State Department Says Officials On Island Share Data HAVANA -- As relations between the U.S. and Cuba sink to the lowest point in years, the two countries are cooperating in one key area of mutual interest: anti-narcotics operations. Despite increasing hostility and a lack of formal diplomatic ties, Cuba's top anti-narcotics officials regularly share information with the U.S. Coast Guard on drug traffickers passing near Cuba en route to the Bahamas and the United States, according to U.S. officials and a new State Department report. [continues 1022 words]
Charged In Cuba With Using a False Passport, a Reputed Colombian Drug Trafficker Is Beyond The Clutches Of Colombian and U.S. Authorities. BOGOTA - Even as Colombia extradites a record number of drug traffickers to the United States, one reputed capo is eluding capture and extradition in an unusual way: He is being held in Cuba on a charge of using a false passport. Havana has been slow to move on the charge against Hernando Gomez, and Colombian authorities say they have no news on their request for his extradition to Bogota to face charges here. [continues 525 words]
Strange things are happening in Cuba. Events in the island nation more and more resemble the surrealism that has infused all of Latin American literature with mysticism and, often, mayhem. First, Chinese President Hu Jintao came through Havana on his recent triumphal trip to Latin America, deliberately designed to usurp American influence in that region. One would have thought Cuba, with its eternal anti-Americano bugaboo, would have been Hu's first "hit" for investment. But no. Instead, the young Chinese president, who is peacefully expanding China's influence all over the world while America fights desperately in Iraq, offered no investment in oil exploration and only a pittance in nickel. This, after offering to invest $100 billion in Latin America in the next decade. [continues 649 words]
HAVANA - Past the potholes and puddles, the skinny dogs and scampering children, a stone stairway snaked its way through an ancient apartment building. Near the top, a woman sat in her living room collecting the cover charge: 19 cents for Cuban women, 38 cents for men, $1 for foreigners. It was a clandestine party organized by those who say they're the most persecuted members of Cuba's counterculture: Rastafarians. "A great many Rastas are in jail," said Eligio Flores Ruiz, 32. "The government doesn't accept us. They say we're a threat to the revolution. They're bothered by the fact that we're free thinkers." [continues 381 words]
President Fidel Castro characterized himself as a friend and admirer of Diego Maradona and said he hopes the Argentine former soccer superstar can return to Cuba, where he spent several years undergoing treatment for drug problems. "I hope he can come," Castro told reporters late Wednesday during a reception at the home of Argentine Ambassador, Raul Taleb. Maradona, 43, has been undergoing medical treatment in Argentina in recent weeks for serious lung and heart problems. The Cuban leader said he recently had a "friendly" telephone conversation with Maradona, who bears a tattoo of Castro's face on one leg. [continues 241 words]
HAVANA - Cuba's small farmers pledged to help fight the communist island's incipient drug problem Tuesday, saying they will watch out for and report others who grow, sell or use narcotics in the countryside. While the government earlier this month blamed the island's narcotics problem on foreigners who bring in drugs, the farmers' vow - in a letter published on the back of the Communist Party newspaper Granma - for the first time publicly raised the possibility that drugs are being grown here. [continues 322 words]
The Cuban government has announced a crackdown on vice, acknowledging that the country not only has a problem with drug use, but also with domestic production. The campaign was announced this week in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, which said that those found guilty of using, selling or growing drugs would lose their homes, among other penalties. The government decree also singled out prostitution and other antisocial offenses. The decree is the first public acknowledgment that some farmers were growing marijuana in the countryside. Although the government has always maintained that domestic drug use is lower than in surrounding islands, it has grown in recent years, at least partly because of Cuba's increased flow of tourists. Similarly, prostitution has flourished in recent years, catering to Europeans and other tourists. [end]
Cuba's small farmers pledged to help fight the communist island's incipient drug problem Tuesday, saying they would watch out for and report others who grow, sell or use narcotics in the countryside. While the government earlier this month blamed the island's narcotics problem on foreigners who bring in drugs, the farmers' vow for the first time publicly raised the possibility that drugs are being grown on the island. [end]
Administration Officials Looking For Pointers On Curbing Terrorism Are Focusing On A Little-Known Drug Control Task Force In South Florida. U.S. Coast Guard Liaison Office, Havana August 4 dawned here with the promise of another unexceptional day of tropical sunshine and afternoon squalls. Street vendors and beggars were already taking their positions along once-stately Prado Avenue in anticipation of the throngs of European tourists who had taken advantage of cheap holiday packages to visit Cuba. Serving as a backdrop to this seaside boulevard scene were crumbling mansions, their facades pocked with broken windows and supported by wooden props. [continues 4497 words]
Rastafarianism Attracts Followers Havana - It was a balmy night on a beachfront lot, and a salty breeze mingled with whiffs of ganja. Hundreds of young Rastafarians, many in dreadlocks or Bob Marley T-shirts, rocked to the steady lilt of live reggae. "A new generation of black youth is finding its identity, and it is filled with love," cooed singer Consureto, a dark, thin man in flowing African robes. "Yah, man," listeners shouted. It felt like Kingston or Montego Bay, but the concert took place this month on the outskirts of Havana and was attended by local Afro-Cubans, not rum-sipping tourists. Reggae concerts are increasingly common here, the most visible sign that Rastafarianism, the religion formed in Jamaican slums in the 1930s, is attracting a wave of black followers in officially atheist Cuba. [continues 1024 words]
HAVANA - Cuba announced Monday it was holding an alleged Colombian drug trafficker sought in his homeland and the United States and challenged the U.S. government to sign an agreement allowing the two countries to cooperate in the fight against narcotics smuggling. The Cuban government did not say whether it would hand over Rafael Miguel Bustamante Bolanos if such an agreement was signed. But it suggested it would be more cooperative if accords existed. ``The possibility now exists for the U.S. administration to show that it is truly willing to seriously undertake the fight against those grave scourges of humanity while avoiding a double-standard approach,'' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. [continues 178 words]
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba announced Monday it was holding an alleged Colombian drug trafficker sought in his homeland and the United States and challenged the U.S. government to sign an agreement allowing the two countries to cooperate in the fight against narcotics smuggling. The Cuban government did not say whether it would hand over Rafael Miguel Bustamante Bolanos if such an agreement was signed. But it suggested it would be more cooperative if accords existed. "The possibility now exists for the U.S. administration to show that it is truly willing to seriously undertake the fight against those grave scourges of humanity while avoiding a double-standard approach," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement published in the Communist Party daily Granma. [continues 321 words]
Items Compiled From Tribune News Services HAVANA, CUBA -- Cuba announced Monday that it was holding an alleged Colombian drug trafficker sought in his homeland and the United States and challenged the U.S. to sign an agreement allowing the two countries to cooperate in the fight against narcotics smuggling. The Cuban government did not say whether it would hand over Rafael Miguel Bustamante Bolanos if such an agreement was signed. But it suggested it would be more cooperative if accords existed. [continues 78 words]
The Cuban government yesterday announced the arrest of a convicted Colombian drug trafficker wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service and publicly called on the Bush administration to negotiate agreements to fight drugs and terrorism. Rafael Miguel Bustamante Bolanos, who escaped from an Alabama prison in 1992, was arrested in Havana on March 6 after the marshals service relayed news that he was in Cuba. The Cubans charged him and a Bahamian citizen with drug trafficking and document forgery, the Cuban foreign ministry reported. [continues 227 words]
HAVANA - Cuba said Monday it was holding an alleged Colombian drug trafficker wanted in his homeland and the United States and challenged the U.S. government to sign an agreement allowing the two nations to cooperate in the fight against narcotics smuggling. The Cuban government did not say whether it would hand over Rafael Miguel Bustamante Bolanos if such an agreement was signed. But it suggested it would be more cooperative if accords existed. "The possibility now exists for the U.S. administration to show that it is truly willing to seriously undertake the fight against those grave scourges of humanity while avoiding a double-standard approach," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement published in the Communist Party daily Granma. [continues 320 words]
The Former Drug Czar And Pr Hound Is Just Wild About What Castro Has Done For The War On Drugs GENERAL Barry McCaffrey met Fidel Castro on Saturday night, Reuters reports. It was love at first sight. In Havana on the Center for Defense Information's dime, the former drug czar spent twelve hours in meetings with the Cuban dictator--and his brother, the minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Raul. After the marathon session, McCaffrey announced, "Cuba is an island of resistance to the drug threat." [continues 278 words]
HAVANA -- A retired U.S. Army general said Sunday he talked for 12 hours with Fidel Castro and encouraged the Cuban president to release 250 political prisoners in this island's jails in an effort to encourage dialogue with the United States. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now a university professor visiting the island with the Center for Defense Information, told a news conference that Cuba did not present a military risk to the United States. "They represent zero threat to the United States," he said. [continues 402 words]
Former Cuban Official: Money Laundered Through Fidel's Accounts A former top aide to Cuban President Fidel Castro has provided WorldNetDaily with information he claims links the Cuban government to the international drug trade and money laundering. In an exclusive interview with WorldNetDaily, Ernesto Betancourt, who was Castro's special representative to the U.S. government during the earliest years of the Cuban revolution, stated that the Castro government retains its ties with drug trafficking, despite official Cuban denials. Betancourt also provided a written report on the current Cuba/drug connection, based in large part on an upcoming book on the subject. Disaffected by the communist orientation of Cuba's revolution, Betancourt, who had been International Monetary Fund governor for Cuba, fled to the U.S., where he later became the first director of Radio Marti, the Voice of America's Cuban service. [continues 683 words]
Nation Steps Up Enforcement Of Trafficking Laws HAVANA - As drug seizures in Cuba rise to unprecedented levels, the island's justice minister warned Tuesday that traffickers who smuggle drugs in the land of Fidel Castro face the ultimate punishment. "For humanitarian reasons, the death penalty doesn't please us. But the message gets through to drug traffickers," said Justice Minister Roberto Diaz. Cuban authorities last year seized more than 13 tons of drugs, more than they've taken in a single year since at least 1995. Drug-laden boats and planes coming from Colombia and other nations increasingly use Cuban airspace and territorial waters to hide from authorities as they head toward the Bahamas and the United States. [continues 543 words]
Retired General Expected To Speak With Military Just months ago, Marine Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm ran Pentagon operations for Latin America as chief of the Southern Command and was prohibited from contact with the Cuban military. Tuesday, citizen Wilhelm, 58, was in Havana on a fact-finding tour sponsored by the Washington, D.C., Center for Defense Information, a private, not-for-profit think-tank that specializes in security issues. "They're going down to talk to Cuban military. This is similar to trips that we have made before, albeit without someone of Gen. Wilhelm's stature," said retired Army Col. Dan Smith, a Vietnam veteran and director of research at the center. [continues 689 words]
Inside Cuba
