CUBA NEWS CHRONOLOGY
January to September, 1996

By: Teo A. Babun, Jr.
Cuba-Caribbean Development Co., Ltd.
A Division of T. Babun Group, Inc.
All rights reserved

8 January Chilean Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza arrives in Havana on 8 January for a four-day official visit.

13 January In Havana, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Vladimir Dlouhy holds talks with Cuban Vice-President Carlos Davila Lage and other members of the government on the possibilities for bilateral trade.

15 January A prominent Cuban poet and journalist, Raul Rivero, says he was arrested by Cuban authorities and warned to disband an independent news agency that he heads.

16 January #9; A delegation led by U.S. Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-S. Boston) arrives in Cuba for talks on issues ranging from human rights to improving business on the island nation. The 20-member group is a mix of corporate officials, environmentalists, and human rights activists.

18 January #9; In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament votes overwhelming to support closer ties between the European Union and Cuba by a vote of 349 to 16.

18 January In Los Angeles, federal authorities drop charges against three Cuban immigrants who were accused of stockpiling weapons and plotting to overthrow Cuban President Fidel Castro.

18 January Former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali arrives in Cuba with a group bringing humanitarian aid for the island's Red Cross organization.

21 January The renowned French tourism provider, Club Med, signs an agreement with the Cuban tourist enterprise, Gaviota.

19 January #9; In Havana, Cuban dissidents, led by Elizardo Sanchez, meet with visiting U.S. congressman, Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.) in public for the first time in years without interference from authorities.

20 January Cuba's Health Minister, Carlos Dotres Martinez, says Cuba will not stop its investment program in the medical-pharmaceutical industry despite the difficult economic situation in the country.

26 January Speaking at a conference organized by Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, Washington DC, Richard Nuccio, special advisor to the president and the State Department on Cuba, says the Clinton administration is in the process of defining the optimal way to support Cuba's eventual transition to a free society and adds that the pending Helms-Burton bill would restrict U.S.ability to respond to a transitional government in Cuba.

28 January In Havana, Fidel Castro meets with the leader of Mexico's PRI Santiago Onate Laborde to discuss the situation of both countries and the possibility that the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) may join the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America.

30 January In London, President Ernesto Zedillo reaffirms that Mexico's policy towards Cuba is based on respect for nonintervention and underlines the principle of self-determination of nations.

31 January The last Cuban refugees at Guantanamo Base leave for the United States.

1 February U.S. Customs officials block a caravan of protesters from taking 300 computers into Mexico at the Otay Mesa port of entry to be eventually flown to Cuba. The group seeking to challenge the U.S. embargo is the Minneapolis-based Pastors for Peace who says it wants to donate the computers to hospitals and schools in Cuba.

6 February Haiti's government restores diplomatic ties with Cuba for the first time in three decades.

7 February Special Advisor to the President Clinton, Richard Nuccio, travels to Brussels to meet with both European Union Commissioner for Relations with Latin America, Manuel Marin, and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, Emma Bonino, to discuss the Cuban question.

8 February It is announced that 120 Cuban doctors were recruited to South Africa on three-year contracts to assist that country with a shortage of doctors.10 February Three of Cuba's most prominent dissidents arrive in Miami Saturday aboard a US military plane hours after Fidel Castro agrees to their release in a meeting with US Representative Bill Richardson. They are Luis Grave de Peralta, Eduardo Ramon Prida, and Carmen Julia Arias.

10 February The International Federation of Newspaper Publishers (FIEJ) awards its annual press freedom prize, the Golden Pen of Freedom, to Yndamiro Restano Diaz, a dissident Cuban journalist.

13 February Cuba donates 20,000 doses of an anti-meningitis vaccine to Zambia to help curb the epidemic in that country.

13 February The Department of Demographics of the National Office of Statistics reports that Cuba's population reached 11 million.

15 February Cuban police and state security agents reportedly block an organizational meeting in Havana of the opposition coalition Concilio Cubano and arrest three of its members.

16 February Cuban President Fidel Castro meets for three hours US energy experts from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and two nephews of former US President John Kennedy, Robert and Michael Kennedy, who urge him not to go ahead with the project to complete the Soviet-designed nuclear power plant at Juragua.

19 February Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, secretary general of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, reports that the Cuban government has officially prohibited the Concilio Cubano from holding its national conference scheduled for February 24 with the participation of most domestic opposition groups.

19 February It is reported that the Cuban government has arrested ten leaders of dissident organisations in one of its biggest purges in many years. The arrests reportedly came after the group sent a letter to Fidel Castro asking permission to hold a public meeting. The ten dissidents are believed to have been charged with "disseminating enemy propaganda, undertaking clandestine activities, and giving false information to the foreign press."

20 February Cuba and Barbados sign an investment treaty, the first such accord between Cuba and another Caribbean nation.

20 February A delegation of leading U.S. academics and businessmen, including a former World Bank president, arrive in Cuba on a five-day private visit to include talks with senior Cuban officials.

21 February Dissident leader Elizardo Sanchez, president of the Cuban Committee on Human Rights, says that twenty people remain under arrest following a roundup of activists from the opposition coalition Concilio Cubano.

21 February Cuba's Roman Catholic Church inaugurates a five- day conference in Havana, known as the National Ecclesiastical Encounter, to map out its agenda for the turn of the century.

22 February Dissident Cuban groups in Miami report that a leader of the opposition umbrella group Concilio Cubano, Lazaro Gonzalez Valdes, in Cuba, was sentenced to fourteen months in prison.

22 February Cuba accused the US government of organizing and funding the landmark dissident conference by Concilio Cubano that had been set for February 24- 27 until banned by the Cuban government.

25 February The U.N. Security Council meets to discuss Cuba's actions of shooting down an American aircraft.

26 February President Clinton severs all remaining commercial air links with Cuba on outlines additional sanctions to punish Fidel Castro's government for shooting down two unarmed civilian aircraft. The punitive measures also include the use of Cuban assets frozen in the United States to compensate the victims' families and additional restrictions on travel by Cuban officials in the United States.

26 February In a message from the Vatican, Pope John Paul II calls for the full freedom for the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba.

27 February The U.N. Security Council adopts a non-binding policy statement, by consensus after China agrees to its wording, which states that it "strongly deplored" the shooting down of two U.S. civilian aircraft. An international investigation into the incident is called for.

2 March Cuban exiles organize a flotilla to mourn the four civilian pilots shot down by the Cuban government.

4 March The leaders of the Caribbean Community, Caricom, and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien urge President Clinton to consider the implications of Helms-Burton.

4 March It is reported that a stern warning against unauthorized flight operations around Cuba was issued by FAA Administrator David Hinson in the wake of the downing of the two unarmed Cessnas by Cuban military aircraft. Hinson warns that any U.S. operator conducting unauthorized operations within Cuban airspace should cease and desist and that holders of U.S. airman certificates and operators of U.S. registered aircraft should comply with FAA's prohibition of unauthorized flight operations near Cuba

5 March The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (HR 927), Helms-Burton, is passed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 74-to-22. The bill would deny entry into the United States to foreigners who have "trafficked" (defined as buying, selling, transferring or profiting from) expropriated property claimed by a U.S. citizen; it would create a "right of action" enabling U.S. nationals to bring lawsuits in federal court against foreign governments, companies, and individuals who traffic in expropriated property; it would put into law all existing Cuban economic sanctions, including the original embargo imposed by President Kennedy in 1962, making an act of Congress necessary to change the embargo; it would also cut U.S. aid to Russia by $200 million and to foreign governments who have supported the Cuban nuclear facility at Juragua.

6 March Following the Senate lead, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act by a vote of 336-86.

5 March A high-ranking Cuban delegation, headed by Ricardo Alarcon, leaves Cuba for a meeting with the International Civil Aviation Organization to investigate the downing of the two U.S. planes by Cuban fighters.

6 March It is reported that Cuba has been training Special Forces troops to undertake limited attacks in the United States if Washington ever again invades. Training courses have been conducted since 1990 under a program conducted by the Vietnam's People's Army at a base in Vietnam and are aimed at mid-level officers. The program is focused on seaborne and underwater operations.

6 March In Montreal, addressing the council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon maintains that Cuba has been a victim of violations of its territory and sovereignty for many years. Cuba says it could suspend the right of U.S. airlines to use its air corridors in retaliation for these repeated violations. The ICAO Council passes a resolution directing the ICAO Secretary General to initiate an investigation "to determine all relevant facts and technical aspects of the incident" in accordance with the application of the U.N. Security Council president and to report back to the ICAO Council within 60 days.

11 March The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) announces that beginning on March 15, Cubans living in Cuba will have another chance to apply for legal migration to the United States under the second Special Cuban Migration Program (SCMP).

12 March President Clinton signs into law the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act saying that it will "send a powerful unified message from the United States to Havana that the yearning of the Cuban people for freedom must not be denied."

13 March #9; The Internet Factory, a Birmingham-based firm, launches the CubaWeb (http://www.cubaweb.com), a Web-based online service providing business, cultural and political information about Cuba with a focus on doing business in a post-embargo Cuba.18 March U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor says that the United States would agree to consult with Canada and Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement over Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act.19 March It is reported that the deputy editor of the independent news agency Havana Press, Joaquin Alvarez Torres, was arrested in Havana by state security agents.19 March In Geneva, Cuba publicly protests at the World Trade Organization the Helms-Burton legislation aimed at curbing foreign investment in that country.23 March The central committee of the Cuban communist party holds its first plenary session since December 1993.28 March Cuba signs a cooperation agreement with Latin American Integration Association (ALADI).1 April A new income tax comes into effect in Cuba on revenues from private professional activities, another step in the government's program to phase taxes into the Cuban economy.4 April Approximately 26 Cuban illegal immigrants arrive in Havana from Bahamas; the Cubans are repatriated from the Bahamas under a January agreement between the two nations to send back Cubans who emigrate illegally.7 April Vietnamese Commerce Minister Le Van Triet arrives in Havana at the invitation of his Cuban counterpart, Ricardo Cabrisas.16 April Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Cuba's most renowned filmmaker, dies in Havana after a long battle with lung cancer. 23 April In Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Commission passes a U.S.-backed motion of censure against Cuba for violating the rights of its citizens, especially their freedom of speech and assembly. With more than half of the members, including Russia and many Third World states, the Commission adopts the resolution by twenty votes to five. 25 April Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of former French president Francois Mitterrand, on a private visit to Cuba, raises human rights issues with President Fidel Castro during a meeting. 30 April In Brussels, the European Union initiates procedure to bring the United States in front of a World Trade Organization dispute settlements panel; the ambassadors of the fifteen EU member states vote to requesting formal WTO consultations with the United States over the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act.1 May Fidel Castro presides over a parade of thousands of Cubans commemorating International Labor Day and decrying the United States. This is the first May Day celebration since 1993.2 May Cuban authorities order the shutdown of the Independent Press Bureau (BPIC) and forbid writers to transmit news reports overseas; According to news sources, the order is given to Julio Suarez, 75, whose son, Yndamiro Restano, is founder and director of BPIC. 3 May The European Union requests formal consultations with the United States in the World Trade Organization regarding U.S. legislation restricting trade with Cuba. 8 May The Inter-American Press Association rebukes Cuba for shutting down the Independent Press Bureau of Cuba (BPIC) and forbidding its writers to transmit news reports overseas by sending a letter to Fidel Castro asking him to end his government's "intimidation" of independent journalists.9 May Rafael Solano, president of the independent Cuban news agency, Havana Press, arrives in Madrid seeking political asylum after being arrested in Havana and accused of "criminal association."13 May The U.S. Interests Section in Havana announces that more than twice the number of Cubans applied for the visa lottery this year than last year; Between Mary 15 and April 30, the office received 435,725 visa applications.14 May Cuba's sugar production is running well ahead of last year and is certain to meet its goal of 4.5 million tons, according to Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency; A production of 4.5 million tons is expected to make the output thirty-six percent higher than the 3.3 million tons produced last year. 16 May U.S. State Department announces that it will strip the founder of the anti-Castro pilots group, Brothers to the Rescue, of his license to fly for illegally entering Cuban airspace; State Dept. spokesman Nicolas Burns states the "FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is going to make an announcement that they are revoking the pilot certificate of Jose Basulto based on evidence that he twice violated FAA regulations by making unauthorized entry into Cuban airspace."

17 May The U.S. Treasury Department says it is releasing twenty-one computers seized from Pastors for Peace--the Minneapolis-based group of clergy and lay critics of U.S. policy in Latin America which had sought to send the computers to Cuba for the nation's churches and medical system.

18 May In Havana, the Executive Committee of the Cuban Council of Ministers discloses a decree that comprises, as part of the country's planning process, the preparation of the economy for the country's defense.

21 May Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeni Primakov arrives in Havana for a two-day official visit; a broad cooperation pact covering cultural, educational, scientific, and technical fields is signed between Russia and Cuba.

24 May Mexico and Cuba sign a bilateral cooperation agreement concerning nuclear security and radiological protection

24 May Cuba's Cubanacan and and Italy's Finmed sign a joint venture agreement to set up a sixteen million dollar health resort to be called "Mediclub."

26 May In Madrid, following talks with U.S. Vice- President Al Gore, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar says that Spain will "revise" the policy of the former Socialist government towards Cuba with a view to encouraging democracy there.

28 May Cuban radio reports that Fidel Castro has had a meeting in Havana with Ukrainian Vice-President Dmytro Tabachnyk, with whom he discussed economic projects and bilateral trade in the areas of medicine, construction, and machinery.

29 May The Miami Herald reports that Mexican producer Cemex, the world's fourth largest cement producer halted its operations in Cuba, just days before its top executive was to receive a State Dept. warning letter that he might be violating the Helms-Burton Act.

29 May The State Department sends out advisory letters to foreign companies advising them that they may fall under the Helms-Burton law's provision that denies visas to the United States to foreign entities that confiscated or traffic in Cuban property expropriated from U.S. citizens.

29 May It is reported that the Cuban Health Ministry report states that the economic crisis has hit Cuba's vaunted public health system hard in the last five years, causing difficulties such as a shortage of ambulances and an increase in infectious diseases; The report says the his week said the health system is undergoing reforms to make it more cost-effective while preserving a pledge to keep health care free and available to all Cuban citizens.

10 June #9; In Havana, Cuba's National Assembly of the People's Government ANPP and the Mexican Congress sign an agreement to hold annual interparliamentary meetings to strengthen bilateral ties.

14 June Fidel Castro attends the Habitat II conference in Istanbul.

18 June The Bahamas returns thirty-one rafters to Cuba under an agreement by which Cuban boat people arriving in that country will be sent home.

20 June It is reported that a United Nations investigation will conclude that the two civilian planes belonging to a Cuban exile group were over international waters when they were shot down by Cuban MiGs on February 24 and that preliminary findings by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) support the US argument that Cuba acted outside its jurisdiction.

20 June The Cuban media reports that authorities have approved access to the Internet and other global information networks but will limit such access according to national interests.

27 June The International Civil Aviation Organization releases a report on its investigation of Cuba's downing of two US civilian aircraft. The ICAO's president Assad Kotaite says that the two civilian US aircraft shot down by a Cuban fighter jet in February were not in Cuban airspace. The OACI chief tells reporters the UN aviation agency reached its conclusion based on "reliable" data provided by a Norwegian ship, the "Majesty of the Seas." Kotatie says the council of ICAO "reaffirmed its condemnation of the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight as being incompatible with the elementary considerations of humanity and the rules of international law."

28 June About 100 Cuban government officials and members of the press commemorate the July 1 opening of a Havana bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun, the first Japanese newspaper company to open a bureau in the capital of the Caribbean nation.

29 June Switzerland becomes the 17th nation to sign a bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement with Cuba.

2 July Cuban media reports that the Canadian firm Wilton Properties Ltd has signed a deal with Cuban state hotel firm Gran Caribe to build 11 hotels and other tourism facilities such as golf courses

.3 July Cuban Olympic boxers (Ramon Garbey and Joel Casamayor) seeking political asylum in the United States walk out of a detention facility after being granted parole by immigration authorities.

7 July A disgruntled Cuban officer, Lt. Col. Jose Fernandez Pupo, opens fire on a Cuban domestic flight with 17 people aboard and orders the pilot to fly to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where he asks for political asylum.

10 July It is reported that Cuban pitcher Rolando Arrojo has defected to the United States from Albany, Georgia where his nation's team was preparing for the Olympics.

10 July The United States gives Sherritt International Corp. 45 days to abandon its $500-million nickel operation in Cuba or have nine top executives and shareholders permanently barred from the United States.

16 July President Clinton suspends for six months Title III of Helms-Burton which gives the right to US companies to sue foreign companies exploiting confiscated US property in Cuba.

26 July The United Nations Security Council condemns the shooting down of civilian planes, in an implicit criticism of Cuba; In a resolution adopted by 13 votes with two abstentions, the 15-member Security Council reaffirms the principle that shooting down civilian planes violates international law.

30 July Cuban boxing trainer Marco Leiva has asks for political asylum in the United States.1 August Robert Vesco, the fugitive US-born financier sought by US authorities goes on trial in Cuba for "acts prejudicial to the economy, fraud and illegal economic activity."

3 August The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) deplored the behavior of the Cuban government for refusing to answer questions from IAPA members who wish to visit the island. "This lack of a reponse, the IAPA believes, demonstrates fear on the part of the Cuban government when faced with any type of investigation of its human rights practices, and provides evidence of continuing abuses of press freedom in particular."

13 August Fidel Castro turns seventy.

14 August Administration sources announce that President Clinton appointed Stuart Eizenstat, the undersecretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, to to become his special envoy on Cuba. Eizenstat's task is to convince the European, Canadian and Latin American allies to join Washington in placing greater pressure on the government of Cuban President Fidel Castro to accept democratic reforms.

16 August Three Cuban men hijacked a plane at knifepoint from a suburb of Havana; the aircraft was ditched 30 miles southwest of Sanibel Island off the west coast of Florida. The Cuban Civil Aeronautics Institute (IACC) identified the aircraft as a four-seater, single-engine, Wilga-type aircraft. The aircraft was used for tourism. According to the IACC, the aircraft was hijacked as it took off from a strip in eastern Havana for Varadero Beach, 150 km to the west.

20 August Cuba expelled a US diplomat from Havana. Robin Meyer, a political-economic officer, was responsible for human rights issues and openly met with representatives of human rights and independent groups in all parts of the island. The US responded by expelling Jos‚ Luis Ponce, the Cuban diplomatic spokesman in Washington, DC.

23 August The Domos Group, a Mexican business consortium, reported that four of its executives and its president Javier Garza Calderon received letters from the US State Department notifying them that their entry into the United States had been denied. The Domos executives and president, as well as their wives and underage children, will not be allowed to enter the United States within the next 45 days unless either the business withdraws its investments from Cuba or they submit their resignations. The US State Department acted under the provisions of the Helms-Burton Act that was signed into law in early March 1996.

27 August Robert Vesco, a longtime U.S. fugitive wanted for stealing millions from a mutual fund, was sentenced in Cuba to thirteen years in prison for economic crimes. His Cuban wife, Lidia Alfonsa Llauger, was sentenced to nine years. The case against Vesco centered on a scheme to market a drug known as TX, supposedly effective against cancer and AIDS. It is thought there were other issues involving Vesco since originally he had been charged as being "an agent of foreign special services."

31 August Jose Soler Puig, died at the age of 79, the official newspaper Granma reported. Puig's first novel, "Bertillon 166," was published in 1960, a year after the Cuban revolution brought President Fidel Castro to power. The titles of his other novels translate as "In the Year of January" (1963), "The Collapse" (1964), "Sleeping Bread" (1975), "The Decaying Mansion" (1977) and "A World of Things" (1982), followed by "The Knot," "Soul Alone" and, most recently, "A Woman." The author said in an interview shortly before his death that his own experiences had lent his books their strong sense of realism. "I'm a thief of ideas," he said. "The stories have been given to me by people."

1 September Juventud Rebelde reported on Sunday that 22 Cuban pesos can now buy a dollar, the lowest official exhange rate since the government legalised the possession and use of foreign currency by Cubans in August 1993. The dollars can be bought at CADECA currency exchange bureaux which were established last year. There are now 24 bureaux with plans to open another 14. Prior to CADECA, there was a thriving black market currency exchange for those Cubans who could afford to buy them. Between 1991 and 1995 the prices for a single dollar on the black market varied between 80 and 150 pesos. The average wage in Cuba is about 250 pesos a month.