CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

MOURNING CELIA CRUZ

Salsa singer's fans say loss feels like a death in the family

By Jordan Levin, David Ovalle and Fabiola Santiago. Fsantiago@Herald.Com

In life, Celia Cruz's award-winning music celebrated la vida, mourned the lost homeland and spoke of the need for Latinos in the United States to put aside their national differences and unite.

The legendary Queen of Salsa would have liked the odes to her life delivered Thursday.

In the aftermath of her death Wednesday at 77 from brain cancer, those touching songs bound together mourners from all over the Americas who gathered to pay their respects in Miami and New York, her two homes in exile.

In New York, a private wake was held for Cruz's family Thursday. In Miami, hundreds filled St. John Bosco Catholic Church in Little Havana, a refuge to many early exiles like Cruz, who fled Cuba in 1960.

It was la gente del pueblo, ordinary people with broken hearts, who turned out Thursday night for a special Mass at San Juan Bosco, as the church is known in the Latin community.

Many said they came because Cruz's warmth and spirit had touched them.

They spoke of her as if she were a close relative.

''I grew up listening to her music in the Dominican Republic,'' said Flor Ventura, who attended the service with her mother, Graciela Estrella, and 8-year-old daughter, Nicole. "Her music was part of us Dominicans. And I never heard anything negative about her. She was a role model for everyone.''

''She inspired me to learn how to dance salsa,'' said Nicaraguan Cristóbal Mendoza.

''I felt like she was family, even though I never met her,'' said Anabelle Velásquez, of Peru.

Those who had met her, even if just a fleeting moment, said they have never forgotten the experience.

Magaly de Castillo, 59, and her mother Amelia Alvarez, 78, first met Cruz at a store in 1959 Havana when Castillo was 15.

Cruz was there with fellow singer Olga Guillot, who scolded Castillo for buying chocolate.

Cruz, who was already famous, defended the young girl: "Leave her alone, she is a skinny one.''

''She was a very humane person apart from being a star,'' Castillo said.

''She was the greatest of Cuba. There'll never be another like her,'' said her mother.

Everardo Castillo, 70, who went to the Mass with wife Ermelina, only met Cruz once some years ago, but ever since then, he said, Cruz sent him a birthday card.

''We are very sad over the loss,'' he said.

Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, who attended the service, said Cruz touched him personally.

''For my generation of Cuban Americans who were born here she was very special,'' Penelas said. "We never had the pleasure of being in Cuba. Yet through her music she brought us a piece of Cuba. We knew Cuba through her and her music and her spark.''

Friends and family who attended the Miami service weren't surprised that Cruz's death had touched so many people.

''There are people who are born with the capacity of giving everything they have,'' said Frank Hernández, who said he was Cruz's nephew. "Celia Cruz did this everyday. It was in her to give everything.''

César Campa, who identified himself as a close family friend, called Cruz, "the greatest and most loving person in the world.

''With her music,'' he said, "she gave all her love to the world.''

It was an emotion-filled service.

As the day began to dim in Little Havana, a steady trickle of people flowed into St. John Bosco Church, slowly filling the white-raftered airy church. A black and white portrait of a broadly smiling Cruz was placed before mourners on a wooden post near the altar.

The service started solemnly with a procession and blessing, but the Rev. Alberto Cutié, known as Padre Alberto in the community, soon lightened the tone.

''We're here with the queen of flowers and the queen of charity,'' Padre Alberto said. ''But tonight we are offering this Mass for the queen of salsa. They say that there is big problem in Heaven. They've been singing Gloria in excelsis Deo. Now they've got to start learning to sing Quimbara,'' in reference to one of Cruz's liveliest and most African salsa songs. The crowd laughed and applauded.

Padre Alberto celebrated Cruz's life.

"Enjoying life is an undeniable sign of the presence of God. You're not going to see any sad saints. [Cruz] was always happy, always smiling.''

In cyberspace, Latin music groups were jammed with messages from colleagues and fans who recalled their experiences with la guarachera de Cuba -- her first and truest title.

''I have no doubt her legacy will continue on through her music. She was one of a kind,'' wrote Jimmy Castro on the Latinjazz group in Yahoo. "I will always cherish the time I spent with her in Philly during a radio interview. She said she wouldn't hold my name against me. What a great performer and human being!''

On New York's Upper East Side, a crowd of about 25 mourners and gawkers stood alongside TV news crews outside Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, where a private memorial service was held Thursday afternoon.

A row of stacked barricades rested against the building's main entrance, awaiting the much larger throngs expected to turn out Monday for the public memorial services.

The singer's husband, Pedro Knight, whom she lovingly called ''my little cottonhead,'' was seen leaving the funeral home around 4 p.m. en route to Miami to attend the scheduled services here.

Among the mourners was Silvia Rodríguez, 47, of Cárdenas, Mexico, who was on vacation in New York.

''I came here today because I wanted to pay tribute to an artist the likes of which we'll never see again,'' Rodríguez said.

"There will never be another salsera like her. To me, La Celia has not passed away, because her music will live on forever, whether you're from Mexico, Cuba or anywhere else in the world.''

In Little Havana, one mourner poured his feelings all over the windows of his black Ford Explorer. ''Azúcar,'' he scrawled on one window, a tribute to Cruz's trademark chant. And on another: "Celia, tu pueblo nunca te olvidará.''

Celia, your people will never forget you.

Herald staff writer René Rodríguez contributed to this report.

Admirers remember 'icon to Latin America'

By Lydia Martin. Lmartin@herald.com

Celia Cruz is dead, and Miami is officially in mourning. You see it in the red eyes of the cashier at the Amoco on Biscayne Boulevard and 32nd Street. You hear it in the voices of the callers flooding Cuban radio phone lines.

On the chunk of Little Havana sidewalk that bears Cruz's star, fans streamed by Thursday, leaving roses and carnations while Cruz's songs blasted from a boom box. One person left a bag of Dixie Crystals sugar in memory of her famous "Azúcar!''

And as statements poured in from the White House, from the Grammys, from celebrities all over the world, Miami leaders gathered in dark suits at the Shrine to Our Lady of Charity in Coconut Grove to announce plans for the Queen of Salsa's memorial Saturday.

Her body will be flown to Miami from New Jersey, and will lie in state from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday inside the Freedom Tower, where thousands of Miami's Cubans were processed upon beginning their lives in exile.

''What Celia always wanted was freedom for Cuba and that's what the Freedom Tower represents,'' said Jorge Plasencia, spokesman for the Hispanic Broadcasting Corp, who has been planning Miami's farewell with Cruz's husband and manager.

The mayors of Miami and Miami-Dade County, along with their police chiefs, auxiliary bishop Agustín Román, the Cuban American National Foundation's Joe Garcia and music mogul Emilio Estefan came together at the shrine to announce a portion of Biscayne Boulevard will be closed to traffic for a funeral that will feature a color guard, mounted patrol and, organizers hope, a horse-drawn carriage carrying Cruz's body to a Mass at Miami Gesú Catholic Church.

It may seem like a lot of pomp, but it's very personal to the people who have been working for weeks to hammer out the logistics.

On Thursday, they weren't just suits making the announcements. They were folks who, like much of Latin Miami, think of Cruz's death as a death in the family.

''My parents listened to her, and I listened to her and my children listen to her. Not many performers can say that. She was a true pioneer,'' Miami Mayor Manny Diaz said.

Thousands are expected to pay respects at the Freedom Tower and join the procession to the Mass.

''I feel the pain like she was family,'' Estefan said. "She was a woman who broke down barriers, who was an icon to all of Latin America. She was the biggest and she was the simplest.''

She may have been the simplest, but it's few who elicit official response from the president upon their death.

''Celia Cruz was an international artist whose voice and talent entertained audiences around the world,'' President Bush said. "Her success in the years following her departure from her beloved Cuba was a tribute to her perseverance, compassion, and love for life.''

Said U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart: "A piece of Cuba has died.''

Dozens of entertainers expressed their loss.

Salsa star Marc Anthony, who graced many stages with Cruz, said: "Her spirit will live on in the memories of those of us who knew and loved her, and in the hearts of those who will thank the heavens when they discover her music in the future.''

Said singer-songwriter Alejandro Sanz: "At death as in life, Celia's attitude gave us consolation and hope, like religions do. She was a reason to have faith. It wasn't sugar, but salt that she had.''

Producer and songwriter Desmond Child summed up what many were feeling: "Our Latin community has lost its mother.''

Herald staff writers Jordan Levin and Luisa Yanez contributed to this report.

Few words, deep sadness as Cuba deals with the loss

By Nancy San Martin. Nsanmartin@herald.com

The two-paragraph announcement on the death of Cuban salsa queen Celia Cruz was buried deep inside Granma, Cuba's communist party newspaper. Government radio broadcasters briefly noted her passing in the daily morning news roundup.

