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CUBA
NEWS
The Miami Herald
Cuba and Iran are "friends''
Posted on Mon, Apr. 23,
2007
(AP) -- Iran's foreign minister said Monday
that his country and Cuba were "friends
with one vision of justice.''
Manouchehr Mottaki met with his Cuban counterpart,
Felipe Perez Roque, who repeated Havana's
support for any country's right to use nuclear
power for peaceful purposes. Iran is locked
in a nuclear standoff with the United States
over its uranium enrichment program.
Perez Roque criticized U.S. threats against
Iran over its nuclear program, saying Cuba
opposes "the pressure and blackmail
of the threatening language used against
Iran.''
In Havana for an official visit, Mottaki
joined Perez Roque in briefly addressing
the media -- but taking no questions --
after their private meeting.
Castro may be back in business
New photos published of
Fidel Castro show him looking fit and meeting
with a senior Chinese delegation.
By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sun, Apr. 22, 2007
The photos of a stronger and healthier
Fidel Castro meeting with a high-level Chinese
delegation published in Cuba's principal
newspaper Saturday are perhaps the most
significant sign so far that the ailing
leader is not just getting better, but getting
back to business too.
Castro and top members of his cabinet met
Friday with Wu Guanzheng, a member of China's
Communist Party Politburo who headed a delegation
of visiting Chinese officials, the Granma
daily reported.
''Compañero Fidel exchanged ideas
with the Politburo member for an hour,''
the paper said. "The encounter was
very profound and fruitful.''
Two pictures showed the 80-year-old Castro
in a black and red jogging suit and looking
generally healthy. They were a far cry from
photos taken early into Castro's illness,
which showed him severely underweight and
lying in bed.
''I am impressed and surprised,'' said
University of Miami Institute for Cuban
and Cuban American Studies research associate
Jorge Piñón. "I think
it's a sign he's getting better.''
Although Piñón said he doesn't
necessarily believe Castro will ever return
to work as he once did, Saturday's photos
were significant because of the senior rank
of the foreign visitor.
If Castro was weak or incoherent, he would
not have risked having that news spread
through diplomatic circles, Piñón
said. Showing Castro with Chinese leaders
illustrates that he's not just physically
looking better but mentally prepared for
such a meeting.
CLOSE FRIENDS
Prior to Saturday, Castro had been photographed
mostly with close friends like Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez and Colombian
author Gabriel García Márquez.
On July 31, Castro's personal secretary
read a statement, said to be written by
Castro, announcing that he had suffered
intestinal bleeding and required surgery.
The presidency was temporarily turned over
to Castro's younger brother Raúl,
the defense minister.
While his health has remained a state secret,
for months speculation abounded that Castro
was on the brink of death. In January, the
Spanish newspaper El País, citing
sources close to doctors who examined him,
said Castro had suffered life-threatening
operations and infections resulting from
diverticulitis, perforations of small pouches
in the intestinal wall that weaken with
age.
For months, senior Cuban cabinet members
have insisted he was recovering and participating
in government but with a lighter work load.
In the first signs that Castro was in fact
feeling better, in the past weeks he published
three editorials in the Cuban state media.
He railed against the use of food crops
to produce ethanol, saying it would deprive
the world's poor of food. Another article
attacked the United States, saying Washington
was protecting accused terrorist Luis Posada
Carriles.
''Clearly this is the first picture of
him working as opposed to convalescing,''
said Cuba expert Philip Peters, of the Lexington
Institute think tank in Virginia. "It's
definitely important, because three months
ago, the psychology was that he wasn't coming
back at all. This changes that.''
REINING IN RAUL
Peters said early signs that Raúl
Castro was planning economic reforms seem
to have tempered, suggesting Fidel is reining
his brother in.
The Cuban media recently announced that
a much-lauded academic commission formed
to study problems with Cuba's system of
socialist property would issue a report
-- within three years.
''That's a deep freeze,'' Peters said.
"That is a sense that Fidel is coming
back.''
Other experts cautioned against reading
too much into Saturday's photos, saying
that, if anything, they underscore the importance
of China to Cuba. Saturday's Granma also
showed pictures of the Chinese delegation
meeting with Raúl Castro, who has
been known to favor Beijing's economic model.
Behind Venezuela, China has become a major
trade partner with Cuba.. The new household
appliances in Cubans' homes and fleet of
new buses whizzing down the highways were
provided by China at favorable terms.
Trade with China last year doubled to nearly
$2 billion, Cuban officials have said.
