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Continuing call to change Cuba's regime
By Nancy San Martin. Nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Sun,
Mar. 30, 2003 in The Miami Herald.
A 12-block-long surge of demonstrators, most of them Cuban Americans, flowed
across the heart of Little Havana on Saturday to pump up support for a litany of
struggles that stretched from the future of Cuba to the war in Iraq.
With chants of ''Long Live America!'' and ''Long Live A Free Cuba!'' they
applauded the Bush administration's tough stance against terrorism and likened
Cuba's Fidel Castro to Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
But the sea of red, white and blue flags along Southwest Eighth Street,
known more commonly as Calle Ocho, also conveyed one distinct message: that the
exile community in Miami has not shifted to a more moderate position in bringing
about democratic reform in Cuba, despite recent polls indicating that today's
exiles favor a more pragmatic approach.
''All those people going around with their little surveys should take a look
at Calle Ocho,'' an animated U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, said
to resounding applause. "The exile community does not get confused. It does
not make mistakes. The ones who are mistaken are those who are trying to
discourage us.''
Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of a prominent Cuban-American organization that
has commissioned several polls on the exile community, said the rally did not
contradict the results of surveys by his group and The Herald.
''To pretend that a march or a demonstration is an indicator of the will of
the majority is inaccurate and even demagogy,'' said Saladrigas, chairman of the
Cuba Study Group. "Polls are a statistical analysis with a high degree of
accuracy. The polls indicate an overwhelming rejection of Fidel Castro and his
regime and an overwhelming support of dissidents on the island. The more subtle
change in Cuban Miami reflects different tactics for achieving democratic reform
in Cuba.''
Some analysts said the show of support on Calle Ocho also was a display of
political power.
''What we're reminded is that what matters in politics is the voters, and
these are the voters,'' said Dario Moreno, a political science professor and
director of Metropolitan Center, a Florida International University institute
that studies the politics, demographics and the economy of South Florida.
Miami police estimated the crowd at 40,000, with marchers lined along
Southwest Eighth Street between Fourth and 16th avenues. Organizers were
tallying their own crowd estimate Sunday evening but said they believed the
figure to be considerably higher.
Díaz-Balart was joined at the demonstration by his brother U.S. Rep.
Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, a freshman in Congress, and U.S. Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami.
Saturday's gathering comes as more than 600 exiles prepare to travel to
Havana next month to meet with Cuban officials at the ''Nation and Emigration''
conference scheduled to take place April 11-13.
Also fueling the debate is the arrest of nearly 80 dissidents on the island.
''This rally is a political game,'' said Max Lesnik, a longtime activist who
plans to attend the Havana conference. Rally organizers "are trying to put
the brakes on the moderate voices.''
''If this turns into the symbolic voice of Miami, Miami loses,'' Lesnik
said. "It will depict the community, once again, as sectarian, intransigent
and out of sync with changing times.''
Said Moreno of FIU: "This rally shows, first of all, how difficult it
is for some of the people who had sponsored the surveys to reflect change in the
community, because a survey is sort of the first step in any political campaign.
The question is, how do you use the information?
''On big-ticket items, such as the embargo, the three Congress members are
right: The exile community hasn't changed,'' Moreno said. "On issues from
travel to humanitarian aid, food sales and support for dissidents, there is a
much more varied position than what was reflected at the rally.
''Those who want to change policy, who want to see the community change,
have to transfer the opinion polls to the campaign themselves,'' he said. "The
three Congress members who were present at the rally are able to prove their
power in the voting booth.''
As Lincoln Díaz-Balart spoke on a stage set up at Southwest Fourth
Avenue, a small plane flew overhead with an advertisement banner calling for the
freedom of five Cubans convicted by a Miami jury of trying to infiltrate U.S.
military bases and Cuban exile groups in South Florida.
The banner also stated in Spanish: "The terrorists are on Calle 8
today.''
Longtime activist Ninoska Pérez Castellón, one of the rally
organizers, used the opportunity to take a jab at the Cuban government and
illustrate what she called the essence of democracy.
''That plane is paid for by the Cuban government,'' Pérez said as the
crowd looked up. "They are asking for the liberty of five assassins. See,
that's the definition of a true democracy. Here, a plane can fly overhead
without being shot down.''
One of the five was convicted of murder conspiracy charges in a Cuban MiG
attack that killed four Miami pilots in international airspace between Florida
and Cuba in 1996.
Even as exiles at the rally maintained that the community remains unchanged
in its views, Pérez's prominence on a stage shared by South Florida's
three Cuban-American lawmakers was indicative of a transformation in the exile
leadership.
Pérez is among those who lead a splinter group known as the Cuban
Liberty Council, comprising mostly former board members of the Cuban American
National Foundation.
Joe Garcia, executive director of CANF, said there was no disagreement among
exiles about maintaining current U.S. policy; the dispute centers on whether
democratic reform should be fostered from within the island or from Miami. | 