But the scant attention from the official media Thursday did little to muffle the sadness in the hearts of many Cubans in a country with a soul lifted by music.

LOSS LAMENTED

Ordinary Cubans and artists alike lamented the loss of one of the world's most famous Cuban-born divas.

''Singer Celia Cruz has died,'' announcers on Radio Rebelde declared early Thursday in the daily news update.

''That's all they said, nothing more,'' Ana Leonor Díaz, an independent journalist in Havana, said in a telephone interview. "I couldn't believe it.''

''I was a little girl when Celia sang here,'' said Díaz, 57. "I never saw her perform, but I remember her voice. It was unmistakable. The news of her death really affected me.''

At her former home in Havana's Lawton neighborhood, Cruz's relatives held a small memorial service, the Associated Press reported. Candles on an altar set up inside the home flickered alongside photographs of the late singer.

''She was a marvelous woman, indestructible and never equaled,'' Silvia Soriano, a cousin, told AP.

Cruz, whose path to stardom began in the 1950s with the legendary Afro-Cuban group La Sonora Matancera, left her homeland for the United States in 1960, the year after Fidel Castro rose to power.

Labeled anti-revolutionary by the government because of her public anti-Castro stance, Cruz's music was not aired on state-run television or radio stations. But her name was widely known across the island, particularly among the older generation, and her lyrics made their way into Cuba during her 43 years in exile.

Her song from the 1950s, El Yerbero Moderno (Modern Herbalist) for example, remains popular and is often played over the radio, but the voice is not Cruz's.

''She's an artist that is never mentioned here,'' Díaz said. "It's sad, really. It's a loss that simply won't be duly recognized.''

Granma acknowledged Cruz as an ''important Cuban performer who popularized our country's music in the United States.'' But it also said that "during the last four decades, she was systematically active in campaigns against the Cuban Revolution generated in the United States.''

HIGHLY REGARDED

But the 77-year-old singer was highly regarded among music lovers.

''Everybody is feeling it,'' said a 73-year-old Havana woman who survives by renting bedrooms to foreigners in her seafront apartment. "I don't know how the news got here, but I heard she died from somebody who dropped by and everybody is talking about it.''

''Young people don't know her, but us older folks, we remember her well,'' the landlord, who asked not to be identified, said by phone.

Even as the government made efforts to squelch Cruz's fame, her music remained popular at family gatherings where visiting relatives from the United States often brought her latest hits as gifts.

Some of Cuba's most famous artists also paid homage to Cruz by remaking her music.

NO. 1 HIT

Three years ago, Cuban singer Issac Delgado, known as ''El Chévere de la Salsa'' did a recording of a Cruz song, La vida es un carnaval (Life Is A Carnival), which became the country's No. 1 hit.

A product of the revolution, born in 1962, Delgado called Cruz's death, ''a monumental loss'' to the music industry, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

''Celia has become a cultural patrimony of humanity,'' Delgado, who worked with Cruz in 1999 in Spain, told EFE. "She is an artist who truly always carried in her lips the name of Cuba.''

Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

Latin radio, TV on Cruz control

By Howard Cohen. Hcohen@Herald.Com

Celia Cruz's last major hit was entitled La negra tiene tumbao which roughly translates, The Black Lady Has Swing.

Even in death, this beloved black lady has swing in South Florida.

Cruz, who died Wednesday at 77 after a battle with brain cancer, dominated Spanish-language radio and television airwaves Thursday and shows little sign of abating.

Telemundo (WSCV-51) rebroadcast a 1999 homage to Cruz while Univisión's (WLTV-23) news and entertainment show, El Gordo y la Flaca, was devoted to the singer.

Pío Ferro, national programming director for Spanish Broadcasting System, owner of several South Florida Spanish-language radio stations, said the salsa star's death converted the conglomerate into a Cruz marathon.

''We basically turned all our programming to Celia's music,'' Ferro said.

Lázaro Lorenzo, assistant programmer of WRTO-FM (98.3), a Hispanic Broadcasting Corp. station, vows to play two Cruz songs every hour through the weekend.

Even the English-language media is honoring the Cuban singing legend with Celia Cruz: Loss of a Legend, a tribute special, airing on WFOR-CBS4 at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Listener response overwhelmed.

