By Chris Gaither And Sandra Marquez Garcia. smarquez@herald.com. Published Wednesday, June 7, 2000, in the Miami Herald
United Nations officials asked authorities in Zimbabwe Wednesday to give them access to two asylum-seeking Cuban doctors believed to be in police custody in that country, but the government continued to deny knowledge of their whereabouts.
In a letter to Zimbabwe's foreign minister, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees in Geneva asked to meet with Leonel Córdova Rodríguez, 31, and Noris Peña Martínez, 25, who have not been seen since Friday when armed security agents tried to force them
aboard a flight connecting to Havana.
The diplomatic maneuver came as international concern mounted over Zimbabwe's apparent violation of international laws requiring countries to provide due proces to asylum seekers.
``We don't know where they are and what is happening to them,'' said Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency in Geneva.
In a telephone interview with The Herald, Wayne Bvudzijana, spokesman for Zimbabwe's police force, said he had ``no information'' about the doctors' location. ``If they were in our custody, we would confirm that for you,'' he said. ``No reporters know whether they are missing or not.''
But T. William Bango, city editor of the independent Daily News, said Bvudzijana had admitted otherwise. ``We pressed him further, and he told our crime reporter that they are in a police station but he could not reveal further details.''
News reports of the doctors' abduction came as a shock to Mina Fernández, owner of Primor Bridals shop on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Fernández, a second cousin of Peña, has not seen the young doctor for 20 years but maintains close ties with the family in Camagüey,
Cuba.
``I am worried because she is a young girl in a foreign country,'' Fernández said. ``She is running the risk that they can kill her.''
Fernández said she planned to get in touch via e-mail with Peña's father, José Ramón Peña, a Cuban doctor on a similar mission in South Africa. She hoped the attempted defection was the beginning of a family reunification.
A U.S. State Department official who monitors Zimbabwe said the abduction of the Cuban doctors -- yanked from their beds during a pre-dawn raid Friday by two machine gun-toting soldiers --was a brazen snub of the refugee agency's mandate to assess their asylum claim.
``This was more forceful of an intervention than you would expect,'' said the official, noting the long-standing bond between Fidel Castro and Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. "The government of Zimbabwe has chosen in this case to do Cuba a favor.''
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