Published Saturday, July 22, 2000, in the Miami Herald
More alleged Cuban spies seek asylum
CARACAS -- (EFE) -- At least five more alleged Cuban intelligence agents in Venezuela have defected and plan to request political asylum this week, according to an attorney working on the case.
Ricardo Koesling, defense attorney for alleged Cuban spy Juan Rosabal Gonzalez, said five other intelligence officers had decided to request political asylum.
The alleged agents are in hiding because they fear that Cuban intelligence might find them before they file a formal request for political asylum with the Foreign Ministry, a move that would protect them from any attempt by President Hugo Chavez's government to return them to Cuba.
``They are in Venezuela. They wanted to wait and see how it went for their comrade [Rosabal]. They sent him as a kind of guinea pig because, logically, they were afraid,'' Koesling told the Caracas daily El Universal.
``We must remember that we are not talking about average citizens,'' the attorney said, noting that Rosabal, the first of the group to speak out in public, worked for the Cuban Security Directorate as an intelligence officer, a claim that both the Cuban and Venezuelan governments have denied.
Rosabal appeared last Friday on television and said he was in Venezuela to manage a communist indoctrination program that targeted civilian organizations, as well as to spy on military bases.
The 34-year-old alleged agent, a native of Matanzas, told the Venezuelan media that some 1,500 Cuban intelligence agents were in the country.
He explained that he decided to make his move after a friend tried to defect July 6 and was arrested, reportedly by Cuban security agents.
House action raises travel bug for Cuba
By Elaine De Valle . edevalle@herald.com
Phones at ABC Charters went wild Friday after news broke that the U.S. House of Representatives had voted to ease enforcement of travel restrictions to Cuba.
``A lot of Americans thought this was it -- that they could go tomorrow,'' said owner Vivian Mannerud, whose company has been licensed to fly directly to Cuba since 1982.
``We tell them this is not over. It does not mean you can travel. It still has to go to the Senate and `Call your senator.' ''
Thursday's vote doesn't end travel restrictions for Americans, but it would take the teeth out of the ban by denying funds for enforcement. The measure still must pass the Senate, and President Clinton has threatened to veto the bill because it would take away his power to issue sanctions.
Calls increased at the Center for Cuban Studies in New York, though they are used to Americans wanting to fly for a weekend in Havana.
``They want to go on vacation. They heard it's a beautiful country. Some of them went on their honeymoons in the '50s, and they want to go back,'' said Naomi Friedman, associate director of the nonprofit group. It specializes in authorized educational tours and individual travel for those who
have Treasury Department licenses.
``Most people don't even realize that you can't travel to Cuba if you wanted to go,'' she said.
EXILES ANGERED
In Miami, Cuban exiles were more angered by a measure to ease enforcement of the ban against food and medicine sales than they were about possible increased tourist travel. Feelings aren't as adamant over the travel ban -- as evidenced by the 74,000 Cubans who went to Cuba last year on direct
flights and many more who flew through third countries.
Democracy Movement leader Ramón Saúl Sánchez said, however, that the same people pushing for open travel by Americans should support travel by Cubans who are sometimes denied visas to their homeland based on their ideology or activism.
``I believe in generating people-to-people contact. But what we have seen up to now is very far from that,'' said Sánchez, who has been denied a visa.
``We must ask for a visa as if we were foreigners in our own land and the visa is selectively given,'' he said. ``A lot can be done to change that, especially by the forces working to lift the embargo.''
Mannerud said only about 1 percent of Cubans who apply for visas are denied. ``We have people who fought in the Bay of Pigs who get visas. They [the Cuban government] are more concerned with people who have recently left the island than people who have been here 30 years,'' she said.
``We are basically doing now what the Cuban government always did. When the United States wanted Cuban Americans to visit their families [under the Carter administration], then the Cubans would only allow 50 a week into their country.
ONCE A YEAR
``Now we flip-flop. Now we are the ones who say you can only go once a year.''
One Southwest Dade man said he went to Cuba three times last year and three times so far this year -- once each year legally and twice more through the airport in Cancun.
``It's incredible the amount of people you see there. It's like being in the Miami airport or the Havana airport in Cancun. The only thing they need is a Cuban coffee shop,'' said Raul, 57, an American citizen who doesn't want his last name published because of possible repercussions.
Some 82,000 passengers traveled legally to Cuba last year after obtaining licenses from the Treasury Department, a department official said. She didn't know how many requests were denied. ``The vast majority [74,000] are for family reunification, followed by research and then education.''
SANCTIONS STUDY
One researcher is Jonathan Coleman, 38, an economist in Havana Friday on a fact-finding mission. He was hired by the U.S. government to evaluate the sanctions' impact on the two nations in a study that could guide future American policy on the issue.
``This study is substantially significant,'' said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a business-funded educational organization that studies the island's economy. The organization takes no public stance on the embargo.
Kavulich projects U.S. citizens traveling annually to Cuba on an unrestricted basis could reach three million to five million.
Friedman, of the Center for Cuban Studies, also thinks the traffic would be huge. ``People will say, `We want to get there before McDonald's comes in.' They want to do it while Castro is still there and before the Miami Cubans go back.' ''
Herald translator Renato Pérez and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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