Word: cuban
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DIED. CHICO O'FARRILL, 79, composer, arranger and one of the creators of Afro-Cuban jazz; in New York City. Arturo O'Farrill, nicknamed Chico by Benny Goodman, spent most of his decades-long career in the background, writing and arranging music for the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, and even other arrangers, such as Quincy Jones. In 1950 bandleader Machito recorded O'Farrill's first major composition, The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite. In the late 1990s O'Farrill headlined his 18-piece big band, making weekly appearances at the Birdland club in New York City...
...award would mark another counterattack by foes of Castro, who fear that U.S. public opinion has turned against the embargo and are finding new ways to attack him. The families of the Brothers to the Rescue victims, for example, have won and collected almost $100 million in frozen Cuban assets. "Where else but the U.S. should we be able to vindicate the rights of individuals wronged by the governments of other nations?" asks Fernando Zulueta, a Martinez attorney...
Aside from the Cuban government, few dispute that Roque did Martinez wrong. In 1992, after apparently swimming to the U.S. naval base on Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, Roque, then 35, moved to Miami. He infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, which Castro considers a threatening paramilitary cell, and, as part of his front, sought a spouse. He chose Martinez, whom he met in a Bible-study group at his aunt's Baptist church. Says Martinez: "I was perfect for him because I was politically naive." Roque started an ardent courtship and, say court documents, in his secret communiques to Havana referred...
...could not be reached for this story, had a history of breaking hearts. While training in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, he wooed and married the daughter of a Soviet air force officer, then dumped her when he tired of life in Russia. Later he jettisoned a Cuban wife with whom he had had two children. His communiques reveal that Roque grew impatient with his Miami mission because he missed a girlfriend back in Cuba. That, says Martinez, explains why, shortly before he disappeared, he got a deluxe haircut and bought a stereo, expensive suits and a Rolex watch...
Among the forgotten remnants of America's rickety Cuba policy are the thousands of Cubans who served the U.S. during World War II. Since 1963, Cuban vets--who worked at the Navy's Guantanamo Bay base and in many cases saw combat--have been denied the pension benefits owed them under U.S. law. Washington has long maintained that the money would line Fidel Castro's pockets. But now at least 250 plaintiffs hope to have a class action accepted in federal court to obtain their money. Lawyers say that official Cuban pension files were destroyed by fire; the government claims...