Chronicle on Cuba - January 2004

US-Cuba Relations

January 1: Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, dismissing US charges that Cuba is developing weapons of mass destruction as the words of a "liar," says Bush administration policies have made the risk of US invasion "a real, present danger for us." Mr. Alarcon took strong exception to remarks by Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton. “He's a liar," Mr. Alarcon said of Mr. Bolton during a recent interview in Geneva. Noting that the United States had cited Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons programs as justification for the invasion of Iraq, he said: "The risk of [Cuba] being attacked at this time — when preventive attacks have become a new American doctrine — is a real, present danger for us." (The Washington Times, 1/1/04)

January 1: US Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in The New York Times that the United States was “working for the advent of a free Cuba.” “This struggle will not be confined to the Middle East. We are working for the advent of a free Cuba, and toward democratic reform in other countries whose people are denied liberty”, Powell wrote. (Khaleej Times Online, 1/1/04)

January 2: The Bush administration is becoming increasingly concerned about what it sees as a joint effort by Cuba and Venezuela to nurture anti-American sentiment in Latin America with money, political indoctrination and training. Roger Noriega, Secretary of State Colin Powell's top aide for Latin America, said that the 77-year-old Castro, in his "final days," appears to be "nostalgic for destabilizing elected governments. From the point of view of his democratic neighbors, Castro's actions are increasingly provocative." U.S. officials say Castro has dispatched thousands of doctors, teachers and sports trainers to Venezuela who supplement their professional duties by carrying out political tasks. Cuban agents are said to be providing security for high-ranking Venezuelan officials. Cuban officials acknowledge that Cubans are active in Venezuela but insist their mission is strictly humanitarian. (AP, 5/1/04)

January 3: The State Department has expelled a Cuban diplomat, accusing him of associating with criminal elements, US officials said. The expulsion of Roberto Socorro Garcia, a third secretary at the Cuban mission in Washington, was carried out last month without announcement. Officials at the Cuban mission did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Cuba has announced no retaliatory measures in response to the expulsion, said the US officials, asking not to be identified. (AP, 3/1/04)

January 5: Venezuela's neighbors are bothered by close ties between the Venezuelan and Cuban governments and their potential dangers to democracy, the State Department said. Department spokesman Adam Ereli also said Cuba remains an antidemocratic force in the region but stopped just short of implicating Venezuela in antidemocratic activities. [For more on this, see US Department of State Daily Briefing, Cuba/Venezuela.] (AP, 5/1/03)

January 6: The US Coast Guard has eight Cuban migrants in custody after their sinking boat was spotted by a cruise ship and was provided with care. The Coast Guard is expected to return the eight Cubans back to the island nation aboard a cutter under current US policy. Spokesman Michael Sheehan of Royal Caribbean Lines said passengers on the Brilliance of the Seas spotted the eight men 36 miles southwest of Key West. (UPI, 6/1/03)

January 6: The US State Department's top official for Latin America chided Cuba in a speech for attempting to destabilize the democratic governments of several Latin American countries, but dismissed the possibility of a military response from Washington. "The United States does not contemplate any military response," Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega said in an address to the Council of the Americas, while stressing that Washington and its allies would keep a close eye on Cuban leader Fidel Castro. "He's in his last days and perhaps he feels a little nostalgic for the days when he played an important role in the Americas," Noriega said, referring to the septuagenarian Cuban autocrat. Noriega was replying to a question regarding the United States' stance on the alleged presence of foreign agents in several Latin American nations with the mission of destabilizing their governments. "It should be very clear to Fidel Castro that his actions have caught the attention of Latin American leaders and that his actions to destabilize Latin America are increasingly provocative to the inter-American community," the diplomat said at a press conference following his speech. "Those that continue in destabilizing democratically elected governments, interfering in the internal affairs of other governments, are playing with fire," he said. (EFE, 6/1/04)

January 6: Cuba announced that US officials have suspended regular migration talks scheduled in Havana this week. In Washington, State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper said he had no information about the migration talks, including whether they had been suspended. The Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement sent to international reporters that State Department officials had informed Havana the talks were impossible "until Cuban authorities show a true interest in dealing with very important issues for achieving orderly, legal and safe migration between the two countries." Without specifying what issues the Americans were reportedly concerned about, the Cuban foreign ministry said they had nothing to do with migration accords the countries signed in 1994 and 1995. [For more on this, see Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Relations] (Sun Sentinel, 6/1/04)

