Cuban Colada

Castro attends a church service marking decade after the return of Elián González

President Raúl Castro on Wednesday attended a religious service marking the 10th anniversary of Elián González Brotons' return to Cuba from Miami, the Prensa Latina news service reported.
Elián is now a 16-year-old student at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military School in Matanzas province. He and his father, Juan Miguel, also attended the service, held at Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in the Vedado section of Havana.
(For an Associated Press report on their comments, click here. Cubadebate has photos.)
Others at the event, sponsored by the Cuban Council of Churches,  included Vice President Esteban Lazo, National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón and the Rev. Raúl Suárez, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center.
In 2000, the 6-year-old Elián, who had been rescued off Fort Lauderdale after the boat in which he traveled with his mother capsized, was at the center of an court battle between his father in Cuba and distant relatives in Miami who wanted to keep the boy in the United States.
Immigration agents removed the boy from the relatives' home on April 22. The legal case went to a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which on June 1 ruled that no asylum could be granted to the boy. Elián was returned to Cuba on June 28, 2000.

Ecuador to take back citizenship from 196 Cuban immigrants who obtained it illegally

The Ecuadorean Foreign Ministry will void the naturalization papers and withdraw the passports of at least 196 Cuban immigrants who married Ecuadorean citizens fraudulently, in order to gain Ecuadorean citizenship, the Quito media reported Wednesday.
The identification cards of 113 of those immigrants will also be voided.
In addition, the Foreign Ministry will ask for the dismissal of two Guayaquil notaries and one judge for legalizing phony documents that several of those Cubans submitted in their bid for citizenship.
The irregularities were committed between March 2009 and March 2010, authorities said.
The actions were announced by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño at a press conference in Quito. The photo shows him displaying a falsified document.
For background, read our blog items "Ecuador a choice destination for emigrants" (May 9) and "Marriages of convenience..." (May 31). For an account by the BBC, click here.

Cuban cardinal was in DC for one week

Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana, was in Washington from June 21 to June 28, the e-zine Progreso Semanal reported Wednesday in its Radar Cubano section. The visit was confirmed by Orlando Márquez Hidalgo, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Havana.
According to Progreso Semanal, "in those seven days, Cardinal Ortega 'held meetings that were coordinated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,' Márquez added, without naming the persons with whom the Cuban prelate met."
The president of the U.S. Conference and Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, traveled to Santiago de Cuba last week, June 23-24, at the invitation of that province's archbishop, Msgr. Dionisio García Ibáñez, president of the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops.
García and Ortega met with President Raúl Castro on May 19 to discuss the situation of political prisoners, so Ortega's visit to Washington may be somehow related to the human rights situation on the island.
(PHOTO SHOWS, from left, Cardinal Ortega, Msgr. Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign minister, and Msgr. Giovanni Angelo Becciu, Apostolic Nuncio in Cuba, during Mamberti's visit to Cuba two weeks ago.)

Syrian president ends visit to Cuba

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria arrived in Brasília on Wednesday after concluding a visit to Havana.
On Tuesday, the Syrian leader and his wife, Asma, visited the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana. As described by the Syrian news agency SANA, "the Center's staff briefed the President and Mrs. al-Assad on the advanced researches conducted there in the fields of genetic engineering and biotechnology and latest discoveries and applications in these fields, in addition to the potential for cooperation between the Center and relevant establishments in Syria."
The visitors "viewed some research activities and the production process for advanced medicine and vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis, meningitis, Alzheimer's and children's psychological disorders."
The Center, "which began work in 1986, is considered as one of the most advanced centers for genetic research and the development and production of vaccines and medicine in the world," the SANA dispatch says. "Its products are exported to over 124 countries."

No reason given for minister's replacement

In another Cabinet shift, Raúl Castro on Tuesday replaced his 59-year-old minister of Light Industry, José Silvano Hernández Bernárdez, with 47-year-old economist Damar Maceo Cruz. (See previous blog item.)
No reasons for the dismissal were given. The Ministry of Light Industry oversees the manufacture of clothing, shoes, furniture, textiles and other products.
In a public appearance in April, Hernández said his ministry expected to save 39 million pesos this year by manufacturing products that are usually imported.
Previous Cabinet changes involved the ministries of Sugar, Transportation and Agriculture.
A former Deputy Minister of Economics and Planning, Hernández was appointed to the Light Industry post in May 2006, replacing Estela Domínguez Ariosa. He had worked at E&P since February 2003; for the previous 10 years, he had served as president of the Cienfuegos Assembly of the People's Power. In 1999, he was honored as Outstanding Cadre of the State and Government.

Minister of Light Industry is replaced

Official note issued Tuesday by the Cuban government, as translated by The Miami Herald.
The Council of State, at the initiative of its president, agreed to release comrade José [Silvano] Hernández Bernárdez  from the post of Minister of Light Industry and, in his place, to promote comrade Damar Maceo Cruz, current First Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade.
Comrade Maceo Cruz, 47, holds a degree in Economic Planning. She has held various posts, from chief of the economic section in a warehouse, to department chief, chief accountant and commercial chief in Trade, Tourism and Gastronomy businesses; company director, deputy director of economics in a provincial trade directorate; chief accountant, deputy minister and first deputy minister at the Ministry of Domestic Trade.
Comrade Hernández Bernárdez will be assigned to other tasks.

Yale chorus is on a 10-day tour of Cuba

The Yale Alumni Chorus will embark Wednesday on a 10-day tour of Cuba with a concert at the Gener y del Monte Library in Matanzas.
The tour, authorized by the U.S. government, is at the invitation of the Instituto Cubano de la Música.
According to Radio Rebelde, the group will share the stage with the Matanzas Chamber Choir, led by José Antonio Méndez Valencia. The Americans are conducted by Jeffrey Douma.
Formed in 1997, the Alumni Chorus is formed by singers who call themselves "Ambassadors of Song" because of their annual international tours. The group's mission, its website says, is "promoting international harmony through choral music."
In their 2004 Gift of Song Tour, the chorus traveled to Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Its 2009 Voces Unidas tour took them to Guatemala and Mexico. The Cuba tour is called ¡Cantemos! – Let Us Sing.
For more information about the Yale Alumni Chorus, click here. For information about the Matanzas Chamber Choir, click here.
[UPDATE: The chorus sang Thursday in Havana, at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi; it will perform again on Saturday and Sunday at the Lázaro Peña Theater in Havana. Details here.][UPDATE 2: For a report on the Saturday concert, from Cubadebate, click here.]

Damascus reports on meeting in Havana

From a Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) dispatch on the meeting Monday between presidents Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Raúl Castro of Cuba:
Syria and Cuba stressed that the international community must shoulder its responsibilities to put an end to Israel's practices in the occupied Arab territories, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The two sides voiced support to the Palestinian people's legitimate struggle and to the brave attempts of activists from all over the world to end occupation and lift the inhuman siege on Gaza.
President Castro hailed Syria's firm stances on just issues, particularly its continued support for peoples' struggle against hegemony, stressing his country's support to Arab rights, especially the Palestinian issue and the return of the occupied Syrian Golan.
They discussed the historic relations between the two countries and the importance of benefiting from the common denominators between the two friendly peoples to boost these relations and open new cooperation prospects.
They also discussed regional and international developments and means of improving Arab-Latin American relations, stressing the need to double efforts to promote these relations up to the level of the historic bonds between the peoples of the two countries.
President al-Assad reiterated Syria's support to Cuba in its struggle against the embargo which has been imposed on it for more than half a century and against attempts to destabilize it.
Later, President Castro held a dinner banquet in honor of President al-Assad.
During the dinner, the two presidents completed their talks on relations between the two friendly countries and means of enhancing them.
For the entire SANA dispatch, which so far is more detailed than the news items issued by the Havana media, click here. For a look at the reasons for al-Assad's Latin American tour, in The Christian Science Monitor, click here.

Party sacks a scholar who wrote corruption has infected the top levels of government

Little more than two months after writing an article critical of corruption in high levels of government, Esteban Morales Domínguez, an expert on U.S. studies at the University of Havana, is being expelled from the Communist Party of Cuba.
The website Havana Times reported Monday that "the Playa Municipal Committee of the Communist Party communicated its decision to the grassroots level of the Party." According to Havana Times, "at this moment Morales is preparing his appeal."
The article, "Corruption: The true counter-revolution?", appeared April 12 on the website of UNEAC, the Writers and Artists Union. Within a couple of days, it was removed without explanation.
Its first three paragraphs said:
"When we closely observe Cuba's internal situation today, we can have no doubt that the counter-revolution, little by little, is taking positions at certain levels of the State and Government.
"Without a doubt, it is becoming evident that there are people in positions of government and state who are girding themselves financially for when the Revolution falls, and others may have everything almost ready to transfer state-owned assets to private hands, as happened in the old USSR.
"Fidel said that we ourselves could put an end to the Revolution and I tend to think that, among other concerns, the Commander in Chief was referring to the questions relative to corruption, because this phenomenon, already present, has continued to appear in force."
An English translation of the article was published on April 22 by the e-zine Progreso Weekly.
The article in Havana Times, by a former researcher for Morales, is worth reading. Click here.
For background, read our blog items "Article on corruption becomes a non-article" (April 18) and "Drive to stamp out corruption has begun" (April 20).

Egypt accepts credentials of Cuban envoy

Otto Vaillant Frías on Sunday presented his credentials as Cuba's Ambassador to Egypt to President Hosni Mubarak.
Vaillant, who was appointed to the post on Jan. 9 and took office three days later, was director of Computer Information and Communications at the Foreign Ministry. In 2008, he launched the Internet portal www.nacionyemigracion.cu, which is directed at Cubans living abroad.
Three months ago, he set up a cooperation agreement between the Cairo-based Middle East News Agency and its Cuban counterpart, Prensa Latina.
In addition to his post in Cairo, Vaillant is Ambassador to Sudan and Cuba's standing representative to the Palestinian National Authority.
The announcement of his appointment in Granma gave no personal background. Vaillant graduated in 1990 from the Higher Institute of International Relations.
For an interview the new ambassador gave The Egyptian Gazette, in English, click here.
Cuba and Egypt established diplomatic relations in September 1949.