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CUBA
NEWS
The Miami Herald
U.S. House gives boost to Cuban democracy
The House approved a
big jump in Cuba aid money as well as more
funds for U.S. broadcasts to Venezuela.
But lawmakers proposed cuts in military
aid to Colombia.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
June 22, 2007.
Key spending proposals
Key Latin American provisions in the House
2008 Department of State foreign operations
spending bill:
o Cuba: Provides $46 million for Cuban
opposition groups. Eliminates U.S. funding
for the U.N. Human Rights Council, which
opponents say targets Israel but not Cuba,
Sudan and other rights abusers.
o Colombia: Cuts overall aid to Colombia
by $60 million; slashes military and police
assistance by $160 million but adds $101
million in economic and social aid.
o Venezuela: Would provide $10 million
to fund more Voice of America broadcasts
to offset the influence of President Hugo
Chávez.
WASHINGTON -- In the first vote on Cuba
legislation under a Democrat controlled
Congress, the House on Thursday easily approved
a big increase in money for U.S. programs
that support dissidents on the island.
The House also approved a proposal that
would provide Voice of America with $10
million to bolster its broadcasts to Venezuela,
where news media freedoms have been seen
as under attack by left-wing President Hugo
Chávez.
And the House was expected to pass late
Thursday a proposal to make big cuts in
military aid to Colombia -- in the most
significant change to the $5 billion U.S.
anti-drug-trafficking program Plan Colombia
since its inception in 2000. However, Republicans
critical of the proposal agreed to let the
bill pass while planning to challenge it
later during House-Senate negotiations.
The $34 billion State Department foreign
aid bill for 2008 provided several avenues
for Democrats to challenge some of President
Bush's policies on Colombia and Cuba, with
the administration and its backers scoring
a victory on Cuba.
Bush requested almost $46 million for Cuba
democracy programs for the 2008 fiscal year,
a fivefold jump from the 2007 level, in
keeping with a recommendation by an interagency
commission that said the money would help
bring democracy to the island.
Democrats on an appropriations panel --
chaired by Rep. Nita Lowey of New York --
that oversees State Department foreign aid
bills had cut the aid level to $9 million,
arguing there was not enough oversight to
ensure the money would be well spent.
An amendment proposed by Cuban-American
Reps. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a Miami
Republican, and Albio Sires, a New Jersey
Democrat, to adopt the original Bush funding
request passed by a 254-170 vote, with 66
Democrats joining 188 Republicans in support.
The Cuba bill still requires Senate approval.
But the vote ''significantly strengthened''
Bush's efforts to get more money for the
Cuba programs, Díaz-Balart's office
said in a statement.
PROS AND CONS
Thursday's floor debate turned passionate
at times. While some lawmakers questioned
the Cuba democracy programs' effectiveness,
supporters argued that leader Fidel Castro's
illness and the possible impending transition
in Cuba meant the opposition on the island
needed more support.
Each side cited passages from a November
General Accountability Office report on
the Cuba programs. The report said there
were management and oversight problems and
some instances of abuses, such as the purchase
of Godiva chocolates and cashmere sweaters.
But it also noted that dissidents were receiving
radios, literature, medicine and other needed
aid.
Díaz-Balart said the GAO report
never recommended any cuts, and the U.S.
Agency for International Development had
incorporated all the GAO recommendations
to improve program oversight.
He told members he had a letter from prominent
Cuban dissidents in support of the programs
and said similar programs helped the Eastern
European opposition against the Soviet Union
in the 1980s.
''Let us not turn our backs on the Cuban
internal opposition,'' Díaz-Balart
said. "They will play a key role in
the inevitable democratic transition that
is approaching.''
FREEDOM OF PRESS
On Venezuela, the House backed a proposal
by Florida Republican Rep. Connie Mack that
would provide $10 million for the Voice
of America to boost its broadcasts to Venezuela.
''Freedom of the press died in Venezuela
on May 27, 2007, when Chávez shut
down Radio Caracas Television,'' Mack said
on the House floor -- referring to RCTV,
an opposition TV station that was denied
its broadcast license, triggering international
condemnation.
The initiative must still clear the Senate,
but Democrats have given indications they
are in no mood to go easy on the Venezuelan
leader.
At a hearing Tuesday, Rep. Tom Lantos,
D-Calif., the influential chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, condemned
the Venezuelan leader for visiting ''the
most reprehensible despots in the world''
in North Korea, Iran and Cuba and moving
toward "his own brand of authoritarianism.''
On Colombia, the House was set to approve
late Thursday an overall $60 million reduction
in Plan Colombia, including a sharp $160
million cut in military aid, but adding
$101 million in economic and social assistance.
Democrats argued a new approach was needed
as cocaine production appeared to hold steady
despite an expensive U.S.-led effort to
fumigate and eradicate coca crops.
Miami Herald staff writer Lesley Clark
contributed to this report.
Chinese presence, interests in Cuba
growing
More Chinese are living,
studying and working in Cuba as business
links and trade between the two countries
increase.
By Nathaniel Hoffman, McClatchy
News Service. June 25, 2007.
HAVANA -- Yibo Shen came to Cuba five years
ago to study Spanish at the University of
Havana.
He's still here, working and passing time
in Chinese restaurants on the weekends,
one of a growing number of Chinese living
on the island as Cuban-Chinese trade booms.
China is now Cuba's second-largest trading
partner, after Venezuela. Trade between
Cuba and China soared last year to $2.4
billion, Ricardo Alarcón, Cuba's
national assembly president, said during
a recent trip to China.
China's oil company is exploring offshore
oil, and Chinese businesses are flourishing.
Inexpensive Chinese sneakers and auto parts
fill Havana's bare-bones shops. Chinese
pharmaceuticals are being developed in ventures
with Cuban firms.
''We expect a substantial increase in Chinese
visitors to Cuba,'' Alarcón said
in China. China's Xinhua news agency reported
in March that 10,000 Chinese visit Cuba
each year.
FEW RESTRICTIONS
The trade embargo prevents most U.S. businesses
from trading with Cuba, and a U.S. travel
ban keeps most Americans from visiting the
island. The Chinese have no such difficulties.
Shen, for example, represents one of China's
largest bus manufacturers, the Yutong Group.
In just a few years in Cuba, he has sold
thousands of Chinese buses as replacements
for a tattered fleet that largely had succumbed
to age and a lack of spare parts.
''Every day more Chinese companies come
here to invest and sell things, much more
than four years ago,'' he said in fluent
Spanish.
Sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Havana's
old Barrio Chino, once the largest Chinatown
in Latin America, Shen, who hails from Shanghai,
ate ribs and chatted in Mandarin with two
Chinese women. They were midlevel Spanish
students at the University of Havana, where
many Chinese people are studying.
Ivana Cho, who is also from Shanghai, said
she wanted to do postgraduate work in Cuba
in tourism or economics.
The number of Chinese students studying
in Cuba is uncertain. Neither the Chinese
nor the Cuban government is willing to provide
such information. But there's little reason
to doubt that the number is growing. Both
governments are eager to see the relationship
between the countries prosper.
When Alarcón spent five days in
China earlier this month, he visited Shanghai,
China's financial center, and the booming
commercial region of Guangdong.
Not only Chinese businesses have made inroads
in Cuba. Chinese culture has seen a renaissance
in the Barrio Chino as well, after many
years of decline.
At an early-morning Chinese exercise class
in an open-air kung fu studio in Havana's
Chinatown, more than 100 Cubans practiced
qi gong, many wearing commemorative T-shirts
from a China trip they took last year.
Such tai chi and kung fu schools have spread
to towns across the island, with an estimated
5,000 practitioners.
