Cuba

  • Our man in Havana

    John Perry

    Alan Gross, a 62-year-old US citizen, has been imprisoned in Cuba since December 2009. He fell foul of the authorities while working for USAID, liaising with Cuba’s small Jewish community. The Washington Post earlier this month demanded his release, saying that ‘Cuba’s accusations stem from Mr Gross’s humanitarian work’. When he was convicted for ‘acts…

  • Five Cubans

    John Perry

    René González spent his 55th birthday on 13 August in a Florida prison. He and four colleagues, known in the UK as the ‘Miami Five’ and in the US as the ‘Cuban Five’, have been in prison since 1998. René is the least unlucky of the five, because his sentence of 15 years was the…

  • Letter from Cuba

    John Perry

    The old car was typical of Cuba.  This time it wasn’t a half-century old Chevrolet, but a slightly younger and less glamorous Lada.  Broken door handles and window-winders had been replaced by locally-made spares; the road was visible through a hole below the driver’s legs, ventilation came from a desk-top fan clamped to the dashboard. …