January 6: Despite US restrictions, Cuba looks forward to normal trade relations with the United States, where the island’s purchases increased in 2003. In statements to the press, the director of Alimport enterprise Pedro Alvarez said that in the past 25 months Cuba has paid in cash some 524 200 000 dollars, 344 millions of which belong to last year when the amount of purchases doubled the 2002 figure. Alvarez also stressed the signing of an accord at a value of 10 million dollars with the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, which was the first of its kind at that level. (AIN, 6/1/04)

January 7: US officials announced the suspension of bilateral migration talks with Cuba in a further sign of deteriorating relations between the two nations. US officials said the talks -- which occur every six months and were scheduled to begin today in Havana -- were cancelled because Cuban officials refused to discuss several key issues involving an accord governing the legal flow of migrants from Cuba to the United States. Among the issues are Cuba's failure to grant exit visas to about 200 Cubans who already have been issued permanent entry visas by the United States. "We have told Cuba that we're ready to go to talks when they're ready to discuss the serious issues that need to be discussed," Richard Boucher, the US State Department spokesman, said in Washington. "Unfortunately, the Cubans have continued to refuse to discuss the issues that we've identified."[For more on this, see US Department of State Press Briefings.] (Chicago Tribune, 8/1/04)

January 8: Cuba's top diplomat for North America defended a diplomat recently expelled from the United States and rejected US officials' accusations that he had associated with criminal elements. The expulsion of Roberto Socorro Garcia, a third secretary at the Cuban mission in Washington, was carried out last month without announcement. US officials said last week that Socorro was expelled for associating with criminal elements but didn't elaborate further. But one news report said he had been linked to drug trafficking. "The Foreign Ministry totally rejects and categorically denies that comrade Roberto Socorro Garcia has associated with people or activities related to drug trafficking in the United States," Rafael Dausa Cespedes, the ministry's director for North America, said in a statement published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma and other Cuban media. (AP, 8/1/04)

January 8: Echoing comments made earlier this week by his deputy for Latin America, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Cuba has tried to destabilize the region throughout the nearly two decades he has been serving in senior government posts. "I've been in senior national security positions for - on and off - over the last 17 years, and for that whole period of time, Cuba has been trying to do everything it could to destabilize parts of the region," he said at a press conference. "That has been his history. That has been his tradition for all these many years," Powell said, referring to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who last week marked the 45th anniversary of his successful revolution. "Fortunately," the secretary said, Cuba's ostensible attempts at fomenting trouble "turned out to be massive failures for the most part." (EFE, 8/1/04)

January 8: Dagoberto Rodriguez, the lead Cuban diplomat in Washington, accused the State Department of using lies as pretexts to cancel migration talks that were to have taken place this week between the two countries. "The ball is on their side of the court, and we expect them to come up with a date proposal to hold the talks, setting aside those pretexts that only seek to satisfy narrow anti-Cuban interests," said Rodriguez, chief of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. (Sun Sentinel, 9/1/04)

January 8: Cuba and the state government of South Carolina signed a trade agreement that provides for thousands of tons of farm products to be sold to the island at a cost of $10 million. This latest agreement was signed by Pedro Alvarez, president of Alimport, the Cuban company authorized by Fidel Castro's government to purchase agricultural products, and South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who heads a state delegation visiting the island. (EFE, 8/1/04)

January 9: During a press briefing, US National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, said that Cuba is “an anachronism in the hemisphere”. “Cuba can't focus on its own people because it is an oppressive, nondemocratic state that is an anachronism in the Western Hemisphere. It belongs to another era”. “It's a sad thing that the proud people of Cuba are the only ones who have, at this point, no hope for a democratic future”, she added. (White House Press Release, 9/1/04)

January 9: Cuba rejected US accusations that it was seeking to destabilize democratic governments in Latin America with the help of Venezuela's populist president Hugo Chavez. A front-page editorial in the Communist Party newspaper Granma defended the presence of 12,000 Cuban doctors, teachers, sports trainers and social workers supporting Chavez's social programs in oil-rich Venezuela. "Since when has promoting education and culture been seen as destabilizing nations?" the editorial, probably penned by Fidel Castro himself, said. Poverty, unemployment, hunger, unpayable foreign debts and International Monetary Fund demands were to blame for social upheaval in Latin America, not Cuba, it said. [For more on this, see Las mentiras, miedos y estupideces del imperio.] (Reuters, 9/1/04)