A few hundred thousand Chinese laborers
were brought to Cuba starting in 1847. They
built a thriving neighborhood outside the
walls of old Havana and blended Chinese
and Afro-Cuban culture, fighting in Cuba's
independence wars and in the 1959 Cuban
Revolution, Brown University professor Evelyn
Hu-DeHart said.
After Fidel Castro took power in 1959,
many Chinese-Cubans lost their small businesses
to economic nationalization. Many left for
the United States or elsewhere in Latin
America.
But not all.
In a Chinese senior center across the street
from the kung fu studio, Abel Fung recalled
how he lost his small shop after the revolution.
He eventually went to work as a machinist
in a government shop.
Over the years the Barrio Chino lost much
of its Chinese flavor, but an infusion of
tourism and now a new generation of Chinese
are bringing it back.
POPULAR EATERY
Tao Jin Rong, a prominent businessman in
the Barrio Chino, came to Havana in 1995
to open a restaurant.
''I am Chinese-Cuban, a Chinese person
born in Shanghai, but I live here in Cuba
permanently,'' Tao said.
His restaurant, Tien Tan, which operates
under a special license from the government,
gets high marks from Cuba's burgeoning Chinese
community.
But while neighboring restaurants compete,
there's little true capitalism. None of
the Barrio Chino businesses are truly independent,
said Roberto Vargas Lee, vice president
of the Cuban Federation of Martial Arts.
''All of the Barrio Chino is registered
with the state, under a very important principal:
the development of culture,'' he said. "It
is not that in the neighborhood there is
some form of capitalism or that we are establishing
a trend of restaurants and businesses that
think they are independent, not at all.''
And tourists remain the biggest customers
for the Chinese restaurants. Few Cubans
can afford them.
That's something that Tao hopes will change.
''Cuba needs to find its Chinese food again,''
he said.
Nathaniel Hoffman is a McClatchy special
correspondent. Tim Johnson contributed to
this report from Beijing.
Congressman revives Radio, TV Martí
debate
A U.S. congressman --
frequently critical of U.S policies on Cuba
-- promises congressional hearings on the
anti-Castro, government-funded Radio and
TV Martí
By .Tere Figueras Negrete,
tfigueras@MiamiHerald.com. June 25, 2007.
U.S. Rep. Bill Delahunt renewed his call
for congressional hearings to examine the
funding and content of Radio and TV Martí,
visiting Miami during a week that included
a passionate debate in Washington over federal
funding of programs pushing for democracy
in Cuba.
The Massachusetts Democrat has been an
outspoken critic of the Bush administration's
policy toward Cuba, and advocates loosening
the trade embargo and travel restrictions
to the island.
''If we truly embrace freedom, we have
to do it in a way that makes a difference,''
said Delahunt.
He said an examination of Radio and TV
Martí's operations and finances are
part of an overall need to revamp attitudes
toward U.S.-Cuba relations.
''Those who have stayed the course have
not made a difference in 50 years. With
all due respect to them, they are the indispensable
allies of Fidel Castro,'' he said.
Delahunt, who brought with him members
of the congressional investigative staff,
met with Radio and TV Martí officials
including Pedro Roig, head of the U.S. Office
of Cuba Broadcasting.
Alberto Mascaró, chief of staff
for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, said
the congressman came at the behest of Radio
and TV Martí officials.
''It's important to note that we actually
invited the congressman to visit us,'' said
Mascaró, who described the talks
as ''cordial'' and said network officials
were confident in the transparency and efficiency
of the operation.
''He did mention some things he'd like
to have hearings on,'' he said. "That's
the American system and the right of Congress
to do.''
Delahunt singled out finances, content,
and whether Cubans on the island are able
to hear the broadcasts as reasons for the
hearings.
Delahunt also described the meeting as
amicable, and said Roig was ''very forthcoming''
and pledged his cooperation.
As a member of the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs and the chair of the Oversight and
Investigations subcommittee, he had promised
congressional hearings last year shortly
after Democrats won control of Congress.
Delahunt, who previously said the hearings
would take place by February, said Saturday
there is no set date for the hearings, but
they should take place "in a couple
of months.''
The Miami-based Radio and TV Martí,
which in recent years have faced allegations
of mismanagement and political cronyism,
have cost taxpayers more than $250 million
in the past decade.
The anti-Castro television and radio stations,
overseen by Office of Cuba Broadcasting,
were created to beam pro-democracy messages
to people on the island. Congress approved
$33 million for the agency's budget last
week, including $5 million a year for an
airplane to broadcast TV Martí to
the island, one of the tactics used to avoid
Cuban authorities jamming the broadcast
signal. Critics, including Delahunt, have
long accused the network of airing one-sided
broadcasts, awarding plum jobs to political
allies, and question whether the TV broadcasts
-- frequently jammed by the Cuban government
-- are worth the money.
STEADY IMPROVEMENT
Earlier this week, a draft report from
the State Department concluded the broadcasts
had improved significantly in recent years.
The official report has not been released,
but the draft noted that anecdotal evidence
suggests the broadcasts were reaching a
larger audience on the island, although
it did not provide any concrete numbers.
U.S. Rep Lincoln Díaz-Balart said
Saturday he supported any congressional
examination of Radio and TV Martí,
but said the Massachusetts congressman's
broader criticisms of Cuba policy were off-base.
''With regard to transparency, it's good
to show these are important and effective
programs,'' said Díaz-Balart, who
said he hoped the review will help Radio
and TV Martí improve their broadcasts.
"But with regard to Mr. Delahunt, he
has become one of the most constant advocates
of the same position shared by the Cuban
dictatorship.''
Added Díaz-Balart: "He really
has become predictable in his extremism.''
HEATED DEBATE
Last week also brought a heated debate
onto the House floor over the future of
U.S. funding of democracy programs in Cuba.
The vote was the first on Cuba legislation
under a Democrat-controlled Congress. On
Thursday, the House approved a major increase
in money for U.S. programs that support
dissidents on the island.
President Bush requested almost $46 million
for Cuba democracy programs for the 2008
fiscal year, five times the amount allotted
for 2007. A group of Democrats had earlier
cut the aid back to $9 million, arguing
there was not enough oversight to justify
the money would be well-spent. They noted
a government report that cited abuse in
the programs, such as the purchase of cashmere
sweaters and pricey chocolates.
But a successful amendment proposed by
two Cuban-American congressmen -- Díaz-Balart,
a Republican, and New Jersey's Albio Sires,
a Democrat -- brought the dollar amount
back to the original proposed by the president.
Bill to ease Cuban embargo is introduced
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
June 22, 2007.
WASHINGTON -- A group of lawmakers opposed
to the U.S. policy on Cuba introduced a
broad bill that would roll back some trade
and travel restrictions against Havana.
Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat
and chairman of the House Ways and Means
Committee; Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo.; and
Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Mike Crapo,
R-Idaho, told reporters on Thursday that
the restrictions had not dislodged the Castro
government in 50 years.
The bill would make it easier for U.S.
firms to sell agricultural goods and medicines
to Cuba. It would also eliminate restrictions
on U.S. nationals traveling to the island.
Asked if the bill had any chance of passage,
given that Congress rarely takes up Cuba-related
bills, Rangel sounded an optimistic note.
Bush's ''credentials in foreign policy are
not at an all-time high,'' he told reporters.
He suggested "there's more and more
people demanding reasons why we continue
to support an ineffective embargo.''
Rangel contended the number of supporters
for similar legislation have increased "every
year and every session. This bipartisan
approach might be more effective than we
have been in the past.''
Castro: Vilma Espín's example
more necessary than ever
By Will Weissert, Associated
Press. June 21, 2007.
