Published Thursday, September 21, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Defectors rip Cuban health care
By Tania Anderson, States News Service.
WASHINGTON -- Two Cuban doctors who defected from their country earlier this
year while on a medical mission in Zimbabwe said the United States should allow
Cuban doctors to come to the United States on similar missions as a way for them
to seek political asylum.
The remarks were made at the first of several Senate Foreign Relations
hearings titled "Fidel Castro -- Kidnapper.'' Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.,
committee chairman and a long-time critic of Fidel Castro, said the intent of
the hearings was to "remind anyone with a short memory who Fidel Castro
really is.''
Helms, who was joined by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, asked Leonel Córdova
Rodríguez, a general practitioner, and Noris Peña Martínez,
a dentist, what they think would happen if a group of several hundred doctors
were sent to the United States on a medical mission.
At a news conference in Washington last week, visiting Cuban lawmakers
proposed sending Cuban doctors to poor areas of the United States, particularly
Mississippi. Both Córdova and Peña said such a program would
result in most of the participants applying for political asylum in the United
States.
"You should allow them to come to see what could happen,'' Córdova
said. "The vast majority are going to belong to the Communist party. Once
people are out of Cuba, they will do something to stay here.''
Rodríguez and Peña said they had planned to leave Cuba
permanently while on the Zimbabwe mission because of Cuba's declining health
care system and the adverse training conditions of Cuban medical students.
Medicine and health care services are reserved for Cuba's elite or foreign
travelers and only foreign students receive proper medical training, the doctors
said.
They added that young Cubans feel they have been deceived by the Castro
regime and they fear what to do about their future.
"There's a consensus that Fidel is not what the country needs or wants
and that we've been manipulated,'' Rodríguez said. "That's one of
the reasons we need to speak and let people know what's happening in Cuba.''
The doctors, along with 107 others, were sent to Zimbabwe in March under a
Cuban "doctor diplomacy'' program. A surveillance group from Castro's
administration accompanied the doctors, according to the doctors. After about a
month in Zimbabwe, the two doctors spoke out against the Castro regime in a
newspaper there and decided to not return to Cuba.
They eventually gained political asylum from the United States and have been
living in Miami since Aug. 7.
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THOSE WHO FLED
These are the migrants who fled Cuba Tuesday on an AN-2
cropduster that crashed into the Yucatan channel.
One adult male is dead, but federal authorities have not
yet identified him.
Angel Lenin Iglesias Hernández, 36, the pilot, from
Los Palacios, assigned to crop-dusting in the Vuelta Abajo tobacco region.
Mercedes Martínez Paredes, Iglesias' wife.
David Iglesias, 7, and Erick Iglesias, 13, the sons of
Iglesias and Martínez.
Judel Puig Martínez, 23, Martínez Paredes'
brother.
Pabel Puig Blanco, 27, Puig Martínez's half-brother.
Liliana Ponzoa, 36, an electrical engineer.
Rodolfo Fuentes, 36, an aviation mechanic, married to
Ponzoa. He is being treated at Lower Florida Keys Medical Center.
Andy Fuentes, 6, the son of Fuentes and Ponzoa.
Jacqueline Viera, a teacher. |
Survivors of air crash reach goal: U.S. soil
Eight transferred to Key West for medical care
Sandra Marquez Garcia, Marika Lynch And Paul
Brinkley-Rogers. pbrinkley-rogers@herald.com
Eight people who fled Cuba in a crop-duster that ditched at sea achieved
their goal of reaching the U.S. when they were taken to Key West on Wednesday
night for medical evaluation.
The U.S. Coast Guard decided to take the refugees to Lower Florida Keys
Medical Center after a U.S. Navy flight surgeon who examined them on board the
freighter MV Chios Dream recommended that they receive medical treatment ashore.
They were brought to Key West by the Coast Guard cutter Nantucket about 10:30
p.m.
"It was a medical decision, not a political decision -- keep that in
mind,'' said Coast Guard Cmdr. Marcus E. Woodring.
The refugees will be transferred to Krome detention center in Miami-Dade
early today for processing, said Patricia Mancha, an Immigration and
Naturalization Service spokeswoman in Miami.
The migrants will be allowed to stay in the United States under the federal
policy that permits any Cuban refugee who reaches dry land to remain. If they
had been interviewed at sea by the INS, they could have been sent back to Cuba
under the so-called "wet foot/dry foot'' rule.
"If they actually touch U.S. soil, that automatically makes them 'dry
foot,' '' said Luis Cordero, an immigration lawyer with Holland & Knight. "Then
they are paroled, and the [Cuban Adjustment] Act kicks in a year later. You
can't get any better than that.''
There were conflicting signals throughout the tension-filled day about the
refugees' fate, as the Cuban American National Foundation lobbied in Washington
for the survivors' release, and both Havana officials and the FBI said it
appeared that the flight had not been hijacked. The plane went down in the ocean
when it ran out of fuel.
A lawyer and a publicist who represented the Miami family of young Elián
González arrived in Key West to represent Rodolfo Fuentes, the one
survivor already allowed into the United States for treatment on Tuesday night.
And José Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue retained a Tampa lawyer to
help the Hialeah relative of two of the plane passengers.
One man, still unidentified by federal authorities, died in the ditching.
The 36-year-old Fuentes, whose wife and child also were aboard the plane, is
listed in guarded condition at the Key West hospital.
The Panamanian-flagged MV Chios Dream had been en route to New Orleans to
pick up grain on Tuesday morning when the Russian-made Antonov AN-2 biplane
circled nine times, then ditched in the ocean. The freighter picked up the
refugees from the water, where they were clinging to debris.
According to Havana air traffic controllers, the plane took off from a strip
in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba at 8:45 a.m. and its pilot, Angel Lenin
Iglesias Hernandez, radioed that he was being "kidnapped.'' Apparently,
however, the pilot had picked up his family and relatives and was trying to flee
Cuba.
Late Tuesday, a doctor from the Carnival Cruise Lines ship Tropicale treated
the migrants. Dr. Myron Binns, 41, said he was not told that the people he
helped were Cubans who "had fallen out of the sky'' until after he sutured
Fuentes' wounds and had returned to his own vessel.
He said he thought the migrants were vacationers because they were dressed
like guests on the Tropicale. Binns described the Cubans as looking frightened
and anxious, but he said they calmed down after they discovered he was a
physician.
The doctor said two of the women had been injured. One had a possible
clavicle fracture and a swollen face, and the other had a deep cut in her leg.
He said the children appeared to be in good condition, but that the whole group
had obviously been traumatized by their ordeal.
Throughout Wednesday, there were high-level exchanges about how to resolve
the situation involving the State Department, the Coast Guard and the INS.
During the day, the FBI said that it had determined from an interview with
the hospitalized Fuentes that the escape from Cuba was not a hijacking, and thus
not a crime. The agency said it would form a final conclusion after interviewing
all the adults.
In Havana, the government-controlled media called the incident a "kidnapping,''
but said it appeared that the case involved a pilot who used his plane to pick
up his family, several relatives, and a family friend according to a prearranged
plan.
The Coast Guard put a four-person party, including a Navy flight surgeon
identified only as Lieutenant Clark, who is based at Boca Chica Naval Air
Station, aboard the Chios Dream. Lower Keys Medical Center CEO Ron Bierman said
the Coast Guard told him Clark had determined that the eight remaining on the
ship needed to be taken to a hospital for medical attention.
An FBI agent on the Nantucket -- maneuvering closer to the Chios Dream --
waited to interview the group. The INS also had personnel at sea with the Coast
Guard to conduct routine shipboard asylum interviews.
The migrants' South Florida relatives waited anxiously for word.
Isidro Puig of Hialeah, whose sons Pabel, 27, and Judel, 23, were on the
plane, said his ex-wife called him from Cuba to tell him about the crash.
"The worst went through my mind,'' Puig said. "I just want to know
if my sons are alive or dead.''
Other relatives rushed to Key West.
Meanwhile, CANF officials -- in Washington for previously-scheduled talks
with lawmakers -- began lobbying to prevent the migrants from being repatriated.
CANF's leader, Joe Garcia, met with Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who is
chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee. The two had planned to
discuss the talks on migration between the United States and Cuba scheduled to
start today in New York City, but they also addressed the issue of the plane
survivors.
U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, asked the Panamanian government to
grant asylum to the migrants if necessary. He said the Panamanian consul in
Miami informed him that President Mireya Moscoso would grant the request.
Publicist Armando Gutierrez, who represented Elián's Miami family,
arrived in Key West with Elián legal team member Manny Diaz, saying the
relatives of the survivors had asked for their help.
Also arriving in Key West was Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the Cuban exile
Democracy Movement, who also played a highly visible role during the Elián
saga. Joining him was José Diaz, the mayor of Sweetwater, and Agustin
Garcia, chairman of the Dade County Democratic Party.
"The same way that we criticize them [U.S. authorities] when they make
a mistake, we will congratulate them when they do the right thing,'' said Arturo
Cobo, 59, a Bay of Pigs veteran who until 1996 ran the now closed refugee center
in Key West. He joined a small Cuban-American vigil at the Key West hospital.
Hopes ran high at about 3 p.m., when Ron Bierman, the Key West Medical
Center's CEO, said he had been told that Clark had recommended that the eight
survivors be hospitalized. Bierman said the Coast Guard planned to bring the
Cubans ashore about 7 p.m., and said he had eight beds ready.
But late in the afternoon, the Coast Guard and the INS continued to insist
that no decision had been made.
The Chios Dream, meanwhile, inched closer and closer to Key West to
rendezvous with the Coast Guard. Eventually, it was only three miles offshore,
where the waters were calmer and the eight survivors could be put into small
boats to be taken to a pier at Coast Guard Group Key West.
Diaz, who consulted with the hospitalized Fuentes, expressed jubilation when
the facility's director said he was preparing more beds: "Obviously, if
that happens, that's great news. Once they set foot on American soil they should
be allowed to stay.''
Herald staff writers Elinor J. Brecher, Alfonso Chardy, Eunice Ponce, Carol
Rosenberg, Carolyn Salazar, translator Renato Pérez, and Herald wire
services contributed to this report.
Coast Guard decision comes at a tricky time
Elections, talks with Cuba on horizon
By Carol Rosenberg, crosenberg@herald.com
The U.S. Coast Guard decision Wednesday to bring eight Cuban plane crash
survivors to Key West comes at a tricky time in both domestic politics and
foreign relations.
On one hand, Florida is a battleground state in the presidential campaign
and any U.S. government decision on the Cubans' fate would inevitably be seen
through the prism of national politics.
On the other hand, the on-again, off-again talks between the United States
and Cuba on migration issues are to begin today in New York -- and Havana could
be expected to see any decision that leads to the eight remaining in the United
States as a breach of previous U.S.-Cuba migration accords.
For the record, Clinton administration officials said throughout much of
Wednesday that they would stick to the letter and spirit of the 1995 Cuban
Migration Accords. That would have meant keeping the survivors at sea, aboard a
Coast Guard cutter, either to be returned to Cuba or taken to the U.S. naval
base at Guantanamo Bay for interviews on whether they were entitled to political
asylum, in a third country.
But, officials in Washington said, they were in the end overruled by "humanitarian
circumstances'' at sea: A Navy flight surgeon dropped aboard the freighter Chios
Dream to treat the survivors decided that, for the benefit of their well being,
they should be evacuated to dry land from stormy seas.
Privately, Clinton administration officials said they understood that either
decision would provoke charges of political partisanship. But "absolutely,
categorically, unequivocally, election politics had nothing to do with it,'' one
official said.
In a rueful recognition that the timing was terrible, the official added: "We
can never win, can we?''
U.S. diplomats were braced for sharp words from their Cuban counterparts at
today's renewal of migration talks in New York -- if Havana decides to show up.