''Major decisions about the direction of
the Cuban revolution will be something the
old man will continue to have influence
over,'' said National War College professor
Frank Mora, who said there have been too
many other signs that Castro has stepped
aside and his brother is in charge.
"Fidelismo is over as far as I'm concerned.''
To read Frances Robles' blog, Cuban Colada,
go to the blogs section of MiamiHerald.com,
or go to http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/
Fidel Castro looks stronger and healthier
in new photos
By Frances Robles. frobles@miamiherald.com.
Posted on Sat, Apr. 21, 2007.
The photos of a stronger and healthier
Fidel Castro meeting with a high-level Chinese
delegation published in Cuba's principal
newspaper Saturday are perhaps the most
significant sign so far that the ailing
leader is not just getting better, but getting
back to business too.
Castro and top members of his cabinet met
Friday with Wu Guanzheng, a member of China's
Communist Party Politburo who headed a delegation
of visiting Chinese officials, the Granma
daily reported.
''Compañero Fidel exchanged ideas
with the Politburo member for an hour,''
the paper said. "The encounter was
very profound and fruitful.''
Two pictures showed the 80-year-old Castro
in a black and red jogging suit and looking
generally healthy. They were a far cry from
photos taken early into Castro's illness,
which showed him severely underweight and
laying in bed.
''I am impressed and surprised,'' said
University of Miami Institute for Cuban
and Cuban American Studies research associate
Jorge Piñón. "I think
it's a sign he's getting better.''
Although Piñón said he doesn't
not necessarily believe Castro will ever
return to work as he once did, Saturday's
photos were significant because of the senior
rank of the foreign visitor.
If Castro was weak or incoherent, he would
not have risked having that news spread
through diplomatic circles, Piñón
said. Showing Castro with Chinese leaders
illustrates that he's not just physically
looking better, but mentally prepared for
such a meeting.
Prior to Saturday, Castro had mostly been
photographed with close friends such as
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
and Colombian writer Gabriel García
Marquez.
On July 31, Castro's personal secretary
read a statement said to be written by Castro,
announcing that he had suffered intestinal
bleeding and required surgery. The presidency
was temporarily turned over to Castro's
younger brother Raúl, the defense
minister.
While his health has remained a state secret,
for months speculation abounded that Castro
was on the brink of death. In January, the
Spanish newspaper El Pais, citing sources
close to doctors who examined him, said
Castro had suffered life-threatening operations
and infections resulting from diverticulitis,
perforations of small pouches in the intestinal
wall that weaken with age.
For months, senior Cuban cabinet members
have insisted he was recovering and participating
in government, but with a lighter work load.
In the first signs that Castro was in fact
feeling better, in the past weeks he published
three editorials in the Cuban state media.
He railed against the use of food crops
to produce ethanol, saying it would deprive
the world's poor of food. Another article
attacked the United States, saying Washington
was protecting accused terrorist Luis Posada
Carriles.
''Clearly this is the first picture of
him working as opposed to convalescing,''
said Cuba expert Philip Peters, of the Lexington
Institute thinktank in Virginia. "It's
definitely important, because three months
ago, the psychology was that he wasn't coming
back at all. This changes that.''
Peters said early signs that Raúl
Castro was planning economic reforms seem
to have tempered, suggesting Fidel is reining
his brother in.
The Cuban media recently announced that
a much-lauded academic commission formed
to study problems with Cuba's system of
socialist property would issue a report
-- within three years.
''That's a deep freeze,'' Peters said.
"That is a sense that Fidel is coming
back.''
Other experts cautioned against reading
too much into Saturday's photos, saying
that if anything, they underscore the importance
of China to Cuba. Saturday's Granma also
showed pictures of the Chinese delegation
meeting with Raúl Castro, who has
been known to favor Beijing's economic model.
Behind Venezuela, China has become a major
trade partner with Cuba.. The new household
appliances in Cubans' homes and fleet of
new buses whizzing down the highways were
provided by China at favorable terms.
Trade with China last year doubled to nearly
$2 billion, Cuban officials have said.
''Major decisions about the direction of
the Cuban revolution will be something the
old man will continue to have influence
over,'' said National War College professor
Frank Mora, who said there have been too
many other signs that Castro has stepped
aside and his brother is in charge.
Spy one of many, says her nemesis
An intelligence mole hunter
who wrote a book about Cuban spies will
speak tonight in Coral Gables.
By Glenn Garvin, ggarvin@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Apr. 21, 2007.
