freecubanow

Summary of the Last Seven Days

October 3, 2003

· Opposition leader Oswaldo Payá handed the Cuban Parliament an
additional 14,384 signatures supporting the Varela Project asking for
a referendum to approve civil liberties and economic reforms – ignored
until today by the Cuban government. Many of those recently sentenced
to long prison sentences helped collect 11,000 signatures which began
the Project, said Payá. (AP, Havana, October 3)

· Under the leadership of the noted Spanish writer, Jorge
Semprún, a group of artists, writers and political European figures
denounced Castro's repression and paid homage to Cuban poet Raul
Rivero, serving a 20 year prison sentence in Cuba. Catherine Deneuve,
Pedro Almodóvar and the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, joined a
thousand other Frenchmen at the event of solidarity with Cuban
political prisoners. (Le Monde, Paris, September 29)

· "We do not need you to live. You are creators of poverty,
exploitation and misery," said Fidel Castro to the European countries.
His harsh criticisms were part of a speech in Havana. The foreign
media was not allowed to attend. (AFP, Havana, September 28)

· Opposition leader Oswaldo Payá said, "The death of Fidel
Castro does not determine the democratic options." The "protagonists"
are the Cuban people which are the element of change. Payá said he is
convinced that change is possible without confrontation. (El Mundo,
Madrid, September 30)

· Nine of 11 Cuban adults, who attempted to reach the United
States last July aboard a 1959 Chevrolet, received letters from the US
government denying them U.S. visas. They had requested visas through a
program designed to help dissidents and those persecuted for their
political views (AFP, Havana, September 30)

· In Paris, Reporters Sans Frontières created a committee of
solidarity with the imprisoned Cuban poet and journalist, Raul Rivero.
The committee will publish a black book on Cuba. (AFP, Paris,
September 30)

· Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva insisted
Thursday that he did speak with Castro about human rights during his
visit to the island. (AFP, Paris, October 2)

· Cubans living abroad and not involved in activities "harmful
to the interests of the state" will no longer need special visas to
visit their homeland, the Cuban Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday.
(AFP, Havana, October 1)

· In Washington, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
held a hearing on U.S. - Cuba policy. Chaired by Senator Richard
Lugar (R-Indiana) the hearings included testimony from Roger Noriega
(Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs), Jose
Miguel Vivanco (Human Rights Watch) and Emilio Gonzalez (until
recently on the staff for the National Security Council). ( U.S.
Congress Committee on Foreign Relations, October 2)

· According to a statement by Rafa Rubio, president of the
Spanish Association Cuba in Transition, there is "a generalized
national consensus among Spain's political parties, labor unions and
human rights organizations" in favor of "change in Cuba to achieve a
democracy respectful of human rights and public liberties." (El Pais,
Madrid, September 27)

· The New York Times in an editorial titled A Newspaper's Cuban
Revolt said, "The idea of censoring the Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro-who regularly silences journalists and tortures dissenters in
his own country-may sound appealing to some, but when it is done by an
American newspaper, the effect is unsettling." The Times was referring


New York. (The New York Times, October 2)

· "Referring to Castro…as president of Cuba is a travesty. He
is no more president of Cuba than Saddam Hussein was president of
Iraq. Dictators should be referred to by their proper titles," wrote
Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies for the University of Miami, in a letter to the
editors of Foreign Policy. (Foreign Policy, September-October 2003)

· Janet Weininger, the daughter of a CIA pilot, shot down and
executed during the Bay of Pigs invasion, sued the Cuban government
under an anti-terrorism law. His body was kept in cold storage for 18
years. His frozen body was displayed at a Cuban morgue in a glass case
"as an exhibit, as a reward," Weininger said "They would at times
spit in his face." Thomas "Pete" Ray's body was returned in 1979. An
autopsy concluded Ray died of a gunshot to the right temple. In 1998
the CIA acknowledged his role in the failed 1961 attempt to oust
President Fidel Castro. (The Wall Street Journal, October 2)