Chronicle on Cuba - June 2005

June 1: International Children's Day was widely celebrated in Cuba, including a main function at Havana's National Oncology and Radiobiology Institute, where children with cancer are treated. A large array of activities were scheduled at outdoor facilities, while Cuban television channels opened their programming with shows dedicated to children. (Radio Habana Cuba, 1/6/05)

June 1: Barometers in Havana rose to a record high of 36.5 degrees centigrade that suffocated Cuba´s capital, but the city got a relief from a downpour that flooded some areas in the downtown. The much needed rain was welcomed by Havana residents who have been feeling the effects of a long drought that has hit the island in the past months. (Prensa Latina, 1/6/05)

June 2: Cuban authorities will be applying severe penalties against anyone attempting to disrupt the public transit service in Havana. The Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT) has issued 14 edicts that establish legal proceedings for criminal offences ranging from holding on to moving buses while riding a bicycle or a skateboard, to theft and fighting among transit users. Most alarming to the Cuban government are the incidents of rocks being thrown at buses in the downtown Havana area or the San Miguel del Padrón neighbourhood under cover of darkness provided by the long power outages affecting the city and deficiencies in the street lighting system. (El Nuevo Herald, 2/6/05)

June 2: Pastor Vega, a Cuban filmmaker widely known for such films as “Retrato de Teresa” (Portrait of Teresa), has died. He was 65. His death was announced by Cuba's International Press Centre. Other films made by Mr. Vega during his 40-year career included "Vidas Paralelas" (Parallel Lives) and “Las Profecías de Amanda” (Prophesies of Amanda). Mr. Vega was married to Cuban actress Daisy Granado, with whom he also worked as a theatre director. (Globe and Mail, EFE, 2,10/6/05)

June 3: Independent journalist Fabio Prieto Llorente, locked inside a special cell in the Prison Kilo 8 in the province of Camaguey, is forced to live with common prisoners, denounced a relative of the political prisoner. Clara Lourdes Prieto Llorente, sister of the jailed reporter, pointed out to the press that the independent journalist suffers from pulmonary emphysema and pains in his back. Fabio Prieto Llorente is a member of the group of the 75 opponents and independent journalists sanctioned to long prison sentences during the wave of repression unleashed by the Castro regime in the Spring of 2003. (Lux Info Press, 3/6/05)

June 3: Opponent Juan Ramón Rivero Despaigne was arrested and will be tried in Havana for the alleged crime of "social dangerousness". At the time of his arrest, Despaigne was only carrying a backpack with copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despaigne is the president in function of the Republican Alternative Movement, and member of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba. He participated in the congress of the Assembly celebrated in Havana on May 20th. (Lux Info Press, 3/6/05)

June 4: Cuban actor and playwright Alberto Pedro passed away in Havana, the National Council for the Theatrical Arts told the press. Alberto Pedro wrote some of the plays that helped define the Cuban theatre of the 80s and 90s including, among others, "Manteca", "Delirio Habanero" and "Weekend en Bahía". (EFE, 4/6/05)

June 6: The 4th International Congress on Culture and Development kicked off in Havana with the participation of some 500 national and foreign delegates. The delegates to the event will analyze cultural policies, diversity and heritage. The forum will be divided into six working groups, in which participants will analyze folklore, popular culture, neoliberal policies, diversity, gender, race and minorities, as well as the role of heritage and culture regarding tourism. Foreign figures attending the meeting include US actor Danny Glover and political scientist James Cockcroft, Italian novelist Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Venezuelan narrator Luis Brito and Brazilian actress Leticia Spiller, among others. Among the Cubans are Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Lisandro Otero, Marta Arjona, Miguel Barnet, Julio Garcia Espinosa, Reynaldo González, Eduardo Heras, Eusebio Leal, Rogelio Martinez Fure, Eliades Acosta and Desiderio Navarro. (Radio Habana Cuba, 6/6/05)

