| Spotlight
on Cuba: Crackdown on Dissidents
Chronology of Events
July 31, 2003: The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs dispatched a letter to the European Commission and the embassies of the fifteen in Havana, confirming the Cuban rejection of further EU humanitarian aid. In 2003, Brussels was planning to put Euro 5.5 million into development projects in Cuba, with the total value of each EU member state's projected contribution adding to this figure. (Europa Press, 1/8/03)
July 28, 2003: The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) awarded the Cuban independent press a special distinction under the category of the IAPA Grand Prize for Freedom of the Press, especially to Raúl Rivero, IAPA director and regional vice chairman for Cuba of the Committee on Freedom of the Press, and the other 28 journalists who were also convicted to long prison sentences, as well as those journalists that continue to report under official persecution. (IAPA, 28/7/03)
July 29, 2003: The United States is deeply concerned over the failing health of Cuban political prisoner Marta Beatriz Roque. According to family members, Ms. Roque was transferred to the Carlos J. Finlay Military Hospital in Havana due to high blood pressure, chest pain and nose bleeds. Her health has worsened since her incarceration. The Cuban government should provide her with the best possible medical treatment. (US Department of State, 29/7/03)
July 29, 2003: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez expressed agreement with Fidel Castro's tirade against the EU, stating that his Cuban counterpart had "called a spade a spade." (Europa Press, 29/7/03)
July 27, 2003: The European Union has said it will continue to offer aid to Cuba, despite Fidel Castro's denunciation of the EU as the United States' "Trojan horse". In a statement, the EU's executive arm said it regretted Mr Castro's remarks but intended to continue offering its support in the absence of an official Cuban request not to do so. (BBC, 27/7/03)
July 26, 2003: During his speech at the 50th anniversary of the attack on Moncada barracks, Fidel Castro insulted Spanish Prime Minister Jose María Aznar, whom he described as a "character of fascist stock and ideology," for supposedly engineering the EU's censure of Cuba for jailing peaceful dissidents and executing hijackers. The Cuban leader said Spain's education system was equivalent to that of a "banana republic" and "an embarrassment for Europe". (EFE, The Financial Times, 26/7/03)
July 26, 2003: Fidel Castro responded to European Union criticism of human rights abuses in Cuba by rejecting EU aid and closing the door on political contacts. " Cuba does not need the aid of the European Union to survive," Castro said in a speech to 10,000 supporters marking the 50 th anniversary of the assault he led on the Santiago army garrison that launched his revolution. "The government of Cuba, out of a basic sense of dignity, relinquishes any aid or remnant of humanitarian aid that may be offered by the European Commission and the governments of the European Union," Castro said. He accused the EU of kowtowing to pressure from the United States to censure Cuba and called Europe the "Trojan horse of a superpower." "They are full of hatred against Cuba," he told the crowd. "They don't forgive that we have demonstrated that socialism is (…) a thousand times more humane than the rotten system which they have adopted." (Reuters, Sun Sentinel, 28/7/03)
July 26, 2003: According to Larry Klayman, from Judicial Watch, imprisoned Cuban dissident MartaBeatriz Roque's health is in critical condition. (Europa Press, 27/7/03)
July 22, 2003: Chilean author Carlos Franz is turning down a journalism award from Cuba to protest the crackdown on dissidents by the government of President Fidel Castro. "I decided that I could not accept a journalism award purported to support freedom of expression because among 78 dissidents imprisoned in Cuba there are a number of authors and some 20 newsmen," Franz told the Chilean daily La Segunda in an interview from his London residence. He said "it was a hard decision" to turn down the Jose Marti Journalism Prize awarded by Cuba's government news agency, Prensa Latina. (ABC, The State, 23/7/03)
July 21, 2003: Members of the Cuban internal opposition hailed a statement from the European Union blasting the island's communist regime for human rights abuses as an important element of support for Cuba's people. Elizardo Sánchez, head of an outlawed commission on human rights, said the EU statement "is fully justified by the abysmal state of civil, political and economic rights in Cuba." Vladimiro Roca, representing the opposition coalition Todos Unidos (All United), was also pleased with what he described as a "very measured" declaration from the European Union. (EFE, 21/7/03)
