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CUBA
NEWS
The Miami Herald
Imprisoned Castro critic Oscar Biscet
honored by Bush
President Bush will give
jailed dissident leader Oscar Biscet an
award for his rights work in Cuba.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Oct. 30, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Oscar Elías Biscet,
a Cuban dissident who has spent much of
the past decade in prison and is one of
Fidel Castro's harshest and best-known critics,
is to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom
awarded by President Bush, the White House
announced Monday.
Confined to a Cuban maximum security prison
since 2003, Biscet was one of eight people
awarded the presidential medal -- the highest
U.S. government award given to a civilian,
along with the Congressional Gold Medal.
The other winners included Liberian President
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Harper Lee, Pulitzer
Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Biscet's outspoken ways and his multiple
trips to jail have made the Afro-Cuban physician
one of the most prominent opponents of the
island's communist government. He started
protesting as a recent medical graduate
in 1986, when he denounced the long hours
doctors had to work without pay, and in
one stretch between June 1998 and November
1999 was arrested 26 times.
According to his wife, Elsa Morejón,
Biscet is being held in the maximum security
Combinado del Este prison in Havana. He
is confined to a cell with no mattress,
no light or chair and family visits are
allowed once every three months.
Biscet suffers from high blood pressure,
joint pain and failing eyesight, she has
said.
In a phone conversation from Havana, Morejón
thanked Bush for the award and called it
"a recognition of our political prisoners.''
''It is important that in this world someone
remembers us,'' she said.
The White House announcement called Biscet
"a champion in the fight against tyranny
and oppression.''
Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
said it was a "victory for the Cuban
people as this medal will shine a bright
light on the barbaric way in which the Castro
regime treats its political prisoners.''
Ros-Lehtinen had lobbied the White House
to give the medal to Biscet. The award ceremony
is scheduled for Nov. 5.
Bush mentioned Biscet in a speech last
week, where he cited Cuba's human rights
record to justify his continued tough stance
against the Castro government.
In 1997, Biscet founded the Lawton Foundation
of Human Rights, which denounced rights
abuses in Cuba and campaigns for democracy.
The bearded Biscet considers himself a
follower of Martin Luther King Jr., the
Dalai Lama and Gandhi, and in the summer
of 1999 he organized a liquids-only hunger
strike against the Cuban government.
That year, he was kicked out of the Cuban
National Health System, making it impossible
him to work as a physician.
He was sentenced to three years for public
disorder, ''inciting delinquent behavior''
and displaying the Cuban flag upside down.
Amnesty International pronounced him a
prisoner of conscience.
Biscet was released in late 2002 and then,
just over a month later, he was arrested
again, as part of a crackdown on dissent.
He was sentenced to 25 years for being a
threat to the state.
Besides Biscet, Johnson Sirleaf and Lee,
other winners are former Rep. Henry J. Hyde,
economist Gary Becker, genecist Francis
S. Collins, U.S. civil rights activist Benjamin
L. Hooks and C-SPAN founder Brian P. Lamb.
Past recipients of the award include Pope
John Paul II and Burmese activist Aung San
Suu Kyi.
Miami Herald correspondent Lesley Clark
and El Nuevo Herald staff writer Wilfredo
Cancio Isla contributed to this report.
U.N. urges end to Cuba trade embargo
By Edith M. Lederer, Associated
Press Writer. Posted on Tue, Oct. 30, 2007
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. General Assembly
voted for the 16th straight year Tuesday
to urge the United States to end its trade
embargo against Cuba, whose foreign minister
accused the U.S. of stepping up its ''brutal
economic war'' to new heights.
The 192-member world body approved a resolution
calling for the 46-year-old U.S. economic
and commercial embargo against Cuba to be
repealed as soon as possible.
''The blockade had never been enforced
with such viciousness as over the last year,''
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque
told the assembly, accusing President Bush's
administration of adopting ''new measures
bordering on madness and fanaticism'' that
have hurt Cuba and interfered in its relations
with at least 30 countries.
Delegates in the General Assembly chamber
burst into applause when the vote in favor
of the resolution flashed on the screen
-- 184 to 4 with one abstention. That was
a one-vote improvement over last year.
The vote came less than a week after Bush
delivered his first major address on Cuba
policy in four years, attacking the communist
government and challenging the international
community to help the island shed Fidel
Castro's rule.
The United States has no diplomatic relations
with Cuba, lists the country as a state
sponsor of terrorism and has long sought
to isolate it through travel restrictions
and a trade embargo. This year, it stepped
up enforcement of financial sanctions.
Castro, 81, temporarily ceded power to
his brother Raúl in July 2006 after
undergoing intestinal surgery, and has not
been seen in public for more than a year.
The Bush administration sees Castro's failing
health as an opening for change. Little
is different under Raúl Castro, 76,
and Bush said in his speech that the U.S.
will make no accommodations with "a
new tyranny.''
