CUBA Developments

Developments

Day before California shook last week a serious temblor struck Santiago de Cuba and Oriente Province. Inhabitants ran for the parks. Though it was reported as the most serious quake since February 1932, when a large part of the city was destroyed, no one was killed, damage was not extreme. In the U. S. only seismologists were much interested.

After a four-day moratorium, the doors of Cuban banks opened slightly. Only currency deposits were accepted; withdrawals were limited until March 26 to 10% of commercial and savings accounts. Except for cinemas, business withstood the bank holiday reasonably well. Cinema houses closed in towns throughout the provinces due to the fact that managers had not only a cash shortage to contend with but bombs thrown by enemies of the Machado administration.

In Havana Leopoldo Fernandez Ros strolled to the corner with a friend to get a taxi. Senor Ros, once teacher of geography and history in the Havana High School, newspaper director and censor, was well known as organizer of President Machado's ruffianly strong-arm squad, the "Partida de la Porra" (Party of the Bludgeon). What he got was no taxi. A green automobile swung in to the curb. Somebody fired both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun. Sixteen slugs plowed through his chest, killed him instantly. One of the first at the scene of the assassination was Brigadier Antonio Ainciart, head of the national police, who put in a busy morning chasing reporters and smashing cameras. In the suburbs police stopped a green automobile containing three passengers and a sawed-off shotgun. They were arrested. Havanans expect the prisoners to develop suicidal tendencies in jail.

After perusing TIME'S Cuba story in the March 13 issue. Colonel Guerrerro, Chief Cuban Press Censor and Judge Advocate General of the Cuban Army, ordered TIME copies confiscated for the second consecutive week. Said he: 'If TIME keeps this up I shall feel like permanently prohibiting its entry into Cuba."

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