declarations are hardening, and there is also one reality - an election campaign in the US - and it's possible that we are the victims of the electoral plans," Leiva said. Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a member of the "Group of 75" who was released from prision for health reasons, said that "there's a clear campaign" to discredit the dissidents. “What the Cuban government needs to do, instead of looking for scapegoats, is set about resolving the disaster it has," Chepe said. Elizardo Sanchez, of the Cuban Human Rights Commission, said that the accusations are "a recurring, seasonal, cyclical theme," and he emphasized that their presence in the Cuban media "contradicts a little bit the official formal discourse" that the dissidents are "irrelevant." Marta Beatriz Roque, of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, said that the campaign had its point of origin in an April 21 incident in which 10 of the Ladies in White were forcibly ejected from the Plaza de la Revolucion during a protest to demand the release of political prisoners. "The scandal of the Ladies in White was very great and perhaps now they are preparing some bigger show," said Roque, who participated in the videoconference with Bush. (EFE, 12/5/08)

May 12: The Cuban parliament has established a 30-member expert committee to address skyrocketing food and fuel prices. During the official inauguration of the committee, Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon pointed out that the constant rising price of foodstuffs is unsustainable in underdeveloped countries and said that the production of food products is among the government’s top priority. He said that the task of this committee will be to put aside rhetoric, apply new work and support methods, and monitor the different production units and measures taken to boost agriculture. The food and agriculture legislative committee is presided over by Leonardo Martinez Martinez; Emilio Interian Rodriguez is the vice president and Nicolas Echevarria Diaz is the secretary. (Granma, 13/5/08)

May 13: Cuba's Communist government has allowed microwave ovens to go on sale to the general public for the first time ever. Anxious Cubans gathered at an electronics store in Havana to purchase a microwave. Various models are on sale between $140 and $320.
Microwaves are the latest of a series of measures that new Cuban President Raul Castro has taken to make life easier for ordinary Cubans. (New Media, 13/5/08)

May 16: A top Cuban official said that Raúl Castro's government would consider loosening Internet restrictions on ordinary citizens newly allowed to purchase computers -- but Washington's decades-old economic embargo makes it impossible. ''We aren't worried about the citizenry connecting from their homes,'' Telecommunications Vice Minister Boris Moreno told a small group of reporters. ''But problems with technology and resources have made it necessary to give priority to connections that guarantee the country's social and economic development,'' he said, referring to an islandwide network that lets Cubans receive e-mail and view domestic Web sites. The rest of the worldwide Web is blocked to most citizens in Cuba, which has access controls far stricter than in China or Saudi Arabia. Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are currently allowed unfiltered home Internet service, and many Cubans turn to the black market for expensive, slow dial-up accounts. (The Miami Herald, 16/5/08)

May 16: The Cuban government says it intends to prepare its citizens for life in a modern state, according to a report in the young people's newspaper of the Communist Party. Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper, reported that the Cuban National Assembly has formed a 43-member commission which will develop an "integral plan for educating citizens" about civil society, in order to strengthen civic knowledge and awareness about the organization of Cuban society. Cubans were ill informed about "many issues" of civil society, assembly President Ricardo Alarcon was quoted as saying. The need for the project was clear from polling of the population, the report said. "The project is inextricably entwined with the present and future of socialism in Cuba," Alarcon aid. In comparison to other countries in the region, Cuba is admired for the generally high standard of education of its citizens. But there are huge gaps when it comes to jurists, people who understand the law, economists,public administrators and others who understand how a modern society functions. Analysts say that addressing these shortcomings is one of the most important projects in Cuban reforms. (DPA, 16/5/08)

May 17: Cuban Grand Master (GM) Leinier Dominguez won the Elite Group of the 43rd Capablanca Chess Memorial that took place at the Neptuno-Triton hotel complex in Havana. Dominguez, the best-placed Latin American player in the world ranking of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) with an ELO rating of 2695 points, beat Cuban GM Walter Arencibia after 46 moves of a French Defense and concluded the tournament with six units of nine possible. (CNA, 18/5/08)

May 17: Beginning this summer, Cuba will have a new TV channel that will air 24 hours a day with programming from such foreign networks as Television Española, Discovery, Telesur and Venezolana de Television, local media reported. The president of the Radio and Television Institute, or ICRT, Ernesto Lopez, was quoted by the official daily Juventud Rebelde as saying that the new channel "will be able to be seen in its first stage by 50 percent of the island's population." Lopez made the announcement before the Education, Culture, Science and Technology Commission of Parliament a month after the ICRT was bombarded with criticism at the 7th Congress of Cuba's Writers and Artists Union. (EFE, 17/5/08)

May 17: Cuba's gay community celebrated unprecedented openness -- and high-ranking political alliances -- with a government-backed campaign against homophobia. The meeting at a convention center in Havana's Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, who has promoted the rights of sexual minorities, presided. ''This is a very important moment for us, the men and women of Cuba, because for the first time we can gather in this way and speak profoundly and with scientific basis about these topics,'' said Castro, director of Cuba's Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX). Mariela Castro joined government leaders and hundreds of activists at the one-day conference for the International Day Against Homophobia that featured shows, lectures, panel discussions and book presentations. A station also offered blood-tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Parliament head Ricardo Alarcon said the government needs to do more to promote gay rights, but said many Cubans still need to be convinced. Things ''are advancing, but must continue advancing, and I think we should do that in a coherent, appropriate and precise way because these are topics that have been taboo and continue to be for many,'' Alarcon told reporters. (AP, 17/5/08)

May 18: The General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic called an assembly at the Kilo 7 correctional facility to announce the end of inmate beatings at the hands of prison guards, as well as the corresponding corrective measures to be taken in the event of any such incidents. The information was offered publicly by Lt. Col. Jesus Martínez Otuardo, “a high-ranking Ministry of the Interior officer who also happens to be Kilo 7’s current warden and the main instigator of the cruel and inhuman abuse against the inmates," reported Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares, a member of the Christian Democratic Party and of Presidio Político Pedro Luis Boitel. During the meeting, Modesto Vedeño, a non-political prisoner, asked if anything would be done about "the hundreds of inmates who were sleeping on the floor” as well as the "lack of medical care and supplies." He also asked why there were no measures being taken against the guards who had injured and tortured inmates prior to the new regulations. According to Liriano Linares, Vedeño’s questions went unaddressed and he ended up in solitary confinement. (Cubaencuentro, 18/5/08)

May 18: The Cubadisco 2008 international music fair was officially inaugurated at the Amadeo Roldan Theater in Havana with a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra
under the direction of maestros Roberto Valera and Enrique Perez Mesa. Maestro Frank Fernandez, young guitarist Luis Manuel Molina, percussionist Ruy Adrian Lopez-Nusa and world renowned group Los Papines also participated in the official inauguration of the event that is being attended by delegations from 27 countries. (CNA, 18/5/08)

May 19: The scope of the energy and environment committee of the Cuban parliament virtually covers all aspects of the nation’s life and requires a major effort in its functions, said Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon. In seating the 32-member committee, Alarcon said the legislators’ agenda must deal with two of the world’s leading problems, energy savings and environmental protection, whose solutions require the active participation of the population, reported Granma newspaper. The committee is headed by Hector Eligio Amigo Carcases with Jose Maria Rubiera Torres as vice president. Yudity Arias Sarmiento, chair of the Youth Technical Brigades is the secretary. (AIN, 20/5/08)

May 20: Cuba plans to build 14,000 plastic homes a year to help ease a national housing shortage, a government news agency reported. Set to begin in September, the program will use polyvinyl chloride from a petrochemical facility to be built with Venezuelan aid at a refinery in Cienfuegos. "Cuba will produce more than 14,000 houses annually with polyvinyl chloride, thanks to a bi-national project with Venezuela," project director Julian Alonso told a Cuban news agency. Cuba is said to need about half a million homes to provide sufficient housing for its people. (Reuters, 20/5/08)

May 20: A Cuban dissident acknowledged receiving $2,400 cash from an anti-Castro group in Miami, but said she doesn't know who brought it to the island. Laura Pollan said she was given the money by fellow political opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque and split it with eight other dissidents. Pollan said that she did not ask Roque where the money came from, and could not comment on the Cuban government's claims that the top US diplomat in Cuba carried funds from a Miami-based group opposed to Cuba's communist leadership. Roque said she has no comment yet on Pollan's statement. (AP, 20/5/08)