January 10: Cubans continued their attempts to reach the US shores illegally last year, but that option is taking a back seat to the Mexican border route. According to Department of Homeland Security statistics, 1,541 Cuban immigrants made it to Florida in 2003, continuing a declining trend in the last four years, while 1,374 of them were picked up by the US Coast Guard at sea, the highest number of interceptions since 1999. However, quickly on the rise are the statistics for the US-Mexican border cross points, where increasingly more Cubans are arriving in search of political asylum. (El Nuevo Herald, 10/1/04)

January 13: Leading American and Cuban neuroscientists and psychiatrists are meeting in Cuba for a four-day conference, the second in a series of meetings to develop collaborative research in basic and clinical neuroscience. The agenda for the conference includes presentations by both US and Cuban clinicians and scientists. There will be sessions on Cuban science and health, depression, neurodegenerative disorders, stress and anxiety, schizophrenia, functional imaging, developmental problems of childhood, and addiction. (Ascribe News, 13/1/04)

January 13: Cuba has demanded that the US government “end the hostilities” against the five Cubans imprisoned in that country since 1998 and their families, and is calling on Washington to fulfill its international, legal and moral obligations. The Foreign Ministry statement condemns the fact that the US State Department recently stated that the wives of Gerardo Hernández and René González should have made their visa applications personally and not through the normal Ministry of Foreign Affairs channels. [For more on this, see Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Relations.] (Granma International, 14/1/04)

January 14: Relations between Cuba and the United States are likely to worsen this year because of the American elections, the Cuban ambassador to Spain said. "There are no clear horizons in our relationship with the US. This year is full of storm clouds," Isabel Allende told reporters in Madrid. "The embargo might be tightened for electoral purposes." She mentioned the US suspension this month of regular migration talks, the highest-level discussions between the two nations. Those talks, Allende said, are meant to prevent a repeat of the 1994 exodus in which tens of thousands fled Cuba for the United States. (The Herald Tribune, 14/1/04)

January 14: Despite the US Supreme Court ruling that persons ordered deported from the country cannot be held for longer than six months, more than 1,000 Cubans are detained indefinitely because Fidel Castro's government will not take them back and the United States will not release them under its administrative custody-review procedures. These Cubans have served their criminal sentences and been ordered deported. In some cases, relatively short prison terms have stretched into multiyear administrative detention with little chance of release anytime soon. Many of the detained Cubans departed from the port of Mariel as part of the 1980 exodus of 125,000 refugees. Their arrival in the United States created a legal dilemma: how to treat persons defined as ''excludable aliens'' whose return Castro refused. (The Miami Herald, 14/1/04)

January 15: The Coast Guard transported 14 Cuban migrants back to their homeland while another was sent to Guantanamo Bay for further questioning by federal immigration officials. The 15 migrants were rescued by the Coast Guard from two 16-foot rafts, which had been lashed together. They were discovered about 40 miles south of the Dry Tortugas. The migrants had been at sea for several days and were in various states of hypothermia and dehydration. Several were unconscious, said Petty Officer Anastasia Burns in a prepared release. (Sun Sentinel, 15/1/04)

January 15: Most Latin American countries have no policies geared toward promoting democracy in Cuba and are just waiting for Castro to die, said Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega. According to Noriega, the US feels that it is important not to wait, but to take action to expedite a democratic transition in Cuba. (La Jornada, 16/1/04)

January 15: The largest US library association opted not to demand the release of private Cuban librarians jailed by Fidel Castro's government in the spring, despite voting to support an investigation of the incarcerations by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. At its national meeting in San Diego, the American Library Association, noting that individuals operating private libraries in Cuba consider themselves "political dissidents" not librarians, left out specific language calling for their release. “Today marks a tragic date in the history of the American Library Association," said Robert Kent, head of the New York-based advocacy group Friends of Cuban Libraries. "They failed to live up to their highest ideal, which is a support for intellectual freedom as a universal human right." John W. Barry, a former ALA president and head of the group's international relations committee that was involved in writing the report, said that the group did act, but avoided stronger language because of internal opposition. (Washington Times, 16/1/04)

January 16: The US Supreme Court said it would decide whether hundreds of Cuban criminal aliens and other convicted immigrants who have completed their U.S. prison terms can be held indefinitely when they represent a danger to the community or their home countries refuse to repatriate them. More than 2,000 criminal aliens are currently being detained by federal authorities, based on Justice Department arguments that they are too much of a risk to be released. Most are part of an influx into the US of Cuban criminals from Port Mariel in 1980, when Fidel Castro temporarily lifted restrictions against leaving the island and released hardened convicts and others from Cuban jails and mental hospitals in what has become known as the Mariel boat lift. The Cuban government has refused to permit their return and, as a result, about 1,750 Mariel Cubans still remain in federal detention because of their danger to the community. (The Washington Times, 17/1/04)

January 16: A top US official and several public health experts warned of the urgent need to plan for chaos, shortages and a potential migrant crisis in a post-Castro Cuba. ''There's a real possibility of a complex emergency'' including ''a high risk of chaotic migration,'' Andrew Natsios, Agency for International Development administrator, told a conference on the future of Cuba. The Bush administration's top officials on Cuba policy said an interagency commission studying how to hasten a transition to a free Cuba and get assistance to the island will report to President Bush by May 1. ''There is growing urgency for this kind of planning,'' Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega said. Otto Reich, special White House envoy, said the swift delivery of aid ``would help the Cuban people see that the future is better than the past.'' (The Miami Herald, 17/1/04)

January 16: Roger Noriega, US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said that the March 2003 crackdown on Cuba's pro-democracy dissidents by the regime of Fidel Castro "demonstrated the regime's palpable concern that there is something growing in Cuban society that it cannot control --specifically, a nascent democratic element that is losing its fear of the regime and dares to stand up and criticize it." Appearing at the Cuba Transition Project Seminar hosted by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Noriega explained Castro's harsh reaction to dissidents as irrefutable evidence that "he does not want a democratic opposition to grow and topple him just as it had toppled regimes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere." The widely condemned crackdown, said Noriega, was the Cuban dictator's "attempt to eradicate civil society at its roots, to strangle it in its cradle before it could become a threat."

January 17: US President George W. Bush announced that he is proroguing for another 6 months legislation preventing US citizens from filing legal suits against the Fidel Castro regime for property expropriation. (Europa Press, 17/1/04)

January 18: More than 600 university students from the United States arrived in Havana aboard the cruise ship "SS Universal Explorer" as part of the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea (SAS) program. Havana University director Juan Vela Valdes headed the delegation that received the students at the Sierra Maestra terminal, along Puerto Avenue, in the capital's historic district. Valdes praised the educational program, which is making its tenth visit to Havana. (EFE, 18/1/04)

January 19: Dagoberto Rodriguez, Cuba's top diplomat in Washington, wonders if "regime change" is in the cards in this election year. That possibility can't be ruled out, he says, because the administration "has proved a tendency in the past to solve problems through violent means." Rodriguez said Cuba's suspicions have been heightened by what he sees as several "provocative" U.S. actions in recent days. To Rodriguez, the most inexplicable and troubling development has been the recent U.S. allegation of Cuban meddling in Latin America, sometimes in collaboration with the country's main South American ally, Venezuela. "That issue could legitimately have been raised 20 years ago, but not now," Rodriguez said, pointing out that Cuba has normal relations with all hemispheric countries except El Salvador. “They are trying to recreate the phantom of Cuban interference," he said. (AP, 19/1/04)

January 20: The Cuban foreign minister has strongly denied allegations by US officials that a Cuban envoy in Washington associated with criminal elements and was involved in narcotics trafficking. The foreign ministry in Havana called the allegations against Roberto Socorro Garcia, who was expelled by the United States, a "gross lie" and a "manipulation of reality." "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs totally rejects and categorically rebuts that Roberto Socorro Garcia has been associated with people or activities connected with drug trafficking in the United States or has engaged in actions that are harmful to the U.S. government or that violate his diplomatic status," the ministry said in a statement. (The Washington Post, 20/1/4)

January 20: Representatives from the National Council of Churches, USA (NCC), are planning to intercede with Fidel Castro on behalf of the 75 dissidents on the island that were handed out lengthy prison sentences. "We have requested this meeting with President Castro because, from a moral standpoint, this matter is crucial to the interests of our organization and its relations with Cuba," said Dr. Antonios (Tony) Kireopoulus, NCC Associate General Secretary for International Affairs and Peace, "We believe those sentences to be excessive." (El Nuevo Herald, 21/1/04)

