CUBANET ... CUBANEWS

December 4, 2001



Cuba News

Miami Herald

Published Tuesday, December 4, 2001 in The Miami Herald

U.S. and Cuban officials discuss cooperation to fight immigrant smuggling

HAVANA -- (AP) -- U.S. and Cuban officials held regular talks Monday on better cooperation to halt the increased smuggling of illegal immigrants which Havana blames for a growing number of deaths at sea.

"We already have been working together on anti-smuggling efforts,'' said James Carragher, the new State Department coordinator for Cuban affairs.

"The United States Department of Justice is committed to upholding the law against these despicable people who would carry out human smuggling, and we will indict and seek to convict them,'' he said at the conclusion of the talks.

Neither Carragher nor Cuban officials provided details about U.S. proposals for improved cooperation among law enforcement agencies in both countries.

Ricardo Alarcon, head of the Cuban delegation and president of Cuba's National Assembly, told reporters Havana was aware of recent U.S. efforts to arrest and prosecute migrant smugglers.

But, he said, "much more energy is needed in applying the law and making it more effective.'' Migrant smugglers charge Cubans up to $8,000 each to take them to the United States illegally.

Alarcon said he also restated Cuban demands for the United States to erase the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act that he claimed encouraged risky and illegal migration.

Alarcon said the law "violates the spirit'' of 1994 and 1995 Cuba-U.S. migration accords that were a focus of the Monday talks.

The act allows any Cuban citizen permitted to stay in the United States for a year to then apply for permanent residency.

It does not provide specifics for dealing with illegal Cuban immigrants.

But current U.S. policy allows most Cubans who reach American soil by illegal means to avoid repatriation and to eventually apply, under the act, for U.S. residency.

Most U.S.-bound Cubans picked up at sea by the Coast Guard are returned to their homeland.

Havana blames U.S. policy for the deaths of hundreds of Cubans at sea, most recently 30 who perished when their boat capsized in the Florida Straits in mid-November.

Carragher said he rejected any discussion of the U.S. law during the talks, which he said were held only to assess how the both countries were enforcing migration accords.

"Cubans are looking to leave a situation in which they can not practice freely human rights,'' Carragher said, noting what he termed "the continued failure of the Cuban economy to give the opportunities that a free market can.''

The talks are held every six months under accords signed after a 1994 immigration crisis when 30,000 Cubans took to the sea in U.S.-bound boats and rafts. Both countries subsequently agreed to work toward the orderly and legal migration of Cubans who want to live in the United States.

Most exiles say confrontation with Cuba a flop

By Andres Oppenheimer. aoppenheimer@herald.com.

In sharp contrast with their stands two decades ago, most South Florida Cuban exiles believe that the U.S. policy of confrontation with Cuba's communist regime has been a failure, and that more travel to the island would help bring about change there, according to a poll sponsored by a new group of Cuban-American business leaders.

Yet a 55 percent majority of Cuban exiles still support the U.S. embargo on Cuba, most likely because they have not yet found a viable alternative to the current sanctions, says the poll conducted by Bendixen and Associates and scheduled to be released later this week.

In addition, the poll found what it described as a "leadership vacuum'' in the Cuban exile community: 78 percent said they wanted a leader, but could not identify one.

"What surprised me the most is the percentage of exiles who said that the strategy of confrontation has failed,'' Sergio Bendixen said Monday. "In the '80s and '90s, there was a nearly 80 percent support for confrontation.''

Asked about the seeming contradiction between the exiles' growing preference for a negotiated solution to the Cuban crisis and their continued support for the U.S. embargo, Bendixen said that "exiles are still not seeing an alternative to the embargo. The poll suggests that if they were to be presented with a reasonable alternative, they would consider it.''

The new survey of 837 Miami-Dade County residents who identified themselves as Cubans or Cuban Americans interested in Cuban issues has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

NEGOTIATED SOLUTION

Compared with similar polls in the past, it suggests a growing support among Cuban exiles toward a negotiated solution in Cuba. Fifty-three percent of those polled support the Cuban Roman Catholic Church's policy of "pardon and reconciliation,'' while 37 percent said they disagree with it, and 10 percent did not respond.

A 1997 survey of Dade County Cuban exiles by Florida International University's Institute of Public Opinion Research showed that 48 percent of the exiles favored a national dialogue to solve the Cuban crisis, while the same poll in 1993 found that only 36 percent favored a dialogue with the Cuban regime.

According to the conclusions of the new poll, the hard-line segment of the Cuban exile community "is surprisingly small,'' but has a big influence over local media.

Based on the responses, the survey concluded that only 23 percent of Miami's Cuban exiles could be described as "hard-liners,'' while 28 percent are "pro-change'' and 49 percent are "centrists,'' or up for grabs.

The "hard-liners,'' who don't want any changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba, are mostly exiles who arrived in the 1960s and are U.S. citizens, it says. By comparison, most of those in the "pro-change'' faction are younger, arrived in the '80s and '90s, and only half of them have become U.S. citizens.

"The survey tells us that the Cuban-American community has not abandoned its fight against the Castro dictatorship, but is willing to seek new methods and strategies that could be more effective,'' said Carlos Saladrigas, a leading member of the Cuba Study Group, sponsors of the poll.

OTHER FINDINGS

Among the poll's other findings:

There is growing support for the work of dissidents in Cuba: 58 percent of Cuban exiles described them as "patriots,'' while 19 percent described them as "Fidelistas in disguise'' and 23 percent did not answer.

A 53 percent majority of Cuban exiles said they believe travel to Cuba "is an important factor in bringing about change in the island,'' while 43 percent said travel "has not had any real impact'' on Cuba, and 4 percent did not answer.

Asked to identify a Cuban exile leader, 73 percent could not name one. Ten percent named Cuban American National Foundation President Jorge Mas Santos, another 10 percent named Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, and 2 percent named radio show host Armando Perez Roura.

The Cuba Study Group, a group of a dozen influential Miamians who have been meeting privately in recent months, describes itself as a nonprofit organization of Cuban business leaders and philanthropists whose mission is "to study and propose projects and ideas that promote and facilitate nonviolent change in Cuba.''

"We're not going to be a lobbying group, and we're not trying to compete with any other group,'' Saladrigas said. "What we want to do is to facilitate information and facts that can assist policymakers.''

Copyright 2001 Miami Herald

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