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NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Castro wants Posada expelled
President Fidel Castro,
at a May Day rally, called for the United
States to expel militant Luis Posada Carriles,
who is believed to be in South Florida.
Posted on Mon, May. 02,
2005.
HAVANA - (AP) -- Cuban President Fidel
Castro, leader of one of the world's last
communist regimes, commemorated May Day
on Sunday by demanding the United States
expel a Cuban-born militant accused of blowing
up a civilian jetliner.
Flanked by aides in red T-shirts, Castro
looked out at hundreds of thousands in vast
Plaza of the Revolution and demanded Washington
expel Luis Posada Carriles accused of masterminding
the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976
that killed 73 people. Posada denies involvement.
The Cuban president said the case of Posada,
who is seeking asylum in the United States,
''shows the world the immense hypocrisy,
the lies, the immoralities and the cynicism''
of the U.S. government, which has kept Cuba
on a list of terrorist states for years.
Castro called Posada "the most famous
and cruel terrorist of the Western hemisphere.''
Posada, now 77, along with three associates
were imprisoned in Panama in an alleged
plot in 2000 to kill Castro at a conference
in Panama and pardoned last year by outgoing
President Mireya Moscoso.
Among guests at the rally were former Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega, who referred to
Americans as ''the enemies of humanity.''
Also at the gathering was Bolivian activist
Evo Morales, who is in Cuba recovering from
knee surgery.
The special guests also included Elián
González, now 11, who was at the
center of an international child-custody
battle before being taken from Miami relatives
in a raid and returned to his father nearly
five years ago.
18 Cubans were smuggled, U.S. Border
Patrol suspects
Posted on Mon, May. 02,
2005.
While processing 18 Cubans who reached
shore near Bahia Honda State Park on Sunday,
the U.S. Border Patrol was also trying to
figure out how they got there.
Government officials say the group told
them they left from Varadero Beach in the
province of Mantanzas at 2 a.m. Sunday,
and hit shore before noon.
''We're trying to determine if they were
smuggled or if they were rafters,'' said
Kerry Heck, a supervisory patrol agent.
"But we suspect they were smuggled.''
The group included eight men, three women,
five boys and two girls, ranging in age
from two months to 62. Officials believe
they're all in good health.
After being taken into custody, the group
went to the Border Patrol station in Marathon
for processing. Then they were escorted
to the Miami-Dade County Refugee Health
Assessment Clinic for another health screening.
Under the wet foot/dry foot policy, Cuban
nationals who reach the U.S. mainland generally
get to stay. If picked up at sea, Cuban
nationals are generally returned to the
island.
-- RYAN MILLS
Confiscated art is now off-limits
South Florida's sugar-producing
Fanjul family reached an agreement with
Sotheby's it hopes will help reclaim art
confiscated by Fidel Castro's government.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, May. 01, 2005.
Sotheby's -- the target of a ''trading
with the enemy'' sanctions violation triggered
by South Florida's prominent sugar-producing
Fanjul family -- has agreed to impose new
guidelines that will make it more difficult
for dealers to dabble with art confiscated
by Fidel Castro's government.
Under an agreement made public Friday,
the auction house will not handle any Fanjul
family art expropriated by the Cuban government,
according to a joint statement issued by
Fanjul family attorneys.
''Should it unwittingly come into possession
of any such work, Sotheby's will notify
the family and maintain possession of such
property until any title issues have been
resolved. . .,'' the statement said.
The agreement means that valuable art from
the Fanjul family collection left behind
in Havana and believed to have been smuggled
out of the island will be on a watch list
that would preclude art dealers with ties
to Sotheby's from making a sale.
''With these new guidelines in place, we
are confident that our collection will now
be off limits in the art world as we trust
that others in the art market will follow
Sotheby's example,'' José Pepe Fanjul
said in a written statement.
''This is a very good thing for anyone
whose had something stolen from a government
or anyone else and then ends up in the art
market,'' Fanjul family attorney Shanker
Singham said.
''What it shows is that the art world in
general, and Sotheby's in particular, is
prepared to not deal in stolen property,''
Singham said.
The dispute with Sotheby's began in 1998
after the Fanjuls discovered one of their
paintings by Spanish impressionist Joaquín
Sorolla y Bastida may have been smuggled
out of Havana and obtained by an art dealer
in Italy.
The Fanjuls claimed Sotheby's knew but
would not tell the whereabouts of the painting,
which is part of a collection worth millions
of dollars the family left behind when they
fled Cuba after Castro seized power in 1959.
The family filed claims with the state
and treasury departments, accusing Sotheby's
of knowing who holds the Malaga Port painting
and violating laws by refusing to provide
them with the information.
Under Title IV of the Helms-Burton law,
also known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic
Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, U.S. citizens
whose property was confiscated by the Castro
government can go after foreigners who use
or profit in any way from those properties.
Sotheby's acknowledged some connection
to the painting but adamantly denied any
wrongdoing.
Singham said the agreement does not automatically
absolve Sotheby's from the federal inquiry,
but added that calls have been made to Washington
on the auction house's behalf.
''Sotheby's is cooperating in our attempts
to get the paintings back,'' Singham said.
"With Sotheby's help, we're getting
closer to getting the art back.''
Cuba and Venezuela forge trade partnership
Cuban leader Fidel Castro
and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
signed sales agreements worth $412 million.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sat, Apr. 30, 2005.
