|
Published Thursday, October 5, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Castro presents photos to Trudeaus
Canadian Press.
MONTREAL -- True to his word, Cuban President Fidel Castro presented
Margaret Trudeau with a collection of personal photographs just hours before the
state funeral for her husband, ex-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Some snapshots, released Wednesday by the Cuban embassy, showed Castro
grinning and holding an infant Michel Trudeau on the prime minister's historic
visit to Cuba in 1976.
Michel died two years ago in an avalanche in British Columbia. His father
died Sept. 28 at age 80.
Castro made the presentation when he and Margaret Trudeau met for over an
hour early Tuesday at a downtown hotel.
One picture shows Margaret and Pierre Trudeau sharing a moment with Castro,
cigar dangling from his lips, as they flip through a photo album.
Other photographs captured scenes of Trudeau in recent years, leaning over
dinner tables in discussions with his longtime friend.
In a written statement released Monday, Castro had promised to give the
photos to the family and recalled holding Michel in his arms.
"The commander decided that these photographs belonged more to the
family and to the Canadian public in general,'' said Camilo Garcia, a spokesman
for the Cuban embassy in Ottawa.
From 1976 onward, Trudeau and Castro maintained a strong friendship that
observers say was based on an intellectual bond.
Trudeau visited Castro at least twice during the last 10 years.
Castro acted as an honorary pallbearer for the Trudeau family on Tuesday,
and sat directly behind Margaret Trudeau throughout the service in Montreal's
Notre-Dame Basilica. Outside, he embraced a teary-eyed Margaret Trudeau and her
two sons, Justin and Sacha.
Cuban agent eyeing asylum is sent home
Seized in Mexico, he is expelled, put on airplane to his homeland
By Andres Oppenheimer. Aoppenheimer@Herald.com.
A longtime Cuban intelligence agent who was seeking political asylum in
Mexico was put on a plane back to Cuba on Wednesday, hours after being seized on
the street as he was coming out of a meeting with a Mexican official, human
rights groups and government sources said.
Pedro Riera Escalante, a former Cuban consul in Mexico who according to
Mexican officials was a senior officer in Cuba's intelligence service, had been
discussing his asylum
with senior Mexican foreign affairs and Interior Ministry officials over the
past four weeks, officials said.
"This was most likely a trap by the Mexican government,'' said Rafael
Alvarez of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, who
had been contacted by the Cuban asylum-seeker in early September. "His life
is now endangered by this totally illegal extradition procedure.''
Mexico's Interior Ministry issued a communique late Wednesday, saying that
Riera Escalante was "a Cuban who could not prove the legality of his stay
in Mexico'' and was "forced to abandon the national territory.'' It added
that migration agents seized him at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday in Mexico City.
MEXICANS 'SUSPICIOUS'
A senior Mexican official told The Herald late Wednesday that "we were
very suspicious about his behavior. As an intelligence officer, he knew
perfectly well that he had to formally ask for asylum at the migration office,
and he never did it.''
"We suspect he may have been sent by Castro to create a political
scandal if we granted him asylum,'' the senior official said, adding that Riera
Escalante was planning to hold a press conference with human rights groups
today.
SUDDEN ENCOUNTER
According to Edelmiro Castellanos, a Mexico-based Cuban exile journalist
with Radio Martí, the two were coming out of a Sanborn's restaurant in
downtown Mexico City, where they had just met with José Luis Valles, an
official of the Interior Ministry's CISEN intelligence service.
At the meeting, Riera Escalante was told that his petition was going well,
Castellanos said. When they left, six armed men in civilian clothes seized them
on the street, shouting that they were immigration police, and pushed Riera
Escalante into a white van, Castellanos said.
"It was a matter of seconds,'' Castellanos said. "They didn't wear
uniforms and didn't present any IDs. They just knocked us down all of a
sudden.''
HELP FOR ASYLUM
Castellanos said he had introduced Riera Escalante to several Mexican
officials to help him get political asylum. In early September, the two went to
the Foreign Ministry, where they met with Undersecretary Carlos de Icaza and
another official, Daniel Tamayo.
They were told to go to the Interior Ministry, since Riera Escalante could
not request asylum at the Foreign Ministry if he was already in Mexico,
Castellanos said. But the Foreign Ministry officials said the matter would be
resolved favorably, he said.
Days later, Riera Escalante and Castellanos went to the Interior Ministry
and met with several officials, including Valles.
'PERSONAL CONTACTS'
"Riera was fully confident that he would be safe if he put himself in
the hands of the Mexican government,'' Castellanos said. "I told him to
file an official petition, but he said it would be best to first try the
'diplomatic' way, through personal contacts.''
Riera Escalante was Cuba's consul in Mexico between 1988 and 1994, and had
been an officer in Cuba's intelligence services for several decades, according
to Castellanos and Mexican officials. He is listed in the CIA's 1989 "Directory
of Officials of the Republic of Cuba'' as a second secretary at the Cuban
Embassy that year.
RANK OF MAJOR
On Sept. 5, he told officials of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez
human rights group that he had been an intelligence major with Cuba's
Directorate of Intelligence, specializing in "CIA activities against
Mexico,'' said Alvarez, an officer with the Catholic Church-related Mexican
human rights group.
"He told me he knew of many Mexican government officials who had worked
for the CIA, and that he feared reprisals from the Mexican and Cuban
governments,'' Alvarez said.
"Still, he decided to try to do things quietly, through personal
contacts.''
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald | 