|
CUBA
NEWS
The Miami Herald
A historic day for Cuban exile art,
culture
The much-anticipated
Cuban Museum, a showcase for exile art and
culture, edged closer to tangible reality
as ground was broken on its future home
in the heart of Miami.
By Elaine De Valle, edevalle@MiamiHerald.com.
osted on Sat, Jun. 09, 2007
For more than a decade, the Cuban Museum
has been much like the exile community that
created it and for which it is meant --
rootless.
It floated exhibits, concerts and dance
performances to different libraries and
schools. It borrowed office space at a Coral
Gables bank.
On Friday, the nonprofit formed in 1996
broke ground for a new museum that will
showcase the art and culture of Cuban Americans
in a space where divas once practiced their
arias, a stone's throw from Cuban Memorial
Boulevard.
The Cuban Museum is one of the first cultural
projects funded by the Miami-Dade Building
Better Communities bond program that voters
approved in 2004. In February, the county
bought the Florida Grand Opera's Arturo
di Filippi Educational Center at 1200 Coral
Way for $3 million. It will spend $7 million
on that site to build the 15,000-square-foot
museum scheduled to open in the summer of
2009.
''Public infrastructure isn't just sewers
and police stations,'' said Miami-Dade County
Manager George Burgess. "It's museums
and places to house our heritage.''
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, who came
to South Florida from Cuba when he was 8,
said this community recognizes that.
''Cuban influences are an important part
of our make-up and our melting pot,'' Alvarez
said. "I envision the museum serving
as part museum, part educational institution,
part tourist attraction and part gathering
place.''
Exiles' children and grandchildren were
mentioned time and again as the real heirs
to the museum's legacy.
''I'm a first generation immigrant. I came
when I was 3, so it represents an ability
to learn about my own culture,'' said board
member Yolanda Nader, CEO of Dosal Tobacco.
''But it's also a way of preserving that
for my daughter and grandchildren,'' Nader
said. "It's very hard to keep those
roots generation after generation. So having
a place . . . where you can expose your
children to your culture will help.''
Ofelia Tabares-Fernández, founder
and president of the Cuban Museum, challenged
the private sector to help create an endowment
to ensure the museum's future. ''This is
the culmination -- and the beginning --
of a commitment that should last, and that
we are making for future generations,''
she said.
The board considered the property ideal
because it's one of the neighborhoods where
Cuban exiles settled in the 1960s.
''It has been a long, difficult and, at
times, very painful journey,'' she said.
Tabares-Fernández is one of 17 board
members from the now defunct Cuban Museum
of Art and Culture who resigned in 1988
over the political controversy that erupted
when the board's vice president -- prominent
Coral Gables art dealer Ramón Cernuda
-- led an auction that included work by
artists with strong ties to Fidel Castro.
That museum -- the target of protests and
pipe bombs -- was blocks away on 12th Avenue.
It closed in the late 1990s and donated
its collection to the Lowe Art Museum at
the University of Miami.
The new museum's mission clearly states
that it will display art and showcase artists
who left Cuba after 1959. Board treasurer
Eduardo Dieppa III, a real estate attorney,
said the Cuban Museum of Art in Daytona
Beach already exhibits an extensive collection
of pre-Castro art.
But Cernuda, owner of Cernuda Arte on Ponce
de Leon Boulevard, says the name should
change accordingly: "If it's going
to exclude artists that have not left Cuba,
then it should be called the Cuban Diaspora
Museum or the Cuban Exile Museum or the
Cuban Migration Museum.
''I wish them well. It's an institution
that can make its cultural contributions
to the community if it is an institution
that will bring an open program of cultural
activities that will not exclude artists
because of where they live or what they
felt years ago,'' Cernuda said.
Boat with 22 Cuban migrants lands in
Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- (AP) -- A boat
packed with 22 Cuban migrants washed ashore
in Honduras, officials said Friday.
The group, 19 men and three women, arrived
last Saturday at the Honduran island of
Guanaja, 250 miles north of Tegucigalpa,
after leaving Cuba on May 13 from the southern
city of Mula, police spokesman Elias Chavez
said.
They remained free as Honduran officials
processed their immigration papers.
Immigration director German Espinal said
the Cubans paid smugglers $22,000 to $55,000
each to be taken to Miami.
Some 80 Cubans have arrived in Honduras
this year, and about 600 have been documented
in the past two years, Espinal said.
''That's a conservative number because
there are many cases that authorities don't
know about,'' he said.
Most Cuban immigrants are granted temporary
residency of 15 to 30 days, which can be
extended for a longer period. However, most
immediately leave for the United States.
Cuba and Honduras reinstated diplomatic
relations in January 2001, nearly four decades
after breaking formal ties.
U.S. tells Cuba: no middlemen, please
The United States has
told Cuba to stop using third parties to
reach out to Washington as the U.S. government
recognizes an OAS role on the island.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Thu, Jun. 07, 2007.
PANAMA CITY, Panama - Several third countries
and foreign personalities, presumed to be
carrying messages from Havana, have approached
the U.S. government since Fidel Castro took
ill, U.S. officials have confirmed.
But the State Department told Havana to
use formal channels if it wants to communicate
with Washington, and it has not heard from
Cuban officials since, the officials added.
The rare U.S. confirmation of those approaches
nevertheless suggests a small crack in the
Bush administration's public stance of rejecting
top-level contacts with Cuba and instead
urging Havana to talk with its domestic
opponents.
On Monday, the administration also for
the first time said publicly that the 34-country
Organization of American States has a role
to play in Cuba, not as an intermediary
with Washington but in guiding Cuba toward
democracy.
OAS member countries overwhelmingly believe
the U.S. policy to isolate Cuba is wrong.
And several countries like Spain are holding
talks with Cuba in the hopes of gaining
more influence over Havana's new leadership.
NO FORMAL CONTACTS
The Bush administration has had no formal
high-level contacts with Havana since 2004,
when it called off twice-a-year talks on
immigration matters. Raúl Castro
has twice reiterated Cuba's desire for talks
with the United States since he assumed
his brother's powers last summer, provided
they respect Cuba's "sovereignty.''
U.S. officials declined to identify the
intermediaries, but one said that ''many
third countries and individuals'' have offered
themselves as go-betweens with Cuba, presumably
with the approval of Raúl Castro.
The State Department contacted a Cuban
diplomat in Washington in late March to
inquire whether the intermediaries indeed
represented Havana, and was told "probably
not.''
One State Department official, who is closely
involved on Cuban matters but declined to
be identified in order to discuss sensitive
diplomatic issues, said the Cubans were
then told that any communications should
be made through each other's diplomatic
missions in Havana and Washington, or at
the periodic ''fence line'' talks between
U.S. and Cuban commanders at the U.S. navy
base in Guantánamo.
The official said Cuba's use of back channels
had a ''clandestine'' air. ''We're not going
to do that,'' said the official, adding
that "we want to be transparent.''
RECENT GESTURES
Although Cuba-U.S. relations have been
cold for a long time, especially under the
Bush administration, Cuba has made some
recent gestures of apparent cooperation,
including handing over two U.S. fugitives
to Washington.
Both the U.S. offer for Cuba to contact
Washington through formal channels and the
agreement for the OAS to discuss Cuba come
with strings attached, however.
The State Department is insisting that
any discussions must be aimed at bringing
democratic reforms to Cuba, the State Department
official said. Cuba has long maintained
that there should be no preconditions for
talks.
On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice said at the annual gathering of foreign
ministers from the Organization of American
States in Panama that "a process of
change is taking place in Cuba, and the
OAS must be ready to help the Cuban people
realize their aspirations and freedom and
to secure the rights that are now enjoyed
within our democratic community of the Americas.''
The State Department official said it was
the first time that Washington had asked
the OAS to consider the issue. Cuba was
suspended from the OAS in 1962 and the OAS
has democracy clauses that would bar Havana
from returning.
U.S. officials say the administration wants
the OAS to be prepared in the event a transition
begins in Cuba. Before, the Bush administration
was reluctant to allow the OAS to get involved,
partly because Cuba is not a democracy and
partly because the OAS was seen as hostile
to U.S. positions on the island.
DIALOGUE WITH CUBA
OAS Secretary General José Miguel
Insulza has long insisted some kind of dialogue
should take place between the organization
and Cuba.
He told The Miami Herald on Tuesday he
would seek to clarify what the U.S. position
is on the OAS role. He said the United States
previously insisted any dialogue with the
Cubans also needed to involve dissidents.
Havana's policy is to break off any contacts
with nations that deal with Castro opponents.
Castro talks about past, not Cuba's
future in TV interview
Fidel Castro looked more
robust in a TV interview but spoke slowly
and warned of looming health dangers.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Jun. 06, 2007.
