Yahoo! June 8, 2000
Zimbabwe: We'll Release Cubans
By Angus Shaw, Associated Press Writer.
HARARE, Zimbabwe 7 (AP) - Two Cuban doctors seeking political asylum say armed Zimbabwean security agents and Cuban diplomats abducted them in the middle of the night in an attempt to force them back to Cuba.
The two were taken to neighboring South Africa on Friday and later that day were about to be put on a connecting flight to Cuba when they yelled for help and slipped a desperate note to airline employees, saying they had been kidnapped.
The airline refused to transport the two, and Drs. Noris Pena Martinez, 25, and Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, were returned to Zimbabwe, South African police said Wednesday.
After repeatedly denying knowledge of the physicians' whereabouts, the Zimbabwe government said Wednesday there had been an attempt to deport the Cubans. It promised to release them and allow the doctors to seek asylum, said Kris Janowski of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
A U.N. refugee official, who was allowed to visit the two Wednesday at a detention center outside Harare, reported they were in good health, Janowski said.
Zimbabwe has long maintained close cultural and ideological ties with Cuba, and President Robert Mugabe, once a leading Marxist, counts Cuban President Fidel Castro among his closest political allies.
In Havana on Wednesday, the wife of Rodriguez, Rosalba Gonzalez, said she was not surprised by her husband's defection attempt.
``He always wanted to leave Cuba so he could live better,'' she said.
Gonzalez said she has been overcome with worry since learning of her husband's dramatic efforts to prevent being deported home to the communist island.
``I feel like I'm going to die.... I am worried for him. I don't know what is going to happen,'' said Gonzalez, sitting in a chair in her living room next to the couple's 3-year-old daughter Giselle.
``If I have to stay here, I can, I don't really care,'' the 33-year-old said. ``As long as he can resolve things and stay there in peace.''
Rodriguez and Martinez were among a group of 152 Cuban doctors and medical workers sent to assist Zimbabwe's health service in recent weeks under a Cuban ``doctor diplomacy'' program.
They sought asylum two weeks ago at the Canadian diplomatic mission in Harare. Diplomats there referred them to the U.N. refugee agency.
But they were detained and forced out of the country before their scheduled asylum interview Friday.
Fears for their safety emerged after copies of their note, written on three pages torn from a South African police notebook, were faxed to the U.N. refugee agency in Geneva and reached Cuban- American lobbyists in Europe and the United States.
The doctors wrote in broken English that they believed they were under the protection of the U.N. agency when two Zimbabwean security officers raided the house where they were staying just after 4 a.m. Friday.
``We are traveling kidnapped to Cuba,'' read the note, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. ``Please, we are very concerned about our lifes, and the well being of our family in Cuba.''
Government spokesman George Charamba said the two were seized after they left a refugee holding center to stay with a friend.
``We cannot allow this country to be used as a stepping stone for people seeking asylum in another country,'' Charamba said.
The U.N. refugee agency protested the handling of the case to Zimbabwean authorities, said Oluseyi Bajulaiye, the agency's chief regional representative.
The agency said the doctors did not know they were forbidden to leave the refugee center, and Zimbabwe's attempt to deport them violated the country's refugee laws as well as international law, Bajulaiye said.
In their note, the doctors said Cuba's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Rodolfo Saracino, a second embassy official and the head of the Cuban medical mission in Zimbabwe had prevented them from contacting the U.N. refugee agency after they were seized. The three Cuban officials were at the Harare airport
when the doctors were escorted onto the flight to South Africa.
Cuba, with one of the world's highest ratios of doctors, has sent medical staff to several developing countries, including South Africa, where Martinez' father is reportedly working. Hundreds of Zimbabwean physicians have been trained in Cuba.
Rodriguez and Martinez said they were prevented from traveling outside Cuba until they were assigned to the medical mission.
Ballplayer Returned to Cuba
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 8 (AP)- The hopes of Cuban baseball star Andy Morales for a major league career in the United States were dashed when the Coast Guard repatriated him and 30 others, five days after they were picked up at sea while trying to flee.
A U.S. official in Washington said Wednesday that Morales was returned because he did not qualify for political asylum.
Morales was among 31 Cubans who were repatriated after being picked up by a Coast Guard cutter near Key West. Two suspected smugglers were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol, Coast Guard spokesman Robert Suddarth said in Miami.
Morales is a 25-year-old third baseman who hit a home run last year in a 12-6 victory by the Cuban national team over the Baltimore Orioles in Baltimore.
The Cuban government today welcomed the repatriation. ``This baseball player will return to his home like the rest of those who have no pending problems with justice,'' the Communist Party daily Granma said today.
The decision to return the 31 was made by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents who interviewed them. To qualify for admission to the United States, Cubans who attempt to flee must convince the INS they have a credible fear of persecution if they are returned.
Under an agreement with Cuba, U.S. diplomats monitor repatriated Cubans to determine whether they are undergoing official harassment as a result of their decision to try to flee.
Jose Cardenas, Washington representative of the Cuban-American National Foundation, an anti-Castro group, criticized the decision to return Morales and he linked it to administration efforts to return Elian Gonzalez to his homeland.
