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Cuba frees dissident imprisoned 17 years
AP, April 23, 2007.
 HAVANA
- A veteran dissident leader who wrote a
book about Cuban prison conditions while
behind bars was freed over the weekend after
serving his entire 17-year sentence, rights
groups said Monday.
Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, widely known by
the nickname "Antunez," was released
Sunday morning from prison in the central
province of Villa Clara, the opposition
group Bitacora Cubana said in a statement.
Originally arrested on charges of engaging
in enemy propaganda and attempted sabotage
in 1990, Garcia Perez was among the prisoners
Pope John Paul II had asked the government
to release. But he was not among the 14
people the Cuban government said it had
freed in conjunction with the January 1998
papal visit.
From Miami, the Cuban American National
Foundation, a powerful political lobby,
sent a message Monday congratulating Garcia
Perez upon his release and praising him
for his "consistency of principles."
In Havana, another rights group confirmed
Garcia Perez's release even as it reported
a new case of a dissident attorney sentenced
after a secret trial to 12 years in prison
for painting graffiti and distributing pamphlets
with an anti-government message.
Rolando Jimenez Posada was charged with
disrespect for authority and revealing state
secrets. He was tried in Havana over the
weekend without a defense attorney or family
members present, said Elizardo Sanchez,
spokesman for the independent Cuban Commission
for Human Rights and Reconciliation.
Sanchez said Jimenez Posada was transported
to Havana for the proceeding from Isla de
la Juventud, where he has been jailed since
his arrest in early 2003.
It was unclear whether the time already
spent in jail would count toward the 12-year
sentence.
According to Sanchez, Jimenez Posada's
relatives say authorities denied the defendant's
request to represent himself in court and
he was not allowed to attend his own trial
when he protested.
"The biggest worry for the commission
is that in two weeks, we have seen two similar
secret trials behind closed doors, without
relatives or defense attorneys present,"
Sanchez said.
Earlier this month, the rights commission
criticized what it said was the secret trial
of independent journalist Oscar Sanchez
Madan.
Sanchez Madan, who wrote about dissident
groups and the hardships of Cuban life,
was arrested April 13 and tried in a secret
hearing later that day, the rights commission
said. He was convicted of the vaguely worded
charge of "social dangerousness,"
and sentenced to four years in prison.
The Cuban government has not commented
on either case.
Cuban dissident sentenced to 12 years
AP, April 23, 2007.
HAVANA (AP) -- A dissident attorney was
sentenced to 12 years in prison in a secret
trial for painting graffiti and distributing
pamphlets with an anti-government message,
a human rights group said Monday.
Rolando Jimenez Posada was tried in Havana
over the weekend without a defense attorney
or family members present, said Elizardo
Sanchez, spokesman for the independent Cuban
Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation.
Sanchez said Jimenez Posada was transported
to Havana for the proceeding from Isla de
la Juventud, where he has been jailed since
his arrest in early 2003.
It was unclear if the time already spent
in jail would count toward the 12-year sentence
on charges of disrespect for authority and
revealing state secrets.
According to Sanchez, Jimenez Posada's
relatives say authorities denied the defendant's
request to represent himself in court and
that he was not allowed to attend his own
trial when he protested.
''The biggest worry for the commission
is that in two weeks we have seen two similar
secret trials behind closed doors, without
relatives or defense attorneys present,''
Sanchez said.
Earlier this month, the rights commission
criticized what it said was the secret trial
of independent journalist Oscar Sanchez
Madan.
Sanchez Madan, who wrote about dissident
groups and the hardships of island life,
was arrested April 13 and tried in a secret
hearing later that day, the rights commission
said. Found guilty of the vaguely worded
charge of ''social dangerousness,'' he was
sentenced to four years in prison.
As is customary, the Cuban government has
not commented on either case.
N. of Ed.
Rolando Jimenez Posada
was detained on the repressive wave on March
2003 along 75 other dissidents, and was
declared prisoner of conscience by Amesty
International.
Cuban Opposition Groups Declare Unity
AP, April 17, 2007.
Most of Cuba's leading opposition groups
issued a joint statement Monday declaring
they were united in their struggle for peaceful
change toward democracy on the island.
