Miami Herald
Exile gets family in Elián plot twist
Liz Balmaseda. Published Monday, December 11, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Luis Grave de Peralta is rejoicing with his newly reunited family. Nine of
his relatives were finally allowed to leave Cuba, and now they fill his aunt's
house in west Miami-Dade, sharing a late-night welcome feast of roast pork.
Grave de Peralta, a Texas-based physicist and former political prisoner
forced into exile four years ago, wanders into the kitchen in search of his
5-year-old niece, a blond girl in a pink dress.
``She is someone very special to me,'' he says, introducing the child he
last saw as an infant. ``Her name is Eliana.''
More than a poetic coincidence, the Grave de Peralta family's long-awaited
reunification is a rare, happy consequence of the Elián González
saga. The family's flight from Santiago to Miami last Friday came after an
unusual campaign marked not only by the indignation of exiles but also the
cooperation of a central figure in Elián's return to Cuba.
Grave de Peralta credits a diverse group of advocates, including Gregory
Craig, the powerful Washington, D.C., lawyer who represented Elián's
father, with helping to secure his family's release from the island.
``My case involves a rare convergence of parties and ideologies. But I must
thank Mr. Craig, because he kept his promise to help me,'' says Grave de
Peralta, who contacted the lawyer through a mutual friend, a man he'll identify
only as ``a Cuban-American Republican from Washington.''
The 43-year-old Grave de Peralta is hardly a guy one might imagine singing
the praises of Craig, who antagonized exiles by keeping his client, Juan Miguel
González, surrounded by Cuban government advocates and operatives, far
from Miami.
Unlike Elián's father, Eliana's uncle has been highly critical of
Fidel Castro's regime. He is an esteemed Cuban dissident who spent four years in
prison for writing a manuscript deemed ``rebellious.'' He was one of three
political prisoners freed after then-Congressman Bill Richardson, D-N.M., met
with Castro.
When he landed in this country, Grave de Peralta listed his relatives on a
U.S. government form. He was told his family would arrive soon -- in fact, all
were granted U.S. visas.
But those 13 relatives -- including his then-wife, their two sons, his
parents, three siblings and their families -- met the usual Cuban snag. The
government agreed to release the children, but refused permits to Grave de
Peralta's siblings, all scientists, and the mother of Grave de Peralta's sons.
In a stroke of irony, the Castro government granted an exit permit to little
Eliana but refused one to the girl's mother. Recognizing Cuba's game, the Grave
de Peraltas refused to leave until the Cuban government granted all of them the
coveted ``white card'' exit permits.
And then came Elián González. In the heated moment, the Castro
regime purported to advocate family reunification, taking up the case of the
refugee boy's only living parent.
From his home in Lubbock, Texas, where he was working on a doctorate, Grave
de Peralta decided to seize upon Cuba's campaign. He was not alone. In the glare
of Elián, other parents began to tell their stories of unjust separation.
In Miami, there was an equally frustrated father named José Cohen, a
Cuban defector whose parents, wife and three children have been stranded in Cuba
since his escape by raft in 1994. The Cohen family, too, had U.S. visas but no
white cards.
Once their stories became public, Grave de Peralta and Cohen joined forces
and took their campaigns to Washington, D.C., and to the U.N. Human Rights
Commission in Geneva, Switzerland.
As the battle over Elián intensified, Grave de Peralta decided to
make a desperate appeal to Gregory Craig. At first he wanted to have a
father-to-father meeting with Craig's client. But then Craig promised to help
reunite him with his family.
With the influential lawyer working behind the scenes on his behalf, the
scientist and his relatives planned their reunification. Grave de Peralta's
older son, Gabriel, 14, arrived the week after federal agents seized Elián
at gunpoint. A teenage nephew also arrived.
And Friday, after Cuban officials had granted exit permits to the entire
group, nine other relatives landed in Miami.
At the last minute, it was Grave de Peralta's ex-wife -- he divorced and
remarried two years ago -- and 8-year-old son César who stayed behind.
``But everything is set -- they'll be coming soon,'' says Grave de Peralta,
explaining that the two stayed to care for his ex-wife's mother, who fell ill.
Meanwhile, the influential lawyer who helped him says he is still working
behind the scenes on other cases of split families. ``It's always a great
tragedy when children are involved,'' said Craig, reached by phone. ``There's
got to be a universally understood principle that places families first. There
are no Democrats or Republicans when it comes to family reunification.''
Is the Grave de Peralta family reunion a glimpse of what is to come for
other divided Cuban families? Did Elián's case set up a standard that
Cuba can no longer ignore?
Craig agrees it's too early to tell.
But it is a topic that is sure to be on the table as U.S. and Cuban
officials prepare to meet in Havana today for the next round of migration talks.
For months, the United States has reprimanded Cuba for its delay in granting
travel papers to the many Cubans already holding U.S. visas.
