Yahoo! December 18, 2000
Cubans Pay Homage to Patron Saint
By Kevin Gray, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 17 (AP) - Nilson Torres walked barefoot for 21 days to the St.
Lazarus shrine, lugging bags of food and clothes and a cardboard box filled with
cigars, rum, and oil.
It took 43-year-old Jose Emilio Bolboyera five hours from his home to the
shrine crawling on his belly, wiggling and writhing along a country road and
dragging three cement blocks chained to his right leg - mostly as a sign of
penance.
Tens of thousands of other Cubans made the trek by bike or car beginning
Saturday night, paying tribute to St. Lazarus, a patron saint of lepers to whom
Cubans give annual thanks and praise for fulfilling wishes and miracles.
Most Cubans have made the journey at least once in their lives. By Sunday
morning, thousands of pilgrims had convened at the El Rincon church, 20 miles
outside of Havana, to offer their praise and thanks. The annual tribute is
called St. Lazarus Day, a local Catholic festival which is celebrated here every
Dec. 17.
Alberto Rodriguez made the trip for a third time this year - this time on
his stomach, because he was especially grateful. After praying last year to St.
Lazarus - known in Spanish as San Lazaro - he said his daughter miraculously
recovered from an ailment described by doctors as life-threatening. It took him
13 hours.
"She was deathly sick but this year was cured,'' said Emilio Garcia, a
friend walking alongside Rodriguez, urging him to keep twisting his dirt-caked
body toward the church entrance. "This is his sacrifice to San Lazaro for
his good fortune.''
As Rodriguez neared the church steps, friends and family urged him on with
chants of "You're almost there!'' and "Be strong!'' Rodriguez clutched
a cigar as another friend cleared dirt and debris from his path with a tree
branch. Like others, Rodriguez hoped to deliver San Lazaro gifts of flowers,
oil, wine, cigars, and other tokens of appreciation.
Tears welled in Rodriguez's eyes, his face twisted in pain. Once inside, his
body trembled as a priest pressed his hands on Rodriguez's head to bless him.
The small white church was lit up by dozens of purple and white candles.
Circles of cigar smoke wafted through the air. Off to the side, dozens placed
offerings of flowers and Cuban pesos in front of an encased statue of San
Lazaro, a bishop of the Catholic Church whose persona has been slightly altered
in Cuban folklore.
Lazaro is closely identified with Babalu Aye, an Afro-Cuban deity of the
sick in the African-influenced Santeria religion popular in Cuba. Popular lore
has it that Babalu Aye alone assumed all the sicknesses of his people to save
them.
The more popular depiction of Lazaro varies slightly with the version of the
church, said the Rev. Fernando Rivero, one of the priests at El Rincon church.
An encased statue inside the sanctuary showed a Lazaro dressed in a flowing
red robe, speckled in gold and silver. Outside, plaster statues of Lazaro on
sale showed a beggar with crutches and covered with sores as described in the
parables of Jesus Christ. The statues showed a man draped in rags and dogs
licking the wounds on his legs.
"More than 98 percent come for that San Lazaro,'' Rivero said. "That
version is basically an invention. It doesn't exist in Catholicism.''
The religious procession has been a long-standing tradition, despite Cuba's
only recent acceptance of religion since the revolution. The Cuban government
has never banned the annual pilgrimage, although heavy security is usually
deployed as past years have attracted dozens of dissidents.
Capping a 10-hour trek on foot, Gladice Contreras, 19, fell to her knees at
the entrance of the church. As she crawled, her face wrenched in pain, she held
out two plastic bags full of candles and cigars and bottles of rum.
"I told San Lazaro last year that if everything was going well in my
life, that my friends had jobs that my parents were healthy that I would bring
him these gifts. I just wanted to thank him for all that's he's brought me.''
Cuba Blocks Phone Calls From U.S.
By Kevin Gray, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 16 (AP) - The long-standing dispute over the U.S. trade embargo on
Cuba has taken a new turn: Angry that U.S. phone companies won't pay a new Cuban
tax, the Cuban government has blocked all phone calls from the United States.
As promised, the communist island blocked the calls Friday in retaliation
for the refusal of U.S. phone companies to pay a new 10 percent tax. Callers in
Cuba were able to phone the United States with some problems, but it appeared
that people in the United States could not get through to Cuba.
Cuba said last week it would cut direct links because U.S. telephone
companies have not paid the tax on the basic, per-minute long distance rate for
U.S.-Cuba calls. American telephone company officials said they did not intend
to pay the new tax because it is prohibited under the U.S. trade embargo.
"We're waiting to hear direction from the U.S. government on this,''
said Gustavo Alfonso, an AT&T spokesman in Miami.
It remained unclear if all service from the United States to Cuba had been
severed, or if the disruptions were temporary as calls start to be rerouted
through third countries - as has occurred in the past when direct service has
been cut.
An AT&T spokesman in Miami said U.S.-to-Cuba calls were being rerouted
through other countries, such as Canada. However, Worldcom, the No. 2 U.S.
long-distance carrier, issued a statement that implied the cut was total.
"Long distance calls placed by customers of U.S. long distance
providers are now being blocked by Cuba,'' Worldcom said in a news release.
After learning Friday that his Miami relatives could have trouble calling,
Cuban student Jesus Loureiro bought more than $40 worth of phone cards to make
20 minutes of calls to the United States from a public telephone.
"This is a total separation of family,'' Loureiro said, shaking his
head. "What's even worse, it's cheaper for them to call here than it is for
us to call there. So, really, this hurts me more than anyone else.''
Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s critics on Friday assailed the suspension
of phone links before the holiday season, when people on both sides of the
Florida Straits will call relatives.
"This obviously affects the human rights people and the dissidents on
the island, but more importantly, the families,'' said Joe Garcia, executive
director of the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami, a powerful exile
group.
Cuba imposed the tax to protest a U.S. law. The law helps the relatives of
three U.S. men killed when their planes were shot down by Cuban fighter jets in
1996 to collect on court-ordered sanctions against Cuba.
The Cuban-American group Brothers to Rescue says the men were shot down over
international waters off Cuba while searching for rafters trying to leave the
island. Cuba maintains the men violated Cuban airspace and flew over the island
to distribute anticommunist leaflets.
A judge awarded the men's families $188 million in damages in 1997. The
families hope to be paid at least part of the money through seizure of Cuban
funds in AT&T accounts frozen by the U.S. government since the 1960s. The
U.S. Senate passed a bill in October that would let them be paid from the seized
Cuban funds.
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