Yahoo! News
December 21, 2001.
Roman Catholic priest Bryan Walsh dies
MIAMI, 20 (AP) - The Roman Catholic priest who led Operation Pedro Pan,
which brought 14,000 children out of Fidel Castro's Cuba to Florida 40 years
ago, has died.
Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh was 71 when he died Monday at Mercy Hospital of
cardiac arrest.
In 1960, the Irish-born priest set up the Cuban Children's Program to help
Cuban parents evacuate their children from Castro's new communist state.
The program, which became know as Operation Pedro Pan, accepted its first
two children Dec. 26, 1960. Within the next two years, 14,000 unaccompanied
children would arrive. The Miami archdiocese sent them to camps, relatives'
homes, foster homes and orphanages until their parents could join them.
Among them were U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez
and outgoing Miami Mayor Joe Carollo.
"Words cannot express the depth of appreciation in my heart for
Monsignor Walsh, whose perseverance and courage made it possible for me to taste
freedom,'' Martinez said in a statement. "Few people have touched the lives
of thousands of immigrant children in such a profound way.''
Walsh also gained attention for writing a 1963 condemnation of segregation
as a sin, for helping Haitian refugees and for working to improve the Catholic
Church's relations with Jews.
"Many people in public will thank him, but thousands on thousands who
remain anonymous will thank him in their own hearts,'' the Rev. Arthur Dennison,
a longtime friend of Walsh, said in Friday's South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "And
they will never forget his name.''
Red tape cut, aid set to leave for Cuba
After navigating seas of red tape, a humanitarian aid shipment to Cuba is
scheduled to take off this morning from South Florida.
The Archdiocese of Miami received clearance late Thursday to send supplies
to residents of Matanzas and other areas ravaged by Hurricane Michelle.
Even with the go-ahead, the diocese is concerned that final landing
clearance could still be denied in Cuba after the plane leaves South Florida.
Cuba toughens anti-terrorism law
HAVANA, 20 (AP) - With President Fidel Castro presiding, Cuba's legislature
unanimously approved an expanded anti-terrorism law Thursday that reaffirmed the
use of the death penalty in the most extreme cases.
"I have not the slightest doubt about the death penalty as an
appropriate punishment in terrorism cases,'' Castro said.
A full text of the legislation was not immediately made public, but
televised news reports indicated that it expanded upon the its previous
definition of terrorism.
The new legislation includes punishment for anyone convicted of using the
Internet or e-mail to plan violent attacks.
National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said that while Cuba opposed the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, it opposes just as strongly the
United States' subsequent war in Afghanistan aimed at destroying the network
blamed for the acts of terror. | 
