ad of a growing Soviet thrust. In return, the Cuban economy continuedto be supplemented by some $3 million in daily Soviet aid. Despite itsrelationship with the USSR, Cuba in 1979 played host to a meeting of theso-called nonaligned nations, at which Castro was chosen the group's leader forthe following three years.In 1980, when Castro temporarily lifted exit restrictions, some 125,000 refugeesfled to the United States before the outflow was again halted. The U.S.government accused Cuba of aiding leftist rebels in El Salvador; another sorepoint in U.S.-Cuban relations was the aid given by Cuban advisers to theSandinista government in Nicaragua. Several hundred Cuban constructionworkers and military personnel were forced to leave Grenada as a result of theU.S.-led invasion of that island in October 1983. Soviet leader MikhailGorbachev visited Havana in April 1989, when the USSR and Cuba signed a25-year friendship treaty, but Castro explicitly rejected the applicability ofSoviet-style political and economic reforms to his country. In July four armyofficers were executed and ten others sentenced to prison for smuggling anddrug trafficking, in the worst scandal since Castro came to power.With the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, Soviet-bloc aid and tradesubsidies to Cuba were ended, and Soviet military forces were graduallywithdrawn. After the United States tightened its sanctions against trade withCuba, the UN General Assembly in November 1992 approved a resolutioncalling for an end to the U.S. embargo. By 1993 all of the Soviet troops sent toCuba during the Cuban missile crisis had been withdrawn. Cuba's sugarcaneproduction dropped to a 30-year low in 1993 and worsened in 1994, precipitatingan economic emergency. As the effects of this poor yield filtered down throughthe population, greater numbers of Cubans attempted to flee the country foreconomic reasons. One such group hijacked a ferry and and attempted toescape, only to be cha...
