Chronicle on Cuba - April 2010

US-Cuba Relations

April 1: Cuba’s foreign minister met with a top US State Department official to coordinate medical help for quake-ravaged Haiti, one of the highest level encounters in years between the Cold War enemies, officials said. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington that Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and Cheryl Mills, the chief of staff to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, met on the sidelines of a donor conference at the United Nations that raised $9.9 billion for Haiti. “We don’t agree with Cuba and Venezuela on very much, but we all agree on the importance of assistance to Haiti,” Crowley said. Cuba issued a communique from the United Nations, confirming the meeting between Mills and Rodriguez and saying it hoped to see more such dialogue. “We would hope that future exchanges of this nature are a possibility,” the statement said (AP, 2/4/10).

Abril 1: El canciller de Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, y Cheryl Mills, jefa de gabinete de la secretaria de Estado de Estados Unidos, dialogaron en Nueva York sobre la situación del contratista estadounidense Alan Gross, detenido en la isla desde el pasado 4 de diciembre, informó Philip Crowley, vocero de la cancillería del país norteño. Las autoridades cubanas acusan a Gross de espionaje (IPS, 2/4/10).

April 2: The US Federal Bureau of Investigations has been interrogating American citizens who recently traveled to Cuba, Granma newspaper revealed. The Cuban daily reported that at least 10 Americans who recently visited the island through cultural exchange programs have been questioned by FBI agents at home or over the phone. Most of the questioned travelers went to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade, a group that sends up to 100 people to the island every year to participate in exchange programs, do volunteer work and meet Cuban artists (ACN, 2/4/10).

April 2: Arguing that ending US-Cuba flights would “cause serious harm to US foreign policy,” the Justice Department has opposed a bid by a Cuban spy’s ex-wife to collect on a $27 million court judgment she won against Havana by garnishing the flight charterers’ income. Ana Margarita Martinez of Miami filed a lawsuit earlier this year to confiscate the money that eight charter companies, all based in South Florida, pay to Cuban agencies for landing rights and other fees. She won the $27 million judgment in 2001, arguing that Juan Pablo Roque had married her on orders from his Cuban intelligence chiefs in Havana. He returned to the island days before Cuban warplanes shot down two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes in 1996, killing all four men aboard. But the Justice Department, in a 52-page submission, argued that the garnishments could halt flights that are of national interest, and that Martinez lacks the required US Treasury Department license to seize the funds. “Facilitating greater contact between separated family members (…) will encourage positive change in Cuba by decreasing the Cuban people’s dependency on the Cuban government, promoting democratic values and increasing Cubans’ access to information,” wrote Ricardo Zuniga, acting head of the State Department’s Cuba desk, in an affidavit submitted by the Justice Department. “The garnishment of payments made by licensed US air carriers that provide the charter service to Cuba could result in the termination” of the flights, Zuniga added. “Disruption in licensed air charter service would cause serious harm to US foreign policy toward Cuba.” The Justice Department also noted that it “in no way condones” the acts of the Cuban government that led Martinez to sue Havana. The Cuban government does not defend itself against such lawsuits (El Nuevo Herald, 2/4/10).

April 2: Travelers from 14 countries that have been home to terrorists will no longer automatically face extra screening before they fly to the US. Beginning this month, anyone traveling to the US will instead be screened based on specific information about potential terrorist threats, a senior Obama administration official said. A person would be stopped if he or she matches a description, even if officials do not have a suspect’s name, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues. For example, if the US has intelligence about a Nigerian man between the ages of 22 and 32 whom officials believe is a threat or a known terrorist, under the new policy all Nigerian men within that age range will receive extra screening before they are allowed to fly to the US If intelligence later shows that the suspect is not a terrorist, travelers will not be screened against that description. The new procedures replace those that went into effect after the attempted bombing of a jetliner en route to Detroit on Christmas Day. Those rules required extra screening, such as full-body pat-downs, for everyone from, or traveling through, any of these 14 countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen (AP, 2/4/10).