June 6: The eastern city of Holguín is recognized for its positive results in preserving the ecosystem. The reduction of contaminants, the recovery of its soils and the increased wooded areas are among the achievements of the province which led the Cuban authorities to select it to commemorate World Environment Day. (Radio Habana Cuba, 6/6/05)

June 6: A brutal attack was perpetrated by officers of the National Police (PNR) on beach goers who were ready to board a public bus at The Peñas Altas Public Bus Stop, beach of Guanabo, east of Havana. Police officers jumped out of 11 patrol cars and 3 police trucks with batons and began beating swimmers who were prepared to board Bus 462. The incident broke out when police officers could not control a brawl between swimmers who were trying to get on the bus. The lack of public transportation to the beaches in the Eastern part of the capital during the summer originates brawls amongst citizens wanting to get into the buses. (Lux Info Press, 6/6/05)

June 7: According to the official daily Granma, nearly 300 people have been charged with prescription and over-the-counter drug black-marketeering offences so far this year. The report added that, in the last five months, Cuban police have launched 309 raids against the illegal trafficking of pharmaceuticals, averaging two per day and resulting in criminal charges against 468 individuals. (La Jornada, Granma, 7/6/05)

June: 7: Seven people died and 12 others were injured when a truck rolled over on a highway in eastern Cuba, according to media reports. The accident occurred when the truck, which belonged to a state-owned food company, veered out of its lane and flipped over near the town of Fallas, in Ciego de Avila province. Two victims were reported in a serious condition and admitted to the “Roberto Rodriguez” hospital in Moron. Preliminary reports blamed the accident on a mechanical fault, said a source from the National Police, adding that the investigation continues. The death toll from the accident was not higher because of the fast response of rescue workers and the efforts of doctors and nurses at the hospital in Moron. (Prensa Latina, EFE, 8/6/05)

June 7: A growing number of Cubans who don't belong to dissident groups are rejecting Fidel Castro's government, says the first member of the so-called Group of 75 to arrive in the United States. ''There is a strong underground social dissidence that has many ways of confronting the regime -- people who look for independent spaces (…) and whose rejection is shown in indifference to the political discourse,'' dissident Manuel Vazquez Portal told the press after arriving in Miami. Vazquez Portal was sentenced to 18 years in March 2003 but was among 14 prisoners released on medical parole last year (he suffers from emphysema). Vazquez Portal said there is plenty of reason to worry about Cuba. ''There is a large percentage of indifference in all sectors of society,'' he said. "I leave behind a country that is devastated economically and spiritually, where the slow and continuous exodus of professionals and intellectuals has caused a brain drain on the island.'' Vazquez Portal said the arrest of the 75 opposition leaders in 2003 can be considered ''a punch, but not a knockout'' for Cuba's dissident movement. ''Political dissidence and independent journalism have begun to absorb the punch and are coming out stronger, as the Women of White movement and the [May] meeting of the Assembly to Promote a Civil Society shows,'' he said. (The Miami Herald, 10/6/05)

June 8: The health condition of i mprisoned dissident Hector Palacios has deteriorated significantly. According to reports from his wife, in recent weeks he has suffered from six episodes of cerebral ischemia, an insufficient supply of blood to the brain that could potentially lead to a stroke. At age 63, Hector Palacios is serving a 25 year sentence. Mr. Palacios' health problems have only been aggravated by harsh prison conditions. In March 2003, Mr. Palacios became one of 75 human rights advocates, independent journalists and librarians who were arrested, tried, and sentenced to up to 28 years in prison. (NotiCuba Internacional, 8/6/05)

June 9: After four days of intense debates and reflections, the 4th Congress on Culture and Development wound up in Havana with the conviction that "capitalism is responsible for the planet’s destruction." The final agenda included Networks and Resistance, Role of Cinema, Television and Other Media in Culture, History and Memory for a Diverse Cultural Future, and others. The closing panel tackled Contemporary Anti-capitalist Thinking, with the participation of Argentinean Atilio Boron, Belgian Francois Houtart, American James Cockcroft and Brazilian Maria Clavatta Franco. During debates at the Conference, the word "destruction" was associated to the International Monetary Fund, neoliberalism, discrimination, marginalization and other expressions linked to the US system. (Prensa Latina, 9/6/05)

June 12: The unceasing struggle for the unity of the revolutionary forces, and the unifying political action of Fidel Castro as leader of the 26th of July Movement in the country were determining factors of the 1959 triumph, as ratified by the participants in the scientific workshop on the movement, closed by Castro. After two working sessions at the International Conference Center, the event ended with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the constitution of the 26th of July Movement, attended by original members of its leadership, combatants from the Moncada assault, the Granma landing, the struggle in the Sierra Maestra, the underground movement and internationalist missions. (Granma International, 12/6/05)

June 14: Diverging philosophies on a post-Castro future, meddling from the Cuban government, along with clashing egos among opposition leaders competing for international attention, threaten the dissident movement in Cuba and unfortunately help Fidel Castro. ''The opposition has a very wide spectrum,'' Vladimiro Roca Antuñez said. "But we all have the same goal. Oswaldo Payá and María Beatriz Roque are against the government but in between both of them there is a very bad relationship.'' Payá's movement calls for negotiation with the regime and national reconciliation. Roque's Assembly is geared to defying the government and promising to seek justice in a post-Castro Cuba. ''Our mission is to move forward,'' Payá said. "Our target is not to kill people, not to create chaos, just to ask for the rights which we are all guaranteed. If we continue to ask for these rights, to keep pressure on the government, then the regime will not have the moral force to keep it in power. We respect the right to do the assembly, but we don't trust the people who organized it.'' ''We are not against national reconciliation,'' René Gómez Manzano said. "But it is the regime that exerts totalitarian control of the state and it is the regime which puts people in jail for speaking their minds and therefore it is for the regime to come forward and ask for dialogue with the people, and not for the dissidents to do so.'' (The Miami Herald, 14/6/05)

June 14: The 4th Congress of the Cuban National Association of Physically Handicapped (ACLIFIM) concluded in Havana after the election of a new National Executive Committee. More than the fifth part of the 64,000 members of this Non-governmental organization is actively working, according to reports during the opening of the meeting. ACLIFIM Vice President Mabel Ballesteros told the press that 14,584 jobs have been created for handicapped people as part of Cuban state policy. Some 5,000 jobs were opened in the last five years mainly in handcraft workshops and similar centers. (Prensa Latina, 14/6/05)

June 14: Juan Antonio Picasso, a Cuban mulatto descendant of Pablo Picasso's grandfather, opened an exhibition of 15 watercolors at a Havana gallery. "I'm proud to belong to the family of a great painter, the greatest of the 20th century,'' the budding artist said. "At times the name is a burden, though,'' the 30-year-old bank clerk added. His great-great-grandfather was Francisco Picasso Guardeno, who vanished in 1864 from Malaga, Spain, leaving behind his wife and four children, including Maria, the great artist's mother. Like many Spaniards at the time, Francisco Picasso headed for Cuba, fell in love with the daughter of freed slaves, settled down and started another family. His descendants had no clue they were related to Pablo Picasso until Cuban historian Barbara Mejides found the link in 1998, finding members of the black branch of the family who bore an amazing resemblance to the artist. A documentary film ``The Black Picassos'' further established the connection. (The New York Times, 14/6/05)

June 15: Although only 18 are exclusive to Cuba, 177 species of butterflies can be found on the island. A group of those endemic to Cuba can be found in the province of Camagüey, which includes the Hazel Phoebis (Phoebis avellaneda) butterfly, named in honor to the Cuban writer Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda. The “Major General Agramonte” Provincial Museum has one of the widest collections of these insects, consisting of more than 1,500 exotic national specimens. (AIN, 15/6/05)

