CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Cuban Americans foresee rise of a 'climate of fear'

The arrest of two spy suspects has spread fear among Cuban exiles who support contact with the Castro government as a way to ease tension.

By Alfonso Chardy and Oscar Corral, achardy@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Sun, Jan. 15, 2006.

Fallout from the Florida International University spy scandal is spreading throughout segments of Miami's Cuban-American community, sparking concerns that the affair is fostering a climate of fear among exiles who favor dialogue with communist Cuba.

Already, several of those people have refused to comment publicly about their concerns, and others have expressed alarm that last week's arrest of FIU employees Carlos Alvarez and his wife, Elsa Prieto Alvarez, could prompt pro-dialogue exiles to be less willing to voice views.

The latest spasm in Cuban exile politics comes against a backdrop of increasing tension with Cuba in the aftermath of tougher Bush administration policies restricting travel and money remittances to the island and ongoing efforts to further toughen the U.S. posture toward Cuba. To some, the FIU affair can define today's climate of retrenchment both in Miami and in Cuba -- one echoing a dangerous past when being pro-dialogue was seen by some as tantamount to treason.

''This opens the door to a witch hunt,'' said Bernardo Benes, who helped bring about an era of rapprochement in the late 1970s when the Fidel Castro regime allowed exiles to return for family visits. ''I'm sad that evil people take advantage of moments like this to promote their evil ideas and impose on people more control of the community,'' Benes said.

While many exiles who favor reconciliation or compromise expressed qualms, some Cuban Americans on the opposite side of the political spectrum believe that fears are exaggerated or unfounded.

''Only those who are doing something illegal should be worried about the U.S. government's actions,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, which gets federal grants and has no contact with Cuban government institutions.

''People who are law-abiding and are not collaborating with any foreign governments that are enemies of the United States have nothing to worry about,'' he said.

Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, president of the Cuban Liberty Council and a popular Spanish-language personality on conservative Radio Mambí, said there was no witch hunt, just a deep concern among the anti-Castro right that others in Miami might also be spying for Cuba.

''The last five years, there have been 21 Cuban spies convicted,'' she said. She added that among them was Ana Belén Montes, of Puerto Rican descent, who worked at the Pentagon and was convicted of spying for Cuba.

''These two were at a well-known public university, [allegedly] serving as agents for Castro,'' Pérez Castellón said, referring to the Alvarezes. "Where is the witch hunt?''

Last week's arrests are different from the arrests in 1998 of five Cubans who later were convicted of spying for Havana. Those five were little known, while the Alvarezes are prominent not only in academic and intellectual circles but among those who favor dialogue.

COUPLE'S BACKGROUND

Carlos Alvarez has been an education professor at FIU since 1974, while Elsa Prieto Alvarez has worked there as a psychological services counselor since 1999. Both have also been linked to liberal or leftist sectors of the exile community since the 1970s, and Carlos Alvarez traveled to Cuba several times for research and as a facilitator in dialogue exchanges between exiles and Cubans on the island.

Federal prosecutors charged the couple with not registering as foreign agents after investigators say they found evidence of links to Cuban intelligence. The two were accused of using shortwave radios, numerical code and computer-encrypted files to transmit information about Miami's exile community to Cuban intelligence officers.

Although officials have suggested that no other arrests are contemplated, some exile leaders who oppose compromise or dialogue with Cuban President Castro have urged the FBI to widen its investigation.

FIU Professor Lisandro Pérez, who knows Alvarez well, said the arrests could revive the charged atmosphere of the 1970s and '80s, which saw the rise of the Cuban exile left, as well as bombings in Miami linked to anti-Castro militants.

''It sort of revives the argument that the talking, the dialogue, the academic exchanges with Cuba, which the so-called left has promoted, should not be supported,'' Pérez said. "I disagree with that, but obviously it gives greater ammunition to that argument.''

Benes, meanwhile, accused Indiana University Assistant Professor Antonio de la Cova, a Cuban exile, of helping to instigate the climate of fear by urging reporters in Miami to investigate other exiles he views as suspect. Benes said de la Cova should not be given credibility because of his background.

De la Cova was once convicted of possession of explosives. He was arrested in 1976 after FBI agents were told that Cuban exiles planned to bomb Libros Para Adultos, an adult bookstore.

In a pre-sentencing statement, De la Cova said the bookstore was picked as a target by an informant, who had convinced him that the owner was a Castro agent. He served six years of a 65-year sentence. De la Cova's files, posted on the Web at wwwlatinamericanstudies.org, include information on the Alvarezes.

''I'm an academic, a published author, a historian,'' he said. "You're trying to read too much into this. Last April, Benes sent an e-mail to my boss complaining about my website, which shows his lack of respect for academic freedom -- just like the Castro regime.''

SOURCE OF FEAR

Calls for a wider search for spies are one source of fear.

''It's not the first time this has happened here in the United States,'' said Max Lesnik, who often criticizes the Bush administration and the U.S. embargo on Cuba on his Spanish-language radio show broadcast on Ocean Radio. "This type of hysteria is taking shape in some Spanish-language Miami media, not in the wider U.S. society.''

Perhaps those most concerned about being smeared as agents for Cuba are members and former members of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, founded in the 1970s by young Cuban exiles who often split with their parents and supported the Cuban revolution.

Congressional testimony by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents in 1982 attempted to link Alvarez's wife, Elsa Prieto Alvarez, to the group. The agents said Prieto had been identified as a member of the brigade by the Rev. Manuel Espinosa, a Hialeah preacher and self-proclaimed double agent, who died in 1987.

But Andrés Gómez, longtime brigade leader, told The Miami Herald on Friday that Alvarez's wife was not a brigade member -- although he did not rule out that she may have attended a brigade meeting, or taken a trip to Cuba with the brigade from some other U.S. city.

Marifeli Pérez-Stable, a brigade founder and former member, said in an e-mail to The Miami Herald on Friday that the brigade was "a radical expression of the currents of opinion then arising regarding the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba. The debate was as legitimate and necessary then as it is [now.]''

A regular contributor to the editorial pages of The Miami Herald, Pérez-Stable is also vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue, a research group in Washington. After criticizing the Castro regime in the early 1990s, she no longer travels to Cuba -- banned, she said, by the Cuban government and labeled "persona non grata.''

''The cause of democracy must be advanced by tolerance, reason and respectful debate,'' she said. "Otherwise, we unwittingly become like our opponents who justify any means to advance their ends.''

Alleged Cuba spy identified years ago

An FIU mental-health counselor accused of spying for Cuba was suspected of being an agent in 1982, according to Florida investigators who testified in Congress.

By Oscar Corral And Jay Weaver, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Fri, Jan. 13, 2006.

The activities of a Florida International University mental-health counselor accused of operating as a covert agent for the Cuban government came to the attention of Congress as early as 1982 when she worked for the University of Miami, according to congressional records.

Florida investigators warned the federal government that several Cuban exiles in Miami, among them Elsa Prieto Alvarez, were providing sensitive information to Cuba's communist government just as Miami was struggling to absorb more than 125,000 Mariel refugees, hundreds of them prisoners with serious criminal backgrounds and patients with severe mental illnesses.

Prieto Alvarez's lawyer, Jane Moscowitz, said Thursday that her client "never furnished any such records to the Cuban government.''

Testifying in 1982 before a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating Cuba-related terrorism in South Florida, Sergio Pinon, then an agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, accused Elsa Prieto of sending along to Cuba private information on mentally ill patients at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

''Imagine if you will, what a fantastic tool for extortion or manipulation a foreign government would have by having this information,'' Pinon told the subcommittee. "Let us ask you, how would you feel if you, your relatives or assistants had a history of mental illness, and if this information was leaked to Cuba?''

Moscowitz said that if the congressional testimony were true, authorities either investigated Prieto Alvarez's activity and found nothing wrong -- or didn't bother to investigate because her work was not suspicious.

