Chronicle on Cuba - December 2007

Exile Community

December 6: Legendary conga player and Latin Grammy Award winner Carlos (Patato) Valdés died of complications from emphysema. He was 81. Valdés, a fixture in the New York Afro-Cuban music scene for more than 50 years, was hospitalized on November 12 in Cleveland. "He was an innovator, one of the last great Cuban drummers that came here in the '50s," said salsa bandleader Larry Harlow, who considers Valdés and Mongo Santamaría as the masters who brought conga drums into mainstream jazz. "He will be greatly missed." Born in Cuba in 1926, Valdés gained fame in the early '50s with his band Conjunto Casino. In 1954, he moved to New York City, where he played with Latin music legends Tito Puente, Benny Moré, Ismael Rivera, Machito and the Sonora Matancera. In 2002, Valdés received a Latin Grammy Award for the album "El Arte Del Sabor," with the Bebo Valdés Trio. (New York Daily News, 6/12/07)

December 10: The High Court will begin weighing evidence on December 13 on whether to file human rights abuse charges against Fidel Castro and his former tourism minister, Osmany Cienfuegos, for complicity in the torture and murder of nine exiles who participated in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. This is the third time that Cuban dissidents have tried to file criminal charges against the 81-year-old Castro in Spanish courts. Two prior attempts in 1998 and 2005 were dismissed on review, including when one appeals judge ruled that Castro was immune from prosecution because he was a head of state. But now the Miami-based Committee to Aid the Opposition or CAD 2506 argues in its complaint that Castro, who relinquished power to his brother Raúl Castro in July 2006 when he underwent intestinal surgery, has lost his immunity. (El País, 10/12/07) 

December 10: Jorge Mas Santos, Chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, issued a statement praising the demonstrations by Cuban dissidents in Havana on International Human Rights Day. “The noticeable increase in activities among the human rights community in Cuba, the way in which many ordinary Cubans are lending their voices and signatures to campaigns, is a clear demonstration that Cubans desire change and that they are not going to be satisfied with more of the same,” said Mas Santos. (CANF Press Release, 10/12/07)

December 11: The frustration of Miami exiles over the Cuban government's downing of two Brothers to the Rescue planes more than a decade ago has now filtered into the presidential race, with top GOP candidates calling for the indictment of Fidel and Raúl Castro. While stumping through South Florida, three Republican candidates have brought up the Brothers tragedy, and at least two have pledged to hold the Castro brothers responsible for the 1996 shoot-down by Cuban MiGs that killed four Miami-based fliers. The candidates' interest in the shoot-down may be an indication of the advice they're receiving from key Cuban-American leaders. Among Senator John McCain's supporters are US Representatives Mario and Lincoln Díaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, all of Miami. In the past, she has brought up the possibility of indictments with President Bush. "I talked to McCain about this specific recommendation, and he said yes, that as president he would (…) ask the Justice Department to begin a legal inquiry into the illegal shoot-down,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. Leading former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's Florida campaign is Al Cárdenas, a former state GOP party chief who, during a Radio Mambí campaign stop, praised his candidate's tough-on-Cuba approach. Advising former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee are Florida Representative David Rivera and House Speaker Marco Rubio, who announced his support. Huckabee, who was against the Cuba embargo once, called for indictments at a news conference in Westchester. (The Miami Herald, 11/12/07)

December 13: A Spanish court rejected a lawsuit that sought to have Fidel Castro charged in Spain over the death of nine prisoners in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The complaint -- similar to two others filed in Spain in 1998 and 2005 that were also rejected by the National Court -- was filed under Spain's so-called principle of universal jurisdiction. This doctrine holds that grievous crimes can be prosecuted in Spain even if they are alleged to have been committed in another country. A panel of 19 judges at the court cited one of the same reasons used to dismiss the earlier complaints -- that Castro is a sitting head of state and as such enjoys immunity from prosecution under the Spanish doctrine, court officials said under ground rules barring their name from being published. The new complaint was filed in February by a Miami-based group called the CAD 2506-- or the Committee to Aid Dissidents-2506. It takes its name from that of the invasion force that sought to topple Castro in Bay of Pigs in 1961 -- the 2506 Brigade. (AP, 13/12/07) 

December 16: A Florida woman faces prosecution for being married to several men whom she allegedly threatened to report to immigration authorities unless they paid her. Eunice Lopez of Hialeah, Florida, was reportedly married to 10 men and faces bigamy charges, officials said. Lopez, a legal US resident, arrived in South Florida from Cuba in 2002. (UPI, 16/12/07)

December 19: Fidel Castro is trying to keep the spotlight on him, according to Cuban exile leaders who see no glimpse of change on the island in Castro’s new message, where he says that his duty is "not to cling" to power and not "to block the path" to new generations. "This message is another episode in this soap opera on Fidel Castro, which directs the attention to what he says or recommends, but does not add anything new to the Cuban situation," said Omar López, director for Human Rights of the Cuban American National Foundation (FNCA). "People in Cuba do not believe that Fidel Castro will stop intervening as long as he lives," said Eduardo Perez Bengochea, of the Liberal Unity. The president of Cuba Democracia ¡Ya!, Rigoberto Carceller, said "it is a pity that Mister Castro didn’t make a decision, --not forced by health conditions--, but he should have listened to the demands of the Cuban people for the last 50 years." (AFP, EER, 19/12/07)

December 19: Popular TV host Carlos Otero has landed a new gig on the other side of the Florida Straits days after his defection from the island. Otero will soon appear on the local Spanish-language cable station WJAN America Te Ve, according to the station's general manager Omar Romay. "He's been hired by the station and will soon start work," Romay said but added that details of Otero's responsibilities were being worked out. That means Otero will still be visible to thousands of Cubans, mostly in Havana, who have managed to obtain contraband satellite dishes. Recent immigrants say WJAN is popular among those in Cuba because the channel has hired so many former Cuban TV personalities and gears its programs toward Cuban news and humour. (AP, 19/12/07)  

December 24: Havana's famed Malecón could become the future site of seven public gathering places that could modernize the popular avenue, yet still protect its urban tradition. The idea to reconstruct seven kilometers of the Malecón -- from a castle at one end to where it feeds into the mouth of the Almendares River -- is the final chapter of ''Havana and its Landscapes,'' a study aimed at the architectural rescue of the capital city under the auspices of Florida International University in Miami-Dade County. In charge of the project is prominent Cuban architect Nicolás Quintana, a professor at FIU who has become an expert on the way Cuba looks today by poring over textbooks, photos, illustrations, maps and virtual images of island scenes. The result will be a two-volume book of almost 500 pages. ''What we have done is find the seven points where people can congregate and will allow visitors and residents to enjoy the Malecón like the great urban icon that it is, and should continue to be in the future,'' said Quintana, 82. The study's promoters admit that Cuban authorities have been aware of the project since its inception. In November, the University of Alicante in Spain announced that Cuba's historical society had viewed proposals to modernize the Malecón. ''We have not hidden information about our study,'' Quintana said. "We have only refused to cooperate with the destroyers of the Cuban way of life, because this project is to develop freedom and I believe that's how the project is viewed by the young people inside the island who are helping us.'' (The Miami Herald, 24/12/07)

December 26: The 30th anniversary of the creation of the Antonio Maceo Brigade in solidarity with Cuba, made up of Cuban immigrants in the United States, was commemorated at the Cuban Friendship Institute in Havana (ICAP). During the ceremony, Andres Gomez, president and founder of the brigade, recalled how on December 22, 1977, the 55 members of the first contingent returned to Cuba in an event that marked their lives forever and encouraged them to continue defending their homeland inside the United States. (ACN, 26/12/07)