Fidel Castro reminisced about old times
in Vietnam but offered no comment on his
own country in a televised chat Tuesday
-- the first lengthy look at the Cuban leader
10 months after surgery forced him to cede
power.
Castro, 80, credited a better diet for
his improving health and joked that a 70-year-old
Japanese man recently climbed Mt. Everest.
But he then added an ominous note: "There
are dangers that threaten the health of
a human being. . . . I don't want to disappoint.''
His face seemed more filled out than in
recent photographs, and he smiled often
but spoke slowly and in short phrases, slurring
his words at times and drawing labored breaths.
The interview appeared to have taken place
in the same room as his April meeting with
a Chinese delegation -- a room the Beijing
media said was in a hospital.
But he provided no hint on whether he planned
to return to power and made no mention of
his brother Raúl, who assumed most
of Castro's powers July 31 after he underwent
surgery for what is now widely believed
to be diverticulitis, an intestinal condition
that can lead to fatal bleeding.
''This confirms for me that the succession
has taken place,'' said Andy Gómez,
a senior fellow at University of Miami's
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
"This is all part of a strategic plan
by the new leadership to show the Cuban
people and the international community that
Castro is no longer capable of running the
country.
''It shows that he is not involved in the
day-to-day activities and hasn't been for
a while,'' Gómez said. "He's
living in the past, rather than preparing
for the future.''
Castro spent most of the 50-minute ''conversation''
with Randy Alonso, host of the nightly news
program Round Table, recounting his weekend
visit by Vietnamese Communist Party chief
Nong Duc Manh. He became animated as he
recalled a visit to Vietnam when it was
at war with the United States.
He spent about 40 minutes describing the
destruction caused by the war and slowly
rattling off a string of facts about modern-day
Vietnam that ranged from its rice and coffee
harvest figures to the number of its modern
toilets.
He remained seated throughout the interview,
wearing an Adidas track suit in Cuba's red,
white and blue colors and black sneakers.
The cameras showed close-ups of his head,
hands and feet, but no full-body views.
After Alonso commented that Castro did
not appear to have difficulty reading from
a copy of Granma newspaper, Castro joked
that his eyesight was indeed improving.
"I used to wear glasses. I had myopia.
But myopia goes away with the passing of
years. And the first time [a doctor] told
me my myopia was going away, I asked him:
Does that mean I'm growing younger?''
And while there has never been any official
and detailed version of his illness, Castro
claimed the public knows enough. ''They
say [my health] is a state secret; what
state secret? I said very clearly where
things stood,'' he said.
Translator Renato Perez contributed to
this report.
Castro video raises questions about
recovery
Fidel Castro remained
hospitalized even as he met with leaders
and amid reports of recuperation.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@miamiherald.com.
June 5, 2007.
The video footage of Fidel Castro released
last weekend appears to have been shot in
the same hospital where he met with a visiting
Chinese delegation on April 21.
If Castro indeed is still hospitalized
more than 10 months after he underwent emergency
surgery for intestinal bleeding, it would
indicate that while he continues to recuperate,
he's either not out of the woods or he has
ultra-cautious doctors.
Castro is expected to appear on Cuban television
again today in an interview with a Cuban
news anchor. A short clip of that interview
that aired Monday night indicated that it
took place in the same hospital room.
The weekend images from a meeting with
Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc
Manh showed a more robust Castro in the
same red, white and blue track suit that
he wore for the April meeting with Wu Guanzheng,
a member of China's Communist Party politburo.
The Chinese media later released photos
and a video of the meeting and reported
that it took place in a hospital. A comparison
of the two videos shows what appear to be
the same furniture, windows, curtains and
decorative plants.
The images from both encounters were broadcast
on Cuban television and published in newspapers.
''What little empirical evidence we have
-- his own claims, plus footage and testimony
from people who've met with him -- all seems
to bear out that he does appear to be getting
better gradually,'' said William LeoGrande,
a Cuba expert with American University in
Washington. "But it's clear that [his
illness] was extremely serious.
''People aren't in the hospital for a whole
year unless they are extremely ill,'' LeoGrande
said. "Until he's really back in public
in a regular way, no one really knows if
he is fully recovered.''
After 47 years of absolute control over
the island, Castro handed over power to
his brother Raúl Castro on July 31,
2006, and has not appeared in public since
July 26.
Recovering Cuban leader now writing
for posterity
Experts on Cuba say the
ailing Fidel Castro has taken up writing
in an attempt to establish a legacy on the
global stage.
By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com.
June 4, 2007.
Nearly a year since he last stood before
a throng of thousands for one of his usual
hourslong speeches, Fidel Castro has found
something to replace his podium: his pen.
Castro has written more than a dozen articles
in the past two months, in what experts
view as a move to position himself as an
ombudsman of world affairs. More than half
of his essays take on global energy issues
such as ethanol, but they never tackle Cuba's
myriad domestic problems.
Others have been reflective or even melancholic.
Some meander in incoherent directions.
Castro is writing for posterity now, experts
say, creating a paper trail to show that
though he's still recovering from a life-threatening
illness, he's alive.
''You have to hand it to him. Above all,
Fidel is a ham actor, and this is the corniest,
longest-running death scene ever!'' said
Alfredo Estrada, author of Havana: Autobiography
of a City. "It's quite a show, but
no one is applauding.''
Castro, 80, fell ill in July, handing over
power to his brother Raúl after announcing
that he required intestinal surgery. Since
then, he's been seen only in orchestrated
photos and videos.
GHOSTWRITER DEBATE
The articles seem to be carefully sourced
and researched and cite detailed statistics,
suggesting help from his staff, experts
said.
''I don't think he's the one writing them,''
said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a University
of Nebraska Cuba expert. "They sound
like the stuff coming out of the mouths
of the energy analysts I met last time I
was there. I'm also hearing the MINFAR [Defense
Ministry] briefing.''
Other paragraphs, he said, ring of Castro's
son Fidelito, an energy expert.
Estrada disagrees: "If they'd been
ghost-written, they'd be better crafted.''
Experts agreed that it matters little who
writes them. What's important is that Castro
is trying to establish himself as a global
thinker who is alert and aware of current
affairs.
His media strategy began to change in March,
when Castro published a front-page editorial
about using food crops such as corn to produce
ethanol. Titled, More than 3 Billion People
in the World are Being Condemned to a Premature
Death From Hunger and Thirst, Castro blasted
ethanol as a rich man's fuel that would
rob the poor of food.
A SECOND CAREER
The article launched a new pet topic and
a second career of sorts for Castro: president
emeritus-turned commentator. Seven of his
essays have touched on energy, including
one that directly criticized usually friendly
Brazil for embracing sugar cane-based ethanol
as an energy source.
He has waxed poetic about his childhood,
wistfully recounting how he was born with
the help of a midwife in a one-room country
house, the child of a Galician immigrant
and a ''young, very poor Cuban peasant girl''
who never went to school.
Castro calculated the number of doctors
who could be trained with money President
Bush uses to wage war in Iraq (999,990)
and recalled the black army lieutenant who
captured him after his band of rebels tried
to overrun the Moncada army barracks in
1953.
''Ideas cannot be killed,'' the lieutenant
declared -- providing Castro with a catchy
headline for his 13th editorial, published
Tuesday. ''I am not the first nor will I
be the last that Bush has ordered to be
killed,'' he said in that piece.
Reacting to Castro's accusation, White
House spokesman Tony Snow said simply: "Look,
it's Fidel Castro.''
In another article, Castro went on a tangent
about millions of bees missing in the United
States, the high cost of a new class of
British submarines and the drawbacks of
free trade. Only once has he discussed his
health.
The Cuban state newspaper Granma has posted
the entire series, Reflections by the Commander
in Chief, on the web in Spanish, English,
French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Arabic
and Russian.
''On March 28, less than two months ago,
when Bush proclaimed his diabolical idea
of producing fuel from food, after a meeting
with the most important U.S. automobile
manufacturers, I wrote my first reflection,''
Castro wrote. "The head of the empire
was bragging that the United States was
now the first world producer of ethanol,
using corn as raw material.''
To make his point about the sugar industry
that enslaved millions of Africans in the
New World, Castro recounted his own stint
the summer of 1969 working sugar fields
as a ''moral duty,'' including an incident
in which he slashed his foot cutting cane.
UNINTERESTED IN CUBA
''These articles tell you he is not interested
in Cuba,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, who heads
the University of Miami's Center for Cuban
and Cuban-American Studies. ". . .
He is writing for posterity now, because
when you have no future, you talk about
the past.''
That the articles never discuss Cuban problems
underscores the fact that the daily decisions
are being made by Raúl, analysts
said.
''What's clear is he is trying to recast
himself as an international player when
things at home are being held together with
spit and bailing wire,'' said Benjamin-Alvarado.
|
