Miami Herald
Miami jury gets case against Cuban agents
By Catherine Wilson. Associated Press Writer. Posted at
11:47 a.m. EDT Monday, June 4, 2001
.MIAMI -- (AP) -- The six-month trial of five secret agents who admit
working for Cuba as part of the self-proclaimed Wasp Network went to the jury
today.
"It's been an interesting odyssey,'' U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard
said after sending the 12-member jury out and excusing three alternates. She
told attorneys to be available within 10 minutes for any questions and the
verdict.
Three agents are charged with espionage conspiracy, and reputed ringleader
Gerardo Hernandez is charged with murder conspiracy in a MiG attack that killed
four Miami fliers on two Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996.
The trial, which relied heavily on 2,000 pages of the defendants' decrypted
messages, also includes charges of fraud conspiracy, failing to register as
foreign agents and possessing false documents.
The defense claims prosecutors are using Hernandez as a scapegoat for a
military decision made after two years of provocative invasions of Cuban
airspace by the Miami exile group and repeated U.S. and Cuban warnings.
The fraud count charges the agents defrauded the U.S. government by getting
false passports, cozying up to the FBI as informants and trying to manipulate
members of Congress.
Defense attorneys, who worked hard to successfully select a non-Cuban jury,
accused prosecutors of conjuring up nonexistent evidence in their closing
arguments to buttress a crumbling case.
If convicted, Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, who supervised agents assigned to
penetrate the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, and Antonio Guerrero, who worked
menial jobs at Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West for five years, face
possible life sentences.
Fernando Gonzalez, who allegedly brought internal communications codes to
the network, and Brothers to the Rescue infiltrator Rene Gonzalez, no relation,
face up to 10-year prison terms on the unregistered agent counts.
They were charged along with nine others. Five pleaded guilty in exchange
for cooperation and reduced sentences, and four are fugitives believed to be in
Cuba.
New 'confidential cable' predicts action on Cuba, Colombia, Haiti
Andres Oppenheimer: The Oppenheimer Report . Published Sunday, June 3, 2001.
If I were a Latin American ambassador in Washington, D.C., this is the
confidential cable I would send to my foreign minister today on how the latest
developments in the U.S. capital will affect the Bush administration's policies
in the hemisphere.
Dear Minister:
As you know, the opposition Democratic Party will take control of the U.S.
Senate this week. Now that the new committee chairmanships have been announced,
I can offer you a better picture on how the new balance of forces will affect
U.S. policy on issues such as diplomatic nominations, free trade, drug
certification, Cuba, Colombia, and Haiti.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a centrist Democrat, will replace
ultraconservative Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., as chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, and will thus become a key player. But Biden is a consensus builder
who is not likely to turn things upside down: He has a very good relationship
with Helms, and the two have worked very well together in the past.
DODD'S SUBCOMMITTEE
Where we may see a bigger change is in the Foreign Relations' Western
Hemisphere subcommittee, which will now be headed by Sen. Christopher Dodd,
D-Conn. As you know, Dodd is a veteran Latin Americanist who has been best known
lately as a passionate advocate of lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba and of
eliminating the annual U.S. certification of countries' cooperation in the war
on drugs.
Our embassy's political section says Dodd may succeed in killing President
Bush's nomination of Cuban-born former Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich as new
chief of the State Department's Western Hemisphere Department. Reich has been
attacked in the press for having allegedly conducted dubious covert propaganda
operations during the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s.
But Bush administration sources say they have asked Reich not to respond to
these allegations until the day of his confirmation hearings, where they expect
him to refute the charges and be confirmed.
My own estimate is that Reich has now a 50 percent chance of being
confirmed, slightly less than the 51 percent chance I gave him in my previous
cable.
What's more important -- and bad news -- for us in the near term is that the
top Latin American job at the State Department may be effectively vacant for
several months. Current chief Peter Romero has announced he is leaving at the
end of this week, and the battle over Reich's nomination could drag on until
late this year. This means that we won't have anybody with clout to expedite
things through the State Department bureaucracy.
FREE-TRADE AREA
On free trade, our embassy's economic section estimates that there will be a
clear setback for the Bush-backed plan to create a Free Trade Area of the
Americas by 2005, because the Democrats are very close to anti-free-trade labor
and environmental groups.
I'm not sure that the plan is doomed, however. I just talked with Robert
Pastor, a former Carter administration official who now teaches at Emory
University, who says the new Senate "increases the likelihood'' of the FTAA
being approved in Congress, because it will force Bush to negotiate a deal with
the Democrats rather than force an all-or-nothing vote that he might have lost.
CUBAN EMBARGO
On Cuba, our embassy's political section is convinced that the departure of
hard-liner Helms and the promotion of Dodd will give anti-embargo forces a new
chance.
My own estimate is that there will be a standoff: The Democrats may succeed
in killing Helms' recent Cuban Solidarity bill to give $100 million to
democratic opposition forces in Cuba, and in forcing the Bush administration to
implement rules to lift restrictions on food and medicine exports to Cuba.
On the other hand, the Bush administration will probably step up its
pressure on Cuba. The Bush people will want to help presidential brother Jeb
Bush win Florida's gubernatorial election next year. Also, they may want to look
tough on Cuba if they decide to continue with the Clinton administration policy
of issuing six-month waivers that suspend Helms-Burton law sanctions against
foreign companies that invest in properties confiscated by the Cuban regime.
Well-placed Republicans tell me that Bush could increase U.S. support for
Cuban dissidents, as well as new funds for TV and Radio Martí, without
congressional approval. About 70 percent of the measures contemplated by the
Helms bill could be carried out by the president on his own, they say.
AID TO COLOMBIA
On Colombia, the Democratic-controlled Senate will probably impose tougher
human rights conditions on future U.S. military aid to the Colombian army.