HAVANA -- Fidel Castro paid tribute on
Wednesday to his late sister-in-law, guerrilla
warrior and women's rights pioneer Vilma
Espín Guillois, writing that she
''never backed down from any danger'' and
that her example is "more necessary
than ever.''
Espín died Monday of an undisclosed
illness. The wife of acting Cuban President
Raúl Castro, she was for decades
considered the first lady of the island's
revolution.
Fidel has not been seen in public since
announcing last July that emergency intestinal
surgery was forcing him to temporarily cede
power to a government headed by his younger
brother, the defense minister.
Fidel did not appear at formal tributes
in Espín's honor, but wrote about
her in an essay called Vilma's battles.
''I have been a witness of Vilma's battles
for almost half a century,'' he wrote, recalling
Espín's days as a guerrilla fighter
in Cuba's Sierra Maestra and her fight for
gender equality once the rebels toppled
the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista
in January 1959.
''Her sweet voice, firm and timely, was
always listened to with great respect in
meetings of the party, the state and organizations
of the masses,'' Castro wrote, referring
to communist-Cuba's top leaders and institutions.
The statement was signed Wednesday afternoon,
e-mailed to international journalists and
appeared in official media Thursday morning.
Castro's condition and exact ailment are
state secrets, though in recent weeks he
has looked healthier in official photographs
and video clips. He has penned a series
of essays touching on weighty international
issues and his recovery, which he says was
slowed after the first of several surgeries
did not go well.
Espín was born into a wealthy family
in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago. She
became a young urban rebel after Batista
took power in a coup, and she battled his
government throughout the 1950s.
After the 1959 revolution, she became Cuba's
low-key first lady as the wife of Raúl,
because Fidel Castro was divorced.
Espín maintained that role over
more than 45 years, even after Fidel reportedly
married Dalia Soto del Valle, with whom
he is said to have five grown sons.
''Vilma's example is more necessary than
ever,'' Castro wrote. "She dedicated
all of her life to the battle for women
when in Cuba the majority of them were discriminated
against like others in the rest of the world.''
Espín's power also was rooted in
the more than four decades she served as
president of the Federation of Cuban Women,
which she founded in 1960 and fashioned
into an important pillar of support for
the communist government. Virtually every
woman and adolescent girl on the island
are listed as members.
Cuban exile group cleared of violating
U.S. laws
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
June 21, 2007.
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Election Commission
has dismissed allegations that an influential
Cuban-American political action committee
broke U.S. laws.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics
in Washington (CREW), a watchdog group,
filed a complaint last year alleging that
U.S. Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee
had illegal ties to a foreign citizen and
a nonprofit organization.
Since its creation in 2003, the PAC has
raised about $1.5 million, most of it in
South Florida, to lobby Congress to keep
the sanctions against the island nation
in place.
CREW alleged several members of the nonprofit
Cuba Democracy Advocates Inc. had illegal
links to the PAC, which is supposed to operate
independently of any other organization.
Cuba Democracy Advocates was founded by
Leopoldo Fernández-Pujals, a Spanish
national who CREW alleged had made indirect
contributions to the PAC.
Martí extending its reach, U.S.
says
A U.S. government report
backed by little hard data says TV and Radio
Martí programming is getting better
and that the station needs to plan to take
on a Venezuelan broadcaster.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
June 20, 2007.
WASHINGTON -- The programming of Radio
and TV Martí -- often criticized
as a waste of taxpayer funds -- has improved,
and anecdotal evidence suggests that it
is reaching a bigger audience in Cuba, according
to a new U.S. government report obtained
by The Miami Herald.
The report, by the State Department's Office
of Inspector General, also says the station
should plan to compete with a Venezuelan
government broadcaster. It faults the operation
for lacking a long-term strategic plan for
a post-Fidel Castro Cuba and ''nagging longstanding
employee morale concerns.'' But it calls
the station's director, Pedro V. Roig, "the
most effective in recent history.''
