Chronicle on Cuba - May 2005

US-Cuba Relations

May 1: Fidel Castro ripped the US government in his May Day address for harboring Cuban-exile radical and admitted bomber Luis Posada Carriles, who the Cuban leader said was "a time bomb" for Washington. Castro continued to push his campaign of recent weeks against Posada in an address to some 1.3 million people in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution for the May Day celebration. The US administration "is involved in one of the most embarrassing and delicate episodes of its terrorist adventures, aggression and lies against Cuba," Castro said. The Cuban leader accused President George W. Bush of being "a cheat and a fraud." (AP, EFE, 1/5/05)

May 2: Fugitive cop killer Joanne Chesimard is now on the same terrorist watch lists that include Osama bin Laden. Chesimard was convicted of the 1973 murder of Trooper Werner Foerster, but she escaped to Cuba and was granted political asylum after three gunmen busted her out of what was then the Clinton Correctional Institution for Women in Hunterdon County in 1979. Garden State officials have failed to convince Cuba to hand over Chesimard, 57, who goes by the name Assata Shakur. In an indication of how badly New Jersey authorities still want to recapture the Black Liberation Army member who executed a state trooper as he lay on the ground 32 years ago, the bounty on Chesimard's head was increased from $150,000 to $1 million. (Sun Sentinel, 2/5/05)

May 2: While processing 18 Cubans who reached shore near Bahia Honda State Park, the US Border Patrol was also trying to figure out how they got there. ''We're trying to determine if they were smuggled or if they were rafters,'' said Kerry Heck, a supervisory patrol agent. "But we suspect they were smuggled.'' The group included eight men, three women, five boys and two girls, ranging in age from two months to 62. Officials believe they're all in good health. (The Miami Herald, 2/5/05)

May 3: The current US administration is leading the country towards the days of Adolph Hitler's Germany, world thinkers affirmed in Havana. Delegates to the “In Defense of Humanity” meeting, held at Havana´s Convention Center on the occasion of May Day festivities, agreed that this phenomenon began to be particularly noticeable after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They gave as examples the preventive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US deep-seated contempt for the UN and international law, election frauds, and double standards in anti-terrorism, among others. (Prensa Latina, 3/5/05)

May 3: Venezuela's Supreme Court ruled the government should seek extradition from the United States of an anti-communist Cuban exile wanted by Havana on terrorism charges. Luis Posada Carriles, who has Venezuelan citizenship and escaped from prison in Caracas in 1985, has been accused by Cuba of several attacks, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed dozens of people. His attorney said last month Posada had applied for asylum in the United States, although US officials said he was not in their custody and they were reviewing his case. (CNN, 3/5/05)

May 3: A top State Department official denied Cuban allegations that the United States is providing a haven for a man Cuba accuses of perpetrating a terrorist bombing against a Cuban airliner in 1976. "I don't even know that he is in the United States," said Roger Noriega, the top State Department official for Western Hemisphere affairs. Noriega said Cuban claims about Posada "may be a completely manufactured issue." The United States, he said, "has no interest in giving quarter to someone who has committed criminal acts." Unlike Cuba, Noriega added, "we are a country that respects the rule of law." (CNN, 3/5/05)

May 3: Cuba´s food importer company Alimport and the US state of Vermont have agreed to promote the sale of agricultural products, mainly cattle, milk powder and mayonnaise on the island. Vermont´s independent Senator James Jeffords and Alimport´s President Pedro Alvarez signed a memorandum of understanding, an evidence of growing ties with the agro-business community of the United States. Jeffords described his trip to Cuba as very informative and productive and he committed himself to do all he could “to lift the trade embargo and promote closer relations between our two peoples and our two governments”, said the Vermont lawmaker. (Prensa Latina, 3/5/05)

May 4: Bowing to criticism that it could get sucked into the battle between Washington and Havana, Chicago's Loyola University has suspended a US government-funded program to provide English language courses to adults in a poor Havana neighborhood, a university spokeswoman said. Since 1999, students at the Jesuit school have paid their own expenses to teach English for two weeks during the summer at a Catholic community center in Cuba. But last fall Loyola signed a $425,000 grant with the US government to continue the courses under a program managed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that seeks to spur political change on the communist island. In Cuba, even a modest and benign educational program like Loyola's garners scrutiny because it is being financed by the US at a time when relations between the two nations are at their lowest point in years. Maeve Kiley, a Loyola spokeswoman, said the university informed faculty and students early last month that its Cuba program was suspended "at the request of our Cuban partners." (Chicago Tribune, 5/5/05)