January 21: The Carter Center in Atlanta is meeting with a dozen US-based Cuban exile groups to debate the island's future. According to the Carter Center, the meeting, a "private" affair organized "at the request" of these organizations, includes the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). (Europa Press, 21/1/04)

January 21: In Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque's opinion, US President George W. Bush's recent State of the Union Address was just "electoral rhetoric." Voicing his hopes that the US president will not go beyond words, he said that if Washington toughens its policy toward Havana, or should it choose to invade, Cuba would resist. (Notimex, 21/1/04)

January 21: Although Cuba typically discourages religion, the nation has nonetheless become the destination of "caravans'' of Florida United Methodists over the past five years. The most recent one traveled from Christ United Methodist Church, which sent its pastor and two members to the island as part of what the denomination's Florida Conference refers to as the Cuba/Florida Covenant. Most recent figures indicate that there are 197 Methodist churches in Cuba, with many missions attached to each. (St. Petersburg Times, 21/1/04)

January 21: In his talks with 637 US students and 24 US professors, Fidel Castro stressed the importance of knowledge and culture to better understand the problems facing the world. Responding to several questions posed by the students, Castro stressed that the guarantee of the revolutionary process lies “on teaching the people how to think”. The group is visiting Cuba as part of the Semester at Sea Cruise program. (AIN, 21/1/04)

January 21: In a press statement issued by the State Department, the US government condemned “the continued unfair detention” of political prisoners in Cuba, and demanded to Cuban authorities their release. The document emphasizes the release of 75 independent Cuban journalists, librarians, and human rights defenders, who have been kept in jail since April 2003. But it adds that: “Such deprivation and flagrant abuse of human rights have not been limited to the group of 75. In February, human rights activist Leonardo Bruzon Avila, who is in poor health due to repeated hunger strikes, will soon complete two years in prison without a trial. In March, blind pro-democracy activist Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leyva will also complete two years in prison without a trial. Gonzalez was jailed for protesting the police beating of an independent journalist. Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, who has worked tirelessly to express his commitment to the use of non-violence to achieve change, was arrested in December 2002 for attempting to teach others about international human rights practices .” [U.S. Condemns Continued Imprisonment of Cuban Human Rights Defenders] (Europa Press, 22/1/04)

January 21: At the closing ceremony of the 2nd Cuba-U.S. Biological Psychiatry Workshop, which took place over five days at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, Dr. Ismael Clark, president of the Cuban Academy of Science, confirmed that the reestablishment of a free exchange of knowledge, experiences and achievements is the desire and aspiration of Cuban scientists. Clark qualified the conference as a unique opportunity for opening new horizons for mutually beneficial collaboration in neuroscience. Dr. Charles Nemeroff, head of the Faculty of Psychiatry at the University of Emory, Atlanta, expressed his hope that the current barriers to cooperation will be eradicated, thus permitting cooperative advances toward the common goal of preventing neuropsychiatric disorders and developing more effective treatments against them. (Prensa Latina, 22/1/04)

January 22: Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque says that Washington's policy toward Cuba is "incoherent." Speaking with reporters at a news conference called to announce the new Venezuelan ambassador to Havana, Cuba's foreign minister said a majority of US farmers and businesspeople are opposed to the economic blockade of the island and that many are actively working to have it lifted. On another topic, Felipe Pérez Roque said that the State of the Union address by US President George W. Bush, delivered in Washington, was simply "more of the same" and is typical of this election year in the United States. (Radio Habana Cuba, 22/1/04)

January 22: A delegation of the US National Council of Churches left for Cuba on a six-day visit. The trip includes consultations with Cuban churches, celebration of the consecration of a Greek Orthodox cathedral in Havana, and possibly a meeting with Fidel Castro on political dissidents, the council said. The NCC, in the requested meeting with Castro, which was not yet confirmed, said it was "hoping to discuss church concerns and issues pertaining to US-Cuban relations, including the harsh sentences imposed on 75 dissidents by Cuba's courts in spring 2003. (AFP, 22/1/04)

January 22: The Port of Corpus Christi is sending another large shipment to Cuba. The shipment consists of 6.6 million pounds of beans currently sitting in a warehouse. (KRIS TV, 22/1/04)

January 23: Cuba supplied information to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's intelligence service on the movement of US troops and other military activities, The Washington Times reports, citing a senior US Defense Department official. Intelligence ties between the two countries are believed to be an offshoot of Cuba's covert oil-purchasing arrangement with Iraq under Hussein, the report said. (Dow Jones, 23/1/04)