The report, being distributed in Washington
this week, also says the station is planning
to put its second broadcasting aircraft
in the air soon, joining a similar turboprop
that went airborne in October.
In recent months, Radio and TV Martí
have faced a barrage of criticism from the
media and some lawmakers who say a combination
of aggressive Cuban government jamming,
dubious journalistic standards and lax management
oversight have undermined credibility and
viewership.
Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake often ridicules
Radio and TV Martí, which has cost
more than $250 million in the past decade,
as a "Miami jobs program.''
But the report, which carries a ''sensitive
but unclassified'' label, offers a generally
upbeat assessment of the Office of Cuba
Broadcasting (OCB) -- the parent agency
of TV and Radio Martí.
It says the OCB is at a ''critical juncture
in its history'' as the Bush administration
steps up its efforts for a post-Fidel Castro
transition to democracy.
It suggests that the OCB should look beyond
the 48 hours after Castro's death and ''in
the shorter term'' compete with commercial
broadcasters and ''counter the increasingly
successful broadcasts'' of Telesur, a channel
largely controlled by Venezuela's Bush-bashing
President Hugo Chávez.
'ANECDOTAL' DATA
The 43-page report says there is ''anecdotal''
evidence that more Cubans are watching TV
Martí after the twin-engine propeller
plane -- known as Aero Martí -- started
broadcasting for five-hour slots six days
a week.
Presumably, the aircraft's broadcasts can
reach parts of Cuba far from government
jamming stations, most of which are located
around Havana.
The Aero Martí aircraft costs $5.9
million a year to operate, according to
the report.
But unlike a previous report in 2003, the
inspector general provides no listener or
viewer data. It says a January 2007 survey
of recent Cuban arrivals commissioned by
Spanish Radio Productions in cooperation
with Miami Dade College found that "listening
rates within Cuba were significantly higher
than previously reported, especially for
TV Martí.''
Alberto Mascaró, the station's chief
of staff, said the recent-arrivals survey
revealed that 17 percent of them had watched
TV Martí. Before, the viewership
numbers were ''negligible.'' Joseph O'Connell,
a spokesman for the OCB, said Radio and
TV Martí were getting more phone
calls from viewers in Cuba who say they
are seeing the programs despite the jamming.
PROGRAM STANDARDS
A February 2007 report by the International
Broadcasting Bureau, the federal agency
that provides services to U.S. government
broadcasters, recommended further improvements
in OCB programming standards but noted there
had been ''a major upgrade'' in TV Martí's
adherence to U.S. government guidelines.
However, the inspector general report said
''guidelines are sometimes breached.'' One
talk-show host ''monopolized the conversation
while editorializing,'' leaving little time
for a guest to speak. The report recommends
''refresher training'' for journalists to
avoid ''monologues and editorializing,''
screening out insufficiently sourced items
and creating mechanisms for editorial control.
The report says information obtained from
dissidents or independent journalists in
Cuba, while important, is a ''threat'' to
Radio and TV Martí's credibility
because some dissidents may ''seek to further
their own causes'' while others may be Cuban
government agents posing as dissidents.
''OCB is well aware of this challenge,''
the report says.
A House panel has appropriated $34 million
for Radio and TV Martí in the 2008
fiscal year -- the same as in 2007.
FURTHER FINDINGS
Radio and TV Martí are also broadcast
on Miami's TV Azteca signal, which is carried
on satellite TV, and Radio Mambí,
although the report recommends revising
those contracts to "assess whether
they provide additional listeners and viewers
and are worth the cost.''
The report calls Roig, who took over in
2003, ''an assertive, inspiring leader.''
However, it also notes that some employees
have criticized management for communicating
poorly and alleged favoritism, with a ''chosen
few'' obtaining most promotions and pay
increases. The report says some may be questioning
Roig's emphasis of TV operations at the
possible expense of radio.
The inspections that led to the report,
led by Franklin Huddle, a former ambassador
to Tajikistan, took place in Washington
between Jan. 5 and March 2, and in Miami
between March 5 and 20 of this year. Huddle
also visited the U.S. mission in Havana.
Raúl Castro's wife is dead
By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com.
June 20, 2007.
Vilma Espín, wife of Cuba's interim
president Raúl Castro and longtime
leader of the Federation of Cuban Women,
died Monday after battling a long illness.
Cuba's daily newspaper Granma reported
that she died at 4:14 p.m. after a long
undisclosed illness, and was cremated. The
ashes will be buried during a private military
ceremony at the Frank País Mausoleum.
An offical mourning period was declared
from 8:00 p.m. Monday night until 10 p.m.
tonight.
Espín, 77, had been reported to
be seriously ill for a long time, and there
were rumors that she had died a year ago,
after she failed to appear at the Federation
of Cuban Women's annual congress.
Espín was a member of a wealthy
Santiago family. Her father worked for the
Bacardi rum company and the family owned
stock in Bacardi, later seized by Fidel
Castro's government.
After studying at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, she was just in her early
20s when she secretly began working with
the bearded rebels in the Sierra Maestra
mountains fighting the Fulgencio Batista
dictatorship.
She used the nom de guerre ''Deborah''
- a name she later gave her to first daughter.
''At that time, she was very critical of
Fidel,'' writer Carlos Franqui, who fought
alongside Fidel, said by phone from Puerto
Rico. "She wound up becoming one of
his satellites.''
During the fight against Batista, Espín
headed the urban-based Frank País
Eastern Front, Granma said, and ferried
messages to Fidel Castro while he was exiled
in Mexico.
''She opened the doors of her home to protect
the comrades who attacked the Moncada barracks
who were persecuted by the regime's troops,''
the Cuban daily paper Granma said in a story
published late Monday announcing her death,
calling her a tireless defender of women
and children.
Espín and Raúl Castro wed
shortly after the revolution's 1959 triumph.
Some rumors have them separating some 20
years ago - in fact some reports claim he
had remarried.
She often served in ceremonies as first
lady to Fidel, who always kept most of his
own family out of the political limelight.
A tall woman with spectacles, her auburn
hair twisted into a bun, Espin was a highly
recognized figure across the island. She
was regularly seen at gatherings of the
National Assembly and other important government
events.
Known as quiet and reserved, patrician
even, Franqui said she was a ''cold'' person.
''Vilma and I sometimes argue,'' Raul Castro
said in April 2001, with his wife at his
side. But, he said, "this marriage
... has lasted 42 years, and we hope to
be together longer.'
Raúl Castro took over Cuba's presidency
when his brother fell ill last July. Espín
was never seen in public during the nearly
one year that her husband has been interim
leader.
Espín's death will undoubtedly put
added pressure on Raúl, who has been
reported to drink heavily when under stress.
The couple have four children, including
Mariela, who leads a sex education institute
in Havana and leads the charge for gay rights
in Cuba. Raúl Castro has been blamed
for the revolution's strong persecution
of homosexuals during the 1960s.
''It's kind of ironic that now the daughter
of two people who most persecuted gay people
is the leader of this movement,'' Franqui
said. "What I can tell you about Vilma
Espín is, if Cuban women and children
are so bad off, what did she do when she
struggled for the rights of women and children?
As a member of the seat of power, she is
responsible for the disasters of the country.''
In 1986, Espín became the first
woman member of the Cuban Communist Party's
ruling Political Buro. A founder of the
Cuban Federation of Women, she was also
a member of the legislative National Assembly.
''I think that she imposed the agenda of
the revolution on the Cuban women,'' said
Uva de Aragón, deputy director of
Florida International University's Cuban
Research Institute. "What can you say
of a federation of women that would finish
their meetings saying, "Commander in
chief, order us!'
"It is a feminism that is strange
to understand.''
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