Cuban spy Ana Montes, who passed U.S. military
and intelligence secrets back to Havana
for 16 years from her senior post in the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was ''our
worst nightmare,'' says the man who caught
her. But she wasn't alone.
''Fidel Castro has the American government
thoroughly penetrated'' with spies, says
Scott W. Carmichael, the DIA mole hunter
who first identified Montes as a Cuban agent
and nagged the FBI into launching the investigation
that finally brought her down in 2001.
''It was so easy for the Cubans to recruit
Ana Montes and place her where they wanted
to, in the heart of U.S. intelligence,''
Carmichael says. "I have to believe
that if they're that good, they've been
able to do it more than once.''
Carmichael is in Miami to read from his
new account of the Montes case, True Believer,
at Books & Books tonight. He spent 2
½ years wrangling with the DIA and
other U.S. intelligence agencies to get
the book into print, he says, because he's
trying to sound an alarm about Castro's
spies -- an alarm the government isn't taking
very seriously.
CLAIMS DISMISSED
''Frustration, that's why I wrote the book,''
Carmichael said during an interview with
The Miami Herald.
He has convened several meetings of U.S.
military counterintelligence experts since
Montes' capture to call for a broad, coordinated
hunt for Cuban spies, he says, but his efforts
have been greeted mostly with yawns.
''They continue to see it as an isolated
case,'' Carmichael says, even though authorities
also broke up one Cuban spy ring in South
Florida in 1998 and another in 2006. "I
believe strongly that they are wrong. My
belief is that there are many, many Ana
Monteses, both down here in Miami and up
in Washington.''
Carmichael's claim that the U.S. government
is riddled with Castro's spies has been
greeted skeptically by some intelligence
officials and Cuba policy analysts. ''How
would he know?'' says Philip Peters, a former
U.S. diplomat who follows Cuban affairs
for the conservative Lexington Institute
think-tank. "His book is very thin
on evidence.''
Others are more impressed. Roger Noriega,
who held foreign policy positions during
the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and both
George Bushes, says it troubled him that
Montes held such a senior post on Cuba despite
her vocal opposition to U.S. policy there.
''There is an indifference to the threat
that Cuba poses in our national security
apparatus,'' Noriega says. "It extends
to the intelligence community. I don't think
they're very rigorous or vigorous on the
Cuba account. It is disturbing, the picture
he paints.''
The Defense Intelligence Agency collects,
analyzes and manages all the military intelligence
flowing into the U.S. armed forces. Montes
was the DIA's senior military and political
analyst on Cuba from 1992 until her arrest
in 2001 -- five years after Carmichael first
questioned her. She admitted spying for
Cuba and is serving a 25-year term at a
federal prison in Texas.
Part of the plea deal under which Montes
avoided a life sentence was for her to make
a full confession so intelligence officials
could assess the damage she did. Carmichael
says the details were grim -- not only what
Montes passed back to Havana, but how blatantly
she did it.
''She was meeting Cuban intelligence officers
every two weeks in restaurants around Washington,
D.C., and giving them her reports over lunch,''
says Carmichael. (Montes never removed classified
documents from her office; she memorized
the information and typed it onto computer
disks that she gave to her Cuban spy masters.)
"The frequency of those face-to-face
meetings is astounding.''
So, apparently, were the contents of the
disks. 'Most of it is still classified,
but it's pretty common knowledge now that
the damage assessment used the phrase 'exceptionally
grave,' '' says Carmichael. "That's
a very uncommon term to use in these things
-- you only hear it when they're talking
about [the Soviet Union's prized mole in
the FBI] Robert Hanssen or someone at that
level.
"She gave away all our sources and
methods, all our judgments. She participated
in every significant policy decision on
Cuba for nine years and she told the Cubans
all about every single one of them.''
SPREADING SECRETS
Worse yet, Carmichael says, is that if
Fidel Castro knew all these secrets, so
did other regimes with which the United
States is at odds.
''The danger is not that Cuba is going
to land troops on Miami Beach,'' Carmichael
says. "The danger is that he's going
to use the information as currency to spend
where it will help him the most. With Colombian
insurgents, for instance -- if it suits
his purposes, he'll give them the information,
and if an American soldier gets killed,
oh, too bad.
'In 2001, just a few months before Ana
Montes was arrested, Castro visited Syria,
Libya and Iran. In Iran, he gave a speech
and said, 'Iran and Cuba, in cooperation
with each other, can bring America to its
knees.' Fidel Castro's greatest strength
in that relationship is his knowledge of
us. That's his end of the deal.''