May 20: Cuban dissidents said it was perfectly legal to receive funds from abroad, including from US groups, and accused the Havana authorities of trying to discredit them. Financial assistance from abroad was "totally and completely legal," Vladimiro Roca, a prominent dissident, told the press. As the leader of Cuba's 1959 revolution, Fidel Castro himself had received money and arms from governments and others outside the country, Roca said. The comments came a day after Cuba accused the head of the US Interest section in Havana, Michael Parmly, of serving as a "common courier" by delivering money to dissidents from an anti-Castro exile in Miami. "The first thing to know about the Cuban government is the absence of scruples with which they act. There are absolutely no scruples," said Roca, a former political prisoner who with Martha Beatriz Roque jointly leads a dissident organization, Agenda for the Transition. A lawyer for the dissidents, Rene Gomez, said the financial support "wasn't something to hide or to be ashamed of, simply because the first thing that the government does is to sack those that are in dissent. "Also, the only way to provide for their needs is aid from compatriots in exile." "The Ladies in White are apolitical. We accept assistance, from the extreme right as well as left, without condition, because our sole objective is the release of political prisoners," Laura Pollan told the press, one of the leaders of a group of spouses and mothers of detainees. (AFP, 20/5/08)

May 20: When Martha Beatriz Roque uses an Internet cafe in Cuba, not only does the government read all the dissident's electronic missives, but they dust the keyboard for fingerprints. They tap her phone and film her walking, protesting, shopping and even typing. Then they show it all on TV, as proof that the 63-year-old former economist is on the dole of Washington and Miami militants with ties to terrorism. ''Cuba says Santiago Alvarez is a terrorist,'' Roque said. ``The only thing he's been charged with is illegal possession of weapons.'' ''Martha is a very brave woman who has been in prison a long time,'' human rights leader Elizardo Sánchez said by phone from Havana. Roque was one of six children born to Spaniards from the Canary Islands. Her father lost his taxi company after Fidel Castro took power in 1959, but despite that, Roque was a firm believer in the revolution, even as her siblings left one by one for Miami. ''I believed in the revolution, yes, yes, yes,'' Roque said this week. ``I believed in all their lies.'' She said it was not one single event that made her join the opposition. ''The process is slow and reflective,'' Roque said. ``It creates an emptiness inside you. You think about your work, your inspirations, your life. And then realize you were struggling for something that doesn't work. That's truly disappointing.'' (The Miami Herald, 20/5/08)

May 21: Dissident Cuban neurosurgeon Hilda Molina said that authorities in Havana agreed to allow her elderly mother to visit family in Argentina. Hilda Morejon, 89, is ill and wants to be treated in Buenos Aires by her grandson, Dr. Roberto Quiñones, and also be able to get to know her great-grandchildren. "They granted her a passport and, to our great surprise, after the passport they allowed her to continue with the procedures for the trip. I think they're going to let her travel soon," Molina told Argentina's Todo Noticias television. "One of the happiest moments in my life will be when my mother is reunited with my son, because she is the great love of his family," Molina said. "I'm very grateful for this gesture by the new government that's here," she said referring to the administration of General Raul Castro, who took over as Cuba's president in February, succeeding ailing older brother Fidel. "Now, I don't want to be any obstacle so that my mother can travel quickly," she said. Molina said that she is not "a political woman" and does not have any "secrets to reveal" about Cuba. "I just want my family to be reunited," she said. Fidel Castro's regime had refused to issue Molina a permit to leave the country since she resigned in 1994 as chief of the International Center for Neurological Restoration, which she founded in 1989. (EFE, 21/5/08)

May 23: An old vessel that may date from the time of the colonization of America has been found by Cuban fishermen off Villa Clara province. Over a dozen objects, among them a human rib attached to a canon ball, have been brought to the surface, reads an article in Juventud Rebelde newspaper.  All the objects first underwent a desalinization process to preserve them, and are waiting to be examined by experts, who should be able to determine the date of construction of the vessel and the conditions of the sinking. (ACN, 23/5/08) 

May 23: Peaceful opposition activist Juan Carlos Bous Batista was arrested at home by State Security officers. Bous Batista, which was later released, informed that no reason was given for his arrest and that he refused to sign a written warning against him. Activist Alberto Suarez Vega was also detained and threatened with prosecution on charges of being a “menace to society.” Both oppositionists are members of the Regla chapter of the Republican Party of Cuba. (Cubanet, 28/5/08)

May 23: Cuba will carry out the civil defense exercise Meteoro 2008, to test the preparation of the country for the upcoming hurricane season starting June 1. In statements published on Granma newspaper, Colonel Jose Ernesto Betancourt Lavastida explained some of the preventive measures to be taken during and after the exercise. In urban areas, where flooding is usually caused by blocked drainage systems and not by rain alone, work focuses mainly on cleaning pipes, ditches, sewers, and river banks, said Betancourt. Areas where flooding may occur have been identified and measures have been taken to evacuate the population if it is necessary, explained the expert. Being prepared to face natural disasters and technological and sanitary dangers is a priority for the Cuban government, which conducts contingency planning and media campaigns every year prior to the hurricane season from June 1- November 30.  (ACN, 23/5/08)

May 24: About 1,800 Cubans are over 100 years old, making it the country with the highest rate of centenarians, an expert said. Eugenio Selman-Housein, chairman of the 120 Years Club and previously head of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro's medical team, also said "life expectancy has gone up to almost 80 years" on the communist-run Caribbean island. There are "currently about 1,800 Cubans registered as over a century old," he said. This figure would make Cuba, which has a total population of 11.2 million, "the country that has the most centenarians per number of inhabitants in the world," Selman-Housein said. He noted that reaching the grand old age of 100 in good health required motivation, first of all, but also "a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, physical activity, culture and the right atmosphere." The 120 Years Club, created in 2003, promotes a style of living and eating that will help people live a long and happy life. (AFP, 25/5/08)

May 26: Alternative media against hegemonic communication will be the main topic of the 8th Ibero-American Symposium on Gender and Communication that begins on May 27 at the Jose Marti International Journalism Institute in Havana. According to journalist Isabel Moya, president of the scientific council of the event, more than 30 works or products will be presented during the three-day meeting that will be attended by researchers, media experts and academics from 11 countries from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. The program of the event includes a meeting with a group of women who are members of the Cuban Parliament, where they constitute 43 per cent of the legislature. (ACN, 26/5/08)

May 26: Cuban police violently broke up a dissidents' meeting, leaving at least two people in need of medical treatment, opposition sources said. At least 30 people were detained briefly after a weekend raid on the home of well-known dissident Jorge Luis "Atunez" Garcia Perez in the central city of Placetas, opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque said in a communique sent to journalists by fax. Veteran dissident Elizardo Sanchez said he independently confirmed the details of the raid and that all who were detained were later released. At least two people needed medical care, including one man who required a head X-ray, and were later sent home, said Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation. "This is the most violent police action we have seen in many months," he said. (AP, 26/5/08)

May 26: As a new US-made film about Che Guevara picked up an award at Cannes, his son Camilo has expressed hopes that a Cuban director might also one day make a film about his father. "That would seem right to me," he told the press, a few days before the opening in Vienna of an exhibition showing photos of Che Guevara, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the legendary revolutionary's birth. "But a large-scale production for such a major figure loved by the Cuban people requires a lot of resources and it would be very expensive," he said. Camilo Guevara was contacted by US director Steven Soderbergh when he made his biopic "Che," starring the Oscar-winning Puerto Rican-born actor Benicio del Toro. Although the film received mixed reviews at the Cannes festival last week, it nevertheless won del Toro the Best Actor prize. Guevara has yet to see the completed film. But he added: "If it stays true to the spirit of Che, there's no problem." (AFP, 27/5/08)