July 21, 2003: The foreign ministers of the European Union approved a document that denounces human rights violations in Cuba but at the same time calls for continued "constructive engagement" with the communist-ruled island. The document outlines detailed cases from this year that highlight the "serious" deterioration of basic human rights under the Fidel Castro regime. (EFE, 21/7/03)
July 18, 2003: While France believes that Cuba is misguided with regards to human rights observance, it also considers that the Cuban issue should "not be addressed with embargoes" but with an open dialogue and cooperation, said in Mexico the French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin. The French government official said that the situation on the island has given Paris "cause for concern". (AFP, 18/7/03)
July 18, 2003: Renowned Peruvian journalist Gustavo Gorriti traveled to Cuba on behalf of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and confirmed the dire situation for independent Cuban journalists and their families, who are suffering from harassment, humiliating prison conditions, and psychological pressures. During his stay in the capital, Havana, Gorriti visited the families of imprisoned journalists Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Ricardo González Alfonso, Raúl Rivero, and Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez to convey CPJ's concern. Gorriti concluded that the Cuban government may be trying to use the jailed journalists as bargaining chips with the United States to achieve an exchange for the five Cuban spies who were arrested and sentenced to stiff prison terms in the United States two years ago. This, noted Gorriti, "helps explain the efforts, the pains the Cuban regime went through in trying to depict the dissidents and journalists as 'mercenaries' and 'spies.'" (CPJ, 18/7/03)
July 18, 2003: France announced that it has called off two institutional exchange programs with Cuba and that it will relocate the French-Cuban Comparative Law Institute, following the revision of its bilateral cooperation ties with the island on account of its poor human rights record. "We have suspended the customs and law enforcement components of our administrative and judicial collaboration, which started in 2001," explained a French Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Also, a project "that should have been under way with Cuban authorities concerning geographical data and disasters" has been "cancelled" and "the decision has been made to move the offices of the French-Cuban Comparative Law Institute, currently located at a Cuban government-owned building, to a private one." (El Nuevo Herald, 18/7/03)
July 17, 2003: The EU Council diplomatic representatives approved a document harshly condemning human rights violations in Cuba. The document that will be submitted to the Ministers, says that respect for human rights has deteriorated in Cuba since December and economic reforms remain conspicuous by their absence. But it says also that the EU intends to continue dialogue with Havana - because it is the most constructive way to achieve political, economic and civil rights reforms - and that it is willing to provide aid, where possible via non-governmental organisations, to promote democratisation and improve living standards for ordinary Cubans. (AFP, 17/7/03)
July 17, 2003: The Socialist International made harsh statements against Cuba, describing as "intolerable, the death sentences, the intimidation of journalists, the murders of civilians at the hands of the military." The secretary of Democrats of the Left (DS), Piero Fassino, voiced the condemnation of the IS and that of his own party, the most important one among the Italian left. (AFP, 17/7/03)
July 17, 2003: In a campaign for the release of independent journalists in Cuban prisons, the Inter American Press Association met with Latin American consuls in Miami. (Press Release, 17/4/05)
July 14, 2003: An independent group that monitors political prisoners in Cuba says that a wave of arrests caused the sharpest growth in its list of such prisoners in two decades. The report released by the Human Rights and National Reconciliation Committee counted 336 prisoners held for ''political or sociopolitical motives'' as of June. Of those, at least 88 were considered ''prisoners of conscience'' by Amnesty International and "there are 50 more that are possible" in that category, said the panel president Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz. (The Miami Herald, 15/7/03)
July 14, 2003: The Cuban National Association of Writers and Artists (UNEAC) condemned the EU attempt to restrict cultural exchange between its member countries and Cuba. The denunciation took place during a gala concert at the Amadeo Roldán Theatre in Havana in remembrance of the 214th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Cuban Minister of Culture Abel Prieto was in attendance. (Prensa Latina, 14/7/03)