''It is long past time that the Cuban people
enjoy the blessings of economic and political
freedom,'' U.S. diplomat Ronald Godard said
just before Tuesday's vote.
''We urge member states to oppose and condemn
the Cuban government's internal embargo
on freedom, which is the real cause of the
suffering of the Cuban people,'' he added.
Perez Roque accused the United States of
violating international law, depriving Cuban
children of medication, and even preventing
Cuban writers from participating in a book
fair in Puerto Rico.
He expressed Cuba's solidarity with U.S.
movie producer Oliver Stone, who was attacked
by the U.S. government for filming in Cuba,
and activist director Michael Moore, who
is being investigated for visiting Cuba.
''It is McCarthyism of the 21st century,''
Perez Roque said.
''Without doubt, as you well know, the
brutal economic war that has been imposed
on Cuba hasn't only affected Cubans,'' he
added, pointing to banks and companies in
many countries that have been hurt by the
U.S. financial measures.
Perez Roque accused the U.S. of ignoring
the 15 previous resolutions "with arrogance
and political blindness.''
''Cuba will never surrender,'' he said.
"It fights and will fight.''
In Caribbean, dozens dead in Noel's
wake
Tropical Storm Noel left
chaos in its wake, as officials in the Caribbean
counted the dead and rescued the living.
By Frances Robles And Jacqueline
Charles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted
on Wed, Oct. 31, 2007
Rescuers in Haiti spent part of Tuesday
plucking people from their rooftops.
Emergency workers counted seven dead there,
and another 30 in the Dominican Republic.
And in Cuba, people braced for the menacing
consequences of up to a foot of rain on
soil already soaked by weeks of record-breaking
downpours.
Tropical Storm Noel's deadly path was most
evident on the island of Hispaniola, where
rivers swelled beyond their banks, sending
currents of raging water down village streets
in both Haiti and neighboring Dominican
Republic. Dramatic television footage showed
people in southern Dominican Republic clinging
to tree roots protruding from the edge of
a raging river with one hand, with the other
outstretched to grasp children being carried
away by the current.
''I woke up to find water up to my knees.
I got two of my children out, and when I
went back for the others, it was already
up to my chest,'' Mélida Peguero,
a mother of four from San Cristóbal,
Dominican Republic, said by telephone. "My
house is still standing, but it is filled
with mud. I can't even open the door.''
FORCED FROM HOMES
Peguero was among the nearly 25,000 people
forced from their homes, including 3,000
who were in shelters Tuesday.
About 6,500 homes were damaged, the government
said.
The Dominican government confirmed the
deaths of 30 people late Tuesday and reported
another 15 missing, while access to nearly
40 communities was still cut off.
''It's been really chaotic because bridges
and roads were ruined,'' said emergency
operations spokeswoman Yesmín Simón.
"There are little towns we have not
even been able to get to, because the water
is just too high. And the deluge has not
stopped.''
In Haiti, Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard
Alexis visited the Cité Soleil neighborhood,
much of it covered with inches of rainwater.
Officials spent much of the day trying to
rescue people stranded on rooftops south
of the capital of Port-au-Prince in the
towns of Jacmel, Leogane and remote areas
where torrential downpours caused severe
flooding.
Officials from the United Nations reported
that a child was killed by flooding in the
northern Port-au-Prince community of Biagrate,
Cazeau. Haitian officials also reported
two deaths in Ganthier, near the border
with the Dominican Republic.
Authorities were still checking into reports
of other deaths Tuesday night, as they surveyed
the damage to scores of ramshackle homes.
Nearly 3,000 people had to be evacuated
from nine different communities, including
the seaside town of Jacmel, southeast of
Port-au-Prince.
The Associated Press reported that 1,000
homes were damaged in Cuba, where the storm
lingered much of the day and civil defense
authorities ordered many mandatory evacuations.
TOO MUCH RAIN
In Cuba's southeastern Guantánamo
province, officials were particularly worried,
because reservoirs already were at 99 percent
capacity. Fourteen inches of rain has already
fallen there this month, almost double the
record previously set for October, Cuba's
Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported Tuesday.
''It's been raining for practically 24
hours straight,'' José Ramón
Pupo Nieves, a government opposition journalist,
said by phone from Holguín. "Houses
here are old and in bad shape; people are
really afraid they are going to collapse.''
Cuban migrants rescued off Tavernier
Key
A Coral Gables attorney
helped rescue about 22 Cuban migrants huddled
off an islet in Key Largo during a late-night
storm.
By Andrea Torres, atorres@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sun, Oct. 28, 2007
As winds gusted on Tavernier Key early
Saturday, Joe Zumpano and an associate chatted
on the porch of the Coral Gables attorney's
vacation home.
Then the two men heard faint cries for
help coming from the sea.