May 26: A Cuban legislator who is also editor of the Communist Party daily Granma proposed at a session of parliament that the authorities make it illegal for dissidents to accept money from foreign governments. Lazaro Barredo asked the Attorney General's Office "to punish those individuals who receive money from a foreign power to subvert internal order," Granma reported. The lawmaker presented his proposal at a meeting of parliament's Foreign Relations Committee, a week after the Cuban government reported that US diplomats were acting as couriers to bring money to the dissidents. Barredo's proposal implies a revision of the 1999 Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy. That statute - commonly known as Law 88 or the "gag law" - was applied for the first time against several of the 75 members of the opposition who were sentenced in the spring of 2003 during the biggest wave of repression against dissidents in recent years. (EFE, 26/5/08)

May 27: Miriam Leiva, a founder of the Ladies in White organization comprising relatives of the "Group of 75," said in an article submitted to the official press that Lazaro Barredo's initiative at the parliament's Foreign Relations Committee –as reported by official daily Granma-- "is undoubtedly part of the unjust offensive" against her and other government opponents. "It is very contradictory with the recent signing by the government of Cuba of the international pacts on political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights, which contemplate the adaptation of domestic laws, and thus Law 88 should be repealed the the penal code modified," the dissident wrote. "Can it be that the debut of Raul Castro as president of Cuba is a copy of the (2003) campaign of defamation to create conditions for a repression that re-instills fear even in the government and (Communist) party leaders desirous of change?," she said. On the question of the money from the United States, Leiva said that dissidents should determine "the origin of any help in order to accept it, but they can make mistakes out of credulity." "Nevertheless," she said, "it is more than evident that the pretext wielded by Cuban authorities has been meticulously prepared over a long period of time, just as it was done before the repression of March 2003." (EFE, 26/5/08)

May 27: Cuban teachers have the ability to provide a top-quality education and that battle is won with ethics, dedication, and training, said Education Minister Ena Elsa Velazquez at a provincial evaluation meeting in Santiago de Cuba. We have the social commitment to provide society with sufficiently trained, highly educated teachers, commented Velazquez. During the meeting, different teachers spoke not only of material incentives but also the strengthening of methodological work, a greater sense of belonging, and the training of teachers that can assure the future of the Revolution. In this regard, participants expressed the need to link students opting for pedagogical careers to their future work and encourage their love for teaching. It's not a matter of attracting them, but of carrying out the vocational training and professional orientation processes the career entails.The vice president of the Cuban Council of Ministers, Jose Ramon Fernandez, spoke of the opening of Agricultural and Livestock Polytechnic Institutes in the near future, to meet the demand of personnel linked to food production at a time in which the world is facing a crisis in this sector, with substantial increases in prices. (AIN, 28/5/08)

May 28: A group comprising relatives of 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in the spring of 2003 expressed alarm over supposed plans by Raul Castro's government "to launch a wave of repression" similar to that of five years ago. "Cuban authorities have been planning this intended smear campaign against the Ladies in White and our possible dispatch to prison since March 2003, when we became the voice of the 75," the group said in a statement. The document responded to the government's revelations that US diplomats gave dissidents on the Communist-ruled island several thousands of dollars from a Miami-based foundation linked to an anti-Castro activist Havana denounces as a terrorist. The government directly accused Ladies in White member Laura Pollan of receiving $2,400, information that Pollan herself acknowledged, saying she did not know where the money came from and that it was distributed among 18 women. "Regrettably, the current actions harken back to the maneuvers and provocations on the eve of the Black Spring" of 2003. [Declaración de las Damas de Blanco] (EFE, 29/5/08)

May 29: Shortly after becoming Cuba's leader three months ago, Raúl Castro ruled that locals could stay at tourist hotels and visit exclusive beaches -- ending a long-standing policy that Cubans found inherently unfair, never mind unconstitutional. While the island's 11.2 million residents are now free to blow their savings at exclusive resorts in Varadero -- a tourist mecca 60 miles east of Havana -- reality is more complicated. Hotel stays can cost $30 to $200 a night, and with salaries averaging $17 a month, few Cubans can take the government up on the opportunity. So beaches remain filled with Europeans and Canadians, and women like Edis walk the seashore in search of work, tips and handouts. ''They like to keep the Cubans and the tourists separate,'' Edis explains. "I have been taken to jail four times. I don't consider myself to be a criminal. I am just struggling to live.'' The result is a vast racial divide that stretches along the Cuban shoreline. Mostly white foreigners are on hotel lounge chairs -- while mostly black Cuban women walk along the beach dodging security. ''Supposedly we have the right to use the beach now,'' said Elisa, who was with her daughters seeking hair-braiding customers. "As long as I stay here in the water -- that's true -- nobody bothers me”. “But the second I step my foot on the sand and approach the hotel, the security guards will sweep down and kick me out of here”. ''That's how it was last year, and that's how it is now,'' she said. (The Miami Herald, 29/5/08)

May 29: Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon said that a plan for improving civic education is being formulated on the country. Alarcon spoke in a meeting of parliament in Havana in which the provisional Commission for Constitutional and Legal Affairs was established, reported the Granma newspaper. “Surveys carried out show poor knowledge of the role of delegates, deputies, and of parliament itself,” said Alarcon. “Correcting this takes more school education on the subject and greater effort in promoting awareness of the laws,” he stressed. “The media is one of the main ways to increase civic education, by keeping the public informed of their rights and their social and political duties,” added the parliament’s president. “The Commission for Constitutional and Legal Affairs will play a significant role in the actions and changes underway in Cuba towards a stronger form of socialism and a more efficient society,” saidAlarcon. (AIN,29/5/08)

May 29: Yalennis Castillo has been drafted into Cuba's Olympic judo squad to replace two-time world champion Yurisel Laborde, after she defected during a recent trip to the United States. Castillo will now take part in the Women's Half-heavyweight (78kg) category, head team coach Ronalda Veitia told internet journal. Jit Laborde (28) - who won bronze at the 2004 Athens Games - went missing during the Pan-American Judo Championship in Miami on May 11. She later appeared on a television station to announce that she was seeking political asylum. (AFP, 30/5/08)

May 29: Love him or hate him, revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara is making a comeback as the 80th anniversary of his birth approaches. In Havana, a Spanish-language website--www.che80.co.cu--commemorating Guevara for his 80th birthday on June 14 was dedicated. The site includes the testimonies of artists and writers as well as photo galleries about the Argentine revolutionary killed in October 1967 in Bolivia. At the site's dedication ceremony, Guevara's widow, Aleida March, president of the Che Guevara Studies Center in the Cuban capital, praised actor Benicio del Toro for his award-winning portrayal of Guevara at the recent Cannes Film Festival in France. (Sun Sentinel, 30/5/08)

May 30: Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a gravely ill dissident Cuban writer, was secretly returned three weeks ago from a Havana military hospital to solitary confinement in Kilo 7, a backwater prison, his mother confirmed. The transfer took place on May 7, Blanca Gonzalez said in a telephone interview from her home in Miami. The move came less than three months after the government of Raul Castro assured the Vatican that there would be "more openness'' in the treatment of dissidents and critics. News of the transfer was revealed in an e-mail that Bloomberg News received from Martha Beatriz Roque, another prominent Cuban dissident. "This is a horrible crime against humanity,'' Roque wrote from Havana, quoting a source from Kilo 7. "The Cuban government is assassinating journalists. The world must be alerted to these facts.'' Hernandez Gonzalez, 38, is one of 20 Cuban journalists jailed since the "black spring'' mass arrests in March 2003 that sent 75 dissidents to prison for terms of 25 years. A poet and journalist, Hernandez Gonzalez was eventually sent to Kilo 7, a notorious prison on the south shore of the island nation. (Bloomberg News, 30/5/08)

May 31: The Cuban Parliament continued its tasks for updating on several strategic socioeconomic sectors, after the Industry and Construction Commission for the current legislature was created. The recently established working group will supervise issues highly sensitive for the population, such as water supply and construction of houses. The 30-member commission will also follow the functioning of chemical industries, and nickel and cement productions. Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon told Granma daily the new variant will allow to respond to the people’s problems more effectively. Alarcon admitted it is necessary to strengthen the country’s institutions, and praised the initiative to hold public and popular consultations to agree upon solutions with the population. The Permanent Commission for Economic Affairs was also created the day before, with a provisional character until its approval in the coming ordinary period of sessions. (AIN, 31/5/08)