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By Carol Rosenberg. Crosenberg@herald.com. Posted on Sun,
Jul. 21, 2002 in The Miami
Herald.
Seeking to sidestep ideological rifts inside Miami's Cuban exile community,
the Czech ambassador to the United States said on an advance visit to the region
that Czech President Vaclav Havel is coming to the city on a solidarity
pilgrimage -- not to delve into differences in the Cuban-American community.
''Miami is a difficult thing . . . The subject is human rights. Period,''
Ambassador Martin Palous said between meetings with activists, planners and
political prisoners for the late September visit by the dissident
playwright-turned-Czech president of 12 years.
The diplomatic effort to navigate the taboo-laden minefield of Miami's
volatile Cuban community illustrates the great expectations being placed on the
Sept. 22-24 visit. Havel, 65, led the ''Velvet Revolution,'' the peaceful
transition from totalitarianism to democracy in the former Czechoslovakia, which
is seen as a possible future model for Cuba.
Cuban Americans also lionize Havel for his outspoken opposition to Fidel
Castro's four decades of rule and Prague's persistent criticism of Cuban human
rights violations, notably at U.N. meetings in Geneva.
''Look, the situation [in Miami] is very complex,'' Palous said. "You
have different opinions, different views and various debates. It's not
appropriate for the president of a country to enter it at all.''
'SOLIDARITY'
Palous said he has named the Miami portion of Havel's U.S. trip ''Cuba
Libre,'' or ''Free Cuba.'' Havel seeks simply to ''show his solidarity with
those who struggled for human rights for so many years,'' he said, while
avoiding the "subtleties and difficulties of politics here.''
So Czech officials are trying to avoid snubbing certain factions that are
sometimes at odds over the anti-Castro struggle.
An example: Havel has asked for a small dinner, with no more than a dozen
fellow former Cuban political prisoners on his first evening in town.
But Miami is home to more than 10,000 ex-prisoners -- Bay of Pigs veterans,
early anti-revolutionaries, long-imprisoned regime opponents called plantados,
plus more recent arrivals. Which 12 do you choose?
CALL FOR DIALOGUE
Moreover, some organizers are advocating turning his major community event
-- a Sept. 23 speech at Florida International University -- into a bit of a
dialogue across the Florida Straits with a broadcast telephone chat with a
recognized island dissident.
But some Cuban exiles sometimes cast island activists as lackeys under the
thumb of the Castro regime, and some institutions shun any contact with the
island. At the same time, organizers worry that advance publicity, or the
presence of a prominent dissident, could cause Castro intelligence agents to cut
the line.
Havel, who is currently hospitalized for lung treatment, comes to Miami for
the first time on his 13th visit to the United States after stops in Washington
and New York.
It is a farewell tour. Under Czech term limits, he steps down early next
year to focus on his private, Prague-based human rights foundation.
GABLES FUNDRAISER
So the trip will also include a black-tie $1,000-a-head fundraiser at the
Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.
Saturday, Palous took his message of solidarity between Cubans and Czechs to
the annual Congress of the Cuban American National Foundation, where 70
directors were meeting on Key Biscayne.
In what could be viewed as a dry run of Havel's FIU event, the lobby's inner
circle held a telephone conversation with dissident Vladimiro Roca in Havana --
who greeted CANF warmly and then emphasized his dissident activity is aimed at
changing the Castro regime, not debating differences in opposition strategy.
Directors reached Roca and, separately, an independent journalist in Pinar
del Rio, after several ill-fated efforts to ring up the island in the most
prominent contact with dissidents by the board. Executive Director Joe Garcia
characterized the call as part of a CANF strategy to increase direct support for
island dissidents.
ANTI-CANF PROTEST
As a measure of the volatile community, President Pepe Hernandez announced
-- incorrectly it turned out -- that a caravan of pro-Castro sympathizers were
en route to the meeting at Key Biscayne's Ritz-Carlton to stage a protest that
cast CANF members as ''terrorists.'' Some members chuckled.
In fact, the so-called Antonio Maceo Brigade caravan stuck to its plan to
parade in Miami ''against extreme right-wing terrorist activities in Miami.''
The brigade, long associated with Castro's ideology, opposes the U.S. embargo
against Cuba.
It is against that backdrop that the Havel visit is shaping up as a
diplomatic challenge to Palous, a former dissident and former deputy foreign
minister, who has visited Miami several times to try to delicately deflect the
political infighting it could provoke.
For example, he went out of his way in a visit to The Herald to emphasize
that he has friendships with both CANF leaders and members of the Cuban Liberty
Council, such as Luis Zuñega, who left the powerful lobby over ideology
last year.
COMMON BOND
Palous also emphasized his respect for island dissident Elizardo Sánchez,
calling him ''a man of courage [who] may be a controversial man here in Miami.''
And he praised Oswaldo Payá, whose island Varela Project has been eyed
with distrust by some members of the Cuban exile community because it proposes
change in the framework of Castro's post-revolutionary constitution.
Havel has nominated Payá for the Nobel Peace prize.
Rather than indulge in debate about island personalities, Palous said the
Czechs are coming to Miami out of a sense of a common bond with Cuban exiles and
with people seeking an overhaul on the island. ''It's time to move on and change
the situation,'' he said, describing Cuba as locked in "a historical
motionlessness of totalitarianism that your tomorrow will be exactly like today,
with no hope for change.'' | 
