26 Cuban migrants detained
Published Monday, July 31, 2000, in the Miami Herald
MARATHON -- (AP) -- Twenty-six Cuban migrants landed near Marathon Key early Sunday morning and were taken into custody by federal authorities.
The Cubans -- 22 men and four women -- landed at Cocoplum Beach, near mile marker 54, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Michael Gesele said. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office found the group and contacted the U.S. Border Patrol.
The migrants were being transferred late Sunday to the INS' Krome Detention Center in West Miami-Dade County after being interviewed by the Border Patrol, INS spokesman Rodney Germain said.
Universities bring Cuba into the classroom
Studies programs examine culture
By Jack Wheat. jwheat@herald.com. Published Sunday, July 30, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Cuban studies, once an academic cottage industry at local universities, has blossomed into a growing enterprise as three schools focus on Miami's transplanted Cuban culture and an international interest in Cuba.
St. Thomas University, the latest entrant into the field, will open the Félix Varela Center for Cuban Studies this fall. Officials there intend for it to complement Florida International University's well-established Cuban Research Institute and the University of Miami's year-old
Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
"It's such a natural for Miami,'' said Juan Carlos Espinosa, the newly hired director for the St. Thomas program. He helped found the UM institute while working on his doctorate.
UM's ties to Cuba stretch to visiting Cuban professors in the 1920s. FIU boasts the most students of Cuban descent, about 12,000, of any university in the world -- including the University of Havana. St. Thomas' institutional origins are Cuban -- the Universidad Santo Tomás de Villa
Nueva, which was shut down by Fidel Castro's government.
With each school pursuing a different niche, they are tackling a Herculean scholarly task that dominates their own backyards, Espinosa said. "There's so much work to be done in the area of Cuban and Cuban-American studies.''
"I would never discourage anyone from jumping into the mix,'' said Tiffany Mitchell, associate director of the Caribbean Project at Georgetown University, which has one of the nation's oldest Cuban studies programs.
FIU's institute, established in 1991, has helped put the 28-year-old university on the national academic map, Mitchell said. "We're very familiar with it. We work very closely with Lisandro Pérez,'' the FIU sociologist who has directed the Cuban Research Institute since its founding
in 1991.
CUBAN ISSUES
Cuban Studies, the leading journal in the field, recently moved from the University of Pittsburgh to FIU, which has taken over its editing. The institute's conferences -- the third one is set for October in Miami -- is the forum of choice for researchers on Cuba issues. The institute's Cuba
poll, conducted every other year, tracks Cuban-American views on a variety of issues related to Cuba. For example, the next poll, which will be done in the fall, will include questions about the Elián González case.
Newer efforts at UM and St. Thomas could also achieve national distinction if they bring a new dimension to the field, Mitchell said.
Cuban studies institutes are academic brokerage units. They encourage professors and students from many departments to collaborate, negotiate with administrators for funding and course approval, help professors and graduate students for grants apply and organize conferences, and other events.
While none of the universities offers graduate or undergraduate majors in Cuban studies, students from different colleges can take a number of Cuba-related courses toward their degrees.
A decade after the end of the Cold War, Cuba continues to intrigue scholars worldwide, Mitchell said. Cuban President Castro's long survival fascinates traditional political theorists. Interest in trade with Cuba is growing. And Miami's accumulation of more than 700,000 people of Cuban descent
makes it prime territory for study of such issues as immigration, assimilation and ethnic politics.
Officials at FIU, UM and St. Thomas said their programs are complementary, each having a different focus. UM and FIU researchers collaborate with each other. Espinosa said St. Thomas will take the same approach.
FIU's institute, which includes faculty in fields as diverse as botany and economics, is best known for cultural and social studies, such as Pérez's research on second-generation Cuban-American children in Miami. Other topics include Cuban and Cuban-American art and literature, social
conditions, history and politics.
UM's focus is U.S.-Cuban relations, Cuban politics and policy, and preserving Cuban history and culture in Miami. UM's library includes one of the world's leading collections of Cuban archives. The UM institute has large outreach programs, including music, art, films and courses.
STUDIES PROGRAM
The institute is one of several UM Latin American studies programs, including the well-established Dante B. Fascell North-South Center.
St. Thomas' fledgling program, which is being planned now, "is inspired by Catholic social thought,'' Espinosa said.
But in highly politicized Miami, it is hard for most any Cuba-related program to avoid being labeled, officials at the three schools said.
Some members of Miami's Cuban exile community see FIU as to the left and UM to the right, Espinosa said. He hoped St. Thomas program's label is centrist Catholic rather than political.
The basis for the local labeling of FIU and UM has been contact with Cuba:
FIU sends about 10 researchers a year to Cuba and brings up to 15 Cuban scholars here to lecture and study, despite some local sentiment against any dealings with Castro's Cuba. To minimize political problems, no state money is used. Professors who believe they should not go, don't, Pérez
said.