January 23: US Senator Max Baucus is asking Secretary of State Colin Powell to let Cuba send a veterinarian to Montana to expedite a sale of state cattle to that country. Cuban officials want a technical expert, Alejandro Portales, to visit Montana and inspect the cattle before they are shipped to Alimport, Cuba’s top importing agency. Baucus said such inspections are routine and necessary because Cuba and the United States have no mutual inspection system. “Getting this visa approved is critical to moving a sale of live cattle,” said Molt rancher Dave Kelsey, one of the producers who accompanied Baucus in a former trip to Cuba. “We’re ready to roll, but the Cubans, understandably, want to see our cattle with their own eyes.” (AP, 23/1/04)

January 23: Federal authorities said they seized two go-fast boats and arrested eight smuggling suspects caught transporting 5,600 pounds of marijuana and 100 pounds of hashish between Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas and Cuba. The Coast Guard said its ships and crews worked with aircraft and agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop the smuggling operation. (Sun Sentinel, 23/1/04)

January 25: Film producer Robert Redford invited the family of Ernesto (Che) Guevara to a private screening of his company's new movie about the revolutionary's early years. “The Motorcycle Diaries”, directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, and featuring Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal in the lead role, tells of Guevara's travels across Latin America before joining the revolution of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. "I've come to present the movie I produced about Che," Redford said in brief comments to reporters outside a Havana theatre, "I'm very happy to be here." Guevara's widow, Aleida March, and several of their children were seen arriving for the show. (The National Post 25/1/04)

January 26: Fidel Castro paid a call on actor Robert Redford at his Havana hotel and discussed his latest film, on revolutionary icon Che Guevara. Redford was in Cuba over the weekend wearing his producer's hat for a private screening of "The Motorcycle Diaries" for the widow and children of the legendary Argentine guerrilla fighter. “He came to me (…) He seemed in good health, good humor, good spirit," Redford said of the 77-year-old Cuban leader after their brief encounter at the Hotel Nacional. (CNN, 26/1/04)

January 26: Eight Cuban men came ashore Key West, Florida, police said. A patrolling officer spotted the migrants at the corner of White Street and Atlantic Blvd. Their small homemade boat was discovered beneath one of the underpasses at the White Street Pier, and they were transferred to the Monroe Co. Detention Center to be picked up by the US Border Patrol. (The Miami Herald, 27/1/04)

January 27: Republican US Senate hopeful Larry Klayman stepped up his call to forcibly remove Fidel Castro, whom he described as "a master terrorist" and a primary threat to US security. Five Republican and three Democratic candidates seeking the vacant Senate seat created by the retirement of three-term US Senator Bob Graham, Democrat - Miami Lakes, spoke about their campaigns during a two-hour forum at the 10th annual planning meeting hosted by The Associated Press. "It's time to remove Castro once and for all, by force if necessary," said Klayman, a former Justice Department attorney. "He's had free reign for too long." He said Castro also has bioweapons and shelters international terrorists while the U.S. looks the other way. "All the politicians go around talking about how bad the situation is, but they don't do anything," Klayman said. "If we can do it for the Iraqis, create democracy there, can't we do it for the Cubans who have done more for this country?" Governor Jeb Bush said he would not comment on suggestions the US should invade Cuba to overthrow Castro. (AP, 27/1/04)

January 27: The two Cuban-Americans in the Senate race, Republican Mel Martinez of Orlando and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas support Fidel Castro's removal, but not by force. "I am totally for a regime change in Cuba, but we must do it by peaceful means unless it's apparent that Castro is a more obvious threat than he appears to be today," said Martinez, who came to the US from Cuba at 15 to live with foster parents until his family was able to rejoin him. "The notion of taking a collective military action in Cuba without any specific evidence of imminent threats to America I would not support," said Penelas, who also spoke Spanish on two occasions to differentiate himself from his Democratic opponents. (AP, 27/1/04)

January 27: The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) applauds the introduction of the bi-partisan US-Cuba Trademark Protection Act (S. 2002) in the United States Senate. This bi-partisan bill will help US companies protect trademarks registered in Cuba and prevent Cuba from becoming a haven for counterfeiting and trademark encroachment. "We commend Senators Baucus and Craig for introducing this comprehensive legislation aimed at protecting the more than 5,000 American trademarks registered in Cuba. Currently, these trademarks are vulnerable to counterfeiting and infringement, thanks to a five-year-old special-interest law known as Section 211," said Bill Reinsch, president of NFTC. The bi-partisan bill was recently introduced by Senator Max Baucus (Democrat) and Senator Larry Craig (Republican). Similar bi-partisan legislation in the House, H.R. 2494, has more than doubled its sponsorship to 19 members since its introduction in the summer of 2003. (US Newswire, 27/1/04)

January 27: An amnesty for 75 Cuban dissidents sentenced to long prison terms in last year's crackdown would help Americans working to end US sanctions against the communist-run island, a representative of a leading American church council visiting Cuba said. "It's an internal matter," the Reverend Fred Morris, Latin America director for the National Council of Churches USA, said of the long sentences given out last year. But, he said, "a gesture of compassion could help" efforts by the council and other groups fighting for an end to the trade embargo and restrictions on American travel to the Caribbean country. Under the leadership of Reverend Bob Edgar, a United Methodist minister, the delegation hoped to meet with Castro and discuss the dissidents' sentences, among other concerns. But, the day before the group was to leave, no meeting had occurred. Edgar late last year sent Castro a letter urging him to "please take advantage of the coming Christmas season to declare an amnesty for those dissidents, either reducing their sentences greatly, or, better yet, simply freeing them as a sign of good will and desire to work toward reconciliation." (AP, 27/1/04)

January 28: The Bush administration has eliminated cultural exchange licenses that allowed just about any American to travel to Cuba, which has been subject to a U.S. trade embargo for more than four decades since Fidel Castro seized power. These so-called "people-to-people" licenses, introduced in 1999 by the Clinton administration, were intended to let Cubans and Americans learn about each other through educational trips. But federal officials now say the exchanges had become little more than thinly veiled tourism and eliminated the program. The last licenses expired on December 31 and some travel agencies are scrambling to find a legal alternative. (AP, 28/1/04)

January 30: The Cuban government agency responsible for importing food and agricultural products from the United States has selected A.R. Savage & Son as its shipping agent for goods sent from Tampa Bay. The agreement formalizes the business relationship between Alimport and A.R. Savage of Tampa, which has handled five shipments of the animal feed supplement dicalcium phosphate from Port Manatee and private docks to Cuba last year, according to Arthur Savage, chief executive of the company. Although trade with Cuba remains limited, the designation may give Savage the inside track if it expands over time. (St. Petersburg Times, 30/1/04)

January 30: Fidel Castro has accused his US counterpart George Bush of plotting to assassinate him. Speaking at the end of a regional meeting against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, Castro said the assassination was aimed at overthrowing Cuba's communist government. “We knew that Mr Bush had made a commitment with the mafia of the Cuban-American Foundation to kill me. ``I said it once before and today I'll say it clearer: I accuse him!'' Castro told some 1000 representatives from 32 nations. Cuba's long-serving leader vowed to "go down fighting" if the US tried to invade the country at any time”. ''I am not asking to survive a war. I've already done my part and I still have to do what I have to do. With weapons in hand, I don't care how I die, but I'm confident that if they invade us, I will go down fighting,'' he was quoted as saying. After charging Bush with conspiring with the virulent anti-Castro Cuban-American community of Miami, Florida to turn Castro into a dead man, he said referring to himself: "The deceased can still talk. The deceased can make plans. He's not dead yet." "And those idiots better not believe we're wasting our time, because we really work at our job. This country will never give up. It will never lay down its weapons," Castro stressed. He said Cuba does not want "in any way to assume the cost of a war (against) Yankee imperialism," but warned that despite the tremendous pressure from Washington, "we won't budge at all from our principles." (Al Jazeera, AFP, The Miami Herald, 30, 31/1/04)

January 31: Top US officials have dismissed the allegations by Fidel Castro that US president George Bush was plotting to assassinate him. ''The world would be better off without Fidel Castro, a lot better off, but that doesn't mean anybody's trying to kill him,'' said Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, who was in Miami. `It's a ridiculous assertion.'' (The Miami Herald, 31/1/04)

January 31: The US State Department's top official for Latin America said the negotiations for the 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), would not be derailed by governments that don't fully support the trade bloc. Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, was asked at a business conference whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro can influence other Latin American nations to lessen their support for the President George W Bush-backed free trade area. "I don't think any one country constitutes a roadblock on the FTAA," Noriega said. "We'll just go around them." (The Globe and Mail, 31/1/04)