May 5: Wayne Smith, former Chief of the US Interests Section in Havana between in 1979 and 1982, issued a statement taking issue with the remarks of Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state, on the question of whether accused terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is in the United States. "On May 2, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega stated that he did not 'even know if he (Luis Posada Carriles) is in the United States.' Cuba claims that Posada Carriles is here, said Noriega, 'may be a completely manufactured issue”. "Well, not quite, Mr. Noriega. On April 13, Posada Carriles' lawyer did state categorically that his client was in the US and requested political asylum for him so that he can remain here. Mr. Noriega offers no explanation as to why his attorney would lie about Posada Carriles being here in the US”, Smith said in his statement. (US Newswire, 5/5/05)

May 5: Venezuela formally requested the extradition of a radical Cuban exile who is reportedly hiding in Florida and is wanted in Venezuela in an airline bombing that killed 73 people. Bombing suspect Luis Posada Carriles' April 13 petition for US asylum has roiled Washington's strained relations with Venezuela and sparked anger in Cuba, the target of the attacks blamed on him. The asylum request said Posada, 77, managed to slip into the United States. (Los Angeles Times, 6/5/05)

May 6: A federal judge ruled against awarding damages to 13 people who were tear-gassed by immigration agents during the raid to seize 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez in April 2000. US District Judge K. Michael Moore issued a 19-page decision saying that the demonstrators and bystanders failed to show enough credible evidence that federal officers' use of force during the raid was ''unreasonable under the circumstances.'' The 13 people had sued the government for $3.25 million, claiming they had lingering injuries after they were sprayed at close range while on their own property or behind barricades. (The New York Times, 6/5/05)

May 6: The US group Audioslave broke decades-long barriers with a thundering concert before thousands of Cuban fans -- who knocked over barriers to get closer to the first US rock band to play an outdoor concert in Cuba. Chris Cornell's scream -- ''I won't do what you tell me!'' -- boomed off the high-rise apartment buildings on south side of the stage as feedback shrieks from Tom Morello's guitar drifted into the night breeze over the Caribbean to the north. It was a distinct difference from the orderly, clean-cut crowds who march in massive anti-US protests along the Malecon waterfront at the same venue: the Jose Marti Anti-Imperialist Tribunal before the US Interests Section, or diplomatic mission. (The New York Times, 8/5/05)

May 6: The Senate committee considering John Bolton's nomination for US ambassador to the United Nations heard from two former State Department officials with opposing views on how he would perform in the post. The committee is reviewing accusations that Bolton, currently the top US diplomat for arms control, bullied subordinates and tried to force intelligence analysis of Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Iran to conform to his hard-line views. (Reuters, 6/5/05)

May 7: The father and brother of an Italian tourist killed by a bomb in a Havana hotel in 1997 say they are outraged that Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles, implicated in the attack, is seeking asylum in the United States. Livio Di Celmo, whose brother Fabio died in the hotel blast, says he's willing to travel to Miami to testify against Posada in any asylum or extradition proceeding. Posada has never been charged with the bombing. He has alternately admitted to the attack and then denied it. (The Miami Herald, 7/5/05)

May 8: Hundreds of British holiday makers have had their travel plans wrecked after Ebookers cancelled all its bookings to Cuba. The travel agency group also owns Travelbag, Flightbookers and Bridge the World, all of which have cancelled every holiday or flight booking they hold to Cuba. The group was bought by Cendant, a large American corporation, in February, and has decided it must now comply with the US trade embargo prohibiting trade with or travel to Cuba. “It seems utterly ridiculous”, said one traveller who was called by Ebookers and told it would no longer be taking him on his honeymoon to Cuba. “The Iberia plane we were booked on is still flying to Cuba, but we're now having to re-book with another company. Ebookers didn't give any explanation - they just said it was something to do with their new owners.” (The Observer, 8/5/05)

May 9: In the latest twist to the presence in South Florida of controversial Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, a former Miami police detective said Posada is lying when he denies involvement in the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet in 1976. Diosdado C. Diaz, who left the force in 1999, told the press that one of his top informants -- exile Ricardo ''Monkey'' Morales -- stated to him in 1982 that he supplied the explosives and that Posada prepped them to bring down the plane. But on another occasion, Morales denied Posada was involved. He said another militant prepared the explosives -- Gustavo Castillo, a suspect in the 1976 car-bomb attack on Miami exile radio commentator Emilio Milián. Castillo said he had nothing to do with the plane bombing. (The Miami Herald, 9/5/05)

May 9: As world leaders celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in Moscow's Red Square, Communist Cuba held its own parade and accused the United States of using "fascist" policies to dominate the world. The president of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, denounced the world's only superpower for employing military force unilaterally in an apparent reference to the US invasion of Iraq. "They practice a fascist military doctrine and proclaim their right to attack anyone when they please, using their powerful military machine, without any justification," he said in a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Germany's Third Reich. "The Fourth Reich will be defeated. The 21st century will see the final defeat of fascism," Alarcon said. The ceremony at a monument to Soviet soldiers outside Havana was attended by Lyubov K. Sliska, first deputy speaker of the Russian Duma, and Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro. (CNN, 9/5/05)