"We know that the people of Cuba as
well as all those in the world support democracy
for Cuba, desire that all of Cuba's peaceful
opposition be united," said the groups'
open letter. "This unity is necessary
to advance the changes that the people want
and need."
Despite some political and philosophical
differences, the groups said they supported
the same goals, including: respect for human
rights, reconciliation, release of political
prisoners, nonviolent action to achieve
the goals, and respectful cooperation among
diverse opposition organizations.
The statement came mere days after two
other more moderate dissident groups announced
their own new coalition and human rights
agenda. Representatives of those groups,
the Democratic Solidarity Party and the
Progressive Arc, did not sign the joint
statement.
The Cuban American National Foundation,
a powerful Miami-based lobbying group, on
Monday issued a statement congratulating
the signers of the unity declaration, calling
it "an extraordinary expression of
political maturity and democratic commitment."
Signers of the Cuban statement included
well-known dissident leaders Oswaldo Paya
of the Christian Liberation Movement; Elizardo
Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human
Rights and National Reconciliation; Martha
Beatriz Roque and Rene Gomez Manzano, of
the Assembly to Promote Civil Society.
Several members of the Ladies in White
organization of political prisoners' wives
also signed the document.
New refinery to turn long-time importer
Cuba into oil exporter
HAVANA, 23 (AFP) - A modernized oil refinery
is set to go on line in December, official
media reported Sunday, in a shift due to
turn imports-dependent Cuba into an oil
exporter.
Overhauled with capital from a joint Venezuelan-Cuban
company, the Cienfuegos refinery in south-central
Cuba will meet the Caribbean country's own
demands, and earmark 9,000 barrels of gasoline
a day for export, Venezuela's communications
and information ministry said in a release
circulated here.
Vice President Carlos Lage confirmed the
facility was set to start operations in
December, the Juventud Rebelde newspaper
reported Sunday.
Lage said the refinery would process 65,000
barrels per day of petroleum by late this
year or early 2008, the paper said.
In addition to its new processing potential,
the Americas' only communist government
also is betting big that black gold from
its waters could once and for all eliminate
the perpetual Achilles' heel of the local
economy: energy.
Cuban authorities in late March said Havana
was optimistic it could soon see a breakthrough
in exploiting major oil reserves.
That could mark a sea change that would
see the cash-strapped regime become a flush
energy exporter, with ample funding to perpetuate
itself.
"We are sure. We are convinced"
that major oil reserves lie in the Gulf
of Mexico just north of the island, Basic
Industry Minister Yadira Garcia told reporters
at the Geosciences Conference 2007 in Havana.
At the moment, Cuba gets cut-rate oil from
Venezuela, its closest international ally
and most important economic partner.
But depending on the relationship with
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez leaves
the Cuban economy vulnerable to any change
in that arrangement.
Yet "2008 is going to be very promising
insofar as undersea seismic studies and
drilling in areas of our economic zone,"
Garcia said at the time.
Next year, she added, "the drilling
phase in the blocs we are working with Repsol"
will start.
The Spanish multinational is just one of
the firms elbowing in, along with Norsk
Hydro, Canada's Sherrit, Malaysia's Petronas
and India's Videsh.
Cuba has divided its exclusive zone into
59 blocs for exploration and production,
16 of which are contracted out. Repsol has
six, Sherrit and Petronas have four each,
while Videsh has two.
Eight more are under negotiation -- four
with Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA and another
four with an Asian country which Cuba has
not disclosed. The other 35 are still up
for grabs.
Repsol in 2005 was the first to break ground
in the area, but the company determined
the crude it discovered was not commercially
exploitable at that time.
Repsol brought in partners in Videsh and
Norsk Hydro to share the risk and to benefit
from Norsk's technology, in order to keep
exploring in its six blocs.
While US lawmakers opposed to Cuba's communist
regime have warned drilling in waters between
Cuba and US shores could present potential
environmental concerns, some US multinationals
are irked that the US economic embargo is
keeping them from getting in on this potential
gold rush.
In 2006, Cuba produced about 3.9 million
tonnes of oil, seven times more than 1990
when the former East bloc collapsed, depriving
Cuba of its long-accustomed supply of cut-rate
Soviet crude.
Fidel Castro meets with Chinese official
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
April 21, 2007.
HAVANA - Photographs published in Cuba's
party newspaper Saturday showed Fidel Castro
meeting and shaking hands with a visiting
Chinese Communist Party official, the latest
sign the Cuban leader is becoming increasingly
active more than eight months after undergoing
emergency intestinal surgery.
The Communist Party daily Granma reported
that Wu Guanzheng, a member of the Chinese
Communist Party's Politiburo, met separately
Friday with both Castro and his younger
brother Raul, who has been filling in for
his brother since July.
A short message about the encounter was
first read Friday night on state television
and carried on official news services, and
the new images of Castro were released Saturday.
In two photographs published on Granma's
Web site, Castro is seen dressed in a brown
and red track suit with white detailing
as he meets with Wu. In one, he sits in
a rocking chair across from Wu with another
member of the Chinese delegation between
them, apparently taking notes on the meeting.
In a second, the two men are standing and
shaking hands.
While he looks somewhat pale after months
indoors, the 80-year-old appears much stronger
than the early images of him last fall,
dressed in red pajamas and resting in bed
while visiting with his ally Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez.
Fidel Castro's condition and exact ailment
remain state secrets, but he is believed
to suffer from diverticular disease, which
can cause inflammation and bleeding in the
colon.
Castro has not been seen in public since
before July 31, when he announced he had
undergone surgery and was provisionally
ceding power to his brother while he recovered.
Since then, he has been seen only in photographs
and videos released by the government, initially
looking thin and weak but more recently
appearing stronger.
Cuban officials have been giving increasingly
positive reports about Castro's recovery,
sparking expectations that he will make
a public appearance soon, perhaps at the
annual May 1 workers parade that draws hundreds
of thousands of people.
In recent weeks, he has written three editorials
published in official media under the title
"Reflections of the Commander in Chief."
Two criticized the use of food crops for
the production of ethanol for cars, and
another accused the U.S. government of protecting
his old nemesis Luis Posada Carriles, a
Cuban-born anti-communist militant released
this week from American custody while he
awaits trial on immigration fraud charges.
Cuba and Venezuela accuse Posada of violent
acts against the island, including the 1976
bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion airliner
that killed 73 people. Posada has denied
involvement.
After meeting for an hour with Fidel Castro
and delivering a letter from Chinese President
Hu Jintao, Wu met with Raul Castro to discuss
economic and other issues, Granma said.
Trade between the two communist countries
has burgeoned in recent years, growing to
$1.8 billion last year, double that of 2005,
according to Chinese officials in Cuba.
Chinese exports of buses, locomotives and
farm equipment and supplies to Cuba helped
account for the sharp increase.
The Police agree to Cuba show
By WENN world entertainment news - Friday,
April 20.
Reformed rockers The Police have accepted
an invite to play a free show in Cuba at
the end of the year.
The group was invited to play its first
concerts in Cuba by the communist country's
government, and now they're keen to play
there in December.
In a statement, the band says, "We
initiated discussions of a free concert
in Havana as an expression of gratitude
to Cuban fans who have supported the Police
throughout the years.
"It was in this spirit that a Christmas
season concert in Havana was conceived.
While planning details are currently underway,
it is the band's intention to put on a free
show in Havana this December."
The Police kick off their 30th anniversary
reunion tour in Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada, on 28 May.
Cuba group calls for rights commission
AP, Apr 12, 2007.
HAVANA - A new coalition of moderate Cuban
opposition groups called Thursday for the
creation of a human rights commission in
the National Assembly, cheered by an agreement
Havana struck with Spain to open a dialogue
on human rights and other issues.
The recently founded Dialogue for Rights
Coalition also announced it will work to
eliminate the death penalty, distribute
copies of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and win the release of political
prisoners.
Manuel Cuesta Morua, whose Progressive
Arc group is part of the coalition, said
the group plans a signature drive to back
its request that the parliament form a human
rights commission. The Democratic Solidarity
Party, which claims 1,000 Cuban members,
is also a member of the coalition.
The group is at odds with many of Cuba's
better known opponents, who were irritated
that Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos did not meet with them during
his visit to the island earlier this month.
Moratinos and his Cuban counterpart, Felipe
Perez Roque, agreed to explore regular bilateral
talks that could include a discussion of
human rights.
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