They soon found themselves helping rescue
about 22 Cuban migrants stranded during
a storm on an islet off Key Largo.
The men rushed to a sportfishing boat.
It was after midnight. Zumpano, who's also
a master captain U.S. merchant marine, scanned
the waters between mainland and Tavernier
Key.
They found the migrants by following the
glimpse of a dim light on an islet, but
shallow water prevented them from getting
too close.
Zumpano shouted: ''Who are you?'' The huddled
crowd replied in Spanish: ''Somos Cubanos''
("We are Cubans'').
A CHILLING EXPERIENCE
''Their desperation brought chills down
my spine,'' said Zumpano.
Some migrants were suffering from dehydration.
Zumpano circled the islet for more than
an hour waiting for the Coast Guard.
He felt helpless, but gave them all one
bit of good news: He told them he was a
witness to their landing on U.S. soil.
''There was a roaring cheer and I started
to cry,'' said Zumpano.
Under the wet-foot/dry-foot policy, Cuban
migrants who land on U.S. soil are typically
allowed to remain in the United States.
Those apprehended at sea are repatriated
to Cuba.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Barry Bena said
they transported the migrants to the mainland
and turned them over to Border Patrol.
''These people to me represent the kind
of human suffering I have been very affected
by,'' said Zumpano, whose mother is a Cuban
immigrant who left her homeland in 1960
after Fidel Castro's officers arrested her
father, a government treasurer.
COMING FULL CIRCLE
Decades later in 2006, Zumpano represented
a woman claiming damages against Fidel Castro's
government for her father's execution. The
woman collected a $23.79 million ruling
in frozen Cuban assets.
Zumpano took no credit for being a hero.
He says the migrants played the heroic role.
''Anyone who risks their lives to reach
freedom is a hero,'' he said.
Venezuelans of Cuban descent use heritage
to enter U.S.
The sons and daughters
of Cubans living in Venezuela are fleeing
the country, fearing a repeat of Fidel Castro's
1950s revolution.
By Casto Ocando, El Nuevo
Herald. Posted on Sun, Oct. 28, 2007
Haunted by their exiled parents' harrowing
experience in the 1950s revolutionary Cuba,
thousands of Venezuelans of Cuban descent
are fleeing the country as President Hugo
Chávez intensifies his drive to transform
Venezuela into a socialist state.
The two Cuban consulates in Venezuela --
in Caracas and Valencia -- have seen a sharp
rise in recent months in the number of petitions
from young applicants looking for ways to
prove their Cuban origin.
The sons and daughters of Cuban nationals
have a unique advantage over the rest of
Venezuelans: A direct shot at becoming U.S.
residents if they can prove their parents
were born on the island.
''We are witnessing in Venezuela the same
situation that our parents experienced [in
Cuba,] and that is why we are looking for
new horizons,'' said Víctor López,
a 35-year-old son of Cubans who went to
the Cuban embassy in Caracas last week to
request a birth certificate.
Víctor plans to move to Miami next
year, along with his wife and their 4-year-old
daughter, hoping to benefit from the Cuban
Adjustment Act, a law that allows any person
who can prove he was born in Cuba or to
Cuban parents to become a legal resident
in the U.S.
''The birth certificate proving that the
person is the son or the daughter of a Cuban
citizen allows him to be considered under
the Cuban Adjustment Act,'' said Salvador
Romaní, president of the advocacy
group Junta Patriótica Cubana in
Venezuela, who moved to Miami last year
after 47 years in Venezuela.
The number of Cuban-Venezuelans who have
applied for residency under the Cuban Adjustment
Act has grown since August, after the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services agency
ruled that a birth certificate issued by
a Cuban consulate could be used as proof
of Cuban origin.
The decision ''has opened the doors not
only to the sons and daughters of Cubans
in Venezuela, but also to those living anywhere
else in the world,'' said Avelino González,
a former law professor at the University
of Havana and an immigration lawyer in Miami
who has also lived in Venezuela.
María Victoria López, a 27-year-old
Venezuelan lawyer who came to Miami in 2005
to pursue graduate studies, is also hoping
to benefit from the ruling.
''One of the main reasons not to return
to Venezuela is that Chávez is building
a Cuba-inspired autocracy, something that
has always concerned us as a family because
of what [my parents] lived through in Cuba,''
said López Ferrer.
She presented her Cuban birth certificate
in January, after having lived legally in
the United States for twelve months and
one day, as the Cuban Adjustment Act requires.
She is currently awaiting her green card.
González estimates that 30,000 Cubans
currently live in Venezuela -- including
some former Bay of Pigs fighters.
''Every day we hear of more cases of people
of Cuban descent who want to come to Miami,
and we are trying to help them in any way
we can,'' said Julio César Alfonso,
president of Solidarity Without Borders,
an organization that helps defecting Cuban
doctors in Venezuela reach Miami.
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