June 16: Osvaldo Alfonso's fight for democracy in Cuba has cost him his freedom, his country and, in the final indignity, his marriage. One of 75 Cuban pro-democracy advocates, poets, librarians and independent journalists to be arrested on March 18, 2003, the gangly intellectual buckled under pressure. During his summary trial, he was the only one to "confess." In a statement later cited by Cuban officials in a nationally televised news conference, he said the dissidents had "responded in one way or another to the interests of the US" -- words he immediately regretted. Now Mr. Alfonso, 40, is out of jail and is persona non grata in Cuba, in the Liberal Democratic opposition party and in his marriage. His wife, Claudia Marquez, divorced him and went into exile in Florida, taking their eight-year-old son, Cristian, with her. The United States rejected Mr. Alfonso's asylum bid. "Everyone considers me an enemy," Mr. Alfonso said, his eyes bloodshot. "We are an example of a family totally destroyed by the system." Mr. Alfonso blamed the psychological torture he endured for making a jailhouse confession. "I was deprived of sleep and the lights were kept on in my cell for 24 hours. They threatened to imprison my wife and said our son would end up in an orphanage," he said. He was released last November, along with 13 others, after he attempted suicide twice and will leave this summer for Sweden, where he has been accepted as a refugee. (Globe & Mail, 16/6/05)

June 17: The 1st Sports Games of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) opened at the Havana Sports Center Coliseum. Cuban Sports Institute President said the ALBA Games would be the expression of Latin American and Caribbean integration, friendship and unity among people through sports without economic and commercial interest. Some of the main countries participating are Venezuela, Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Panama and Cuba. (Prensa Latina, 17/6/05)

June 17: Activists and members of Democratic Party 30 of November "Frank País" stood in protest outside the Combinado del Este prison, in Havana, demanding that Rafael Ibarra Roque be released. Ibarra Roque, president of this illegal opposition party, has already been in jail for 11 of a 29 year-sentence. "We stood outside the prison from 8 in the morning to 12 in the afternoon, demanding the unconditional release without exile for our president”, said Anaika Paneca Román, of the Democratic Party 30 of November. She further said that, "agents of the Cuban State Security threatened and forced the oppositionists to turn off a cellular telephone, where several news agencies abroad called covering the protest". (Puente Informativo, 17/6/05)

June 19: Nearly 60 Ladies in White, all relatives of the 75 dissidents imprisoned two years ago in Cuba, braved inclement weather and carried out a protest walk to demand the release of their loved ones. During the walk that also marked Father’s Day, the Ladies were accompanied by a dozen children, whose fathers are among the jailed oppositionists. (EFE, 19/6/05)

June 23: Cuba's success in the fight against drug consumption and international drug trafficking were praised during the 3rd Conference on Drug Control in the Caribbean held in Havana. "Drug use has been reduced in Cuba and we are continuing to work to bring down its effects," said Roberto Diaz Sotolongo, Minister of Justice, at the opening of the conference. Last year only, Cuban courts sentenced over 3,400 individuals for drug trafficking, most of them with sentences of over six-years in prison. Sotolongo, said. Almost 1,472 lawsuits tried in Cuban courts decided the confiscation of assets belonging to over 300 Cubans involved in these activities. (AIN, AFP, 23/6/05)

June 26: In an effort to revert a growing trend in vehicular theft, Cuban police issued an appeal to the general population to be more vigilant. According to the daily Juventud Rebelde, over 300 vehicles were reported stolen between January and April, averaging more that two cases per day, 30% of which have been solved, resulting in 176 vehicles being returned to their owners. The newspaper appealed to vehicle owners to refrain from buying in the black market, where the stolen property ends up after being stripped for spare parts. (La Jornada, 27/6/05)

June 27: Cuba is presenting in Havana a national campaign on city management, sponsored by the UN Human Settlements Program (HABITAT). With the title "For a Better City and Safer Environment," the aim of the event is to improve people´s living standard, their houses, city participation and local development. Cienfuegos, Holguin, Bayamo and Santiago de Cuba are the Cuban cities chosen for the international initiative. A HABITAT promotional gathering coincides with the beginning of the 5th World Meeting on Sustainable Cities Programs and Local Agenda 21, under the auspices of the UN Environment Program and Cuban Institute for Physical Planning. (Prensa Latina, 27/6/05)

June 27: Cubans continue risking their lives at sea to reach the United States-and they are taking more perilous routes to do so. Many of them set off from Santa Cruz del Sur, where its picturesque bay has become a popular launch point for Cubans trying to avoid the stepped-up US and Cuban patrols in the Florida Straits. Honduras' lenient immigration policy has made it the temporary destination of choice among many Cuban migrants, who then make their way north to the US. Like most Cuban rafters, those fleeing Santa Cruz del Sur are primarily men in their 20s or 30s who leave behind mothers, wives and children relieved at the word of a successful voyage but shattered by grief if no word arrives at all. In the squat homes that line the city's dirt streets, desperate women push frayed photographs of loved ones lost at sea into the hands of strangers in the hope they can bring news of survival. Cuban officials blame the stream of rafters on the 4-decade-old US economic embargo, which they say has crippled the island's economy. They also criticize America's "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, under which Cubans who make it to US soil can stay but those picked up at sea are sent back. But some Santa Cruz del Sur residents said Cuba's socialist system crushes economic opportunity and leads to a level of desperation that would send some on what can only be described as a suicidal voyage. (Chicago Tribune, 26/6/05)

June 27: Cuban lawyers from several institutions are updating the Family Code, enacted in 1975, official sources reported. Luis Palenzuela, vice president of the Cuban Society for Civil and Family Law, said the current Code will still continue in force, but with new amendments. Among the new aims are to give more possibilities to under 18-year-old people to demand their rights and benefit people with disabilities. The Cuban official also said that together with the code, new legal proceedings and family courts should be created. (Prensa Latina, 28/6/05)

June 27: Cuba would need to build 50,000 houses a year for a decade to overcome a massive housing deficit across the island, according to a government report. More than half a million homes are needed in Cuba, but just 15,350 houses were built last year, according to the National Housing Institute report released this week at a sustainable development conference in the capital. The housing crisis has become one of the government's most serious challenges, Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said at the event's opening. But Cuba is launching a comprehensive plan this year to repair and construct homes, particularly in the capital, Havana Mayor Juan Contino announced, without providing more details. (AP, 27/6/05)

June 28: Five years ago, little Elián González, the boy who survived a shipwreck and became the center of a legal dispute between his father in Cuba and relatives in the United States, returned to Havana. The happy ending of this drama, the return of the child to his father in Cuba, was headlined in the local press, recalling the mobilization of the people of Cuba and world support on his behalf. (Prensa Latina, 28/6/05)

June 29: Cuba will adopt measures for the upcoming summer holidays (July and August) to curb the rate of traffic accidents en route to recreational areas. Lt. Col. Francisco Bruzon, head of the National Traffic Division, listed a group of measures, ranging from reinforcing traffic police with access to recreation centers and annulment of more than 1,000 driving licenses nationwide. Reports indicate a slight increase of accidents in the first four months of the year with more than 1,300, one hundred more than in 2004. (Prensa Latina, 30/6/05)

June 30: University rectors and student leaders from seven countries are attending the 75th session of the Central American Higher Education Council (CSUCA) underway in Havana. The Confederation's management chief, Anibal Martinez, said the Havana meeting would allow a closer look at the Cuban Higher Education Ministry in order to strengthen cooperation and draw up guidelines for regional universities. (Radio Habana Cuba, 30/6/05)

June 30: After several days of intense analysis, the 14th International Scientific Congress CNIC 2005 finished in Havana, after bringing together over 800 professionals from 40 countries worldwide. Agendas included master conferences and symposiums on infectious diseases, environment, neurosciences and nano-technologies, as well as the exhibition of new products of the medical-pharmaceutical industry, dedicated this time to the 40th anniversary of the foundation of National Center for Scientific Research (CNIC). (Prensa Latina, 30/6/05)