Cuba is off limits for UM's institute. Some students have traveled there, but not under the auspices of the institute, said director Jaime Suchlicki. "Institutionally, we feel we shouldn't maintain relations with institutions run by the Communist Party,'' he said.
"When Cuba is democratic, the University of Miami will be active in Cuba in business, in education -- in every field,'' he added.
Espinosa said St. Thomas has not made a policy call on the issue.
"I don't understand the concept of an institute on Cuba that would not have contact with Cuba,'' Pérez said.
FIU religious studies graduate student Isabel Morales, who is studying spiritism in Cuba, said she has got to make a trip to have a legitimate thesis. And graduate student Niurca Márquez said she could not have made her study of dance in the Arará culture without traveling to
central Cuba.
Though Pérez said he was determinedly nonpolitical, "some of these things really don't make us popular in the community. But you can't have a program with a national and international reputation if you just pay attention to the local community.''
The Cuban American National Foundation, which once unsuccessfully pushed for the state to create a foundation-affiliated Cuban institute at FIU, has often criticized the university's approach.
"I don't think a real, serious intellectual would lend himself to being part of this,'' said Ninoska Pérez, spokeswoman for the CANF and no relation to the FIU director. No Cuban scholar who might speak critically of the regime is allowed to travel to FIU, she said, and FIU
researchers know that if they are critical, they cannot get a visa to return. "What is the point of these exchanges if there's not free exchange?''
Castro calls increased U.S. contacts 'seduction'
By Anita Snow. Associated Press
SANTA CLARA, Cuba -- President Fidel Castro of Cuba attacked the Clinton administration Saturday for trying to undermine his socialist revolution by increasing contacts between Americans and Cubans, saying the movement cannot be destroyed, "not by force nor by seduction.''
Standing below a huge statue of Ernesto "Che'' Guevara, Castro told more than 200,000 people that the U.S. trade embargo and other American policies aimed at Cuba have only strengthened his revolution.
The speech was one of a series of major national events organized to commemorate the start of the revolution that brought Castro to power on New Year's Day 1959.
The sprawling crowd gathered around the monument dedicated to revolutionary hero Guevara in this central city. Over the last year, the U.S. government has allowed a growing number of Americans to visit the island for academic, sports, and religious exchanges with Cuban citizens.
Proponents of the policy say increased contacts with Americans will expose Cubans to democratic and capitalistic ideals.
But Castro lashed out at the 38-year U.S. trade embargo. "Advocates of the imperial policies still dream that the revolution . . . might be subverted with such appealing methods as the one they have called the policy of `people-to-people' contact,'' he said.
Castro said he didn't mind the contact -- "but they should play fair,'' he said. The United States should get rid of the trade embargo, as well as migration policies Havana says encourage illegal immigration.
Among the foreign dignitaries in attendance Saturday was Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, a former California governor.
Oakland's sister city is Santiago, Cuba.
GOP blocks easing of Cuba sanctions
Move defies strong votes
By Ana Radelat. Special to The Herald. Published Saturday, July 29, 2000, in the Miami Herald
WASHINGTON -- Using their power -- and some unusual tactics -- Republican congressional leaders left for a monthlong recess Friday after turning back a series of votes to weaken the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba, dimming prospects for substantial changes in the law this year.
Although the fight will be joined again when Congress returns for an abbreviated session after Labor Day, the determination of influential Republicans not to allow any easing of trade sanctions on Cuba and other nations at this time has proven a potent counterforce to the growing sentiment on
Capitol Hill for changes on Cuba policy.
For the first time since the Cuba embargo was imposed 41 years ago, majorities in the House and Senate favor an easing of trade sanctions against Fidel Castro's government, posing a serious political challenge to GOP leaders, who do not want to see a Republican-controlled Congress enact such
legislation, particularly in an election year.
THE FRONT LINE
As a result, they have had to make full use of their power to quell the movement to open trade to Cuba and other nations on the State Department's terrorism list, such as Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea.
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas; House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.; Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, have become a formidable front line that has blocked most House and Senate votes on proposals to
ease sanctions.
José Cárdenas, Washington director of the Cuban American National Foundation, expressed satisfaction with the outcome thus far.
"We'd rather take our chances with the leadership than with the roller coaster way of the floor of the House and Senate,'' Cárdenas said.
BURIED MEASURES
In their latest maneuver, deployed just before they left town for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Republican leaders buried two measures that would bar the Treasury Department, the main enforcer of the Cuba embargo, from spending any money policing restrictions on sales of
food and medicine and of travel to the island.
Although the proposals were approved by wide margins in the House last week -- the vote was 301 to 116 for the food and medicine amendment -- GOP leaders from the House and Senate decided to write a new bill that did not contain the provisions.
Cuba embargo supporter Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, defended the GOP leaders' actions as "a major step forward'' in retaining sanctions against the island.
"I know it's rare, but it's been done before and it's completely legitimate,'' Díaz-Balart said. "We needed this victory.''
But Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., who sponsored the Cuba travel measure, said he was "disappointed that his party's leaders were trying to circumvent the majority will of the House.''