U.S. authorities accused Prieto Alvarez, 55, and her husband, Carlos Alvarez, 61, on Monday of operating as covert agents for Cuba for decades -- using shortwave radios, numerical code and computer encrypted files to send information about Miami's exile community to top Castro intelligence commanders. Prieto married Alvarez on Jan. 1, 1980. They are charged with not registering as agents for a foreign government and face up to 10 years in prison.

U.S. prosecutors said Carlos Alvarez, an associate professor at FIU, had spied for Cuba since 1977 and his wife since 1982.

WORKED AT JACKSON

In 1982, the FDLE agents, Pinon and Daniel Benitez -- noting they were not testifying on behalf of their agency -- said that Prieto Alvarez allegedly supplied information on patients in the ''mental ward'' at Jackson to Cuba through Lourdes Dopico, who ran a travel agency.

"The person who provided information for transmission to Cuba is alleged to be Elsa Prieto . . . The access of this type of information to suspected or actual Castro agents is of a great concern to all.''

Dopico was indicted in 1982 on federal charges of illegal financial dealings with Cuba as president of Cañaveral Travel. The charges were later dismissed. Dopico's attorney, John de Leon, said Thursday that the charges were related to her assisting Mariel refugees leaving the island. He added that the congressional testimony about her was unfounded.

''She has not been convicted of anything in her life, and she is a law-abiding citizen,'' de Leon said.

Elsa Alvarez's resume, in her FIU personnel file, indicates she trained at the University of Miami medical school's Spanish Family Guidance Center from 1975 through 1979. She also listed herself as a research instructor at the UM department of psychiatry from 1979 through 1982.

Medical school spokeswoman Jeanne Krull declined to comment.

PASTOR'S CLAIM

The FDLE agents' testimony referred to Prieto Alvarez based on allegations by the late Rev. Manuel Espinosa, a pro-dialogue Cuban exile who had broken ranks with several fellow exiles and accused them of being pro-Castro agents for Cuba.

Espinosa said at a news conference at the Columbus Hotel on Feb. 5, 1980, broadcast live on the now-defunct WRHC Cadena Azul, that Prieto was spying for Cuba, among other things, according to a transcript from Miami Radio Monitoring Service.

''Elsa Prieto, who worked at the Mental Health Program, received immediate orders to separate from the Maceo Brigade to penetrate the professional circles here and to send to Cuba any information about us,'' Espinosa said, according to the transcript. The Antonio Maceo Brigade is a group that favors U.S.-Cuba dialogue and has been controversial among hard-line Cuban exiles.

Espinosa, a Hialeah preacher and self-proclaimed Cuban agent, allegedly recruited Napoleón Vilaboa in 1968 to serve as a Cuban agent in Miami. Vilaboa is now considered the ''Father of the Freedom Flotilla,'' the chief instigator of the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

BRIGADE MENTIONED

Pinon, who no longer works for the FDLE, told the terrorism subcommittee that ''the Antonio Maceo Brigade has been active at Florida International University in Dade County in attempts to recruit and sign up persons.'' Former agent Benitez also testified about the brigade's influence at other universities.

Pinon declined to comment about his testimony when reached at his home Wednesday.

Attending the 1982 hearing, according to the transcript, was Jose Delgado, assigned to the Cuban Interest Section in Washington.

A former U.S. intelligence officer knowledgeable on Cuba, who asked not to be identified, said the government may not have pursued a case against Prieto Alvarez in 1982 because of "arrogance.''

''It's a characteristic of the FBI, especially when they're dealing with local law enforcement,'' the ex-official said. "The bureau did not have any interest in Cuban support for international terrorists. I think maybe the story here is that the bureau simply assigned Elsa a very low priority.''

The FBI's Miami office declined to comment about the 1982 congressional testimony.

'NOT IMPROPER'

Miami attorneys for the FIU couple said the fact that Prieto Alvarez was not prosecuted after the public testimony in 1982 shows she has done nothing wrong.

''This proves that the [current] charge against Elsa Alvarez is a stale and baseless allegation that the government appropriately ignored almost 25 years ago,'' said her attorney, Moscowitz.

''Now we find that the government concluded some 25 years ago that what our clients are being accused of today was not improper,'' said attorney Steven Chaykin, who represents Carlos Alvarez.

Chaykin said the reputations of two respected academics were being destroyed by a ''McCarthy-like hysteria,'' fueled by government misstatements about their alleged covert work on behalf of Cuban intelligence agents.

''The presumption of innocence has disappeared,'' Chaykin said. "There are serious and troubling questions about these charges -- their timing and purpose.''

Miami federal prosecutors defended the indictment as solid, but declined to comment about the 1982 testimony about Prieto Alvarez.

''Any covert Castro agent that operates in South Florida poses a threat to our nation and our community,'' said interim U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said the spy case against the Alvarez couple could be just the tip of an iceberg.

''There are many Cuban spies that have already been discovered by U.S. intelligence, but whose cover have not yet been blown,'' said the Miami Republican. "I wouldn't be surprised that there are more . . . not just at FIU.''

Miami Herald staff writers Alfonso Chardy and Noah Bierman and researcher Monika Leal contributed to this report.

One of two accused spies was Maceo Brigade member

In Miami's Cuban exile community, past membership in the Antonio Maceo Brigade rankles many.

By Alfonso Chardy And Oscar Corral, achardy@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Fri, Jan. 13, 2006

A little-known group of Cuban Americans has emerged as part of the background of one of the two Florida International University employees accused of spying for Cuba.

Elsa Prieto Alvarez, 55, was a member of the Antonio Maceo Brigade -- a controversial organization founded 27 years ago by children of Cuban exiles who fled the Cuban revolution soon after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. Prieto Alvarez and her husband, Carlos Alvarez, 61, have been accused of providing the Cuban government with information about exile groups and not registering as foreign agents.

Prieto Alvarez's membership in the brigade surfaced in congressional testimony by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents in 1982.

Long denounced as Castro agents by die-hard anti-Castro exiles, brigade leaders have described themselves as sympathizers of the revolutionary ideals of a small country unfairly besieged by a hostile United States.

Brigade leader Andrés Gómez could not be reached for comment Thursday, but over the years he has denied any control by Cuban intelligence officers.

''There is no question that the Antonio Maceo Brigade is a leftist organization that coincides with the goals and aspirations of the Cuban revolution,'' Gómez said in a 1993 interview. "But sympathy and solidarity with the Cuban revolution do not mean being an agent. We receive no payments or instructions from Cuba.''

Named after a Cuban independence hero, Gen. Antonio Maceo, the brigade was founded in 1978 by -- among others -- Gómez and Marifeli Pérez-Stable, a regular contributor to the editorial pages of The Miami Herald and vice president for democratic governance at Inter-American Dialogue, a research group in Washington, D.C.

Pérez-Stable declined comment Thursday on her former membership in the brigade, though in the 1980s she changed her views about Castro's Cuba, according to her essays.

Brigade members are Cuban Americans whose parents brought them into exile when they were children. Gómez arrived in November 1960, at age 12. As adults, these exiles broke with their parents and sided with the Cuban revolution, though not necessarily with Castro.

Gómez has said that hundreds of Cuban Americans have belonged to the group over the years.

One of its most prominent former members is José Pertierra, a lawyer in Washington who often speaks for the Venezuelan government of Castro ally President Hugo Chávez in matters affecting its interests, such as the case of detained Cuban exile militant Luís Posada Carriles. Pertierra also declined comment Thursday.

In the 1980s, the brigade helped organize rallies against the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contra rebels.

Now Gómez and the brigade have been active in organizing rallies seeking Posada's extradition and the release of five Cubans convicted on espionage charges in 2001.

Cuba policy: 'Something has to change'

At a meeting in Coral Gables Wednesday, leaders of the Cuban exile community urged

frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Jan. 12, 2006.

Two of the Bush administration's top Cuba policy makers went to Coral Gables Wednesday for a friendly lunch with South Florida's top exile community leaders -- and wound up on the receiving end of an outpouring of frustration.