July 14, 2003: France loaded its Embassy's National Day guest list with dissidents this year. Cuban officials stayed away en masse. The July 14 celebration is usually a notable date on Havana's social calendar, a place for officials -- sometimes even Fidel Castro -- to hobnob with diplomats and foreign businessmen and sip French wines. In a sign of continued tension between Cuba and the European Union, guests said they saw no Cuban officials at all during the embassy reception, though many were invited. A handful turned up at the front gate before the event to turn in their invitations and then walk away. Instead, an unprecedented number of dissidents turned up. If the situation was politicized, "it was due to the government, not to us," said Vladimiro Roca. "The majority of my colleagues and myself are going to attend this celebration not with an attitude of defiance toward the government but defending our essential right to accept any invitation we receive on civilized terms," said Elizardo Sanchez. (AP, 14/7/03)
July 10, 2003: "The Cuban regime had the right to defend itself against a destabilizing attempt encouraged by the US," said Tilden Santiago, Brazilian Ambassador to Havana, in reference to the execution of three individuals who last April hijacked a ferryboat in an effort to reach US shores. (El Tiempo, 10/7/03 )
July 10, 2003: During the 6th Mexico-Cuba Inter-Parliamentary Meeting, the delegation of the Mexican ruling party, PAN, sparked a heated debate with the delegates from the island, when it moved for the approval of a condemnatory resolution on the "execution of three Cuban ferryboat hijackers." At the end of the first day's sessions, a declaration of support was passed promoting "bilateral relations respectful of each country's sovereignty." (La Jornada, 10/7/03)
July 9, 2003: Dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe, serving a 20-year sentence in a Cuban prison and suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, may die in weeks unless his conditions are swiftly improved, his wife said. He had been transfered to a hospital in Santiago de Cuba after Leiva expressed earlier concerns, but he refused to undergo any more tests saying conditions at that hospital placed him at even greater risk. (AFP, 9/7/03)
July 9, 2003: The Miami-based organization Unidad Cubana (Cuban Unity) has launched an on-line campaign on behalf of two political prisoners in Cuba. The organisation is encouraging web users to write to world leaders, asking them to intercede in Martha Beatriz Roque and Oscar Elías Biscet's behalf on account of their failing health. (El Mundo, 10/7/03)
July 9, 2003: In Spain, Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti regrets the critics made to the Cuban Government after the execution of three kidnappers. (EFE, 9/4/05)
July 8, 2003: Cuban expatriates gathered outside the Cuban embassy in Caracas to demand the release of 30 journalists imprisoned on the island. The protesters wore shirts bearing the prisoners' faces and slogans expressing condemnation of the Cuban government. (El Tiempo, 9/7/03)
July 7, 2003: The exiled daughter of Fidel Castro called on the European Union to take a harder line against her father, urging leaders to form a common policy with the United States in responding to Cuba's recent crackdown on dissidents. "The EU's policy toward Cuba is hardly acceptable because they're dealing with a regime that doesn't listen," Alina Fernandez, the exiled daughter of the Cuban leader, told a news conference. "We need a point of convergence between the US and Europe to create a political consensus in dealing with the Cuban regime," she said. Fernandez was in Rome as part of a European tour organized by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based conservative legal group that has filed a case on behalf of exiled Cubans against Castro. The complaint accuses the leader of false imprisonment, torture and persecution. (AP, 7/7/03)
July 7, 2003: The Italian association against the death penalty "Let No One Hurt Cain" expressed severe criticism of Cuba on account of the executions of three individuals who hijacked a ferryboat last April. (AFP, 7/7/03)
July 1, 2003: The Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated its strongest condemnation of the upholding by the Supreme Court of Cuba of most of the prison sentences arbitrarily meted out to 75 Cuban dissidents last April. (Radio Martí, 4/7/03)
July 1, 2003: A special citation for bravery has been awarded by New York's Columbia University to a Cuban group called La Sociedad de Periodistas Manuel Marquez Sterling, many of whose members were arrested and sentenced to prison during a recent crackdown on dissidents in Cuba. The Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for 2003, administered by the university's graduate school of journalism, cited La Sociedad for "an unprecedented demonstration of courage and professionalism at enormous personal cost" during the latest wave of repression undertaken against dissidents by the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. ( Washington Files, 2/7/03)
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