DeLay has tried to portray the anti-sanctions movement as a Democratic campaign, even though a majority of House Republican members, 119, voted to strip the Treasury Department of resources to enforce the trade ban.
"All those who believe in appeasement and have sympathy for Fidel Castro come from the Democrat side,'' DeLay said recently on Fox News Sunday.
The leadership's latest tactic also prevented anti-sanctions lawmakers in the Senate from imitating the House. It stunned Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.; Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Robert Dornan, D-N.D., who hoped to introduce anti-embargo amendments but were thwarted.
`A HIJACKING'
Dorgan called the GOP leaders' action "a hijacking of the will of Congress'' and vowed to continue his anti-sanctions campaign when lawmakers return from their summer break in September.
The greatest showdown over sanctions is expected when House and Senate negotiators meet in September over a final Agriculture Appropriations bill in September.
The Senate version of the bill would allow the sales of food and agricultural products to Cuba and other nations.
But DeLay and other House leaders will insist on a more restrictive measure that was the result of a compromise between Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., the sponsor of a similar anti-sanctions initiative, and House leaders and other embargo supporters.
How sanctions were preserved
Rare maneuver brought victory
Ana Radelat. Published Saturday, July 29, 2000, in the Miami Herald
WASHINGTON -- To get rid of two provisions that would hamper enforcement of some U.S. sanctions against Cuba and to overcome Democratic attempts to stall appropriations bills, Republican congressional leaders employed a rarely used legislative maneuver.
A $30 billion bill to fund the Treasury Department, which was approved by the House last week, contained two provisions that would have barred the agency from spending any money on enforcing restrictions on the sale of food and medicine or travel to Cuba.
Usually, that bill would have been passed to the Senate.
But instead, the House GOP leadership used authority granted it under House rules to write a substitute Treasury funding bill, without the Cuba provisions, and attach the new bill as an amendment to a separate piece of legislation.
That bill would fund legislative operations and congressional salaries. Different versions of this legislative operations bill have been approved by the House and Senate and were being considered in a conference committee.
Members of the conference committee are appointed by party leaders, but the panel is controlled by the GOP leadership because Republicans have a majority in both chambers.
When members of the House and Senate return in September, they will have either to approve or reject the new package, minus the Cuba provisions, but they will not be able to change it, because a so-called "conference report'' cannot be modified on the floor.
Cuban doctors given asylum, will travel to Miami in 10 days
By Sandra Marquez Garcia. smarquez@herald.com. Published Saturday, July 29, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Two Cuban medical workers who spent more than one month jailed in Zimbabwe were formally granted refugee status Friday by the United States. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, notified the two in a telephone call that they were cleared for travel to Miami on Aug. 7.
Noris Peña Martínez, 25, and Leonel Córdova Rodríguez, 31, said they were relieved to conclude the asylum process they began when they first defected from a Cuban medical assistance mission in May.
"I've waited 31 years to be free, so I don't think a few more days will be too long to wait,'' Córdova said in a telephone interview.
Added Peña: "Today just so happened to be the first sunny day here. I think it was a good sign.''
Córdova, a doctor, and Peña, a dentist, arrived in Sweden July 8 on two-month humanitarian visas. They spent their first week recovering from their prison experience before approaching the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm to request asylum. Their claim was bolstered by a preliminary offer
of refugee status that had been given to them by a U.S. immigration officer while they were still jailed in Zimbabwe.
That preliminary offer was conditional on a background check and a medical exam. By Wednesday of this week, the two medical workers had cleared those hurdles: then the final waiting period.
Upon hearing the news that they had been approved, Córdova, who is married and has three children, and Peña, called their families back in Cuba.
"My wife cried out very loud,'' Córdova said. "I want them to go there with me. They won't be safe until they are out of the reach of Fidel Castro.''
Córdova's wife -- Rosalba González Contreras, 33, -- made headlines of her own after Cuban officials ordered her and the couple's children evicted from the family home in Havana in the weeks after her husband denounced Castro in an interview with a Zimbabwean newspaper and
requested asylum to Canada and the United States.
But since then, Córdova said his wife has received three $50 salary payments for his brief employment in Zimbabwe.
"It was an incredible generosity. They basically paid her for the time that I was in jail,'' he said. "But this generosity is something temporary, we all know.''
Friday night, Peña and Córdova planned to celebrate their pending arrival in Miami surrounded by the Cuban exiles in Stockholm who have housed, transported and supported them since shortly after their arrival there.
The evening's menu: Beer, beef and pork.
"We have a lot of happy people by our side,'' Córdova said. "I think today is a day to celebrate.''
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, who waged a lobbying campaign to secure their release from prison and their arrival in Florida, shared that sentiment. She said the case struck a chord with Miami's exile community following the Elián González case.
"The international media has wanted to put a real false face on the Castro regime -- as a workers' paradise and a great place to raise your family,'' she said. "It's a false image. When you have professionals like these doctors seeking political asylum, that says a lot about the
country.''
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