St. Vincent prime minister recovering
in Cuba
Posted on Mon, Apr. 23,
2007
(AP) -- Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves
was recovering Monday from surgery in Cuba
after an operation for an undisclosed ailment.
Gonsalves said in a phone interview late
Sunday that the surgery was successful and
he expects to recuperate in the hospital
for another week.
''Everything is OK. I'm feeling fine,''
the St. Vincent prime minister told The
Associated Press.
Gonsalves declined to disclose details
of the surgery except to say that doctors
operated on one of his legs. He said it
was not related to an April 9 car crash
in his small Caribbean nation.
His driver, Zaccheus Parris, was also in
Cuba and was examined by Cuban leader Fidel
Castro's personal orthopedic surgeon for
neck and shoulder injuries sustained in
the crash, the prime minister said. Gonsalves
suffered a cut lip and two loosened front
teeth when his sport utility vehicle collided
with a truck outside Kingstown, the capital
of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Cuba lashes White House over Posada
release
By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 20, 2007.
The Cuban government Friday condemned Luis
Posada Carriles' release on bail, saying
in a statement that the Bush administration
could have used the Patriot Act or other
tools to keep ''the most notorious terrorist
who ever existed in this hemisphere'' behind
bars.
The statement published in the Granma newspaper
called Posada's release on bail Thursday
an insult to the Cuban people and to the
73 people who died in the October 1976 bombing
of a Cubana de Aviación flight.
It directly blamed the Bush administration
for the release while awaiting a trial in
Texas, saying the White House is afraid
Posada will spill secrets about CIA campaigns
against Cuba.
Posada was acquitted in a Venezuelan military
court of the airline bombing, but escaped
while pending a civilian court ruling. The
U.S. attorney's office has charged him with
immigration violations.
"With this decision, the Cuban government
has ignored the clamor heard throughout
the world, including inside the United States
territory, against impunity and the political
manipulation this act signals.''
Friday's Granma, run by the Cuban Communist
Party, reported that 50,000 people protested
Thursday in Bayamo, a city in the eastern
Granma province. Another 5,000 young communists
rallied in front of the U.S. Interests Section
in Havana Thursday night.
The Cuban government said the case smacked
of a double standard, because Posada was
released on bail while five Cuban spies
convicted in Miami -- Havana says they were
only monitoring exile ''terrorist groups''
-- are serving long prison sentences.
''There's a great sense of outrage that
this has taken place,'' Gloria La Riva,
who heads Free the Five, an organization
that lobbies for the Cuban agents' release,
said Thursday night by phone from San Francisco.
"The Cuban five, men who never had
a weapon, who were never accused of having
a weapon, the ones who monitored these terrorists,
are in prison serving life.''
The Cuban government's statement Friday
posed a series of questions, based on its
own version of Posada's case -- and supplied
its own response:
"Why did the United States government
let him enter its territory with impunity
despite the warning calls by President Fidel
Castro?
"Why did the North American government
protect him for months while he stayed in
the United States illegally? Why, having
all the elements, did the government limit
itself on Jan. 11 to accusing him of minor
crimes of an immigration nature and not
for what he really is: an assassin?''
The Cubans' theory: 'The release of the
terrorist was done by the White House as
compensation so that Posada Carriles doesn't
divulge what he knows, so he doesn't talk
about his endless secrets he holds about
his prolonged period as an agent of the
United States' special services -- that
he acted in operation Condor, in the dirty
war against Cuba, against Nicaragua and
other people of the world.''
Posada arrives in Miami
By Oscar Corral, Luisa Yanez And Alfonso
Chardy. Posted on Thu, Apr. 19, 2007.
After a two-year battle with immigration
authorities, Cuban exile militant Luis Posada
Carriles, looking frail and unsteady on
his feet, arrived in Miami on Thursday after
being released on $350,000 bond by a federal
court in El Paso, Texas.
As the sun began to set, he arrived at
his wife's apartment in the Hammocks area
of Miami-Dade, flanked by his attorney,
with a television helicopter overhead and
surrounded by reporters and photographers.
Wearing a rumpled light-colored jacket
and trousers, Posada was rushed up a walkway
to a narrow staircase as newspeople tried
to take his picture, and pose questions.
Asked how he felt, Posada responded: "Estoy
muy contento'' -- "I'm very happy.''