José Cohen, attending the Grave de Peralta reunion, takes a bit of
hope from what he sees at this family gathering.
Deep into the night, Eliana snuggles in her uncle's arms.
``I want to go home,'' the tired little girl tells her uncle.
``You mean the house in Cuba?'' Grave de Peralta smiles back.
``No,'' the girl replies, ``our house here.''
Crews study deep waters off Cuba
By Elinor J. Brecher. ebrecher@herald.com. Published
Sunday, December 10, 2000, in the Miami Herald
When Paulina Zelitsky and her crew on the Cuban research vessel Ulises
spotted the strange, boxy mass off the island's coast, they called it the "square.''
It couldn't have been the Maine, they reasoned, because the scuttled warship
was believed to lie west of their position.
But on the morning of Oct. 18, the ship that sparked a war materialized on
the control-room video screens of the vessel's tethered robot vehicle.
Zelitsky's Toronto-based company, Advanced Digital Communications, has been
working with Cuban scientists and oceanographers from the University of South
Florida College of Marine Science on underwater exploration technology.
Zelitsky and her colleagues weren't looking for the Maine, but practically
tripped over it at 3,700 feet while testing their Exploramar scanning system.
"Of course, I read about the USS Maine, and I recognized it immediately
by the absence of a bow, which was cut away mechanically and not naturally
broken away,'' said Zelitsky, 55, in a recent e-mail from the Ulises.
A Soviet-born marine engineer who immigrated to Canada in 1971, she runs the
company with her husband and one of two sons. Aboard the Ulises, she heads a
26-member crew and a 12-member hired scientific team of Cubans "trained by
foreign engineers.''
For USF oceanographers, the ship's discovery is of incidental interest.
They've been working with ADC on temperature-mapping the ocean and measuring
marine plant life for NASA -- or, as Dr. Frank Muller-Karger, USF associate
professor of marine science explains it, "ground-truthing several thousand
satellite images of Cuban waters.''
They're working toward an arrangement whereby USF scientists can install
several $25,000 storm-warning stations on the island: "real-time measuring
sensors off Havana and the western tip of Cuba which would be . . .
solar-powered and would broadcast data to a satellite which would broadcast to
the Internet.''
SHIP GRAVEYARD
But the work has brought them to one of history's richest graveyards,
Zelitsky said. For three centuries, all Spanish fleets had to stop in Havana
before returning to Europe, so Cuban deep territorial waters "contain some
of the greatest historical wrecks kept intact by high salinity and cold
temperatures,'' preserving artifacts that ADC plans to salvage.
Last month, Zelitsky presented underwater video of the wreck at USF.
Muller-Karger said it showed "very dark water with a bluish tint, with
the gray hulk of metal and various superstructure features used to identify the
ship: doors and hatches . . . the anchor chain, the shape of the propellers and
the holes where the bow was cut off. There was a boiler lying next to the wreck,
and what appeared to be coal strewn about.''
Stumbling upon the Maine thrilled Zelitsky, who said, "its hull was not
oxidized, and we could see all of its structural parts. We were quite amazed. It
was like piercing through deeply hidden secrets.''
The Maine's most deeply hidden secret lingers: What caused the explosion
that killed 260 American sailors on Feb. 15, 1898? Three weeks earlier, the
ship, carrying 355 men assigned to safeguard U.S. interests during an insurgency
in Spanish-controlled Cuba, had arrived in Havana Harbor.
The event proved the catalyst for the Spanish-American War, though
historians still debate the source of the ship's destruction. Did the Maine hit
a Spanish mine? Did Cuban fanatics blow it up? Or did coal fuel ignite nearby
ammunition that erupted in a deadly blast?
Whatever the truth, jingoistic Americans rallied behind the cry, "Remember
the Maine!'' and William Randolph Hearst's screaming newspaper headlines.
President William McKinley sent U.S. ships to blockade Cuban ports, and on April
23, Spain declared war on the United States. Soldiers massed in Tampa and Miami,
itching to join the fray, which ended when Spain surrendered on July 16.
In March 1912, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the area around the
wreck, pumped out the surrounding water, recovered 66 bodies, cut away the bow
and investigated. The Corps found a metal bow plate bent inward, and concluded
that the 319-foot ship had been attacked.
Then the Corps refloated the hulk, towed it four miles out toward sea and
sank it amid ceremony and floating garlands. Both the United States and Cuba
regard it as an American memorial.
"The exact location of the burial place . . . was not known to
anyone,'' Zelitsky said. "We were . . . expecting to find it in the
northwest, but it makes sense that it was carried to the east by the currents,
given it took 25 minutes to position the boats for the ceremony and 20 minutes
for the Maine to sink once the valves were opened.
"In that 45 minutes, the Maine should have drifted east to about right
where we found it: about three miles northeast from Havana harbor. Of course the
[eastward] coastal current is strong . . . so it is logical that the USS Maine,
while sinking through 1,150 meters of water, was dragged by currents to the
east.''
In 1976, Admiral Hyman Rickover reexamined the damage through photographs
and records and declared the disaster an accident. Later works, including a
Smithsonian Institution book, support the initial finding of an external attack.
In Cuba, the assumption persists that the United States sabotaged its own
ship as an excuse to join the conflict. The plaque on a Cuban memorial calls the
Maine's sailors martyrs to "imperialist greed.''
CUBAN CONTRACT
Zelitsky's crew and the USF scientists are working closely with Cuban
counterparts, who Muller-Karger said were "hardworking and extremely well
prepared in a theoretical and academic sense, but they have no access to
technology.''
It took ADC three years to negotiate a five-year renewable contract with the
Cuban government that licenses the firm to survey deep Cuban territorial waters,
Zelitsky said. The government also appointed a Cuban marine archaeological firm
"to provide us with paid limited services . . . and represent us to the
Cuban authorities.''
Zelitsky said that Cuban scientific organizations are participating in
oceanography studies under the United Nations Global Climate programs, despite
lacking ships, equipment, fuel or skills "to be able to realize their
contributions to these studies.''
Their USF counterparts had all that, she said, but Cuba won't let American
ships explore the sea floor in its territorial waters. A Canadian survey
operation brought the two sides together in what appears to be a model of
post-Cold War scientific exchange -- which USF had launched in 1999 even before
ADC joined the operation.
Zelitsky will "provide video and photo evidence to American and Cuban
cultural institutions'' over the next five years.
Holiday hang-up: Cuba to cut phone connection with U.S.
Decision based on companies' failure to pay 10% surcharge
By Yves Colon. ycolon@herald.com. Published Saturday,
December 9, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Fidel Castro's government has delivered a lump of coal to Cuban families on
both sides of the Florida Straits for the Christmas holidays, ordering phone
links between the United States and the island cut by Dec. 16.
A brief announcement published Friday in the Communist Party daily newspaper
Granma said officials made the decision because U.S. companies have failed to
pay a 10 percent surcharge that became effective at the end of October.
Havana imposed the tax at the beginning of October in a transparent attempt
to make up $58 million awarded in damages to the Miami relatives of the Brothers
to the Rescue pilots ambushed by Cuban MiGs in 1996. Cuba had warned then that
it would cut phone service if the tax was not paid.
'INHUMANE'
"This is inhumane,''said María Darias, who has been in the
United States since February and talks to her daughter Magaly in Havana at least
twice a week. "This is taking away my human connection to my daughter.''
Enrique López, a Cuban American who is president of the Coral Gables
communications consultanting firm, AKL Group International, said Cuban officials
made a conscious decision to cut service during the Christmas holidays, one of
the most important to Cuban families who have been apart for decades.
"Obviously, they're playing with people's emotions,'' said López.
"For many people that phone call makes a difference. I expect they will get
a backlash from their own people.''
The Cuban American National Foundation denounced Cuba's phone-cutoff
decision, calling it a "cynical and extortionate'' maneuver that
demonstrates how far apart the two countries are from a normal relationship.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker called Cuba's action
"disappointing'' and hoped the Havana government would reconsider.
"It is unfortunate that while the world continues to open up to the
people of Cuba, the Cuban government is threatening to deny Cuban citizens the
ability to talk with family members,'' Reeker said.
YEARLONG CUT
In February 1999, Cuba made a similar cut in direct service that lasted more
than a year, but had little impact because calls from the United States were
routed through third countries. This time, though, the Cuban government said it
is putting in place mechanisms that will impose the surcharge on those third
countries or order them to hang up on all calls with a U.S. area code to Cuba.
Several telephone companies, including AT&T, Sprint, Telefonica of
Puerto Rico, and Worldcom, among others, provide telephone service to Cuba. The
majority of calls to the island originate in the U.S. because of better
technology and lower costs. Under normal conditions, Cuba's telecommunications
department and the companies agree on the rate to charge callers, now an average
of 80 to 90 cents a minute, one of the highest rates in the region despite the
island's proximity to the U.S.
The companies pay Cuba a maximum of 60 cents a minute for every call, a rate
codified in the telecommunications provision of the Cuban Democracy Act. The
companies collect the fees in the United States and pay Cuba its share -- 45
percent of the $130 million, or about $80 million, generated each year by the
calls. The surcharge would provide Cuba with an additional $30 million a year in
revenue.
The companies, however, said they could not pay the surcharge without
violating the laws that regulate all economic transactions between the United
States and Cuba.
Gus Alfonso of AT&T said phone company executives are still waiting to
hear whether they can pay the surcharge from the Office of Foreign Assets
Control (OFAC), a branch of the U.S. Treasury Dept., which administers and
enforces economic and trade sanctions against targeted foreign countries.
Staff writer Elaine DeValle contributed to this report
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