On Haiti, we will probably see a greater Senate activism, especially because
of Dodd's growing interest in the Haiti crisis.
Postscript: Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., will be the new chairman of the
Banking Committee. He is a strong supporter of tougher rules to combat money
laundering and international corruption. Perhaps we should close that bank
account in Miami for our reelection campaign deposits and move it to a South
Pacific island.
Writer's tale of Cuban exiles plays out in theater of absurd
By Fabiola Santiago, fsantiago@herald.com . Published
Saturday, June 2, 2001
"Miami is the most vilified city in the world.''
So begins the latest creation of best-selling Cuban novelist Zoé Valdés,
who comes to town next week to launch Milagro en Miami (Miracle in Miami,
Planeta), as much an ode to the Magic City as it is a detective mystery and
Gothic fantasy.
"Once you experience Miami, you find a million reasons to love it,''
Valdés says in a telephone interview from her home in Paris. "But
from here, the view people have is simplistic.''
Yes, Valdés is stepping up to bat for the capital of Cuban exiles,
which she insists, is the target of an ongoing defamation campaign by the
highest spheres of the Cuban government and too often is portrayed by the media
one-dimensionally.
"The image that Miami is excessive and extremist is false,'' says the
author, who has visited eight times in recent years, while rising to star status
in Europe with her blockbuster novels about life in Cuba.
After La nada cotidiana (Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada) turned her into a
best-selling novelist in France, Spain and Germany and Te di la vida entera (I
Gave You All I Had) became a finalist in the prestigious Planeta competition in
1996, Valdés has continued to produce one bestseller after another: Café
Nostalgia, Querido primer novio (Dear First Love). The French government has
awarded her the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the highest
honor France confers on distinguished writers and artists.
In its fourth printing in Spain, the new novel, her first based in Miami, is
vintage Valdés. It has a quirky cast of characters humorously nicknamed
and wildly imaginative twists and turns. The major villain is, of course, The
Dictator Himself, nicknamed XXL in her Havana-based novels and introduced in
Milagro as the modernized evil force "www.ProfoundlyBeastlyMan.com.''
Milagro stars a French detective, Tierno Mesurado, who comes to Miami to
investigate the case of Iris Arco, an exiled former Cuban model in a fairy tale
marriage to an American developer. Iris is hunted and tormented by an evil
force. The character is inspired by the real-life story of former Cuban model
Ivelín Robins and her marriage to Miami Beach developer Craig Robins.
"I'm delighted. I'm one of her No. 1 fans,'' Ivelín says of Valdés.
"She writes about things the way she feels them, and it's all sad and funny
at the same time. The stories of my life and of my family are largely true, but
of course, there are all those fantastical twists Zoé makes up -- and I
love.''
Truth: Ivelín's family was smuggled by coyotes across the Río
Grande on the eve of her wedding to Robins. Her mother, father and little sister
had to cross the river nude, carrying their clothes above their heads so that
they would not be recognized as illegals by their wet attire. The family arrived
in a border town on Halloween night, which added a new level of fright to their
saga as they encountered costumed ghosts and witches on the streets. They were
put on a plane to Miami, and hours later, "stinky as they were from
crossing the river,'' Ivelín remembers, they were at Bal Harbour Shops
buying clothes to attend he wedding.
Fiction: For the crossing, Valdés dresses up Ivelín's
grandmother as a Pedro Infante mariachi, and on her way to the United States, a
Mexican woman who thinks she really is the Mexican idol, falls madly in love
with the merrymaking, wild abuela.
In real life, Ivelín's grandmother was smuggled separately in the
backseat of a car as a snoozing Mexican-American grandma.
"My abuelita is the complete opposite [from Valdés'
characterization],'' Ivelín says with a laugh. "She's a saint!''
It was through people like the Robins, whom Valdés befriended during
her visits to Miami, that the celebrated author got to know the city well. Her
best friend, Pepe Horta, owns the popular Café Nostalgia on Miami Beach,
a gathering place for Cubans as well as non-Cubans. Horta makes a return
appearance in Milagro as el Lince (The Lynx), as he was first introduced in the
classic Yocandra (Valdés' nickname for her autobiographical character)
as, you guessed it, Yocandra's best and most loyal friend.
"I got to know Miami through friends,'' Valdés says. "It's
not what they told me about Miami that taught me about the city. It's that they
are Miami.''
In Valdés' hands, the city takes on a soulful character much like the
writer's beloved Havana does in her previous novels.
Of the Cubans who live here, she writes: "Cubans love to feel special,
and they are, somewhat like royal palms that wait to be transplanted to the
humidity of their own soil.''
And of the city: "Miami is a city of overflowing exaltations, excessive
in passions, and so temperamental that she has become beautiful, gorgeous.''
Havana transformed at human cost
Opinion. Published Friday, June 1, 2001
The May 27 article A new day in Havana was reminiscent of stories about
Germany in the early 1940s. They praised the country's economic recovery and the
Nazis' organization and cleanliness, while failing to mention the regime's
abuses.
To discuss Cuba in the narrow context of an improving tourist sector without
mentioning the repression of human rights or the nature of the Castro regime is
a travesty of journalism.
Jaime Suchlicki. Coral Gables
To praise what good tourism has done transforming Havana into a dot.com city
of happy people misleads Americans into flocking there, helping Castro wash
dirty dollars obtained slave-trading Cubans.
Luxury cars are driven by privileged collaborators who take advantage of now
"more discreet'' prostitution in Cuba.
As for Internet cafes, every move with the mouse is registered by watchdogs.
Try to download a Herald Cuba story and see what happens
Andrew Anderson. Santiago, Chile
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald |