SANTIAGO DE CUBA, June 27 (Luis Alberto Rivera, APLO) - A State Security
official told a student that only the government, through Communist party and
Communist Youth members, may answer foreigners' questions.
Soon after Roberto Legra Machado, a cook in training at the Casa Granda
hotel here, answered a questionaire for a group of German journalism students
July 13, State Security agents showed up and confiscated the questionaires from
the Germans and the Cubans to whom they were distributing them.
Legra says later that day he was summoned by a State Security official who
gave his name as Robert. "He told me that I wasn't authorized to respond to
surveys for any tourist, that in order to answer questions from foreigners I had
to go through the government, that the government then notifies them, State
Security, who are then in charge of locating Party and Communist Youth
militants, who are the only ones authorized to answer questions from foreigners."
Legra said the questionaire asked about last year's rafter boy Elián
González. He added that the Germans were bundled into a minibus with
their luggage two hours later and taken away from their hotel.
A week later, Legra says, he was fired from the hotel even though the French
manager had previously offered to employ him when he finished his training.
The Casa Granda is a four-star hotel operated as a joint venture between the
Cuban government and the French ACCOR.
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