The visit by the U.S. State Department's Stephen McFarland, director of the Office of Cuban Affairs, and Cuba Transition Coordinator Caleb McCarry came amid an uproar over the repatriation of 15 Cuban migrants this week.

The pair used the luncheon organized by Florida International University to promote Bush administration policy -- a tough line against Cuba until the day there are democratic elections there. But exile participants, among them moderates as well as traditional hardliners, used the opportunity for primarily one purpose: to vent.

''The Cubans have a dictator, and we have to get rid of him,'' said Luis De Varona, a board member of the Cuban American National Foundation. "When are you going to wake up to the reality? . . . We need to get rid of Castro. That is the root of all our problems.''

The luncheon came just two days after 15 would-be migrants were sent back to Cuba because their sea voyage led them not to land, but to a section of the old 7-Mile bridge in the Florida Keys. The Coast Guard returned them because the section they were standing on did not connect directly to land. Parts of the defunct bridge are missing.

McFarland characterized the repatriation as a decision by the U.S. Coast Guard, which interpreted existing law that keeps Cuban migrants from entering the United States if they don't touch land.

''Fifteen people were sent back because they were touching one bridge rather than another,'' said Jose Sirven, managing partner of Holland Knight, which sponsored the luncheon. "That's something that has to change, because it cannot happen again.''

His words were met with resounding applause.

After Monday's repatriation, top Cuban exile leaders vowed to mount a strong lobbying campaign in Washington to change the so-called ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' law. McFarland would not comment on whether the Bush administration would review the policy, but said he would certainly pass on the comments.

He said it was important to consider the broader issue: what's driving thousands of Cubans each year to take to the sea?

Responding to concerns that Miami Cubans would be shut out of Bush administration policymaking in a post-Castro Cuba, McCarry assured: "There is but one Cuban people.''

U.S. gets tougher on groups defying Cuba travel rules

The Treasury Department is threatening to slap fines on activists from two organizations that openly defy U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba.

By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Jan. 12, 2006.

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department is cracking down on members of Pastors for Peace and the Venceremos Brigade, U.S. groups that have long organized trips to Cuba in open defiance of U.S. regulations restricting travel to the island, the groups say.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Treasury branch that enforces U.S. sanctions against Cuba, has sent letters to about 200 travelers from the groups asking them to provide information on their latest trips. The letters are the first step in a process that could lead to fines of about $7,500 per traveler.

Pastors for Peace has been organizing caravans of vehicles carrying aid from the United States to Mexico then on to Cuba since 1992, and members have received OFAC letters in the past, said spokeswoman Lucia Bruno. But this is the first time OFAC has sent out so many letters, she said, suggesting a more aggressive enforcement attempt.

''This time it's different in that virtually everyone in the last caravan received the letter. Before it was sort of here and there,'' she said.

A HARDER LINE

The Bush administration has been tightening restrictions on travel to Cuba, and enforcing them more strongly, arguing that it wants to deny resources to the communist government and hasten its fall. In 2004, the administration collected $1.5 million in fines from 894 individuals caught traveling to Cuba without a license.

Only a few groups can travel legally to Cuba, including Cuban Americans, journalists, lawmakers and some trade delegations.

Most of the letters to Pastors for Peace and Venceremos Brigade were sent out in August and September but have only now been made public by the groups, Bruno said.

140 TONS OF AID

In July of last year, 130 members of Pastors for Peace, which defines itself as a special ministry of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizations, crossed the Texas-Mexico border with 140 tons of aid for Cuba. U.S. Customs officials let most of the aid through but confiscated 43 boxes containing personal computers and other computer supplies.

About 70 members of the Venceremos Brigade, which openly says it acts in solidarity with the Cuban revolution, went to Cuba via Canada in August to protest the travel restrictions and were slapped with warning letters, Bruno said. Both groups refuse to apply for licenses to travel to Cuba and announce their trips as challenges over the U.S. regulations.

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