Cuba had frozen the talks, usually held at six-month intervals, since
December to protest the seven-month custody battle over Elián González,
the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor whose return to Cuba Fidel Castro had made a
crusade.
RETURN TO TALKS
Cuba recently agreed to return to the talks, a framework that emerged from
the huge rafter crisis in 1994 for the annual migration of some 20,000 Cubans to
the United States each year.
Under U.S. policy that evolved from the accords, Cubans who make it to dry
land can stay, under the 1964 Cuban Adjustment Act, which Havana has repeatedly
criticized as a magnet for risky attempts to cross the Florida Straits.
But those intercepted at sea are mostly returned, under the so-called "wet
foot, dry foot'' policy.
On the political front, both the Republican and Democratic presidential
candidates have signaled their support for continued U.S. interdiction of Cuban
migrants while trying to woo Cuban constituents on the Elián case.
Both Vice President Al Gore and George W. Bush in effect neutralized the Elián
controversy by saying they would have preferred the boy's plight be decided in a
Florida Family Court.
Wednesday, Gore campaign spokeswoman Ellen Mellody responded with a flat "no''
to a query on whether the campaign had any input on the question of whether to
return the air crash survivors to Cuba.
NO GORE IN KEY WEST
But Mellody also said from Nashville on Wednesday that Gore would not be
making a campaign stop in Key West on Monday, contrary to an earlier leak.
"I can tell you that Al Gore would love to visit Key West, at some
point, but we never had confirmed it,'' said Mellody.
A spokesman for Jimmy Buffett, Gore's intended host for the visit, leaked
the visit last week, and campaign officials were privately confirming it as
recently as Wednesday morning. Mellody, for her part, said the visit was "absolutely
not'' canceled because the Cuban issue was too hot.
Either way, the issue comes at an awkward time.
Bush is due in Miami on Friday and Cuban migration issues are expected to be
a main topic, in light of his remarks last week that while he intended to review
Clinton administration policies he in general supported the concept of
interdiction. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, meanwhile,
is due in both Fort Lauderdale and Orlando today.
Lieberman, the centrist Democratic senator from Connecticut, has long been a
darling of Cuban Americans.
Survivors likely to remain in U.S.
By Elinor J. Brecher. ebrecher@herald.com
The nine Cubans who were allowed into the United States after surviving a
plane crash at sea are likely to have no trouble staying in the United States,
immigration lawyers say.
They fall under the Clinton administration's "wet foot/dry foot''
policy that allows Cubans who reach dry land to stay but repatriates those who
are picked up at sea and are unable to make convincing asylum claims to federal
authorities.
The "dry foot'' Cubans who reach land can apply for legal residency
after a year and a day.
The Cubans were taken to Key West -- one on Tuesday, the remaining eight on
Wednesday -- by the U.S. Coast Guard.
"I'd venture to think that if they entered without [asylum interviews
on board ship], they'd be the equivalent of coming in through Mexico or
Canada,'' said Maria Isabel Casablanca, president of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association, South Florida Chapter.
Before U.S. federal authorities decided to bring the migrants ashore, their
legal situation was more complicated, because they were picked up in
international waters off Cuba on Tuesday by a Panamanian freighter, the MV Chios
Dream.
The freighter captain did his duty by taking the refugees aboard his ship,
said Linda Osberg-Braun, who was part of the legal team representing Elián
González's Miami relatives.
"Under admiralty law, if you find any person in distress in the water,
you have to help them,'' she said. "You're not obligated to call the United
States, but the Coast Guard monitors those waters and is logistically closest to
the crash site.''
If the Coast Guard had not agreed to bring the survivors to the United
States, both the migrants and the captain would have had choices, said Adolfo
Jiménez, a maritime law specialist with the Holland & Knight firm.
"The captain has a great deal of discretion, subject to Panamanian
law,'' he said.
The migrants could have refused to accompany the Coast Guard. The captain
could have forced them off the ship, let them stay, or turned them over to Cuba,
"unless there is an international convention'' preventing it, Jiménez
said.
