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Top Cuban Legislator Criticizes U.S. Plan

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press Writer. Thu. Jul 1.

HAVANA - Cuba's parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon on Thursday criticized what he said was a U.S. plan for a "free Cuba."

Speaking at a general meeting of Cuba's National Assembly attended by President Fidel Castro, Alarcon said that under such a plan Cubans would lose their property and key social benefits.

The United States wants to "convert our country into an American territory, and subject our people to slavery," said Alarcon, the president of the assembly.

The assessment came in the wake of a new U.S. policies to restrict travel and other types of economic activity, moves aimed at pushing out Castro and squeezing the island's economy.

Several others of the hundreds of legislators attending the meeting spoke out against the U.S. measures before condemning them in a resolution.

Providing his vision of a U.S. plan, Alarcon said all sectors of the economy would be privatized and subsidies and price controls affecting goods and services would be abolished.

"This would be a return to capitalism in its most brutal form, under the yoke of a foreign power," said Alarcon.

A few hours later, and just a few blocks away, the chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana hosted an early 4th of July celebration at his residence.

James Cason did not mention the latest U.S. measures, but praised U.S.-style democracy and said that despite flaws, the system allows for freedom of expression and defense of human rights - unlike in Cuba, he said.

The island's best-known dissidents and wives of Cuban political prisoners attended the event, which included a military ceremony and live bluegrass music by Tony Ellis and the Musicians of Braeburn.

Musicians Criticize U.S.-Cuba Travel Ban

By The Associated Press. Fri Jul 2.

HAVANA - A group of well-known musicians criticized new U.S. regulations that further limit travel to Cuba, urging the United States to build bridges to the island instead of tearing them down.

The musicians, who produce jazz, Afro-Cuban music and a ballad style known as Cuban trova, tied their comments to Tuesday's release of "Bridge to Havana," a combination CD-DVD produced by dozens of U.S. and Cuban artists during a songwriting workshop and cultural exchange program in Havana in 1999.

The product "proves the brotherhood that exists between American and Cuban musicians," said a statement released Wednesday and signed by "the unstoppable Cuban musicians," about 10 of whom held a news conference to call for a second such meeting of artists in Cuba.

"The day that the U.S. government intensifies its attacks on our country, on Cuba, is the same day that our response is to send more songs, to send more music, to send more love, to send more solidarity," said Pablo Menendez, founder of the Afro-Cuban fusion band Mezcla and a U.S. citizen who has lived in Cuba nearly 40 years.

Menendez worked with Bonnie Raitt, actor Woody Harrelson - who plays the guitar - and Cuban classical guitarist Rey Guerra during the workshop. They produced "La Brisa Azul (Blue Breeze)" on the "Bridge to Havana" CD.

The new U.S. rules, which tighten a U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, went into effect Wednesday.

List of U.S. government rules on Cuba travel and remittances

Associated Press. Posted on Tue, Jun. 29, 2004.

New U.S. rules take effect Wednesday for U.S. residents visiting family in and making cash remittances to Cuba. The penalties for tourists violating the rules range from a warning to a fine of up to $10,000, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

CASH REMITTANCES: Up to $300 per quarter can be sent to relatives in Cuba, but now limited to immediate family: children, spouses, siblings, parents, grandparents, grandchildren. No longer allowed for cousins, aunts, uncles. No money may be sent to government or Communist Party officials.

VISITS TO CUBA: Travelers limited to 44 pounds in luggage and $300 in cash, down from previous $3,000. May spend only $50 a day in Cuba, down from $167. Visits limited to 14 days, compared to previous no limit.

PURCHASES: Travelers cannot bring back merchandise acquired in Cuba, except for informational materials such as books. Previous rules allowed $100 in total purchases for personal use.

EDUCATIONAL VISITS: Now must last at least 10 weeks, although college employees and graduate students doing independent research can stay shorter periods. High school students no longer allowed to study in Cuba.

"FULLY HOSTED" TRAVEL: Now barred. That category previously let U.S. citizens visit if they could prove they did not spend any money while in Cuba.

Cupid-hit Cubans hurry to tie and untie the knot

By Indo-Asian News Service. Thursday July 1.

Washington, July 1 (IANS) - Cupid-hit Cubans seem to be in a hurry to tie the nuptial knot -- and to untie it too.

Though known to be among the friendliest people in the world, the divorce rate of Cubans is the highest in Latin America, says a new study.

The number of formalised affairs in that country is also among the highest in the continent, at more than 100,000 marriages every year.

With the cupid running riot, the country has a very high number of non-formal families too, points out the study by the Psychology Faculty of Havana University.

The Cuban National News Agency made available the findings.

Despite all the talk of Cuba being a nation of "joyful, nice, fair, friendly, faithful" people, the study points out the foremost cause for breaking up of the families is "inability to deal with lack of communication among couples".

There are other causes like strain of housing, the families having to share living space with other members of a joint family.

The immaturity of the couples too young for a mature matrimony and increasing economic independence of women are also seen as reasons for growing divorces.

Despite the early nuptials, fertility among Cuban women has remarkably been on the decline. The reproduction gross rate of its people has come down to 1.6 children per woman.

The direct impact of education on women's fertility is evident from the fact that it is only a third among women with college education when compared with that of women who had incomplete primary education.

The fall in fertility, the study indicates, is directly linked to the high literacy rate of women in that country that offers free universal education up to college level.

The literacy rate in the country is a whopping 99.8 percent, as against Latin America's 88.3 percent.

The high women's literacy rate had its positive impact on the infant mortality rate too, with it falling to 6.3 per 1,000 births, as against a dismal 60 in 1959.

The fact that 99.1 percent of the population is under expert medical coverage through a string of neighbourhood health facilities has also contributed to the decrease in infant mortality.

The health cover has, meanwhile, pushed up Cuba's life expectancy to 77 years that compares favourably with that of the developed countries.

A fall out of the increased life expectancy has been that the country of 11.2 million people - as of 2003 - has been ageing fast. The average age of the population is 34.5 years, with more than 14 percent above 60 years of age.

If the tendency keeps going, the study says, one out of four Cubans will be above 60 years of age soon, the highest for the continent.

No more lonely nights for Contreras

By Rafael Hermoso, Special to USA TODAY. Fri Jul 2.

The toughest months were the first, when Jose Contreras spent as much time on a cell phone trying to save his marriage as he did on a mound trying to impress scouts. Contreras had left his wife and two daughters behind in Cuba, and it was near impossible for him to convince her this was not abandonment. Miriam Murillo Flores, after all, learned her husband had left her the way you would get the score of a game.

"She found out on the news, 'Jose Contreras is in the United States after pitching for the national team,' " Contreras says. "She began to cry, like her whole world had fallen apart. She thought, 'That's it. He abandoned me. I'm never going to see him again.' When I called, she spoke to me very strongly. Why was I here? Why had I done this to a marriage of 15 years? I said, 'Calm down. You're my wife.' It took two or three months for me to get her to understand that I had done this for my family, for my wife."

Through mounting cell phone bills on two sides of a political dispute that kept the family apart, Contreras and his wife were able to maintain their marriage and return to some sort of normalcy, as Contreras put it this week in a Spanish interview. But normalcy meant pangs of guilt and bouts of feeling selfish. Those were finally lifted last Monday when the boat Contreras' family and friends were on ran aground off Big Pine Key, some 100 miles southwest of mainland Florida.

Contreras says two friends and their families joined his family on the boat, and one of the families is staying at his Tampa home. He has refused to give details of the trip or who funded it, and officials with the U.S. attorney's office in Miami and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office said no charges had been brought against the smugglers.

But a U.S. Border Patrol official said at least two smugglers escaped by foot after their 31-foot, 1980 Chris-Craft powerboat ran aground on the 6-mile-long, 2-mile-wide key that U.S. Highway 1 crosses. After leaving Cuba about 12:30 a.m. June 21 and being chased by the Coast Guard and Customs for three hours, the boat hit land about 5:15 a.m., said Border Patrol agent Cameron Hintzen. Twenty-one people rushed to shore.

Dream comes true

Contreras has spoken often in the past week of waking up from dreams of his daughters only to find himself in an empty New Jersey home, and even he has said having his family with him should make him a more relaxed competitor. At 32, Contreras has endured an erratic, short career with the New York Yankees, battling injuries and loneliness while showing flashes of the arm that pumped 98 mph fastballs in the World Series last October.

Contreras struggled this season until he shut out the New York Mets for six innings last Sunday. He faces them again Friday at Shea Stadium.

"He smiles a lot freer now," says Leo Astacio, the Yankees' Spanish-speaking interpreter who has become Contreras' closest friend. "He seems like he's got a great weight off his shoulders."

Contreras already has found relief in his new life. He has had to argue, like those before him, how a player making $8 million a year could be miserable.

"I don't think he stayed here just for baseball," says Euclides Rojas, the former closer of the Cuban national team who opposed Contreras briefly in Cuba and is now the Boston Red Sox (news)'s bullpen coach. "He stayed here for freedom and family. In some ways, Americans don't understand that. In the same ways that we Cubans don't understand the language and the culture when we get here, with all the freedoms they have, Americans don't understand why we do it, why we do it for our families, in search of a better future."

Rojas left a phone message for Contreras last week and shared a hug with him at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Rojas spent five days on a raft with his wife and 2 1/2-year-old son going from Cuba to the USA in 1994, yet he cannot comprehend what Contreras has endured.

"To feel what he did you have to have experienced what he did, and I didn't," Rojas says. "I thought about leaving Cuba alone but with the idea of bringing (my family) along. I'm glad my wife said, 'We make it together, or we sink together.' "

Rojas says everything will be easier for Contreras with his family here. "Even though I'm a coach on the Red Sox, I wish him well," Rojas says. "If we face him, I'd like to win but beat him 3-2."

Guilt and insecurity

Smiling often as he sits by his locker, Contreras calls the events of the past week the greatest things that have happened in his life. He laughs when asked about his wife's $100 cell phone bill and says his was double since he was paying for both.

But the laughter is interspersed with revelations of guilt and self-responsibility. He describes how he made the decision to flee Cuba during a tournament in Mexico on Oct. 1, 2002, to prove himself as a ballplayer and provide for his family. After gaining residency in Nicaragua, he knew riches awaited him in the major leagues, and he thought he would funnel some of those to his family until they got out, which would be done legally and in a matter of months.

"My wife was very scared at first," Contreras says. "She went through two or three months of insecurity thinking that I had abandoned her. I had a lot of work to do to convince her that she was my family - my daughters, all my family - and that I had done it for them and in time they would come. As she saw that I was trying to get them out, she regained her confidence and she became a lot calmer."

Contreras says he was sending $100 a month to his wife, the maximum allowed by U.S. law, a pittance until you compare it to the $20 his family lived on from his prior job as a coach for the baseball team in his hometown of Pinar del Rio. But as the months passed and his family remained behind, Contreras says he felt guilty leading the good life, rich but alone.

"I felt what I did wasn't worth it, because I was doing well, doing what I wanted to, but without my family," Contreras says. "Now that I'm with them and they're able to enjoy everything, I know what I did was worth it."

Contreras saw Orlando Hernandez get his family out less than a year after his defection, their arrival in the middle of the 1998 World Series capping an extraordinary season for the pitcher and one of the best teams ever. The Yankees have a stacked lineup again and another mysterious Cuban, but Contreras entered this season with little hope for happiness. "I thought I was going to be with my family, too, but for me it turned out differently," he says. "They said no, that they wouldn't let them leave, that it would take five years.

"I tried everything to get my family here, and I couldn't attain it," Contreras says later. "I was worried that it would be a long time and my daughters would forget seeing their father, that my wife would want to break our marriage."

Murillo was trying to be patient, but the girls were confused, asking, "Why do we speak to him but he won't come?"

Contreras' wife and daughters accompanied him to a postgame news conference Sunday, savoring a victory together for the first time in two years. He said Wednesday his wife did not want to be interviewed.

Frustrated at Cuba for not allowing his family exit visas, Contreras said this spring the government had twice arrested Murillo, once on suspicion of defecting and another time on prostitution charges. But he said this week his family had not been punished for his defection and he was not fearful for his remaining family in Cuba, his parents, two brothers and cousins.

Traitor to beloved

Murillo hopes to learn English and spend time with her sister, who already lives in the New York area. Naylan, 11, just completed sixth grade in Cuba, and Naylenis, who turns 4 in September, will have her first day of school in America.

Contreras will attempt to be another pitcher, trying to celebrate the good games with his family and seek their support after the bad ones. By his estimate, he already has won much.

"According to them, the government, I am a traitor, but the people love me more now," Contreras says. Asked if he means his hometown specifically, his face lights up and he says, "the country, America, the entire world admires me more now. When I was in Nicaragua, the people admired me because of what I had done, because I had the courage to leave Cuba and leave my family behind, which was very hard. And now I think the people that are in Cuba admired me and respect me greatly."

Garcia Films 'Lost City' Scenes in Palace

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - The Cuban flag was hung from a balcony of the Dominican National Palace for the benefit of actor Andy Garcia.

The building was being used Saturday in the filming of "The Lost City," which the Cuban-born Garcia is both acting in and directing.

Explosions were detonated inside the palace to recreate a failed assault on Cuba's presidential palace during the revolution that eventually led to Fidel Castro's triumph in 1959.

The 48-year-old Garcia, whose family left the island nation when he was 5, has been a staunch critic of Castro.

The Dominican government has allowed the filmmakers to use its facilities in an effort to boost the country's film industry. Filmmakers were paying about $2,300 in fees for the use of streets and monuments, officials said.

Garcia said the film focuses on the transition in Cuba from President Fulgencio Batista's rule to Castro's takeover. Garcia's character, a cabaret owner, eventually leaves the country to go into exile in New York.

Garcia's other acting credits include "Ocean's Eleven," "The Untouchables" and "The Godfather: Part III."

New US restrictions

MIAMI, Jun 30 (AFP) - Washington tightened restrictions on visits and money remittances to Cuba in a move aimed at undermining the island's communist government, angering Havana and many of the 1.5 million Cubans living in the United States.

Anticipating the tightening of the 42-year-old US embargo on Fidel Castro's government, Cuban-Americans this week had scrambled for seats on packed planes to Havana before the measures took effect.

Under the move, Cuban-Americans can only visit close family on the island once every three years instead of every year. And those visits, previously unlimited in length, are now restricted to 14 days, with daily spending of 50 dollars, down from 165 dollars.

Cuban emigres can still send 300 dollars home every three months, but only to immediate family and not to cousins, aunts and uncles. Government and communist party officials are still excluded from receiving any money from the United States.

The move angered the estimated 1.5 million Cubans living in the United States, even though most oppose the Castro government.

"A blatant error," "inhumane measures," and "trampled freedom for Cuban-Americans," were among comments heard among Miami's Cuban-Americans.

Cuban authorities called the measures "cruel."

Officials at Havana's Jose Marti airport said there was a sharp drop in charter flights to the island from the United States.

"Yesterday 17 flights arrived, today we expect seven," an airport official told AFP.

"The new measures are inhumane and un-American," said Silvia Wilhelm, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban-American Commission for Family Rights.

"We find it particularly ironic that in the name of freedom for Cuba, the freedom of Cuban Americans to travel and to maintain normal family relations are being trampled," she said.

"The measures hit at the external side of the (Cuban) economy, basically the trade and services that are the driving motor behind the modest recovery that has been going on (in Cuba) since 1995," a Havana economist told AFP on condition of anonymity.

But some analysts saw the new restrictions as well considered, with precedent in fighting past communist regimes.

"All those things have been done and had relative success in undermining the communist regime in Eastern Europe," said Jaime Suchliki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

"This was not an overnight operation," he said. "It took years."

According to Havanatur travel agency, there are normally three to five daily flights between the two countries depending on the season.

As the midnight (0400 GMT) deadline neared late Tuesday, one group of Cuban-Americans staged noisy protests at Miami airport shouting: "We want to fly!" and "Cuba! Cuba!"

US President George W. Bush in May ordered measures to tighten the embargo on Cuba, calling it "a strategy that says we're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba."

Large queues formed outside Western Union offices in Havana as family members lined up to receive money orders wired by relatives in Miami before the deadline.

According to the Inter-American Development Bank, remittances from US-based Cubans in 2002 were worth more than 1.1 billion dollars and played a major role in keeping the Cuban economy alive.

But the US administration claims much of the foreign currency entering Cuba is siphoned directly to Castro and his entourage.

The US State Department had said that those in Cuba before the new restrictions must return by June 30. But because of the crush on scarce return flights, the US government Tuesday extended the deadline until July 30.

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