Underscoring the tight relations between
the hemisphere's two most leftist and anti-American
governments, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez
announced commercial deals worth $412 million
Friday during the Venezuelan president's
visit to Havana.
But independent experts said the only reason
Castro can afford to promise to buy the
$412 million worth of goods from Venezuela
was that Caracas is essentially paying for
them with its massive subsidies to Havana
-- estimated at $1.6 billion by a recent
study by the University of Miami's Institute
for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
With Castro at his side, Chávez
also bashed the Bush administration, saying
Americans are ''oppressed'' and that he
would not visit Washington ''until the people
of the United States liberate that nation''
-- apparently until President Bush leaves
office, the Associated Press reported from
Havana.
The Venezuelan president also criticized
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's swing
through Latin America this week, calling
her an ''imperial lady'' who is trying to
divide and conquer the hemisphere's developing
nations.
In contrast, Castro seemed almost restrained
as he accompanied Chávez, these days
his closest ally and ruler of an oil-rich
nation that appears to be replacing at least
part of the $4 billion to $6 billion a year
in subsidies from the Soviet Union Cuba
lost in 1991.
Chávez's three-day visit to Havana
came as the Cuban government hosted a trade
fair designed to promote the Venezuelan's
proposed Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas as an alternative to the U.S.-backed
Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Chávez also used the visit to open
branch offices in Havana of his country's
state-owned oil company, known as PDVSA,
and a state-controlled bank, the Banco Industrial
de Venezuela .
PDVSA announced Thursday it would join
oil exploration efforts off Cuba's coast.
Future oil finds could prove profitable
for an island that depends heavily on imported
crude. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest
oil exporter and a top supplier to the United
States.
PDVSA also announced oil shipments to Cuba,
usually reported at 53,000 barrels a day,
have hit up to 90,000 barrels on some days.
Havana has been reciprocating by sending
Venezuela more than 13,000 Cuban doctors
to run free health clinics in some of Venezuela's
poorest neighborhoods, as well as an estimated
7,000 teachers and other education specialists,
sports coaches and intelligence and economic
advisors.
Under one of the new accords signed earlier
this week, Cuba agreed to send another 17,000
doctors to Venezuela by the end of the year
and help Caracas train 40,000 new doctors
and set up hundreds of free healthcare centers.
Chávez, Castro bolster alliance
Havana and Caracas launched
a series of cooperation agreements expected
to provide both economic and political benefits
to the two leaders.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 29, 2005.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
strutted through Havana with Fidel Castro
Thursday as they opened branch offices of
Venezuela's state-owned oil company and
a state-controlled bank and bolstered his
political and economic alliance with the
communist nation.
Before flashing cameras and enthusiastic
applause from state workers, Castro and
Chávez launched new Havana branch
offices for Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.
(PDVSA) and Banco Industrial de Venezuela
(BIV).
The two leaders also signed pacts that
covered everything from energy to culture
and also promoted a hemispheric trade pact
-- Boliviarian Alternative for the Americas
-- which is intended to rival the U.S.-backed
Free Trade Area of the Americas.
But even as the public alliance continues
to be a nuisance to the United States, experts
said there is no economic bonanza at work
-- at least not in the short-term.
''The merging will be, politically, much
more important than economically,'' said
Jorge Sanguinetty, a Miami economist and
Cuba expert.
EXPANDING OIL MARKET
Reflecting long-term plans for expanding
its oil market in the region, PDVSA said
Thursday that it would begin exploration
for oil fields off Cuba's coast and would
pump and refine oil. Plans to reopen an
oil refinery and terminal in Cienfuegos,
on Cuba's south-central coast, are under
way, Agence France-Presse reported.
''The expansion or retrofitting of the
Cienfuegos refinery would be a very good
investment,'' said Jorge Piñón
Cervera, a retired Latin America Amoco executive.
"One of the reasons the price of crude
is so high is because of the lack of refinery
capacity.''
Over the past five years, Cuba has been
receiving 53,000 barrels of crude a day
from Venezuela under preferential terms,
providing the island with a much-needed
reprieve from an economic crisis that began
with the loss of subsidies from the former
Soviet Union after its collapse in 1991.
Venezuelan officials told The Associated
Press Thursday that oil shipments to Cuba
have risen to 80,000 to 90,000 barrels a
day.
''Venezuela is becoming the new Soviet
Union for Cuba,'' said Carmelo Mesa-Lago,
one of the top U.S. experts on Cuba's economy.
"For Cuba, this is terrific. It allows
them to continue to make wrong economic
policies and have Venezuela pay for it.''
HELP IN HEALTHCARE
Havana has reciprocated by providing Caracas
with assistance in healthcare, as well as
literacy and sports programs. More than
13,000 Cuban doctors have been dispatched
to state-run clinics in some of Venezuela's
poorest neighborhoods to provide free care.
''Venezuela is long on capital and can
use more talent. Cuba is short on capital
and long on talent,'' said Washington-based
economist Oscar A. Echevarria, who has written
about both Venezuela's and Cuba's economy.
"This arrangement benefits both governments.''
Officials said Thursday a Cuban bank branch
also would open in Caracas, as well as a
chain of government-run stores to sell goods
at subsidized prices. And the leaders signed
agreements to set up an experimental seed
bank and a joint venture to produce solar
panels, according to AFP.
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