Cubasource

August 6: US authorities have allowed journalists to watch the special tribunals at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, surrounded by walls of razor wire, for the first time. Facing criticism over the physical and legal conditions at Camp Delta, US military authorities started the tribunals to review whether the 585 remaining inmates were properly classified as "enemy combatants" when captured. (ABC, 6/8/04)

August: 14: Cuba warned the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Panama about its responsibility if that government allows terrorists imprisoned in that country since November, 2000 to escape or excarcerate them. The warning is contained in a statement by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations issued on the present situation of the process followed in Panama against terrorists Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Pedro Remon and Guillermo Novo Sampoll. [Official Statement] [For more on this, see Exile Community and Foreign Affairs] (Prensa Latina, 15/8/04)

August 16: The Government of Panama does not plan to grant amnesty to a group of Cubans accused of plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro in November 2000, said Panama’s Foreign Minister. “They will serve their sentences (of 7 and 8 years in prison) in Panama”, said emphatically Foreign Minister Harmodio Arias. Last March, Cubans Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Pedro Remon and Guillermo Novo were sentenced by a Panamanian court for actions threatening national security and illicit association. [For more on this, see Exile Community and Foreign Affairs] (AFP, 17/8/04)

August 26: Panama's president has pardoned four Cuban-exile extremists convicted of plotting to kill Fidel Castro, whose government has said diplomatic relations would be severed if the "terrorists" were so favored. Announcing the pardons just days before she was to leave office, President Mireya Moscoso said she wanted to prevent a future government from extraditing the four when they finish their terms. She pardoned Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remon. "We know that if they stay, they would face the possibility of being extradited to Venezuela or Cuba where I am sure they would have been killed," she told a news conference. Posada, a 76-year-old former CIA operative, faces criminal charges in Venezuela as well as Cuba. [For more on this, see Exile Community and Foreign Affairs] (EFE, AP, 26/8/04)

August 26: Three Miami Cuban exiles jailed after Fidel Castro claimed they were plotting to assassinate him came home amid cheers and tears at Opa-locka Airport, having been pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso. A fourth, alleged mastermind Luis Posada Carriles -- a man Castro once called ''the worst terrorist in the hemisphere'' -- immediately went into hiding. [For more on this, see Exile Community and Foreign Affairs] (The Miami Herald, 27/8/04)

August 26: FBI agents questioned three Cuban exiles shortly after they arrived at Opa-locka Airport following their pardon by Panama's president in an alleged plot to kill Fidel Castro. The information could be used for an investigation into whether the three -- all naturalized US citizens -- violated federal law. The US Neutrality Act bars Americans from trying to overthrow foreign governments not at war with this country. FBI agents interrogated the three to find out more about the Castro claim that they planned to kill him during a 2000 visit to Panama, according to law enforcement sources. Immigration officials also questioned them. Meanwhile, the mystery of the whereabouts of a fourth exile and alleged plot mastermind, Luis Posada Carriles, continued with reports that he was in El Salvador or Honduras. [For more on this, see Exile Community and Foreign Affairs] (The Miami Herald, 28/8/04)

August 28: Fugitive Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, accused by Havana of multiple terror attacks, sneaked into Honduras using an altered US passport after he was freed from a Panama prison, Honduran officials said. A Honduran immigration worker at the airport in the northern city of San Pedro Sula confirmed that a known photograph of Posada matched a man who landed there, the officials said. “ Based on that identification, we believe Posada did enter Honduras, and we have many teams out looking for him,'' said a top government official who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job. [For more on this, see Exile Community and Foreign Affairs] (The Miami Herald, 28/8/04)

August 30: Honduran p resident Ricardo Maduro said that if self-confessed anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is found in Honduras, he "will be treated like a criminal." Maduro told reporters that Posada Carriles - along with three other Castro opponents, who later traveled to Miami - arrived in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula "with forged passports and under false identities." "Any person who enters the country without authorization h is government will "hold responsible in every sense, even those who traveled on to the United States," namely Guillermo Novo, Pedro Remon and Gaspar Jimenez, who Maduro warned, "will also be prosecuted." "He obviously isn't a common criminal," Maduro said of Posada Carriles, given that he entered Honduras in a private plane, "has money and has the support of some powerful people who helped him obtain forged US passports. That's why we know we're dealing with important international influences." "We're not going to rest for a moment, especially in the case of an internationally well-known illegal immigrant. Once more, I want to make it very clear: he'll be treated like a criminal," said Maduro. (EFE, 30/8/04)