May 9: The United States has no idea of the whereabouts of anti-Castro Cuban Luis Posada Carriles and has received no request for his extradition from Venezuela. "In terms of where he presently is, I think it's fair to say we don't know," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. "Certainly the United States has no interest in allowing anyone with a criminal background to enter the United States," he said. Although Venezuela's Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez said that he would ask the United States to extradite Posada Carriles "within hours," the US spokesman said that the State Department had received no such request. (AFP, 9/5/05)

May 9: A Cuban exile long regarded as a violent opponent of Fidel Castro has applied for asylum in the United States, a government official said. Luis Posada Carriles, a suspect in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, reportedly slipped into South Florida several weeks ago but the Bush administration says it cannot confirm his whereabouts. To be eligible for political asylum, Posada must prove that he has a well-founded fear of persecution in his native country, said a Department of Homeland Security official. The official, asking not to be identified, said consideration of asylum requests includes national security and law enforcement criteria. A person who seeks asylum need not be in the presence of a US government official when applying. (AP, 9/5/05)

May 10: Luis Posada Carriles attended at least two planning meetings for the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976 that killed 73 people, according to once-secret documents provided to the press by the private National Security Archive in Washington. ''There is no way the Bush administration can ignore the historical record as it evaluates his petition for safe harbor,'' said Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst and Cuba specialist at the archive. One FBI document dated November 3, 1976, quotes a confidential informant saying Luis Posada Carriles was among a group that discussed ''the bombing of a Cubana Airlines airplane'' before an attack at a hotel bar in Caracas, Venezuela. Posada, a former senior officer of the Venezuelan intelligence service, denies involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people, including 24 members of Cuba's national fencing team, according to his lawyer, Eduardo Soto. Soto did not immediately return a call for comment. Other documents that will be published confirm that Posada worked for the CIA through the late 1960s and was an informant for the agency until the mid-1970s, Kornbluh said. (The New York Times, The Miami Herald, 10/5/05)

May 10: Cubans will stage a giant march passing by the United States Interests Section headquarters in Havana to demand the US administration to arrest the terrorist of Cuban origin Luis Posada Carriles. The march was announced by Fidel Castro in a televised address to the nation, dedicated to denounce the presence in US territory of Posada Carriles. "Let's see if this gentleman [George Bush] does what is most convenient for him and does what he must”, Fidel Castro said that the march would serve to “demand punishment for the murderers”. Fidel Castro has held about 20 televised appearances over the past two months, many of them to accuse US President George Bush and his administration of coddling terrorists and of claiming not to know where Posada -- a former CIA employee -- is hiding in the United States. He referred to Bush as "the little Hitler" and suggested he wanted to dominate the world. Castro dedicated more than an hour to reading for Cubans a New York Times story about the Posada case and again listed numerous terrorist actions that that Cuban officials attribute to Posada or his associates. He even suggested that Posada and his friend Orlando Bosch might have ties to the 1963 assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy. (Prensa Latina, AP, 10/5/05)

May 10: Fidel Castro has rejected calls to hand over a fugitive who US officials put on a terrorism list this month, saying she is an innocent victim of racial persecution. "They wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie," Castro said in a television address. While Castro did not identify the woman by name, he was apparently alluding to Assata Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard, who was put on a US government terrorism watch list on May 2. On the same day, New Jersey officials announced a $1 million reward for her capture. Castro's remarks were his first comment on the new US actions. A member of the Black Liberation Army, Shakur, 57, was convicted in 1973 of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster as he lay on the ground. She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba. Castro referred to her as a victim of "the fierce repression against the Black movement in the United States" and said she had been "a true political prisoner." (CNN, AP, 10/5/05)

May 10: The Cuban government was in a High Court battle with an American company over the rights to music heard on the award-winning album Buena Vista Social Club and the film of the same name. A company run by the communist state's interior ministry had tried to register itself as the copyright owner of the songs in the UK. The US company, Peer International Corporation, which has claimed ownership of the songs since the 1930s, took its battle to the British courts, saying it had always paid the writers and their heirs a fair price. But Editora Musical de Cuba (EMC) said the poor Cubans got virtually nothing. The contracts should not be recognised in law as they were "unconscionable bargains''. In papers submitted by Peter Prescott, QC, EMC said it would show that "these contracts were so cunningly contrived as to allow the publishers to get away with paying the composers practically nothing''. The composers got "nothing or, at most, a few pesos and maybe a drink of rum''. (The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, 11/5/05)

May 10: A US House of Representatives resolution urged the international community to "actively oppose" any attempts by Cuba to punish participants in the "historic meeting" organized by the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, an illegal opposition organization in the island. “The House of Representatives extends its support and solidarity to the organizers and participants of the historic meeting of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba (…) urges the international community to support the Assembly's mission to bring democracy to Cuba ; (…) urges the Administration and international community to actively oppose any attempts by the Castro regime to repress or punish the organizers and participants of the Assembly; and (…) shares the pro-democracy ideals of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba and believes that this Assembly and others will hasten the day of freedom and democracy for the people of Cuba”, the resolution says. (Reuters, US Congress Press Release, 10, 12/5/05)

May 11: Fidel Castro stepped up his denunciations of the US government for failure to arrest a suspected airplane bomber and said other alleged terrorists also should face trial. In a televised appearance that lasted nearly four hours, Castro read summaries of newly released US intelligence documents linking Luis Posada Carriles and other anti-Castro militants to terrorist attacks beyond the 1976 bombing of a jetliner that killed 73 people. Castro repeated his demands that the United States locate, arrest and extradite former CIA agent Posada for trial in Venezuela, where he is wanted for trial in the airplane attack. But Castro also increasingly turned the focus to other militants, several of them linked to Posada. Chief among those is Orlando Bosch, a man termed a terrorist in some US intelligence documents, which also link him to the 1976 bombing. He was pardoned by the first President George Bush. Both Posada and Bosch deny involvement in the bombing, but Bosch has several times said that the jetliner was a legitimate target in the war against Castro. Castro said he would accept an international trial for the men to avoid defense claims they would risk death if returned for trial in Venezuela -- though Castro noted that country has no death penalty. He long ago renounced Cuba's right to try Posada. But he said that Bosch, too, should be tried. "That pardon cannot be accepted," Castro said. "Bosch should be judged." (AP, 11/5/05)

May 12: Fidel Castro said that the US people will never forgive their rulers for their lies and deceit about Cuban-born terrorists who operate in that country. In a new call for Washington to take actions against Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and other terrorists, Castro accused the White House of covering up the truth. "Who is going to believe that the government does not know how and why Posada Carriles entered US territory, or where he is at present?" he wondered. “I think that US public will never forgive the government for how much it has lied," said Fidel Castro. (Prensa Latina, 13/5/05)

May 12: In conversations with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of Treasury, K.B. Forbes, the Executive Director of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national non-profit advocacy group that educates and assists Hispanics, called on the office to investigate Sacerdocio Lucumi Shango Eyeife (a Miami for-profit corporation) with ties to the Yoruba Cultural Association (Asociacion Cultural Yoruba de Cuba) -- an organization based in Havana, Cuba that appears to collect hard- currency and useful intelligence for Fidel Castro’s government while fraudulently masquerading itself as a "cultural" group and recruits members in the US. Forbes said, "All travel privileges to Cuba under the auspices of Sacerdocio Lucumi Shango Eyeife and known Yoruba Cultural Association members in the United States should be thoroughly investigated." (PRNewswire, 12/5/05)

May 13: Venezuela asked the United States to extradite a Cuban exile and former CIA collaborator for his suspected involvement in the downing of a Cuban airliner in a case that tests the U.S. commitment to combat all forms of terrorism. Luis Posada Carriles, who has Venezuelan citizenship, has applied for asylum in the United States, according to his lawyer, but US officials say they do not know the fugitive's whereabouts. The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington delivered a letter requesting the Bush administration hunt down the 77-year-old, and deport him to face trial for a 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people. He was arrested in Venezuela more than 20 years ago but escaped from prison without being convicted. The top Venezuelan and Cuban diplomats in Washington reaffirmed the countries wanted to see Posada face justice in Venezuela -- not in Cuba. (Reuters, 13/5/05)

May 13: In a conference telephone call facilitated by the US Interests Section in Havana, more than 50 Cuban civil society activists debated a report on national reconciliation written in 2003 by a team of academics led by Dr. Marifeli Pérez Estable. In the discussion with Dr. Pérez Estable participated Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Elsa Morejón, Félix Bonne Carcasés and other members of the opposition. [Cuban National Reconciliation] (Cubanet, 13/5/05)

May 13: Relatives of victims of the 1976 Cubana jet bombing that killed 73 people urged the United States to arrest and extradite fugitive terror suspect Luis Posada Carriles, who has asked for US asylum though he is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba. "This was not a faceless crime. Our whole lives were disrupted. We never really had closure," Trevor Persaud of Guyana told reporters, remembering the death of his brother Raymond, who was killed in the bombing as he headed to medical school in Cuba. "He was on the way to accomplish his lifelong dream," Persaud said, adding of Posada Carriles that "this guy deserves to be extradited and tried for his crimes in Venezuela." "My mother is still grieving over what happened," almost 30 years on, another brother, Kenrick Persaud, added. (AFP, 13/5/05)

May 15: Cuban migrant smugglers, who for years have brought people from the island to remote spots in the Keys, have adopted a new strategy to get around the heavily patrolled waters off the Keys: Launch their smuggling missions from Collier County in Southwest Florida. The cat-and-mouse shift has everyone, including the Coast Guard and Collier County sheriff's deputies, trying to keep up. ''Criminals look to take advantage of vulnerabilities,'' said Lt. Tony Russell, spokesman for the Coast Guard in Miami. "We are working hard to minimize those. The Florida Straits covers from Cay Sal in the east, to the Marquesas in the west. That's 25,000 square miles of ocean.'' The increase in smuggling from Collier has been accompanied by another tactic: dropping off the Cuban migrants in the remote Dry Tortugas and Marquesas Islands well off Key West, rather than the Keys mainland. (The Miami Herald, 15/5/05)

May 16: Fidel Castro once again spoke to the nation, hammering on the Luis Posada Carriles case and criticizing growing US support for Cuba's internal opposition. Sometimes angry, sometimes laughing in ridicule, Castro in his nighttime talk dismissed US government claims that Posada cannot be found and might not be in the United States at all -- even as the fugitive's attorney and friends have confirmed his presence. And he demanded that President Bush -- whom he called ''the little fuhrer'' -- live up to his promise to fight terrorism wherever it occurs. Night after night, Fidel Castro has been on television demanding the United States arrest Posada. Speaking for up to four hours at a time, Castro thunders with indignation and laughs at the absurd as he reads the news before a live audience of Communist officials -- occasionally pausing to flip through a scattering of papers in front of him hunting for a quotation. The result is remarkably like a televised version of an Internet blog -- references to outside news sources tightly wrapped in personal commentary. (AP, 16/5/05)

May 17: A Cuban militant in hiding while seeking asylum in the United States denied any involvement in an attack on a Cuban airliner in 1976 but was less forthcoming about a series of bombings targeting Cuban tourist sites in 1997, a newspaper reported. Luis Posada Carriles, who is being sought by Cuba and Venezuela, gave his first interview to The Miami Herald in a surreptitious meeting at a luxury downtown condominium after arriving in Miami in March following an illegal trip through Central America. "They accused me of being the intellectual author of fabricating a weapon of war and of treason to the homeland. No one saw me make a bomb," Posada said in a two-hour interview last Wednesday. "Sincerely, I didn't know anything about it." "I feel that I've committed many errors, more than most people," he said. "But I've always believed in rebellion, in the armed struggle. I believe more and more every day that we will triumph against Castro. Victory will be ours." (AP, 17/5/05)

May 17: Hundreds of thousands of Cubans answered Fidel Castro's call to file past the American mission in a "March against Terrorism," demanding that the United States arrest a Cuban militant in the deadly bombing of an airliner. Dressed in his traditional olive green military uniform and cap, the 78-year-old Castro showed up in the crowd outside the US Interests Section minutes before the march was to start. "Down with terrorism!" Castro shouted in brief comments before he stepped off to lead the march. "Down with Nazi doctrines and methods! Down with the lies!" Protesters were calling for the arrest of Castro's longtime foe, Luis Posada Carriles, an elderly Cuban exile who recently traveled to the United States where he is seeking political asylum. Venezuela is seeking the extradition of Posada in the 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people. (CNN, EFE, 17/5/05)

May 17: US authorities arrested a Cuban exile who slipped into the country in March and is wanted by Venezuela over the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people nearly 30 years ago. Luis Posada Carriles, 77, a former CIA collaborator and anti-communist activist who has sought political asylum in the United States, was arrested in Miami just hours after he emerged from hiding to give a series of media interviews. "Today, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Mr. Luis Posada Carriles into custody, pending review of his immigration status,'' the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, adding that it had 48 hours to decide on Posada's status. The Homeland Security department statement threw into question whether the United States would approve Venezuela's extradition request. "Under certain circumstances, there are additional legal restrictions on removal due to international treaty obligations,'' it said. "As a matter of immigration law and policy, ICE does not generally remove people to Cuba, nor does ICE generally remove people to countries believed to be acting on Cuba's behalf”. (The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, 18/5/05)

May 17: A key associate of Fidel Castro welcomed the news that the US picked up Luis Posada Carriles, but questioned why it took two months to arrest an escaped militant sought for two decades in a deadly airliner bombing. Parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon spoke with the press as Castro led hundreds of thousands of Cubans past the US mission to demand Posada's arrest and extradition from the US. ''Do you want us to applaud the fact that he has been arrested after his presence (in the US) was burning for two months?'' Alarcon said in an interview. ''Now Mr. Bush has to prove he is sincere about terrorism.'' Alarcon said. ''What the United States has to do now is clear: if there is a request for his extradition it has to attend to it according to its own laws.'' (The New York Times, 18/5/05)

May 17: In a letter made public by the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, twenty Democrat Representatives asked US President George W. Bush to extradite to Venezuela anti-Castro firebrand Luis Posada Carriles, who has been accused of planning and executing acts of international terrorism. “Not only must the United States reject the asylum application of Luis Posada Carriles, a known international terrorist, but Posada should also be returned to Venezuela for a proper adjudication of the case against him,” wrote the legislators in the letter to Bush. (AFP, 23/5/05)