Asked if he had a message to the community,
he replied: ''Estoy muy agradecido'' --
"I'm very grateful'' -- as his attorney
urged him not to speak.
Posada's release unleashed a firestorm
in Venezuela and Cuba, where leaders accuse
Posada of masterminding the bombing of a
civilian jetliner that killed 73 people
in 1976, among other alleged terrorist acts.
Posada has denied any involvement in the
bombing, was cleared by a Venezuelan military
court and was awaiting the outcome of a
civilian court's ruling when he escaped
in 1985.
The Cuban government planned a demonstration
Thursday night by students in front of the
U.S. Interests Section in Havana. The communist
government's official news agency Prensa
Latina reported the news mid-afternoon,
headlining the item ''Despite worldwide
rejection, Posada is released.'' The report
carried no official government reaction.
José Pertierra, a Cuban-American
attorney in Washington who represents the
Venezuelan government, lashed out at the
Bush administration, blaming it for Posada's
court-ordered release.
''It is an affront to the memory of the
victims of Posada's terrorism, but it speaks
volumes about the absence of sincerity in
President Bush's so-called war on terror,''
Pertierra said.
Cuban exiles in Miami were pleased that
Posada, a former CIA operative -- and a
hero to many -- was returning to Miami,
at least temporarily, while he awaits trial.
''That's doing justice. He is not a danger
to this community, and people here know
he had nothing to do with the blowing up
of the airplane, said Jose "Pepin''
Pujol, a longtime friend of Posada's who
is also under investigation in a case involving
Posada.''
Santiago Alvarez, a wealthy developer and
major Posada benefactor who ran afoul of
the law after helping Posada emerge from
hiding in Miami in 2005, said through his
attorney that he is glad his friend has
been released.
''Mr. Alvarez is thrilled that the justice
system is working fairly for Luis Posada,
and he wishes him the best,'' said Alvarez's
Miami attorney, Ben Kuehne.
Alvarez is serving a three-year sentence
at the Miami federal prison. Alvarez and
Osvaldo Mitat were accused of conspiring
to stash machine guns, firearms, a silencer
and a grenade launcher in a Broward apartment
complex that belonged to Alvarez.
Posada traveled from El Paso to Miami with
his lawyer, Art Hernandez, accompanied by
U.S. marshals.
''He has made bond, and we expect him to
appear for trial on May 11,'' said Dean
Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. Posada
will be fitted with an electronic ankle
bracelet for 24-hour monitoring.
His five-hour flight about a chartered
aircraft was ''peaceful,'' said Arturo Hernandez,
one of Posada's attorneys. "It gave
him a chance to relax from the previous
couple of hours, which had been very stressful.''
Hernandez said Posada's release on Thursday
came as a surprise, even to the Cuban militant.
He was woken at 4 a.m. and told that he
would be let go, he said.
A federal judge and an appeals court turned
down prosecutors' arguments to keep Posada
imprisoned until his May 11 trial. On Thursday,
he was reunited with his once-estranged
wife and two grown children Janet and Jorge.
Posada is facing immigration fraud charges.
An immigration judge ruled that he couldn't
be deported to those countries because he
might be tortured, and no other country
has agreed to take him.
Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement in Washington, said
Posada also will be required to report to
immigration authorities by telephone every
two weeks and to continue trying to get
a travel document ''from any government
in the world'' so he can be deported at
some point.
Raimondi, in a written statement, said
Posada also will be required to report to
Immigration and Customs Enforcement in person
as soon as ''the criminal proceedings against
him'' end and to "surrender to ICE
for removal in the event that he obtains
travel documents necessary to relocate outside
the U.S.''
Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen,
was indicted on charges of lying to U.S.
immigration authorities about how he entered
the country in 2005. An appeals court in
New Orleans this week rejected prosecutors'
attempts to keep Posada in jail until his
trial.
In Cuba, the relatives of the victims of
the downing of the Cuban commercial airliner
in 1976 reacted with indignation to Posada's
release, according to Agence France-Press
in Havana.
''We are deeply angered. We didn't expect
them to release him because they have sufficient
elements to punish him for being a liar
and a terrorist. They are protecting the
murderer of our parents,'' said Camilo Rojo,
of the Committee of Relatives of the Victims.
Rojo, the son of Jesus Rojo, an official
of Cubana de Aviacíon who died in
the bombing at age 33, described Posada's
release as a "lack of respect for all
the victims of terrorism, not only in Cuba
but throughout the world.''
Miami Herald reporter Jay Weaver and translator
Renato Perez contributed to this report.
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