On WAMR-FM 107.5 (Radio Amor) Thursday, singer Willy Chirino said Cruz was ''an icon for us Cubans -- like the flag,'' as host Betty Pino sobbed.

The major music chains, Spec's and Virgin, reported brisk sales for all things Celia. ''They are flying off the shelves,'' said a manager at the South Miami Virgin.

Herald staff writers Daniel Chang and Jordan Levin contributed to this report.

MORE COVERAGE

Cuban boat was hijacked, passengers' stories imply

By Jennifer Babson. Jbabson@herald.com

KEY WEST - One day after U.S. authorities stopped a Cuban government-owned boat as it meandered toward Florida, FBI agents and a federal prosecutor flew to the Coast Guard cutter where its 15 passengers are being held, after initial interviews suggested the vessel may have been hijacked after all.

Criminal investigators were dispatched to the cutter after several of the Cuban passengers implied or told an interviewer that they were forced along on a ride through the Bahamas toward Miami after the vessel was taken Tuesday from the Cuban port of Boca de Nuevitas, sources familiar with the investigation told The Herald.

The Cuban government said Tuesday after the boat had left the island that it had been hijacked.

Investigators are also trying to determine if there are grounds to prosecute some passengers who allegedly brandished knives as Coast Guard officers tried to board the boat late Wednesday. At least one person allegedly lunged at an officer, prompting him to use pepper spray, the sources said.

''We did bring some agents out to the Coast Guard cutter this afternoon to investigate the circumstances of the migrant voyage,'' Danielle DeMarino, a Miami-based spokeswoman for the Coast Guard, said Thursday. She declined to comment further.

Under international piracy treaties, U.S. authorities can bring suspected hijackers to the United States for trial, even if the boat is Cuban-owned, the passengers are Cuban and the vessel is first detained in international waters.

The boat was stopped by the Coast Guard Wednesday afternoon about 60 miles southeast of Miami in international waters -- after a highly scrutinized 36-hour journey.

Cuba's Ministry of the Interior said that Cuban authorities pursued the vessel as it cut through the island's seas, but then gave up once it entered Bahamian waters around noon Tuesday.

Federal investigators are still trying to piece together what happened when authorities attempted to stop and board the boat late Wednesday afternoon.

According to initial reports, two migrants donned masks and jumped into the water with cutting instruments after the Coast Guard tried to force the vessel to stop by using an entangling device to foul an engine.

The driver of the boat also allegedly maneuvered erratically to try to thwart efforts to halt the vessel. And several people on the boat allegedly tried to repel a Coast Guard boarding team with knives and homemade weapons, according to initial federal reports and sources.

A U.S. State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that U.S. diplomats have been in contact with their Cuban counterparts in recent days.

''We will return the boat to Cuba, and there will be an investigation determining what to do with those on board,'' the official said.

Depending on the outcome, the investigation could raise interesting questions for U.S. immigration policy, since three men were executed by firing squad in Cuba three months ago after a botched attempt to hijack a ferry to Florida.

Given that, observers consider it highly unlikely that passengers involved in either a boat theft or a hijacking would be returned to Cuba. Members of Miami's congressional delegation weighed in on that point Thursday, urging the Bush administration not to return anyone to Cuba under those circumstances.

Still, under U.S. immigration policy, Cubans intercepted at sea are generally repatriated to Cuba, while those who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay. Under rare circumstances, Cuban migrants who make a credible case that they fear persecution if returned to the island are taken to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay for immigration consideration.

U.S. blocks Cuban boat, weighs migrants' return

Hijackers' executions a likely factor

By Jennifer Babson. Jbabson@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Jul. 17, 2003

KEY WEST - In an action that illustrates a new potential dilemma for U.S. immigration policy, federal authorities on Wednesday halted a stolen Cuban government boat off the Bahamas as it inched closer to Florida in a migrant voyage Havana quickly labeled a hijacking.

The U.S. Coast Guard took 15 people aboard the vessel into custody, transferring them to a cutter.

The decision to intercept the boat now leaves the U.S. government with a thorny issue: Three months after three armed hijackers of a Cuban ferry were summarily executed on the island by firing squad, can the United States repatriate people who may have been complicit in a boat theft widely condemned by Cuban authorities?

''It would be incumbent on us to take [the executions] into account,'' a U.S. State Department official said late Wednesday.

The boat, named the Gaviota 16, was identified by Cuba's Interior Ministry as owned by Geocuba, which does geological exploration and mapping. Like other vessels spirited from the island in the past, it is expected to be returned.

On Tuesday, Cuban authorities said the boat -- initially described as 36 feet in length and carrying 15 to 20 people -- had been hijacked from Boca de Nuevitas, on the northern coast of Camagüey province. The boat, whose name means ''sea gull'' in Spanish, was grabbed a day after another attempted maritime hijacking hundreds of miles away on the island ended with three men dead.

The Gaviota was stopped after meandering north through the Bahamas -- and into international waters -- for more than a day as the U.S. and Cuban governments traded public pokes over who was responsible for the rogue vessel's fate.

IN U.S. HANDS

Wednesday night, the Gaviota officially became a U.S. problem.

By evening, however, federal investigators still did not have a firm sense of what exactly had occurred on the vessel during more than 24 hours at sea, and whether hijacking -- and possible prosecution in Florida -- could be ruled out.

''First off, you want to find out what really happened. Are there bullet holes in the boat? What stories do these people tell?'' said one federal official closely monitoring the situation. "Unless there are extenuating circumstances, I don't think there is going to be a return for prosecution to Cuba.''

Under U.S. immigration policy, Cubans intercepted at sea are generally repatriated to Cuba, while those who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay.

Under rare circumstances, Cuban migrants who make a compelling case that they fear harm or persecution if returned to the island are sent to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay. From there, some are eventually permitted to emigrate to the United States, or may be resettled in third countries. This process is part of international agreements, including migration accords with Cuba.

Cuba's Interior Ministry on Wednesday called the taking of both vessels ''repugnant deeds'' and laid the blame for the incidents on U.S. immigration policies.

A Coast Guard spokesman said late Wednesday that the agency would now be ''going through the standard migrant interdiction process'' -- which includes asylum interviews on board a Coast Guard cutter to determine if any migrants have a ''credible'' fear of persecution if returned.

But the trajectory of the Gaviota -- and its voyage -- was anything but standard.

Within hours of its unauthorized departure Tuesday, the motorboat had drawn Cuban government overflights, a chase at sea and negotiation efforts by Cuban border authorities, and the watchful eyes of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and C-130 surveillance plane.

Cuba launched planes and patrol boats to chase the Geocuba craft but held back from blocking the escape, because ''it is not the policy of the government of Cuba to attack hijacked vessels with people aboard on the high seas,'' the Interior Ministry said, according to an Associated Press report from Havana.

BAHAMIAN WATERS

Moving slowly -- less than 10 mph -- the boat entered Bahamian waters just after noon Tuesday, continuing closer to Andros Island and toward what passengers told Coast Guard officers on Wednesday was the vessel's intended destination: Miami.

By 5 p.m. Wednesday, still well over 100 miles from Florida's coast in international waters, the boat was stopped and boarded by the Coast Guard, which transferred passengers onto a cutter.

Keeping tabs from land were FBI agents on standby in case their services were needed, as the agency generally has jurisdiction in international hijacking cases.

''We are monitoring it,'' Miami-based FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.

Initial indications also did not bolster Cuban government contentions that the boat had been hijacked, though investigators said the assessment could change.

''Based on our information and observations, this is a Cuban stolen vessel that has been commandeered as a vehicle in an illegal migrant voyage,'' said Anthony Russell, a spokesman for the Coast Guard's 7th District Office in Miami.

The Gaviota incident came on the heels of another one, which Havana categorized as a hijacking, that unfolded Monday in the port of La Coloma in the western province of Pinar del Rio. The Interior Ministry said three Cuban men killed each other and wounded a 10-year-old boy in that attempt.

Armed with a .45-caliber pistol, the men tried to overtake the fishing boat Ferrocemento No. 18, according to an Interior Ministry statement. A woman allegedly assisted them.

Unable to steer the boat, the men attempted to force a local captain to start the engine, but he jumped overboard. After local fishermen and police surrounded the boat, the hijackers allegedly threatened to kill women and children hostages.

Although the explanation that the hijackers killed themselves was greeted Tuesday by U.S. officials with some skepticism, a 17-year-old boy who survived the botched hijacking said Wednesday that the men did commit suicide when they realized the plan had failed.

The boy, who identified himself as Marquiel Montano Cabrera, was one of several people who offered rare public corroborations Wednesday that the men died at their own hands. In a Cuban news conference, Cabrera said he heard and saw the men turn the gun on themselves.

Herald staff writers Renato Pérez and Nancy San Martin contributed to this report.

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