April 5: The United States said that Cuba had a responsibility to improve prison conditions, rejecting President Raul Castro’s characterization of hunger strikes as US and European-backed “blackmail.” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States was concerned about overcrowding, poor hygiene and a lack of drinking water in Cuban jails, along with the detention of some 200 political prisoners. “Somehow prisoners are rebelling against these conditions and we’re led to believe that this is the responsibility of the United States?” Crowley told reporters. “No, it’s the responsibility of the Cuban government. It has fundamental responsibilities under international law for its citizens, including those in custody, and they should live up to those obligations,” he said. He noted that Cuba does not allow foreign humanitarian agencies such as the International Red Cross to monitor its prisons (AFP, 6/4/10).

April 6: A US judge rejected a lawsuit by Pernod Ricard SA to stop rival Bacardi Ltd from selling “Havana Club” branded rum in the United States. Pernod is likely to appeal the ruling, the latest legal twist in a decades-long trademark dispute. Both companies sell rum under the Havana Club name; Pernod outside the United States and Bacardi within it. The ruling by US District Judge Sue Robinson in Wilmington, Delaware is the latest in more than 13 years of US litigation between the companies over which company controls the trademarked name. In its 2006 lawsuit filed in Wilmington, Delaware federal court, Pernod Ricard USA LLC claimed Bacardi USA Inc had no right to use the Havana Club trademark, where it had begun in Florida selling rum under that name. Pernod, which sold 3.4 million cases of Havana Club during its last fiscal year, also accused Bacardi of false advertising by misleading consumers into believing that its rum is made in Cuba, as Pernod’s is, when in fact it is made in Puerto Rico. But Robinson concluded that Bacardi’s rum has a Cuban heritage, having derived from a family recipe first used in that country around 1930, roughly three decades before Fidel Castro took power. In her 22-page ruling, Robinson also found that because Bacardi’s labels “truthfully (and prominently)” show that its rum is “distilled and crafted in Puerto Rico,” its labeling is neither false nor misleading. Pernod showed “no evidence that today’s Havana Club rum product differs from the original pre-revolutionary Cuban rum in any significant respect,” Robinson wrote. Vincent Palladino, a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP in New York representing Pernod, said, “We are very disappointed in the ruling. We believe the judge committed fundamental errors on the law, and in all likelihood we will be appealing.” A Bacardi spokeswoman had no immediate comment, saying the privately held company had yet to review the ruling. According to the ruling, Havana Club rum was developed by the Arechabala family in Cuba, whose assets were seized by Castro’s government in 1960. Bacardi has said it bought the rights to the Havana Club trademark and remaining rum assets still owned by the Arechabala family in 1997 (Reuters, 6/4/10).

April 7: Continuing his perennial campaign against the Castro regime, Miami Republican Representative David Rivera wants to prohibit the state from distributing a “virtual stamp of approval” on goods being exported from Florida to Cuba. The so-called “certificate of free sale” is a written document that guarantees a product that claims to be manufactured in Florida really is manufactured there and isn’t a bootlegged product. It’s akin to a certificate of authenticity that comes with a signed baseball –  and sent with goods exported around the world. Rivera argues such goods with the certificates shouldn’t head to the Communist nation, or any other country that the federal government accuses of sponsoring terrorism –  a list that also includes Syria, Iran and Sudan. Rivera’s bill has cleared two committees with no debate, including the House government operations committee. “This is a priority for me,” said Rivera, who is running for congress. “If there is one certificate of export distributed, it’s too many” (The Miami Herald, 7/4/10).

Abril 7: El presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama, mantiene el compromiso de buscar una “mejor interlocución de pueblo a pueblo” con Cuba, aseguró en Bogotá el subsecretario de Estado para el Hemisferio Occidental, Arturo Valenzuela. “Lo que es problemático es el hecho de que Cuba no ha liberalizado, no ha permitido una mayor apertura”, admitió Valenzuela durante una comparecencia ante universitarios en la capital colombiana. Sin embargo, “eso no significa, por ejemplo, que no estemos buscando tener un cierto diálogo con Cuba, y lo hemos hecho y hemos tenido, hemos reinaugurado conversaciones con Cuba en temas de interés mutuo, como es el tema migratorio”, apuntó el diplomático, que habló ante estudiantes de la Universidad de los Andes. Valenzuela señaló que Obama durante su primer año de gobierno revirtió muchas de las medidas contra Cuba adoptadas por su antecesor, George W. Bush, como las de “tratar de congelar más la interacción entre la sociedad norteamericana y la sociedad cubana”. Muchas medidas fueron levantadas, entre ellas las que limitaban los viajes de cubano estadounidenses a la isla, indicó Valenzuela, y resaltó que, dentro de este ambiente, Estados Unidos valora el hecho de que haya podido trabajar en conjunto con Cuba en la reciente catástrofe de Haití. “En ese sentido valoramos eso, (y) valoramos el hecho de que hemos podido, incluso también con Venezuela, un diálogo fluido en temas humanitarios de tanta importancia”, enfatizó el alto cargo (EFE, 7/4/10).

April 7: US Senator Robert Menendez spoke by telephone with Guillermo Farinas, a cyber journalist on a hunger strike in Cuba, the US politician said. Farinas has “undertaken tremendous personal risk and sacrifice to simply expose the ongoing human rights abuses in Cuba,” Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a statement. Farinas began his hunger strike on February 24, one day after learning of the fate of Orlando Zapata, who died after 85 days without food protesting prison conditions. “Individuals like Guillermo Farinas and Orlando Zapata Tamayo are evidence of the unbearable brutality of the Castro regime and the tragic state of political prisoners in Cuba,” said Menendez. “Guillermo was resolute in his position that the rights of Cuba’s political prisoners must be honored,” said Menendez, who represents the state of New Jersey. The senator said he spoke to Farinas, currently in a hospital in the Cuban city of Santa Clara (AFP, 8/4/10).

Abril 8: Cuba acusó a Estados Unidos y Europa de implementar una “febril” campaña para “demonizar” al país y desestabilizarlo con la excusa de que no se respetan los derechos humanos en la isla, dijo el gobierno. En un extenso editorial, Granma, el diario del gobernante Partido Comunista, dijo que sus enemigos en Estados Unidos y algunos gobiernos en Europa intentan desacreditar a la revolución y poner fin a su sistema socialista unipartidista, lanzando a la muerte a “sus mercenarios”. “El imperio y sus aliados se han lanzado a una nueva cruzada para intentar demonizar a Cuba. Su poderosa maquinaria política y mediática ha puesto en marcha una colosal operación de engaño con el objetivo de desacreditar el proceso revolucionario, desestabilizar al país (...)”, dijo el periódico. “Ahora centran su cínica campaña en un nuevo huelguista cuyos delitos comunes y actos contrarrevolucionarios fueron denunciados en Granma (...) a quien se le brinda toda la atención médica calificada”, dijo el diario. “Se mundializa su show mientras se silencian cínicamente su crueldad y antecedentes criminales, sus agresiones y amenazas de muerte a una doctora (...)”, destacó Granma (Defenderemos la verdad con nuestra moral; Reuters, 8/4/10).

April 8: The Obama administration has lifted its ban on trips to Cuba to deliver US aid to pro-democracy groups, apparently toughening its posture after Havana’s recent abuses, officials said. Such trips were halted after the December 3 arrest of Alan P. Gross, a US Agency for International Development subcontractor who had delivered satellite communications equipment to Jewish groups. The State Department this week notified organizations that receive US funds for Cuban democracy programs that they can resume the trips, said three officials of groups involved in the programs. “To me, this sends a clear signal that [the Obama administration] is not in agreement with what’s going on in the island,” said one of the officials, who like the others requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue (The Miami Herald, 8/4/10).

April 9: Cuba’s President Raul Castro and his brother, ex-leader Fidel Castro, have sought to sabotage US moves to improve ties because they fear it will threaten their power, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. Clinton said Cuba’s response to Obama administration efforts to enhance co-operation revealed “an intransigent, entrenched regime” that had no interest in political reform or ending the isolation imposed by Washington’s 48-year old economic embargo on the island. “It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do no want to see normalization with the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years,” Clinton said. “I find that very sad, because there should be an opportunity for a transition to a full democracy in Cuba and it’s going to happen at some point, but it may not happen any time soon.” “If you look at any opening to Cuba you can almost chart how the Castro regime does something to try to stymie it,” Clinton said while answering questions at Kentucky’s University of Louisville. Clinton noted that in 1996, when her husband former President Bill Clinton was seeking to improve ties, Cuba shot down two small US planes that were distributing leaflets. The incident effectively ended that overture. Over the past year, despite Obama’s willingness to improve ties, Cuba arrested a US contractor on suspicion of espionage while political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after an 85-day hunger strike in protest against prison conditions, Clinton said. “It’s a dilemma,” Clinton said. “I hope (they) will begin to change. We’re open to changing with them, but I don’t know that that will happen before some more time goes by” (The Washington Post, 9/4/10).

April 10: A Cuban diplomat who defected with her husband in Mexico in March has told relatives in Cuba they are in the United States, an uncle said, adding that she was likely being debriefed by US intelligence agents. Yusimil Casañas had worked in the personal office of former Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, ousted last year along with former Vice President Carlos Lage and others in a purge that some Cuba analysts perceived as a sign of instability within the island’s ruling class. Casañas, 25, who was assigned to the passport section of the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, and her husband, Michel Rojas, 32, disappeared March 17 and were not heard from, said Esteban Casañas Lostal, an uncle who lives in Canada. Casañas called her mother in Cuba on April 8 and reported that she and Rojas were “safe in the United States” but that she could not reveal exactly where they were, Casañas Lostal told El Nuevo Herald. A Rojas cousin in Miami, Jose Carrasco, told the press the husband also called his mother, father and a cousin in Cuba on April 8 to report they were safe in the United States, but also gave no specific location. “It’s very likely that they are in the process of being investigated” by US intelligence, said Casañas Lostal, who noted that his niece’s knowledge of Perez Roque’s diplomatic and personal activities could be valuable to the US government (The Miami Herald, 10/4/10).

April 12: Cuba’s official media said that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was both dishonest and cynical in suggesting that Fidel and Raul Castro don’t want Washington to end its 47-year-old economic embargo against the communist-ruled island. In a commentary entitled “Hillary Clinton: the lady lies,” Radio Reloj says that the secretary of state “formulated (last) Friday a group of ideas about Cuba in which ignorance and falsehoods in bulk were mixed.” “If cynicism needed an expression that would immortalize it, the US secretary of state just (gave) it,” Radio Reloj said. “The UN General Assembly has demanded the end of that policy of isolation, but, on the contrary, several White House administrations maintained it and intensified it, something that, according to Hillary Clinton, benefits the government of the island,” the commentary continues. “The thesis that the Cuban revolution needs the embargo to maintain itself afloat has been put forward by the propaganda of Washington,” Radio Reloj said. “It’s been repeated so much that it invites one to propose to the US government that, if the Cuban revolution depends on the embargo to exist, then suspend it for a year and it would collapse,” the station commented. “But the White House has not accepted the challenge; on the contrary, it has intensified the siege even more,” Radio Reloj said, also alluding to the recent wave of international criticism of Cuban authorities after the death in February of imprisoned dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo after an 85-day hunger strike (EFE, 12/4/10).

April 19: A majority of Americans believe the United States should improve its long-strained relationship with Cuba and re-establish diplomatic and business ties, an opinion poll showed. A Cuba Business Bureau/Insider Advantage poll of 401 people showed that 58 percent of those surveyed supported full diplomatic relations with Cuba, while 33 percent opposed it. The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points, also showed that 61 percent believed US citizens should be allowed to travel to Cuba and 57 percent thought Washington should allow US companies to do business in Cuba (Reuters, 19/4/10).

April 19: Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, is the “main source of concern” for the United States due to his capacity to influence and the oil resources of his country,” said Chávez’s political mentor Fidel Castro. “Chávez is the main source of concern for the empire, due to his capacity to influence the masses and due to the huge natural resources of a country that have been pillaged mercilessly. He is the person they rigorously strike in an attempt at taking away his authority,” Castro wrote in one of his Reflections, which was published in the Cuban press. The former Cuban President, 83, said that Washington and its allies “run the risk again of underestimating Chávez and the Venezuelan people,” but, he added, “I have not the slightest doubt that again they will be taught an unforgettable lesson.” Castro described the US foreign policy as an “immense hypocrisy.” He also said that in the case of Cuba the Caribbean island would never yield to “the media-inspired blackmail and terror.” He referred to the criticisms made by the United States and Europe for Cuba’s political prisoners and the situation of human rights in the island (The brotherhood between the Bolivarian Republic and Cuba; AFP, 19/4/10).

April 20: Latin America’s left-wing leaders have demanded the “immediate and unconditional end” to the US blockade of Cuba and slated international media corporations for distorting the truth about the continent’s progressive governments. Heads of state of the member nations of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of our America (Alba) meeting in Caracas tore into the unilateral US embargo and declared that President Barack Obama’s policies on Cuba were “continuing the imperialism that promotes war.” Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was joined by Cuba’s President Raul Castro and the leaders of Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and several Caribbean island states in declaring a “manifesto of independence” that calls on the US government to accept “the will of the peoples of Latin America.” The manifesto, which celebrates the 200th anniversary of the beginning of Latin America’s fight for independence from the Spanish empire, also demanded the immediate release of the Cuban Miami five “anti-terrorist heroes who are unjustly imprisoned in US jails.” Mr Chavez pointed out that as well as blockading Cuba, the US still maintained a colonial grip” on Puerto Rico, whose fight for “independence and national sovereignty from US imperialism must be supported” (Morning Star, 21/4/10).

Abril 21: El subsecretario de Estado para el Hemisferio Occidental, Arturo Valenzuela, manifestó su “honda preocupación” por la situación de los derechos humanos en Cuba, acentuada tras la muerte en huelga de hambre del disidente Orlando Zapato Tamayo. El responsable de la diplomacia estadounidense para Latinoamérica habló sobre Cuba por videoconferencia ante el Foro Europa-América Latina-EEUU, celebrado en Madrid y organizado por la Secretaria General Iberoamericana (SEGIB), el Real Instituto Elcano y el centro de estudios Inter-American Dialogue de Washington. La inquietud de Valenzuela se ha acentuado “particularmente tras la muerte de Tamayo”, fallecido el pasado febrero, tras mantener una huelga de hambre en prisión durante 85 días. Pese a todo, puntualizó, “hemos empezado un proceso de contactos con el Gobierno cubano sobre asuntos de interés común. Hemos hablado de migración, de servicios postales y, más recientemente, sobre cómo coordinar mejor nuestros sistemas” ante tragedias como el terremoto que asoló Haití el pasado enero. Al mismo tiempo, explicó, el gobierno del presidente Barack Obama “ha revertido algunas de las medidas tomadas por la anterior administración (la de George W. Bush), en lo que respecta al levantamiento de algunas restricciones comerciales”. “Pero debo decir que en este punto particular, estamos avanzando de forma cauta. Todavía estamos preocupados por la situación de los derechos humanos en Cuba”, dijo Valenzuela (El Nuevo Herald, 22/4/10).

April 21: Cuba and the United States have held a series of unprecedented talks to coordinate aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti but so far have failed to reach agreement, a top Cuban official said. The two longtime foes, which have had no diplomatic relations for half a century, have met three times so far to discuss co-operation on Haiti and could meet again soon, said Jorge Bolanos, who heads the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. “We have to continue because we have not produced any agreements” on how to coordinate bilateral aid to impoverished Haiti after it was devastated by a massive earthquake that killed an estimated 220,000 people in January, Bolanos said. “We have not produced a definition of what the US could do” to rebuild Haiti’s health system, he added. Cuba dispatched doctors to its Caribbean neighbor to assist in the aid effort, and 700 of them remain, according to the Cuban envoy. It also opened up its airspace to the United States for aid transfers after the quake, in a gesture widely hailed by US officials. “That shows the disposition of Cuba to cooperate with any country, including the US,” Bolanos said in English. Cuba wants to build a hospital in Haiti, where Cuban doctors would help train Haitians to eventually manage the health centre. But Bolanos said the project needed co-operation from other countries to be implemented. “We need unity in Haiti,” Bolanos said, warning that aid to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere should not be “a charity project,” nor should it seek to divide up the country into “market segments.” Haiti’s sovereignty must be respected by countries participating in reconstruction efforts he said, “so that the Haitian government could exercise “its authority and work for the benefit of the Haitian people, not foreign companies,” he said (AFP, 22/4/10).

Abril 23: El gobierno de Estados Unidos impidió la participación de varios especialistas de ese país en el tercer Simposio Internacional de Ventilación Mecánica y Gases Sanguíneos, que se realiza en la central ciudad de Santa Clara, afirmó Armando Caballero López, quien encabeza el comité organizador del evento. Al encuentro asisten intensivistas de más de ocho países, interesados en temas como la ventilación artificial mecánica en los pacientes graves y el manejo de los casos críticos de A H1N1 (IPS, 23/4/10).

April 24: With US-Cuba relations at their lowest point since President Barack Obama took office last year, Cuban singer Carlos Varela will launch a six-city US tour next month with hopes of bringing the two countries a little closer. Varela, often referred to as Cuba’s Bob Dylan, will start in Los Angeles with a concert on May 5, then work his way across the country for a final show on May 15. Varela, 47, last performed a concert tour in the United States in 1998 but put on an impromptu show for members of Congress in Washington in December while lobbying for new US policy toward communist-led Cuba. Varela and his band will tour the United States amid new tensions triggered by the December arrest in Cuba of a US contractor suspected of espionage and the February death of a Cuban political prisoner on a hunger strike (Reuters, 24/4/10).

April 25: At a polling station in Havana, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon challenged the United States and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lift the near half-century-old trade embargo against Cuba for a year and see what happens. “Mrs. Clinton is a very intelligent woman, and I don’t want to be rude with her,” said Alarcon to news agencies in Cuba. “If she really believes the continuation of the embargo is in the benefit of our government, it’s very simple for her: ask Congress to lift the embargo.” Alarcon’s comments come less than one month after Clinton said it was her “personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years” (CNN, 25/4/10).

April 26: Cuba’s Fidel Castro is warning about the “uncontainable” effects of climate change and the human capacity for self-destruction that has been created by scientific advancement. “(S)cience created the capacity of self-destroying the planet several times in a matter of hours. The greatest contradiction in our era is, precisely, the capacity of the species to destroy itself and its incapacity to govern itself,” Castro said in a commentary published in the official media. Under the title, “The insanities of our era,” the retired Cuban president lists the “catastrophic” effects of global warming and cites US efforts toward new types of weapons and military technology. He incorporates into his “Reflection” a news story regarding the possibility that the United States might deploy an arsenal of intercontinental missiles with extremely powerful non-nuclear warheads and another about a recent launch from the Kennedy Space Centre of a new unmanned vehicle on a secret military mission. Those news items, Castro said, “express the philosophy of the empire in its attempt to make us believe in its ‘democratic’, ‘pacific’, ‘altruistic’ and ‘honest’ nature.” He also pointed to the role of US President Barack Obama in last December’s global climate change summit in Copenhagen, whose outcome Castro described as “disappointing” and “a painful deception” of world public opinion. “Human beings have succeeded in raising their possibilities of life to limits that exceed their own survival capacity. In that battle raw materials in their reach are being consumed at an accelerated rate,” Fidel Castro said. “Is it necessary for the child prodigy Barack Obama to explain that to us? Science has grown extraordinarily, but ignorance and poverty are also growing,” the 83-year-old Fidel said (The Insanities of Our Times; EFE, 27/4/10).

April 27: Joaquín F. Monserrate, Political and Economic Counselor at the US Interests Section in Cuba, made some intriguing statements during an address, on April 22,  in Puerto Rico, to members of an advisory trade organization. Speaking in San Juan to the Puerto Rican Institute for Mutual Aid to a Democratic Cuba, Monserrate said that “Cuba could open to business a lot earlier than it could become democratic. In fact, that’s a big possibility.” Although “opportunities [for trade] are very limited today, everything points to the fact that, from one moment to another, more profound changes will occur. The big question is when. Truth is, I don’t know. Nobody knows.” Monserrate’s comments were reproduced by the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día. The State Department official told the businessmen that they should “look for experiences that will help you penetrate into Cuba.” One conduit is the Dominican Republic, he said. “If you have no presence in the Dominican Republic, you have nothing to look for in Cuba. The Dominican Republic, after concluding its free-trade treaty with the United States, becomes a barrio of Mayagüez. You’re going to have investment terms almost as if you were almost in the United States. Explore that market, because it will be useful to you,” he said, according to El Nuevo Día. “Use the government of the United States, which is your government,” Monserrate told his audience (The Miami Herald, 27/4/10).

April 27: Two admitted spies for Cuba, Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, have met with federal officials 50 to 60 times to divulge details of their three decades of clandestine work for the island, justice department officials said. The Washington couple pleaded guilty last November to sending secrets to the United States’ longtime antagonist and agreed to cooperate with the federal government in a deal with prosecutors that offered Gwendolyn Myers a much lighter sentence than she might have faced. Walter Kendall Myers –  a former State Department employee with top secret clearance –  agreed to a life sentence without parole; Gwendolyn Myers could have faced up to 20 years in prison, but under the plea deal, she now could serve between 6 and 7 ½ years. US District Judge Reggie B. Walton set a sentencing date for July 16. Assistant US Attorney Gordon Michael Harvey told Walton that the government had expected the “debriefings” with the couple to take six months, and that investigators were “still on track,” and expected to finish the talks in 30 to 40 days. The couple appeared in Walton’s courtroom for the first time in months. They did not address the court. In November, they said through a lawyer that they had acted “not out of selfish motive or hope of personal gain but out of conscience and personal commitment” (The Miami Herald, 28/4/10).

April 27: Cuba denounced at the United Nations the radio and television attacks it’s being the victim of on the part of the United States, in open violation of International Law. The island’s permanent representative before the international body, Pedro Nuñez, addressed the critic while speaking during a debate at the General Assembly’s Information Committee, the Prensa Latina news agency reported. The diplomat affirmed that these illegal transmissions against Cuba do not respect objectivity and are not in accordance with the truth, falsify and distort information, are fabricated with premeditation, and incite to destructive hatred. A month ago, underlined the official, the Radio Regulations Board of the International Telecommunications Union reiterated that these broadcasts cause prejudicial interference to Cuban stations (ACN, 27/4/10).

April 29: Business and human rights groups urged Congress to ease the decades-old embargo on Cuba by passing a bipartisan bill to lift a ban on travel to the communist country and remove certain obstacles to legal farm sales. “We believe the proposed legislation represents a necessary step toward ending a US policy that has failed for decades to have any impact on improving human rights in Cuba,” Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, said at a congressional hearing. President Barack Obama’s election in November 2008 stirred hopes throughout the Hemisphere that the United States would move to end the embargo codified by Congress in 1963 and strengthened twice in the 1990s. Representative John Tanner, chairman of a trade subcommittee in the House of Representatives Ways and Means, called the hearing to examine a bill crafted by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson, a Democrat, and Republican Representative Jerry Moran. That legislation would lift restrictions on US citizens traveling to Cuba and remove certain obstacles to cash agricultural sales already allowed under previous reforms. “Lifting these travel and trade restrictions is about what is best for the United States,” Tanner said in a statement, adding it would create US jobs through additional farm sales and help the Cuban people through increased tourism (Reuters, 29/4/10).

