While much of the world's attention was drawn to the war in Iraq, the Castro regime rounded up over 75 dissidents responsible for circulating a petition demanding human rights in Cuba, a crime for which many received 27-year prison sentences. Also, three men who attempted to hijack a ferry to the United States were executed immediately following summary trials. (The men were given several days to appeal their sentences, but they were executed first.)

In response to these affronts, HBO decided to remove "Comandante," Oliver Stone's adulatory "documentary" about Fidel Castro, from its May schedule. "In light of recent alarming events in Cuba," an HBO spokesman explained, the network decided "not to air Oliver Stone's film in May as scheduled. Had we aired the film in March, I don't think we would have had an issue with it. But now, the arrests and trials are an important piece of what's going on in Cuba, and the film's incomplete."

[Ed.: And what do you know? Cuba just won another three-year term on the United Nations Human Rights Commission, which appears to value alternative viewpoints.]

†