He likened the captain's situation to that of the Air France pilot who
wouldn't let two Cuban doctors board his Paris-bound plane last June in
Zimbabwe.
He called the migrants "invitees aboard ship. The captain has no
lasting obligation to provide shelter. Their status is not that of stowaways;
they were rescued. It's usual and customary to take [rescued persons] to the
hospital or safe harbor.
"What usually happens in a normal scenario is that they proceed to
their next port of call,'' which in this case would have been New Orleans.
Report on Elián clashes issued
Panel says police were unprepared
By Charles Rabin. crabin@herald.com
A special citizens committee formed to investigate Miami Police action
against protesters during the Elián González case has found the
police department was not prepared for the demonstrations in January and April
and lacked a functional chain of command.
The Elián González Ad Hoc Committee also recommended in a
report completed Monday that no elected city official should ever interfere with
police at a disturbance -- a reference to City Commissioner Tomás
Regalado's role in the Jan. 6 demonstration, when Miami Police Capt. Tony F.
Rodriguez accused the commissioner of inciting the crowd and obstructing a
police officer.
Ironically, it was Regalado who spearheaded the move to form the committee
after a confrontation between his supporters and Miami Police at City Hall.
Regalado charged that the police used unnecessary force in arresting
protesters.
The six-member group -- made up of an appointee from each commissioner and
Miami Police Chief Raul Martinez -- will meet with Martinez on Monday before it
passes its recommendations to Miami city commissioners.
The recommendations comment on both the January disturbances and the April
protests that broke out after federal agents seized Elián from
great-uncle Lázaro González's Little Havana home in the early
morning hours of April 22.
The day was marked by hundreds of confrontations between protesters upset
with the way the young boy was removed from the home and squads of riot police,
who the report say at times indiscriminately tossed cans of chemical agents into
the streets to clear them.
The melee resulted in hundreds of arrests but relatively little property
damage -- mostly the burning of tires in the middle of Flagler Street between
Southwest 17th and 57th avenues, and the burning of garbage bins.
"It doesn't seem the department was adequately prepared,
information-wise, as to the locations and size of the crowds,'' committee member
Alberto Milián said.
Most of the arrested in January and April have since had charges dropped.
Committee Chairman Andrew Rosenblatt said the committee determined after
interviewing dozens of witnesses and police personnel that clear channels of
communications were not properly followed.
"There was evidence presented indicating police officers and field
forces were operating under different rules of engagement,'' he said. "There
was not satisfactory communication between officers and the street and command
staff.''
Among the committee's 24 recommendations:
The police department needs a proactive plan to respond to politically
driven demonstrations.
The department needs a system with managerial coordination and direction,
with a chain of command that has clear goals and objectives.
The department should design clear rules for the use of chemical agents.
No elected city official should ever interfere with police officers at the
scene of a disturbance.
The last recommendation, proposed by Milián, addresses concerns that
Regalado may not have been acting as a peacemaker that January evening.
Shortly after the disturbance, an aide of Miami Mayor Joe Carollo supplied
videotaped footage of Regalado to authorities. Regalado and Carollo are foes.
Reached Tuesday, Regalado scoffed at that section of the report that cites
interference.
"I think elected officials should get involved. It's our responsibility
to try and maintain the peace,'' he said. "And what does interfere mean?
When they let me know, I'll tell you if I agree.''
Ad Hoc Committee member Jose "Pepe'' Herrera said the police department
overreacted in many instances during the April blowups. Herrera is Regalado's
appointee.
"When we have something as emotionally charged as this, I think that
the level of tolerance [by the police] that should be deployed, should be no
different than if the Miami Dolphins won the Super Bowl or the Florida Marlins
won the World Series,'' Herrera said.
The report follows the June release of an internal report by the police
department that absolved it of blame but found officers could have handled both
street disturbances better.
Milián suggested that the department use television news and all
other available information to help it monitor disturbances in the future.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald | 