CUBAN MILITARY: A news chronology

(From stories compiled by FOCAL, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas)

2007

Cuban Military and Alliances

January 6: Over a hundred people were detained in Mayarí, Holguín, as part of an anti-drug operation conducted by the provincial police. The operation started in early November after a shipment of cocaine reached the coasts of the region when foreign drug traffickers disposed of their cargo at sea for fears of being caught. The police operation focused on the localities of Nicaro, the Guatemala sugar-cane mill and the municipality of Mayarí. (Cubanet, 6/1/07)

January 11: Raul Castro is firmly in control of Cuba and in a position to keep the island stable, at least for the short term, after his brother Fidel dies, a top US intelligence official told a Senate committee. Army Lt. General Michael D. Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also said that Raul, who's been Cuba's defense minister since the early 1960s, enjoys "widespread respect and support among Cuban military leaders who will be crucial in a permanent government succession." Maples' remarks, in a brief written statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provide the first glimpse into what US officials believe might occur in the months following Fidel's demise. Raul Castro took the reins of power after Fidel fell ill nearly six months ago. "In Cuba, Raul Castro is firmly in control as Cuba's acting president," Maples said, "and will likely maintain power and stability after Fidel Castro dies, at least for the short-term." The US intelligence community's top chiefs joined Maples in an annual Senate hearing on threats to US security. Though the hearing focused almost entirely on Iraq and terrorism, the testimony shed some new light on the intelligence community's latest thinking on Latin America. The outgoing Director of National Intelligence, John D. Negroponte, whose agency coordinates the work of 16 US spying organizations, said the "key drivers" that will influence events in a post-Fidel Cuba are "how cohesive the governing elite will remain in the absence of Cuba's iconic leader, how astute Raul Castro proves to be as his brother's successor, and how much pressure the population will exert on the government in seeking economic and political reforms." (McClatchy Newspapers, 11/1/07)

February 13: In the Ranchuelo municipality of Villa Clara, more than a hundred people received a call to create an anti-riot brigade. A local neighbor informed that the meetings were presided over by Lt. Col. Alio Gil, head of the Municipal Army Recruitment Office, along with an Army Counter Intelligence (CIM) officer. In each of the meetings, the CIM representative outlined the expediency of gathering volunteers to create shock brigades, which would receive training on how to deal with peaceful political activists and other opponents of the government. (Cubanet, 13/2/07)

February 26: Operation Caguairán, which began in mid-2006 with the objective of training and improving troop mobilization and deployment as well as the systematic preparation of reservists and militia members, is successfully underway in the territory covered by the Western Army, according to General of the Army Raúl Castro Ruz, second secretary of the Party and minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. He affirmed that the task is being carried out with similar effectiveness throughout the rest of the country. This Army and all of the Armed Forces have fully earned, in a way that they rarely have done until now, the description of outstanding, Raúl said, at the conclusion of the Military Council. Among others, the meeting was also attended by members of the Political Bureau of Cuba's Communist Party, Ricardo Alarcon, Carlos Lage and Esteban Lazo, as well as by Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and chiefs from the Armed Forces. (Granma International, Prensa Latina, 26/2/07)

February 27: The former chief of Cuba's military medical services is calling for international weapons inspections of a secret underground lab near Havana, where he says the government is creating biological warfare agents like the plague, botulism and yellow fever. Roberto Ortega, a former army colonel who ran the military's medical services from 1984 to 1994, defected in 2003 and now lives in South Florida. Ortega went on the Spanish-language media circuit to denounce what he claims is an advanced offensive biological warfare weapons program. He spoke at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies where one angry heckler stormed out accusing him of deliberately sowing fear among Cuban exiles. "They can develop viruses and bacteria and dangerous sicknesses that are currently unknown and difficult to diagnose," Ortega told the press. Ortega said he told the CIA nearly two years ago about an underground Cuban facility southwest of Havana. The maximum security lab dubbed "Labor One" has an above-ground civilian cover and employs dozens of scientists, he said. But in the underground facility, scientists reproduced and stockpiled deadly germs and bacterias collected in Africa, he added. He visited the lab in 1992 when he accompanied a high-level Russian military delegation, he said. Ortega is believed to be the first defector with details of such an alleged biological warfare facility, said University of Miami professor Manuel Cereijo, who studies Cuba's biotechnology and terrorism issues. Ortega said he has come forward now because he did not see the CIA taking public action on his information. The CIA and the US State Department declined to comment. The Cuban government has denied such programs exist. (The Miami Herald, 27/2/07)

March 2: Fewer drug traffickers are using Cuba as a corridor to the United States thanks to tough enforcement and cooperation with other countries, the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma said. Cuba intercepted 1.7 tonnes of marijuana and cocaine in 2006, the lowest level of seizures in 11 years, it said. Smugglers fly shipments of narcotics up from Jamaica and Colombia and drop bales into the sea between thousands of uninhabited islands off Cuba's north coast for pick up in speedboats that ship the drugs to the US market. Severe prison sentences and the exchange of information with police forces of neighboring countries -- though not the United States -- have helped crack down on the illegal trade, Granma said. "The shipments decrease. The routes of international drug traffickers are moving away from our coasts," the paper said. (Reuters, 2/3/07)

March 12: Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro warned against an invasion of his country, saying the price paid by invaders would be high. "If anyone attacks us, we're ready to pay any price necessary, but the price paid by the invaders of our country would be much higher," said the 75 year-old during a speech to troops participating in military exercises in the western Pinar del Rio province. Raul, who has been the Caribbean country's defence minister since 1959, called the Cuban revolution "unbeatable." The exercises are to help the country improve the preparedness of its armed forces, he said, adding that Cuba is training its military for the presence of an enemy politically committed to the destruction of the revolution. This year's war games are being billed as the largest mobilization of reservists and active members of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces since the 1961 Bay of Pigs and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Soldiers are engaged in artillery and missile launches, combat practice and naval and air drills. Civilians of all ages dressed in blue militia uniforms carried government-issued rifles and handguns for drills to defend their towns against surprise invaders, while civil defense units put out staged fires and evacuate residents from their homes. Cuba's state-owned TV picked up the patriotic beat, running old news reels of past military exercises and speeches to rally the nation. (People's Daily, NBC News, 11/3/07)

March 30: Interim Cuban leader Raúl Castro confirmed that a massive mobilization of security forces was ordered after his brother Fidel underwent surgery eight months ago.   "This popular mobilization, in silence, without the least boasting, guaranteed the preservation of the revolution from any attempted military aggression," he was quoted as saying by the Communist Party's Granma newspaper. Addressing senior military leaders Friday, Raúl Castro said "Operación Caguairán" -- named after a hard Cuban tree also called "ax breaker" -- was ordered because he could not rule out that, in the face of his brother's ailment, someone in Washington could "turn crazy." Cuba did not publicly reveal the mobilization when it was ordered, just hours after it was announced on July 31 that Fidel Castro was "temporarily" surrendering power because of the surgery. He remains largely absent from public view eight months later, but is reported to be recovering. The mobilization covered 200,000 Cubans. Raúl Castro said the mobilizations were carried out successfully. Large numbers of uniformed but unarmed soldiers and extra police were visible in the streets of Havana immediately after the July 31 announcement. Granma earlier reported that mobilized soldiers had been practicing combat tactics, firing antiaircraft rockets, using computer simulators and sniping, but gave no numbers. "Never before, except in the times of the Bay of Pigs [1961] and the Missile Crisis [1962] had Cuba undertaken in its national territory such a mobilization of its troops in such a scale," the newspaper said. (EFE, Granma, The Miami Herald, 31/3/07)

May 14: Cuba has renovated its aircraft fleet with three Russia-made Il-96-300 passenger planes. Cuban officials said Russia's liners have already begun regular international flights. "Russia's state-of-the-art planes meet high security standards and will fly different routes,"  Cubana de Aviacion President Arturo Bada said. He pointed out that Russia's aircraft will be used for humanitarian programmes within the framework of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, an international cooperation organization based upon the ideas of social, political and economic integration between Latin America and the Caribbean. (Itar-Tass, 14/5/07)

May 21: A delegation of 93 students from the Venezuelan Air Force Academy, headed by its Director, Brigade General Mauro Hernán Araujo, began a one-week instructional visit to Cuba. This is the second visit by the Venezuelan military to Cuba in the last three months. Approximately 250 officers and cadets from the Venezuelan Joint Academy for Advanced Studies on War visited the island in mid February "to exchange experiences." (EER, 22/5/07)

June 2: Cuba's Army General Raul Castro confirmed the country's preparedness to face weather phenomena, in a meeting in Havana with members of the Civil Defense direction and the Meteorology Institute, Granma daily reported. "This system is obliged to train better and better, due to complexities of times approaching since the climatic point of view and phenomena of another nature," Raul Castro stated. In the Institute of Meteorology, the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces minister reiterated modernization not only with rigorously scientific, but also rational conceptions from the material and financial perspective. He praised, among others, labors of the Forecast Center led by Jose Rubiera and the Marine Meteorology in the modernization of the central node of the national meteorological network. (Prensa Latina, 2/6/07)
June 6: President Hugo Chavez called for the creation of a common defense pact between Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia, while the leftist Latin American bloc announced the creation of a development bank to finance joint projects. Chavez said that the four-nation Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, which began as a socialist-leaning trade group, should cooperate militarily to become more independent of US influence. "It seems to be the moment to establish a joint defense strategy," Chavez said. He called for joint military aid as well as intelligence and counterintelligence cooperation "to prepare our people for defense so that nobody makes any mistake with us." Chavez denounced countries in the region that collaborate with the United States on defense and security through the Washington-based Inter-American Defense Board. He said closer defense cooperation was necessary because of "the terrorism and permanent aggression of the United States." "How much longer shall we attend the meetings of the Inter American Defence Board?" "The time has come for the conception of defence strategies, joint training and procurement of equipment, of military, intelligence and counterintelligence support among ourselves, and the preparation of our nations for defence", he stressed according to a report in front page of Cuba's official daily Granma. The Venezuelan president demanded from his friend and ally Fidel Castro to wear his olive green uniform again. "I think it's time for you to wear your uniform again", Chavez said. "We want to see you in uniform", he added. "This is an order". (AP, Granma, AFP, 7/6/07)

July 2: A delegation of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), headed by the General Staff chief, Francisco Pereira Furtado, concluded a visit to Cuba, which was aimed at reinforcing the co-operation between the two countries. The Angolan military delegation was in Cuba since last June 19, and held official talks with the deputy minister of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, Álvaro López Miera. (Angop, 2/7/07)

July 12: A visiting delegation from the Higher School of Air Combat of Venezuela (ESGA) toured the José Martí Military Technical Institute and the home base of the Playa Girón Air Force Brigade. The delegation, comprised of officers studying at ESGA as well as teaching personnel, was led by ESGA director Brigade General Wilsson Ricardo Marín Leal. The Higher School of Air Combat has played a pivotal role in the training of officers from the Air Force and from other components of the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela. Both tours were also attended by Brigade General Ramón Martínez Echevarría and other senior staff and officers of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). (Granma, 12/7/07)

July 26: In his 26 of July address to the nation, Raul Castro said that military operation "Caguairán" will continue throughout 2007. "Hundreds of thousands of militiamen and reservists" have carried out the military operation "Caguairán" since mid 2006 and "it shall continue", Raul emphasized. "We cannot fool around with defense!". "Operation Caguairán will carry on in the next months (…) and will have as its crowning glory the Bastion 2008 Strategic Exercise which will take place at the end of the year", he added. [Speech by Raul Castro] (Granma, 27/7/07)

August 1: The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) reiterated its friendship and cooperation ties with the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the PLA foundation. The ceremony, held at the Universal Hall of the Armed Forces Ministry in Havana, was presided over by Corps General Alvaro López Miera, head of the FAR's Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Evidence of our friendship and cooperation is the exchange of visits," said Division General Leonardo Andollo Valdés recalling the visit to Beijing of Cuban First Vice President and Army General Raúl Castro in April 2005 and the visit to Havana last May of his Chinese counterpart Colonel-General Cao Ganchuan. Andollo praised the achievements of the Chinese people in the economic sector and in strengthening the socialist ideology and also praised the role of the PLA not only in guaranteeing the defense of the homeland but also in the country's social and economic development. For his part, Sun Yi Fan, military attaché of the Chinese embassy in Havana, referred to the close links of comradeship and brotherhood that exist between the military of both countries and made a call to further develop them. (ACN, Granma, 2/8/07)

August 27: Cuba has been upgrading its military arsenal since Fidel Castro fell ill 13 months ago, to defend itself against a possible US invasion, senior officers told Trabajadores weekly. "In the irregular combat we would face in Cuba in case of an ivasion, the engineering, infantry and artillery systems we produce and repair here are of vital importance, because they're designed for the agressor's direct assault," said Lieutenant Colonel Pascual Machado, chief coordinator of Cuba's Military Industrial Firm (EMI). EMI director, Colonel Arturo Torres, told the weekly the facilities he runs "have increased their production level since 1998 more than four-fold." Weapon systems that have been upgraded in precision targeting and destructive capabilities include munitions, grenades, land mines and anti-tank rockets, Trabajadores said. As an example, the weekly said a laser-guided targeting system called VILMA, has boosted the AK-M automatic rifle's precision by 80-90 percent, regardless of the shooter's skill level. (AFP, 27/8/07)