April 29: US Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President for International Affairs Myron Brilliant reminded Congress that the current US trade embargo on Cuba “is an anachronism” and easing restrictions will “facilitate a transition to democracy and full civil liberties” for the island nation. “As the administration seeks new initiatives to increase US exports, easing these trade barriers represents a no-cost measure that will help create thousands of American jobs,” Brilliant said in testimony about US-Cuba policy before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. He urged lawmakers to approve the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (HR 4645), as a recent study said such legislation could boost US exports by as much as $365 million. “We applaud recent efforts to ease restrictions on US exports and travel to Cuba as a first step toward a policy more likely to bring positive change to the Cuban people,” Brilliant said. “We commend members in both the House and Senate for introducing bills ranging in scope from lifting the travel ban and facilitating the sale of agricultural products to allowing investment in Cuba’s oil fields or definitively lifting the embargo.” “From the business community’s viewpoint, US policy toward Cuba is an anachronism,” Brilliant continued. “The embargo made a martyr out of a tyrant and actually has helped prop up the Cuban regime” (States News Service, 29/4/10).

April 29: The political differences between Cuba and the United States will end in 50 years because the rise in ocean waters caused by global warming will make the island disappear, predicted US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual said. Addressing the forum Green Business Expo in Mexico City, Pascual said that “we don’t have to worry much in the United States about Cuba, because the environment is going to eliminate the problem for us.” However, he added, “maybe Fidel Castro can live 50 more years and has powers that we don’t know so far.” The comment drew laughter from his audience but earned a rebuke from the official Cuban website Cubadebate, which called it a “heavy and arrogant joke” (The Miami Herald, 29/4/10).

April 29: Cuba will celebrate in May the 50th anniversary of the first meeting between former Cuban leader Fidel Castro and late American writer Ernest Hemingway, the Hemingway Museum in Havana said. “The program will run from May 12 to 15, coinciding with the date when the former Cuban president and the Nobel Prize winner for literature personally met in Havana during a fishing tournament,” said museum director Ada Rosa Alfonso. Scholars recognized May 15 as the date when Hemingway and Castro officially met. However interviewed for the book Hundred hours with Fidel some years ago, the Cuban leader said that he had met with the writer on other two occasions, which he did not specify. Alfonso said the celebration will include art exhibitions, artistic galas and lectures (Xinhua, 29/4/10).

Abril 30: La fundación estadounidense Freedom House ha incluido a Cuba, Guinea Ecuatorial, Irán y Birmania entre los diez países con menos libertad de prensa en el mundo, según informó el servicio oficial de radiodifusión internacional del gobierno de Estados Unidos, La Voz de América. Según Freedom House, una organización de tendencias conservadores financiada con fondos del gobierno y próxima a la Agencia Central de Internacional (CIA), la libertad de prensa experimentó en 2009 un deterioro en el mundo por octavo año consecutivo. El informe indica que se han registrado importantes retrocesos en Oriente Próximo, África Subsahariana y América Latina y destaca que la región de Asia-Pacífico fue en 2009 la única parte del mundo en la que mejoró la libertad de prensa. Los diez países peor situados en la lista de Freedom House sobre libertad de prensa son Bielorrusia, Birmania, Cuba, Guinea Ecuatorial, Eritrea, Irán, Libia, Corea del Norte, Turkmenistán y Uzbekistán. En estos países, aseguró, no existen o apenas pueden operar los medios de comunicación independientes (Europa Press, 30/4/10).

Abril 30: Cuba debe 6,000 millones de dólares a Estados Unidos, en razón de las expropiaciones realizadas por el gobierno de Fidel Castro después de 1959 a personas y empresas del país norteño, según datos de la Comisión Federal de Liquidación de Reclamos. El gobierno de la isla considera, por su parte, que el embargo estadounidense ha causado pérdidas por más de 96,000 millones de dólares a la isla (IPS, 30/4/10).