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US-CUBA RELATIONS SINCE 1895
1895-98 US declares war on Spain. 1898 US defeats Spain, which gives up all claims to Cuba and cedes it to the US. 1902 Cuba becomes independent with Tomas Estrada Palma as its president. But the Platt Amendment keeps the island under US protection and gives the US the right to intervene in Cuban affairs. 1906-09 Estrada resigns and the US occupies Cuba following a rebellion led by Jose Miguel Gomez. 1909 Jose Miguel Gomez becomes president following elections supervised by the US, but is soon tarred by corruption. 1912 US forces return to Cuba to help put down black protests against discrimination. 1933 Gerado Machado overthrown in a coup led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista. 1934 The US abandons its right to intervene in Cuba's internal affairs, revises Cuba's sugar quota and changes tariffs to favour Cuba.1953 July 26 - Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful revolt against the Batista regime at the Moncada garrison in Santiago de Cuba. 1956 Castro lands in eastern Cuba from Mexico and takes to the Sierra Maestra mountains where, aided by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, he wages a guerrilla war. 1958 The US withdraws military aid to Batista. 1959 January 1 - Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Raul Castro and other revolutionary leaders march with a 9,000-strong guerrilla army into Havana. Castro becomes prime minister, Revolutionaries take control of Havana as the U.S.-backed leader, General Fulgencio Batista, flees the country, taking with him most of the Cuban National Bank reserves and various cohorts, torturers and mafiosi. April - Fidel Castro meets US Vice President Richard Nixon (ex-visitor and friend to Cuba's Mafia Chief Meyer Lansky) on an unofficial visit to Washington. Nixon afterwards wrote that the US had no choice but to try to "orient" the leftist leader in the "right direction". May 8, 1960 Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union resume. Aug. 6, 1960 Nationalization of U.S. and foreign-owned property in Cuba begins. Aug. 7, 1960 The Cuban Catholic Church (until then working hand in hand with the Batista dictatorship) condemns the rise of communism in Cuba. Castro bans religious TV and radio broadcasts. Oct. 19, 1960 U.S. imposes economic embargo on Cuba, except food and medicine. Jan. 3, 1961 President Eisenhower breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba. April 17, 1961 U.S.-supported (CIA-backed) Cuban exiles invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs where their attacks turn into the worst military defeat in U.S. history. Oct. 2, 1962 U.S. ports close to nations allowing their ships to carry arms to Cuba, ships that have docked in a socialist country are prohibited from docking in the United States during that voyage, and the transport of U.S. goods is banned on ships owned by companies that trade with Cuba. Oct. 14, 1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when U.S. reconnaissance aircraft photograph Soviet construction of intermediate-range missile sites in Cuba. Oct. 26, 1962 In a secret communication, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agrees not to break the U.S. blockade and offers to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba if the United States pledges not to invade Cuba and if President Kennedy would order Jupiter missiles removed from Turkey. Oct. 27, 1962 Cuba downs a U-2 plane. In a letter to Khrushchev, President Kennedy proposes immediate Soviet withdrawal of the missiles in exchange for an end to the blockade. Privately, the U.S. government informs the Soviet Union it will withdraw missiles from Turkey once the crisis ends. Feb. 8, 1963 The Kennedy administration prohibits travel to Cuba and makes financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for U.S. citizens. Oct. 26, 1962 In a secret communication, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agrees not to break the U.S. blockade and offers to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba if the United States pledges not to invade Cuba and if President Kennedy would order Jupiter missiles removed from Turkey. October 1965 Over 3,000 Cubans leave in a boatlift from Camarioca to the United States. Nov. 6, 1965 Beginning of the Freedom Flights program, which allows 250,000 Cubans to come to the United States by 1971. November 1974 U.S. officials conduct secret normalization talks with Cuban officials in Washington and New York. The talks end over Cuban involvement in Angola. October 1975 Cuba begins deployment of 35,000 combat troops to support the Marxist regime in Angola. Dec. 20, 1975 President Ford declares that Cuban involvement in Angola and support of the Puerto Rican independence movement ends efforts to improve relations. Feb. 24, 1976 Under a new constitution, Castro becomes head of the government, commander of the armed forces, and First Secretary of the communist party. Article 54 prohibits the establishment of religious organizations in opposition to revolutionary principles. March 18, 1977 U.S. government lifts prohibition on travel to Cuba and allows U.S. citizens to spend $100 on Cuban goods during their visits. September 1977 The United States and Cuba open interests sections in each others capitals. July 1979 Cuban-supported Sandinistas overthrow the government of dictator and U.S. crony Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. April 1980 10,000 Cubans storm the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. After the easing of immigration restrictions, a flotilla of refugees (eventually 125,000) begins an exodus from the port of Mariel in Cuba for the United States. April 9, 1982 Charter air links between Miami and Havana are halted by the U.S. government. May 20, 1985 Radio Marti begins broadcasts to Cuba. The Cuban government immediately jams the signal. Castro later suspends the 1984 U.S.-Cuban immigration agreement. March 23, 1990 The first test of TV Marti is launched. It is jammed by the Cuban government. 1991 The Fourth Communist Party Congress resolves to allow members of religious groups to join the party. 1992 July - Changes to the Cuban constitution include measures to attract foreign investment. The official designation of the Cuban government is changed from "atheist" to "secular." Religious discrimination is also forbidden. Oct. 15 - Congress passes the Cuban Democracy Act, which prohibits foreign-based subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, and family remittances to Cuba. The law allows private groups to deliver food and medicine to Cuba. 1994 August - Following Castro's declaration of an open migration policy, a new boat lift begins when 30,000 refugees set sail from Cuba as economic conditions continue to deteriorate. A "picket line" established by the U.S. Coast Guard prevents additional seaborne migrations. 1995 May. The U.S and Cuba agree to an accord that provides for the direct return of people on rafts leaving Cuba illegally.October. President Clinton announces the first U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grant to fund non-governmental organizations' pro-democracy projects in Cuba.The United Nations' General Assembly votes 117 to 3 (38 abstentions) to recommend an end to the U.S embargo of Cuba. Israel and Uzbekistan vote with the U.S. 1996 February - Cuban MIGs shoot down in international airspace two civilian aircraft belonging to the Miami-based and mafia-supported group Brothers to the Rescue. Three Americans and one Cuban legal resident are killed. March. President Clinton signs the Helms-Burton Act, officially named the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. The act formalizes the embargo on Cuba and allows lawsuits against foreign companies who deal with Cuban businesses once claimed by U.S. nationals. 1997 January. Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy travels to Havana in the highest level Canadian visit to Cuba since 1976.February. U.S. news organizations are permitted to open up bureaus in Cuba, but the Cuban government accepts only CNN.April. The European Union drops its World Trade Organization challenge to the Helms-Burton Act. The U.S. and EU agree to work together to resolve differences over the legislation. 1998 February - Pope John Paul II makes an historic visit to Cuba. May - European countries begin their call for an end to the embargo, some claiming that it violates international law. 1999 October. Illinois Governor George Ryan leads a group of businessmen to Cuba in the first visit by an American governor since before the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. November - A 5-year-old Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez, is found clinging to an inner tube off the coast of Florida, the only survivor from a boatload of refugees, including his mother, who were fleeing Cuba. 2000 June 28 - After an emotional legal battle that pitted Florida's Cuban-Americans against the Clinton administration, Gonzalez is handed over to his father, who returns with the boy to a hero's welcome in Cuba. December. Vladimir Putin makes the first visit to Cuba by a Russian leader since Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989. 2001 Following pressure from lawmakers in U.S. agricultural states, American firms begin exporting food to Cuba for the first time in four decades. January. President Clinton continues his policy of waiving the lawsuit provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.March. Cuban-exile soldiers and former Kennedy administration officials attend a conference on the 40th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Havana.July. President Bush suspends the lawsuit provisions of the Helms-Burton Act for six months, keeping with Clinton administration policy. 2002 January - The first detainees, alleged terrorists from the war in Afghanistan, arrive at U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. May - Fidel Castro welcomes former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on an historic visit to Cuba. Carter gives a live speech broadcast by Cuban television. September - The Cuban Government is particularly annoyed by the actions of James Cason, the head of the US Interest Section in Havana, who is increasingly active in support of the internal opposition. October 2 - Nearly 300 U.S. businesses, farmers and lawmakers from key farm states visited Cuba over the weekend for the first U.S. trade show on the Caribbean island in four decades, racking up sales of at least $66 million in cash. November 12 - American moviemaker Steven Spielberg is invited to Cuba by its Jewish community. After the showing of Minority Report, he visits a synagogue, meets Fidel Castro for a scheduled 20-minute conversation which turns into an 8-hour discussion, from 6:15 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. The next day, he tells reporters he is against the 40 year-old US embargo against Cuba, adding his meeting with Fidel Castro was "the most important 8 hours of my life". 2003 March 18 - A crackdown that appears timed to coincide with the world's focus on the impending U.S.-led war in Iraq, Cuba detains and imprisons dozens of dissidents, proving they are in the pay of the United States' James Cason. Many are involved in the Varella Project, a movement to reform Cuba's electoral system. 2004 May 6 - The Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, established by President Bush, issues a report calling for stiffer measures against the Castro regime. Among the most controversial is a call for the administration to curb visits to Cuba by Cuban-Americans as well as to halt remittances to families on the island. It also urges more funding for TV Marti and dissident groups. June 30 - Travel restrictions go into effect for Cuban-Americans, angering some in the community who had backed the administration's hardline stance against Castro. 2005 April 14 - A United Nations resolution in Geneva criticizing the human-rights situation in Cuba received 21 "yes" votes, 17 "no" votes and 15 abstentions. "It reflects the energy and effort that the president of the United States is putting into the push for democracy around the globe", said Ambassador Kevin E. Moley, U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. September - James Cason ends a three-year tenure at the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, a period noted by high-profile publicity efforts which, in the end, turned disillusioned, well-intentioned Cubans into frustrated, double-crossed, political prisoners. He may have made Himself the most outspoken U.S. diplomat to ever hold the post but for the serious observers, he was a troublemaker, a demagogue, a rude clown and a tool of a foreign policy which has failed for the last 44 years. The only ones that do not see it are the ones carrying it out. November 4 - US Trade With Cuba Steadily Rising According to U.S. Government figures, in 2000, Cuba was at the bottom of the pile of some 200 countries in terms of agricultural purchases from the United States. By 2004, Cuba ranked 25th, having bought nearly $400 million dollars worth of goods ranging from Louisiana and Texas rice to Washington apples, to cattle from Vermont and Maine. (...) A director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at Florida State University, has predicted that free trade with Cuba could generate $50 billion and 900,000 jobs for the United States over a 20-year period. Source : CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum November 8 - Nearly every country in the United Nations General Assembly (representing 191 nations) told the United States today to lift its four-decade old economic embargo against Cuba in a record vote of 182 to 4 with 1 abstention. The vote, held for the 14th consecutive year, was on a resolution calling for Washington to lift the U.S. trade, financial and travel embargo, particularly its provisions on penalizing foreign firms. Voting "no" were the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands, as in 2004. Micronesia abstained, as in 2004; El Salvador, Iraq, Nicaragua and Morocco did not vote, as in 2004. Last year the vote was 179 to 4, with several countries not voting at all. Source : Evelyn Leopold (Reuters). 2006 April 14 - Trade with China helps Cuba to move up a gear by Marc Frank Bilateral deals to restore the island's crippled transport infrastructure are picking up speed as China profits from high-level support. Cuba is turning to Chinese companies rather than western ones to modernise its crippled transport system at a cost of more than $1bn, continuing a trend of favouring the fellow Communist country that has made Beijing Cuba's second trading partner after Venezuela. Buses plying Cuba's highways increasingly come from the Yutong Bus Company and railway locomotives from the 7th of February works on Beijing's outskirts. Cuba's ports are being revamped with Chinese equipment, in part, to handle millions of Chinese domestic appliances that began arriving last year. Oil rigs along Cuba's northwest heavy oil belt boast Chinese flags, and this is only the beginning, says Fidel Castro, Cuba's president. Enabled by friendly ties with a government that is ready to resist US pressure, trade cover insuring low-cost credit, and what Mr Castro says are competitive prices and fuel efficiency, more buses, locomotives, train cars, trucks and cars are on the way. China reported 2005 bilateral trade between the two countries up to November was $777m, up 62.5 per cent year-on-year. The increase was mainly due to $560m in Chinese exports to Cuba, up 91 per cent. China has provided Cuba with about $500m in trade cover to develop communications and electronics. But direct investment between the countries is only about $100m. Plans jointly to produce nickel and cobalt have yet to materialise. But the commercial relations are still far re The first 1,000 buses plus spare parts cost $100m, to be paid over four years at 5 per cent interest, Mr Castro said at a ceremony where they were symbolically received. The deal, along with the other transport projects, was guaranteed by $400m in Chinese government trade cover, the sources said, overcoming whatever fears Chinese companies might have about doing business with the Caribbean island. there is no proof that the cuban govt has ever conducted any terrorist acts against the United States. Cuba was put on the state department's list of terrorist states in the early 1980s, replacing a country that was removed from the list -- Iraq. The Americans' convoluted attempt to justify it keeping Cuba on the list simply highlights the continued hypocrisy of their treatment of cuba. this one is particularly onerous because of the thousands of people killed in cuba from acts of terror based in the united states. Spain asked Cuba to accept a number of those they considered terrorists, Cuba agreed. there is no extradition treaty between US and Cuba -- if there was the situation with those terrorists living in cuba could be addressed. But then so would those terrorists like Posada and Bosch would be included, and the US does not want that. Maybe the report will lead to an addressing of this situation. cuba does not belong on this arbitrary american lists of "states that sponsor terror" they have no proof that cuba 'sponsored terror', but twist their own definitions to try and include cuba. it is despicable. Back in April, Obama lifted caps on Cuban-American travel to the island and the money that can be sent to relatives. But the official regulations that make those changes possible had not been published until now. The delay came because the rules were "not simple to write" and the people charged with drafting them were also saddled with other responsibilities, the White House said. "This gets the U.S. government out of the business of regulating the separation of Cuban families," a senior administration official told the Miami Herald. These changes take effect immediately: * People with relatives in Cuba can travel to visit a broader range of relatives, with no limit on the number of visits or how long they stay. Spending limit rises to $179 a day. * Items people can send to Cuba now include digital cameras, computers, seeds, fishing equipment, TVs and radios. Before, packages were limited to food and medicine. * The limit on the value of those packages is doubled to $800. * U.S. companies can provide telecom service between the United States and Cuba such as fiber optics, satellite radio and TV. * Anyone in the United States can now send a package to anyone in Cuba. Before, if there were five people in a single household, a person could only send them one package a month. Now Americans can send five. |
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