Published Friday, August 3, 2001 in
The Miami Herald
Cubans found at sea are coming to the U.S.
By Alfonso Chardy, Jennifer Babson and Marika Lynch.
achardy@herald.com
Immigration authorities late Thursday announced they will bring to U.S. soil
the Cubans rescued at sea after a migrant smuggling tragedy off the Florida
Keys, departing from a six-year policy of repatriating migrants picked up
offshore.
As Immigration and Naturalization Service officials prepared to transport
the rescued Cubans to the Krome Service Processing Center in west Miami-Dade
County, the Coast Guard called off a search for a woman and three children.
After 41 hours in the water, they are presumed dead, said Coast Guard Petty
Officer Michael Brock. Two others drowned, bringing the death toll to six in the
deadliest Cuban smuggling tragedy in nearly three years.
"This tragic smuggling operation demonstrates the danger that migrants
face when they hire smugglers to bring them across the treacherous waters of the
Florida Straits to the United States,'' INS spokesman Dan Kane said in
Washington.
The exception was made, the INS said, to help U.S. authorities investigate
and prosecute growing migrant smuggling operations. The 20 survivors were coming
in as "material witnesses'' in the investigation against two suspected
smugglers, who were among those rescued. The unidentified men will be subject to
prosecution by the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.
In December 1998, five people died and nine others were presumed dead after
a 25-foot boat sank 22 miles southeast of Key Biscayne. Eleven passengers died
in the fateful voyage that brought Elián González to Florida on
Thanksgiving Day 1999 -- but it was not considered a smuggling operation.
Thursday's decision to bring the survivors ashore pleased Cuban exile
leaders, who had lobbied the Bush administration not to return the group to the
island. The dilemma over whether to send the group back was seen as Bush's first
major political test over Cuba immigration policy.
"I hope this turns into a lesson for traffickers and people not to pay
smugglers money because it puts the lives of their loved ones at great risk,''
said Armando Gutierrez, a publicist who gained fame as spokesman for the Miami
family of Elián González. He was the first to fax a letter to
President Bush asking that the Cubans be allowed to stay.
In Wednesday's incident, 28 people were crammed into a 27-foot vessel that
capsized in six-to-eight-foot seas 20 miles south of Key West, according to the
Coast Guard. Two other boats found near the capsized vessel were unrelated to
the tragedy. The 22 survivors were placed aboard a Coast Guard cutter where they
were interviewed by INS asylum officers.
The tragedy galvanized Cuban exile leaders to pressure the Bush
administration into abandoning the Clinton-era migration accords with Cuba,
which mandate that Cubans found at sea be returned home.
Miami's two Republican Cuban-American representatives in Congress, Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, sent a letter to new INS
Commissioner James W. Ziglar urging him to revise the policy of returning
migrants interdicted at sea. Before the 1995 accord, Cuban migrants picked up at
sea were allowed to stay in the United States.
"The unfortunate incident,'' the letter said, "is a reminder of
the urgent need to thoroughly review the existing migration accord between Cuba
and the United States.''
While repatriations are frequent -- more than 400 migrants have been sent
back since Bush took office in January -- Wednesday's incident was no routine
rescue.
The dramatic elements stirred anguish in the exile community. As a result,
Bush administration officials in Washington monitored the situation closely.
Under the current "wet foot/dry foot'' policy, Cubans rescued at sea
generally are sent back while those who come ashore stay.
An offshoot of President Bill Clinton's landmark repatriation agreement with
Cuba that halted a rafter exodus, the policy has continued under Bush, who
embraced it as a candidate -- even though he later promised to review
Clinton-era decisions including those dealing with immigration.
Prior to Thursday, U.S. officials had only departed from the practice when
migrants have been injured or have a credible fear of persecution in Cuba.
In September, eight people who fled Cuba in a crop-duster and survived its
ditching at sea were allowed to stay in the United States after a U.S. Navy
flight surgeon recommended that they receive medical treatment ashore.
Gutierrez, the publicist, stepped into the case within hours of Wednesday's
capsizing.
"These Cubans, including innocent children, were aboard a vessel that
was turned by high waves,'' Gutierrez wrote to Bush. "They were fleeing
from the terror of the tyranny of Fidel Castro, and hoping to reach freedom in
the United States.''
On Thursday, Gutierrez traveled to Key West to pressure the Coast Guard
directly. He was joined by Arturo Cobo, a Key West exile leader who helped care
for Cuban rafters in the 1990s by founding a rafter shelter.
Also traveling to Key West was a family from Westchester whose members
believe their loved one was aboard the capsized boat. Gumersindo Marcos and his
half-brother José Cardona said their brother Reynaldo Marcos, 44, had not
been heard from since Sunday. He signaled on the phone that he might be headed
to the United States, Gumersindo Marcos said.
The family was unsure whether Reynaldo Marcos was among the rescued group.
Neither the Coast Guard or the INS released any names of the survivors or the
suspected smugglers. Marcos spent four years in a Cuban jail after trying to
leave the island in 1994, relatives said.
In Washington, Díaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen also asked the Bush
administration to bring the rescued migrants ashore because they could have
valuable information for federal authorities investigating migrant smuggling
operations.
The U.S. attorney's office in Miami, which has been investigating migrant
smuggling with the FBI and INS, said it could not comment on whether prosecutors
had asked immigration officials to let the migrants in so they could be
questioned as witnesses.
Castro 'a master performer,' expert says
Scholars gather to study issues related to Cuba and its leader
By Nancy San Martin. nsanmartin@herald.com
Until he takes his final breath, President Fidel Castro of Cuba will
continue to sharpen his skill as a trickster who keeps people guessing about his
next move, one of the country's top Cuba scholars says.
"Fidel Castro has been, since his early years, a master performer,''
said Georgetown University Professor Brian Latell, a retired Central
Intelligence Agency analyst with a specialty on Cuba and Castro.
Latell made the comments Thursday at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables
during the 11th annual meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban
Economy -- a forum for academics, economists and other intellectuals from across
the United States. About 250 people were in attendance.
Latell says Castro is not the character he is now playing on stage -- a "benign,
loveable grandfather who is not threatening, who's preparing carefully for a
peaceful transition.
"He is a different person behind the facade,'' Latell said. "He is
a revolutionary who continues to despise and fear the United States. This is not
an apolitical grandfather.''
In addition to dissecting Castro's psyche, participants will spend time
analyzing Cuba's economy, civil society, agriculture, transition issues,
humanitarian aid and the impact of economic sanctions. The convention, sponsored
by the University of Miami, ends Saturday.
Latell said Cuba's political future is inextricably intertwined with
Castro's "state of mind, health, state of aspirations and what we might
expect him to do next.''
He said Castro, who turns 75 on Aug. 13, has managed to control Cuba's
destiny because of his skills as a leader. He said he was one of the best
informed world leaders today who has adapted to hard times by allowing
counter-revolutionary actions, such as using U.S. dollars to boost Cuba's
economy.
The exceptions, though, have come at a great cost for Castro's revolution
because it has introduced class distinctions, generational tensions, racial and
regional disparities, corruption and crime.
"Almost every principle and value has been compromised,'' Latell said. "He
has been revealed as a helpless hypocrite.''
Age, though, has served Castro by keeping him focused, Latell said. He has
delegated more responsibility to other members of his government and appointed
more sophisticated individuals to positions of power.
But it is unlikely that Castro will allow anyone else, including brother Raúl
Castro, to succeed him while he is alive and coherent. And it is doubtful anyone
would ever be able to deliver a comparable performance, Latell said.
Even Castro's recent fainting spell, the first such public spectacle during
42 years of the revolution, was described as fatigue on a hot, summer day. The
declaration came from Castro himself.
The illusions have stretched beyond personality, Cuba experts said. Castro
also has managed to create an image of prosperity under the guise of a
revolution that continues to evolve.
"He has been very careful at managing images of himself and images of
the revolution,'' said Cuban exile economist Jorge Sanguinetty, who served as
the head of Cuba's National Investment Planning Department between 1963-66.
"Unfortunately, his opposition -- exiles, dissidents and even the U.S.
government -- has not been skillful enough to counter-balance Fidel Castro's
ability to manage those images,'' Sanguinetty said.
Analysts said what remains unclear is how he will be portrayed in the long
run -- as a leader who succeeded at instilling socialist values or a dictator
who destroyed a nation.
"In history, he'll be recognized as an enormous figure, a figure who
for four decades played a role on the world stage,'' Latell said. "But his
legacy in Cuba and the world will be very small.''
Cuban economy below '89 level
Per capita income was 1,476 pesos in 2000, down 25 percent from 1989's
1,976 pesos per person.
By John Dorschner. jdorschner@herald.com
Still adjusting from the shock of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
Cuban economy is far behind where it was in 1989 -- even though it grew 5.6
percent in 2000.
So says Carmelo Mesa-Lago, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh who
compiles data based on official Cuban government sources.
In a report to the 11th annual meeting of the Association for the Study of
the Cuban Economy, Mesa stated that a basic figure of the economy -- gross
domestic product per capita -- has grown gradually since hitting bottom in 1993.
Per capita income climbed to 1,476 pesos in 2000, up slightly from 1,405 in
1999 -- but still down 25 percent from 1989's 1,976 pesos per person.
About 300 economists, bankers and policymakers from the United States, Latin
America and Europe are attending the conference at the Biltmore Hotel.
EDUCATION SURPRISE
Though most were accustomed to hearing negative reports about the Cuban
economy, many were surprised by Mesa-Lago's figures on education, which has
traditionally been one of the Castro government's strong points.
Mesa-Lago reported that university enrollment has plummeted -- from 242,000
in 1989 to 102,000 in 1998. Attendance rebounded just slightly in 1999, the last
year for which Mesa-Lago has figures, climbing to 107,000.
The reason is that, as Castro has shifted to a tourism economy, said
Mesa-Lago, the value of education has declined dramatically.
"Do you want to be an engineer earning pesos, or a taxi driver earning
dollars? . . . I don't know of any other nation in Latin America that has such
such a high period of decline in education over the past 10 years.''
'LIKE AN ICEBERG'
Mesa-Lago, who is also an economics professor at Florida International
University, acknowledged that some of the government's statistics were open to
question, particularly because the Castro regime rarely reports on what's
happening in the burgeoning private sector, where Cubans gain dollars legally or
illegally.
"The private sector in Cuba is like an iceberg,'' he said. "We see
very little.''
Still, said Luis Locay, an economist at the University of Miami, "Mesa-Lago's
figures are the best we get each year about what's happening in Cuba.''
The Cuban economy is not all gloom.
Tourism has soared 977 percent in the past 11 years, reaching $1.8 billion.
Nickel mining has climbed steadily, to 71,000 metric tons in 2000, up 51 percent
from 1989. Oil production has risen 234 percent, to 2.4 million metric tons.
Even so, Cuba must still import 77 percent of the oil it consumes.
MODEST INCREASE
The traditional powerhouse, sugar, showed a modest increase last year,
climbing from 3.8 million metric tons in 1999 to four million metric tons in
2000 -- still way below the 8.1 million metric tons produced by the harvest of
1989.
Another serious problem is foreign trade.
After losing the support of the Soviet Union, exports fell from 5.4 billion
pesos in 1989 to 1.7 billion pesos in 2000. That led to a trade deficit last
year of 3.2 billion pesos.
That's an "historic deficit for Cuba,'' said Mesa-Lago. Since losing
the generosity of the old Soviet Union, Cuba has amassed an external debt that
now stands at $11 billion.
"These loans will reach a point of no return,'' the Cuban-American
economist stated. "But I don't know where that is.''
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