May 18: Fidel Castro called the detention of his old nemesis Luis Posada Carriles two months after his arrival in the United States a "farce," a face-saving move the US government was finally forced to make after Posada's presence became an embarrassment. Speaking on a nightly current events show on state TV, Castro said it was impossible for President Bush's administration to be unaware for so long that Posada, sought in Venezuela for retrial in a deadly plane bombing, was in Miami. "What has occurred is a big farce, a big lie, an attempt to escape from a difficult situation," Castro said of the detention of Posada, a Cuban born militant who has spent much of his life trying to topple Castro and his communist government. The Cuban leader also expressed doubt that his old foe would be returned to Venezuela, which is seeking Posada's extradition, to be retried in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner off the coast of Barbados, killing all 73 people aboard. "The goal of the United States government is to protect him, to keep protecting him and prevent (him) from going to court," said Castro, who for several weeks had repeatedly decried Posada's presence in Miami and what he said was the US government's failure to hold him. (AP, Reuters, 19/5/05)

May 18: If the United States extradites a Cuban exile wanted in a 1976 airliner bombing, he would not be turned over to Cuba but would remain in Venezuela to face justice, Venezuela's vice president said. "There is no possibility that Venezuela would turn him over to another country if Posada Carriles' extradition to Venezuela is approved," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said. "I think it's an excuse, a subterfuge, that they are using precisely in order to not approve the extradition. Bringing up that he could be sent to Cuba (...) in this way they elude the commitment and the obligation they have to approve the extradition." (The Houston Chronicle, 18/5/05)

May 19: US immigration officials charged Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles with entering the United States illegally, which could lead to his deportation to another country. Venezuela wants Posada in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials also said that Posada would be held without bond pending a hearing before an immigration judge scheduled for June 13. The precise location of that hearing was not specified. "At such a bond hearing, ICE would present its arguments for holding him without bond," said an agency statement. (CNN, 19/5/05)

May 19: Homeland Security Department officials said that they had charged Luis Posada Carriles, the violent anti-Castro militant, with illegally entering the United States. United States officials have not said whether or not they want to deport Mr. Posada. They have indicated that they would not willingly send him to Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally in the Western Hemisphere. "This is a case that the Department of Homeland Security now will handle," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. “The issues here concern understanding the record of Mr. Posada and then making judgments about what that means about his request" for asylum. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security said Mr. Posada had been charged with illegally entering the country, was being held without bond and would see an immigration judge on June 13. (The New York Times, 20/5/05)

May 19: A former leftist guerrilla in Venezuela claimed that Luis Posada Carriles ordered that he be tortured and also ordered the murder of another guerrilla when Posada was a senior intelligence officer for a Venezuelan police agency in the 1970s. Posada, a militant Cuban exile in US custody accused of illegally entering the country, said in an interview with The Herald that he had not ordered anyone's torture while he headed a special operations unit at the agency known as DISIP. Posada also denied ordering the other guerrilla's murder. The allegations from Jesus Marrero, the former Venezuelan guerrilla, are difficult to verify, but they could open a new front in the U.S. government's case against Posada in immigration court. (The Miami Herald, 20/5/05)

May 19: The US government has too many nuclear weapons but it lacks ideas, and what is worse, it lacks brains, Fidel Castro stressed when denouncing Washington's complicity with terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Castro spoke on a special program broadcast live on national radio and television from Havana's Karl Marx Theater. He accused the administration of US President George W. Bush of hiding many secrets of his commitments to Cuba born terrorists. Referring to the conditions in which US authorities arrested Posada Carriles, Fidel Castro asked: "Would they have taken Bin Laden in a golf cart, without handcuffs, to a center where he even has access to recreation?." He described the alleged global crusade the United State has unleashed against terrorism as a lie. In denouncing that the group that today holds the US presidency has resorted to lies, the Cuban leader accussed Bush of using terrorism to gain and retain power. He impugned how timely the broadcast of a Bin Laden's video was, four days before the November elections, in which the sinister figure bragged about the attacks of September 11, 2001. He added that four years earlier, anti-Cuba counterrevolutionary groups had helped him to win the White House with the fraud in Florida, insisting the same thing happened last November. (Prensa Latina, 20/5/05)

May 20: Cuba and the United States shared extensive information in hotel bombings and other terrorist attempts in the late 1990s, Fidel Castro said, adding that the past collaboration has been forgotten in the current case involving militant Luis Posada Carriles. Speaking to several thousand government supporters gathered for his evening address, Castro read extensively from declassified Cuban documents that indicated frequent exchanges of information between the countries after the bombings of Cuban tourist installations in 1997. Castro said that in May 1998, his friend Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez personally delivered a message to then US President Bill Clinton's advisers alerting them to plans by violent exile groups to plant bombs on flights between Cuba and the United States. (Tre New York Times, 21/5/05)

May 20: US President George Bush praised a dissident meeting held in Havana and for their courage in coming out of the "shadow of repression''. Attendants to a meeting organized by the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba were able to listen to Bush’s message in a video played from a laptop computer. Bush said his administration, which last year stepped up restrictions on travel and cash remittances to Cuba, will keep working to hasten political change on the island. "We will not rest. We will keep the pressure on until the Cuban people enjoy the same freedom in Havana that they have in America,'' he said. (AP, 20/5/05)

May 20: New information links detained Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles to a 1976 meeting where a former US prosecutor says a group of exiles discussed acts of terrorism. In June 1976, Luis Posada Carriles took part in a meeting in the Dominican Republic where Cuban exile militants discussed anti-Castro terrorism, including plans to bomb a Cuban airliner and target a leftist Chilean dissident, a former US prosecutor told the press. E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., who was the lead prosecutor in the federal investigation of the assassination of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, told the press that his probe had placed Posada at the meeting in Bonao in the Dominican Republic. (The Miami Herald, 22/5/05)

May 21: Federal agents grilled Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles for more than two hours in El Paso, Texas, where he is being held, one of his lawyers said. Attorney Renee Soto said officials asked Posada about involvement in terrorist attacks, his illegal entry into the United States and other issues. Posada declined to answer many questions, she said. Soto, a cousin of Posada's lead immigration lawyer Eduardo Soto and an associate in his firm, said Posada was more forthcoming about how he entered the country. A hearing was tentatively scheduled for May 24 th to decide whether to transfer Posada closer to South Florida, and whether to release him on bail. (The Miami Herald, 22/5/05)

May 22: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will consider breaking diplomatic ties with the US if it fails to hand over a Cuban-born terror suspect. Venezuela said Luis Posada Carriles must stand trial over the 1976 bombing of Cuba's plane that killed 73 people. Mr Chavez said Washington would be guilty of protecting international terrorism if it refused extradition. (BBC, 23/5/05)

May 24: A former top Defense Department official born in Cuba has pleaded guilty to lying about his visit to the island last year, having told US officials that he was visiting a sick aunt when he really went to see a woman his lawyer described as a "girlfriend.'' Alberto R. Coll, a longtime specialist on US-Cuba relations, had his security clearance temporarily suspended at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, where he serves as chairman of the strategic research department. ''His security clearance is not revoked but his access to classified information has been suspended for the time being,'' Susan Haeg, a spokeswoman at the college told the press. "This is a matter between him and the district attorney. We're not going to make any decisions until this matter takes its course.'' Coll is charged with making ''false statements to representatives of the US Department of State and the US Department of Defense concerning the purpose of a proposed visit to the nation of Cuba,'' according to court documents. (The Miami Herald, 24/5/05)

May 25: An unusual alliance of farm-state Republicans, liberal Democrats and free-trade advocates is fighting a Bush administration policy aimed at stifling the growth of farm exports to Cuba. Ready to square off against the group is a vocal bloc of lawmakers who vehemently oppose Fidel Castro and any moves to open trade with his regime. The issue has reignited the acrimonious debate between supporters of the four- decade-old US trade embargo, who believe it will weaken Castro’s government, and opponents who see it as a failed policy and an obstacle to democratic change. (Newhouse News Service, 25/5/05)

May 25: A British judge who has been asked to rule in a US-Cuba copyright dispute over music from the Buena Vista Social Club album and film said he would travel to Havana to hear evidence from elderly Cuban musicians. Judge John Lindsay is hearing a case at London's High Court involving rival claims from US and Cuban publishing companies over rights to the traditional "son" recordings. The hearing was postponed after video links to witnesses in Cuba broke down. Lawyers for the Cuban side wanted the hearing moved to Cuba, saying it was too expensive and difficult to bring frail, elderly musicians to London. Lawyers for US-based Peer International Corp. said the case should remain in Britain. (AP, 25/5/05)

May 25: Cubans living in the United States still send an estimated $460 million a year to relatives on the island despite restrictions tightened by the Bush Administration last summer, according to a poll released by a Coral Gables firm. The results of the Bendixen survey, presented during a forum at the think tank Inter-American Dialogue, indicate that 69 percent of respondents continue to send the same amount of money as before President Bush tightened restrictions on remittances to Cuba. Bendixen's survey was conducted in February and results were based on telephone interviews with 1,000 Cuban adult immigrants throughout the United States. But a separate survey by an Inter-American Dialogue researcher, based on interviews with some 200 people who live on the island, showed that while 58 percent of recipients said they continue to receive the same amount of money from relatives abroad, 29 percent reported that they are getting less funds. The island respondents were nearly evenly split in their views on what prompted changes in cash flow: 13 percent blamed new measures imposed by the Cuban government while 11 percent pointed to tightened US restrictions. (The Miami Herald, 26/5/05)

May 25: The United States would be obliged under international law to try Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles on terrorism charges if it fails to extradite him to Venezuela to face trial for a bomb attack 30 years ago, a senior Cuban official said. Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon repeated Havana's support for Venezuela's demand that Washington hand over Posada, a militant foe of Fidel Castro, to be tried for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Alarcon said without extradition Washington would be forced to put Posada, 77, on trial because it is a signatory to the Montreal Convention on international airline liability. "Extradite him to Venezuela, or if they don't want to extradite him, then no excuses, they will have to try him themselves, but as if the victims were Americans and the aircraft American,'' Alarcon told reporters in Caracas. "Judge him and punish him with the same severity they impose on people with Arab names or who are Muslims. Imagine we are talking about Luis bin Posada or Osama Posada Carriles,'' he said, referring to Osama bin Laden. (The New York Times, 26/5/05)

May 26: Tropical fruit trees and manicured gardens greet visitors driving through Ernest Hemingway's sprawling estate on the outskirts of Havana, but the wooden home where the famed American novelist lived more than 20 years is falling apart. Scaffolding covers the molding house, where much of the furniture has been removed due to moisture damage and to make room for restoration work. Americans in Havana for an international forum on the late writer were surprised at the sight. "It's not like what you see in the photographs," University of Pennsylvania professor Paul Hendrickson said as he peered through the windows of Hemingway's study. "This is really in a more fragile state than I had guessed." Erosion, tropical humidity and botched repairs are threatening the house where Hemingway spent some of his happiest years and wrote the prize-winning classic "The Old Man and the Sea." (AP, 26/5/05)

May 26: Federal authorities are investigating a migrant-smuggling run in which a Cuban man reportedly died just off Cuba. The man is believed to have drowned after smugglers left him in the water and fled to Florida when a Cuban patrol vessel approached their boat before the man could climb aboard. ''We did receive a report from Cuban authorities regarding a migrant-smuggling event that they reported did involve a death of a migrant,'' Lt. Tony Russell, a Coast Guard spokesman, said. "The details of that report are similar to the landing that took place in the Marquesas.'' Two Miami-area men -- Elio Diaz-Hernandez, the boat's captain, and Edel Domingo-Carvajal, a crewman -- were taken into custody after grounding a speedboat on an island in the Marquesas island chain off Key West. (The New Herald, 27/5/05)

May 27: The Bush administration has rejected Venezuela's request to keep under arrest with an eye to extradition a notorious anti-Castro militant wanted by Caracas on terrorism charges, Venezuelan diplomats said. Rejection of the request does not mean Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted by Caracas for retrial for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, will not remain under arrest. It relates only to the grounds on which he is being held. "The State Department has denied Venezuela's request for his arrest with an eye to extradition, but it left the door open to pursuing extradition at a later date," a Venezuelan diplomatic source told the press. (EFE, 27/5/05)

May 28: Tens of thousands of Venezuelans backing President Hugo Chavez marched through Caracas demanding that the United States extradite a Cuban militant wanted for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. Waving Venezuelan flags, and dancing to songs celebrating Chavez's rule broadcast over loudspeakers mounted on flatbed trucks, the president's supporters accused US President George W. Bush of harboring terror suspect Luis Posada Carriles and of a double standard in dealing with terrorists. (CNN, 28/5/05)

May 30: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez condemned as "negative'' the United States' rejection of an initial attempt by his government to extradite a Cuban exile accused of bombing an airliner. Chavez repeated a warning made just over a week ago that he would review relations with the United States, Venezuela's biggest oil buyer, if Washington did not agree to the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles. "They've given a sign, a negative one,'' Chavez said. "It's a worrying sign,'' he said during a cabinet meeting broadcast live on state television. Chavez accused Bush, whom he mockingly referred to as "Mr Danger,'' of "sheltering a terrorist.'' (Reuters, The New York Times, 30/5/05)

May 30: The United States does not object to the Philippines assisting Cuba in its effort to extradite a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent, US embassy chargé d’affaires Joseph Mussomeli said. Speaking to reporters on the occasion of Memorial Day at the Manila American Cemetery at Fort Bonifacio, Makati, Mussomeli said the matter is a "bilateral issue" between the Philippines and Cuba. "I know there was a request and it’s up to the Philippine government how they want to handle that," he said.
Cuban Ambassador Jorge Rey Jimenez said the Philippines is in a position to help out with the repatriation of Posada since it heads the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the United Nations Security Council and chairs the anti-terrorism task force of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). (The Philippine Star, 31/5/05)

May 31: The US Coast Guard was in the process of transferring to shore ten Cuban migrants who landed on an island off the Keys after setting off from Cuba on a rustic boat. The migrants, who arrived on Boca Grande, were among six dozen who have ridden calm seas to the Florida Keys in recent days. (The Miami Herald, 31/5/05)