``This shows that in the wake of the Elian Gonzalez situation there has been clearly a political decision in the White House to basically whitewash the situation in Cuba, to pretend it is some sort of normal country, where human rights are abused not any more than in the next country,'' Cardenas
said.
Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba said: ``A Cuban athlete of national and international fame, who attempts to defect, just like a well-known scientist or artist, will be treated by the Castro government as 'scum' or a traitor to the motherland.''
Morales had a Miami-based American agent, Gus Dominguez, who had hoped to sign Morales with a professional U.S. team. Efforts to reach Dominguez by telephone were unsuccessful.
About 35 Cuban baseball players have defected in the past 10 years.
Morales' parents told a reporter in the Cuban town of San Nicolas on Tuesday that they had no objection to their son's attempt to migrate.
``I don't care what uniform - whether it be from here, from there, Colombia, Venezuela or Japan,'' Adelso Morales, Andy's father, said Tuesday. ``But he has to play. It's in his blood.''
Morales said he thought the repatriation would end his son's career.
``As a baseball player, he's over. ... I really feel badly,'' he said. ``God chooses a destiny for us, and if this is what God wants, then all right. ... Others have been left behind in the sea, and that is more painful, that is worse.''
The son has two children: Andy Jr., 10, and Yandi, 4 months. He lived in another community near San Nicolas with his second wife, Daiyana, and Yandi.
Elian Raid E-mails May Be Supoenaed
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate committee is considering subpoenaing Attorney General Janet Reno for e-mails and other documents relating to the federal raid on Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives to determine whether congressional hearings are necessary.
``We want everything so if hearings aren't justified, we won't hold them,'' said Sen. Orrin Hatch (news - web sites), R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ``If they are, we will.''
The Republican-controlled committee meets today. If the subpoenas are approved, they would go out immediately, Hatch said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee's ranking Democrat, said a subpoena would be just a ploy to explain why there haven't been any hearings on the controversy over the 6-year-old Cuban boy.
Republicans ``would much rather talk about hearings than hold hearings,'' Leahy said, noting that the Justice Department already has turned over ``huge number of things that haven't even been read yet.''
A call to the Justice Department was not immediately returned.
Immigration and Naturalization Service agents stormed the home of Elian's Miami relatives on April 22 and delivered the boy to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in Washington. On June 1, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the INS acted within reason when it denied an asylum request the
Miami relatives made on Elian's behalf.
On Wednesday, Elian and his playmates spent much of the afternoon at the National Zoo, stopping by at the reptile house and making animal noises as they went.
As usual, federal agents accompanied the group, which included Elian's father, cousin, playmates from Cuba and the playmates' mothers.
But sending in armed federal officers to retrieve a child, ``that's not America,'' Hatch said.
``There are many people in our society who are very concerned with the way that house was assaulted: in the middle of the night in full combat gear, automatic or semiautomatic weapons drawn, the home trashed without any real mention in the court document that they were concerned about
violence,'' he said.
Right now, Hatch says he plans to hold hearings ``unless the administration can show ... that there's no reason.'' But ``it's pretty hard to hold them without the documents,'' he said.
If hearings are held, Leahy said, they probably will focus on generic questions of how much authority the INS has.
``Senator Hatch is delighted to send out subpoenas. He's delighted to send letters. He's delighted to send staff members,'' he said. ``The only thing he doesn't want to do is hold full-scale Elian hearings ... because the American people know what we know, that the child belongs with his
parents.''
Meanwhile, the Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. in Washington to dismiss another lawsuit brought by Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez to prevent Elian from leaving the country.
The government asked Kennedy to dismiss the case because the 11th Circuit had decided the issues when it upheld the INS' decision to let Elian's father have custody and decide the boy's future. -
On the Net: Senate Judiciary Committee: http://www.senate.gov/(tilde)judiciary
Report: Massive Blackout in Cuba
HAVANA, 7 (AP) - A heavy storm knocked out power across the capital of Havana and surrounding provinces Wednesday evening, leaving millions without electricity for at least an hour.
State television reported that the blackout began around 6 p.m. and included most of Havana, surrounding Havana Province and Pinar del Rio Province to the west. Havana alone has 2 million residents.
Power was restored to most areas within an hour, and was to be gradually restored to other areas over the rest of the evening, state television said.
U.S. Sends Baseball Player Back to Cuba
By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA, 7 (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday repatriated highly-rated Cuban baseball player Andy Morales after he tried to flee the island by boat, prompting family fears of a stern reaction from sports' authorities.
``He will never be able to play baseball here again,'' his father and former baseball tutor Adelso Morales predicted, confirming Morales was among a group of 42 boat-people handed over by the U.S. Coast Guard in the morning.
``I imagine they won't let him play any more,'' agreed his wife Daiyana Castillo, 20, speaking from the couple's house in San Jose, a small town in Havana province outside the capital.
State TV showed images late Wednesday of the 42 boat-people arriving at Cabanas port, about an hour's drive west of Havana. ''Everyone acted correctly. There was no individualization or special privilege,'' state journalist Reinaldo Taladrid said, reflecting the official Cuban view of the
affair.
Morales, 24, was returned, like the others, under 1995 bilateral accords intended to stem the flow of migrants to the United States by sea. ``As always happens, without exception, he will return to his house normally,'' Taladrid added.
The player was undergoing standard procedures Wednesday for repatriated boat-people. Those include medical checks and brief interviews with U.S. diplomats -- who monitor such cases in an effort to ensure against persecution -- before going home.
``He must be very depressed, and I am very worried. I wish they would just send him back to me quickly,'' the player's father added by telephone from his provincial hometown of San Nicolas. ``I can't believe they have done this to him.''
Morales' wife said she did not know the whereabouts of her husband late Wednesday. ``The only thing he's done all his life is play baseball ... It would have been preferable to leave him there (the United States),'' she added.
Earlier Wednesday, the Coast Guard issued a statement on the repatriations of 42 people at Cabanas, saying they had been found at sea in three groups of 31, six and five.
Los Angeles-based sports agent Gus Dominguez said earlier in the week that Morales, who played in the national team in a 1999 friendly series with the Baltimore Orioles, was in the group of 31. They were interviewed by immigration officials on board a Coast Guard cutter to see if any qualified
for asylum.
The repatriation of Morales means the INS has treated the baseball player as no different to any other Cuban trying to move illegally to the United States, despite his high profile.
Under the 1995 accords, the United States agreed to repatriate those caught at sea, unless they had a good asylum claim. Under a ``wet foot/dry foot'' policy, however, those who reach U.S. shores still normally gain the right to stay.
In Miami, a spokesman for the anti-Castro, Cuban exile group the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) expressed disappointment at Morales' repatriation.
Luis Zuniga said he was bound to suffer reprisals, noting that defecting athletes are termed ``traitors'' by President Fidel Castro's government. Cuba, however, denies strongly that repatriated people are discriminated against.
The Morales case comes amid the still unresolved feud over Elian Gonzalez, a 6-year-old boy who survived a migrant voyage in which his mother and 10 other people died but was then caught in a battle between Miami relatives seeking to keep him in the United States and his father wanting him back
in Cuba.
Morales is the latest in a line of baseball players from Cuba's amateur system who have left to seek what can amount to massive fortunes in the United States. In Cuba, the best players are treated as heroes and get special privileges but earn only about $25 a month.
As a player, Morales appeared to be a notch below the top Cuban stars who are virtually assured immediate and lucrative success if they make it to the United States. In Cuba, experts said the Havana Province player was not a regular member of the national squad, and was unlikely to make it into
the team going to the Sydney Olympics.
His father said he was unfairly left out of the national team in recent times. ``Andy is a superstar, and he would have success anywhere, in the United States, in Japan, in Venezuela, anywhere he went,'' he said, claiming his son was second only to Cuba's best-known baseball player Omar ``The
Kid'' Linares.
Elian Spends Afternoon at Zoo
WASHINGTON, 7 (AP) - Elian Gonzalez and his playmates spent much of the afternoon Wednesday visiting the National Zoo, stopping by at the reptile house and making animal noises as they went.
On a warm and sunny afternoon, the 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor and his visiting entourage from Cuba spent more than two hours at the zoo in northwest Washington.
As usual, federal agents accompanied the group, which included Elian's father, cousin, playmates from Cuba and the playmates' mothers.
As they passed exhibits, the children made noises mimicking the animals.
Elian is staying in the Cleveland Park neighborhood, not far from the zoo. His temporary home is an 18th-century farmhouse that is the headquarters of Youth for Understanding, International Exchange, which promotes exchanges involving high school students from the United States and foreign
countries.
On Capitol Hill Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said the committee plans to subpoena documents and e-mails from Attorney General Janet Reno to help decide whether to hold hearings on the federal raid at the home of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives.
Immigration and Naturalization Service agents stormed the home April 22 and later reunited Elian with his father in Washington.
"We want everything so if hearings aren't justified, we won't hold them,'' said Sen. Orrin Hatch (news - web sites), R-Utah. "If they are, we will.''
The Republican-controlled committee planned to meet Thursday to decide whether to issue the subpoena.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee's ranking Democrat, said Republicans ``would much rather talk about hearings than hold hearings.'' He noted that the Justice Department has turned over ``huge number of things that haven't even been read yet.''
Meanwhile, the department asked U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. in Washington to dismiss another lawsuit brought by Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez to prevent Elian from leaving the country.
Filed in mid-April, that lawsuit was put on hold in case the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted its injunction keeping Elian in this country.
The government asked Kennedy to dismiss the case because the 11th Circuit had decided the issues when it upheld the INS' decision to let Elian's father, Juan Miguel, have custody and decide the boy's future.
The department also said international treaties against torture and persecution cited in the lawsuit do not provide rights enforceable by the federal district court.
Government lawyers earlier had told Kennedy that INS found no credible evidence Elian would be tortured or persecuted if he returns to Cuba with his father.
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