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Boat with seven aboard struggles to flee Cuba
By Jennifer Babson. Jbabson@herald.com. Posted on Tue, Jun.
18, 2002 in The
Miami Herald.
KEY WEST - In an unusual interview facilitated by a ham radio operator in
the Keys, the captain of a boat carrying seven Cuban migrants who departed in
early Monday morning darkness from the area of Matanzas Bay on Cuba's north
coast described his struggle with a failing engine.
''The motor is broken,'' said Pedro, who did not want to give his last name
for fear of reprisal if he is returned to the island by the U.S. Coast Guard. He
said his home was just south of Santa Cruz del Norte. "I need to get out of
here.''
The group had been out at sea for more than 12 hours, but he said they were
still in sight of land -- literally paddling in a desperate attempt to put
distance between themselves and the island.
Pedro estimated he was about 16 miles from Cuba's shore, but since he did
not have a Global Positioning System, a standard navigational tool, he could not
be certain. Later, that estimate proved to be terribly wrong.
He told the ham radio operator that he had tried unsuccessfully to leave
Cuba by boat three other times.
''He has some water and he has some food, but the problem is he doesn't have
a motor. I don't know where he's going to go,'' said Osvaldo Pla, a
Tavernier-based ham radio operator affiliated with the exile group Brothers to
the Rescue. Pla said he stumbled upon Pedro on trying to communicate with the
group Monday morning while using a short-wave radio.
By midday, the situation aboard Pedro's 16-foot blue boat had deteriorated:
An 18-year-old girl was violently ill while batteries for the 20-watt radio that
was his only means of communication were running low.
''The girl is very sick; she's vomiting,'' Pedro radioed.
He said officers on a Cuban patrol boat spotted him earlier off Matanzas
Bay, and after telling him he shouldn't go, allowed him to proceed on the
desperate voyage -- a rare attempt in an era in which organized Miami-based
smuggling has supplanted riskier solo efforts.
The patrol boat, Pedro insisted, did not try to stop him.
''This guy is in a lot of trouble,'' Pla said.
Indeed, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman confirmed Monday afternoon that Cuban
officials had notified the agency in Miami that a disabled boat was drifting off
the Cuban coast.
''We were informed . . . by Cuban authorities that six people in a homemade
vessel were paddling about 15 miles north of Havana,'' spokesman Ryan Doss said.
"We are currently searching with the Coast Guard cutter Key Largo and a
Falcon jet out of Air Station Miami.''
Under the U.S. ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' policy, most Cuban migrants caught at
sea are repatriated to Cuba. Those who reach shore are almost always allowed to
stay.
But the area cited by the Coast Guard spokesman didn't correspond with those
Pedro provided to The Herald.
As night fell, Pedro's coordinates turned out to be overly optimistic. The
vessel, said Brothers pilot Jose Basulto -- who flew over an area in
international waters initially cited by Pedro Monday afternoon -- probably never
made it out of Cuban waters.
As evening approached, another Keys ham radio operator, Frank Alvarez,
listened to the radio as Pedro said the weather had turned and the waves were
getting higher. They group planned to rig a light using the radio battery in
hopes of attracting rescuers.
''I feel like I am unable to help or do anything,'' Alvarez said.
Orlando Brito, a friend of Pedro's in Miami who is also a ham radio
operator, said he spoke with Pedro Monday morning through Pla's radio
connection.
He also talked to Pedro before he departed.
''I spoke to him yesterday before he left. I spoke to him around midnight
and he was leaving around 1 a.m.,'' Brito said.
"The weather was good.''
Key West celebrates its Cuban heritage
By Jennifer Babson. Jbabson@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Jun.
16, 2002
KEY WEST - Key West's third annual Cuban American Heritage Festival moves
into full swing this week with a series of events -- including a boxing
exhibition, dominoes contest and Latin music performances -- designed to
highlight the close cultural connections between the two islands.
One of the goals of this year's event: bringing Cuban exiles in Miami
together with those in Key West who claim a Cuban-American heritage that spans
more than a century. A booming cigar industry in the 1800s transformed Key West
into Florida's first major Cuban outpost.
''There seems to be a sense from the Cubans down here and the Cubans in
Miami that they are two different groups of people,'' said Chad Salinero, the
festival's Key West-based director. "It really shouldn't be like that.''
Key West drummer Buddy Chavez, 71, a festival participant, recalls an era --
one before Fidel Castro's rise -- in which a quick hop from Key West to Havana
wasn't considered a big deal.
''At that time, you used to go to Havana for $20 round trip,'' Chavez said. "All
the guys that were single worked at the Navy yard and they worked until 4:30
p.m. on Friday, and then they'd go home, take a bath, eat something and get a
plane to Cuba. They'd stay there until about 6:30 p.m. Sunday.''
One young Keys woman -- Thania Diaz -- literally embodies the Key West-Miami
confluence festival organizers are shooting for.
Diaz, 18, the festival's first ''Miss Cuban American Heritage,'' was born in
Key West to Cuban exiles who fled after Castro took power.
This week, she will attend festival events draped in a unique creation: a
dress that at the top depicts the Cuban flag, and at the bottom is emblazoned
with the Stars and Stripes.
''The whole idea behind the festival is to keep the Cuban heritage alive,
for the younger generation especially,'' Diaz said.
The 10-day annual heritage festival kicked off Friday with a fishing
tournament featuring $10,500 in cash prizes. The tournament includes a
catch-and-release billfish division as well as a general division for the
heaviest dolphin.
One of the highlights of this year's festival will be a 9 p.m. concert
Saturday in Mallory Square featuring two-time Grammy winner and Miami resident
Jon Secada. Secada's family left Havana in 1971 when he was 10.
General admission for the Secada concert is $35; reserved seating is $75.
Tickets are $17.50 for children younger than 10. Tickets may be obtained through
Ticketmaster or by calling 305-295-9665. Proceeds from all festival events for
which admission is charged will be used to pay for festival expenses and to
underwrite a scholarship fund, Salinero said.
Slain exile was eyed by police in killings
By David Green. Dgreen@herald.com.
Longtime anti-Castro crusader Jorge Villaverde -- gunned down last week as
he took out his trash -- was being looked at as a possible suspect in a recent
double homicide, law enforcement sources said.
Villaverde died Tuesday morning after a gunman in a car ambushed him outside
the gate of his Redland house. He had two 9mm pistols tucked into the back of
his pants -- suggesting he expected an attack.
Nearly two months earlier, someone shot and killed Francisco Alberto Lazo
and Feliciano ''Felo'' Verona in front of Lazo's Redland ranch. It was just a
few miles from Villaverde's rural street.
At the time of that killing, investigators received a tip that Villaverde
was behind it, a law enforcement source said. They were looking into that
possibility when Villaverde was killed.
Miami-Dade County police would not discuss this development.
''It would be premature to comment about specifics of the investigation at
this point,'' said Detective Lupo Jimenez, a spokesman for the department.
It was not clear whether the victims knew each other. But their killings are
strikingly similar: Both property owners were slain in front of their entrance
gates by gunmen who ambushed them from cars.
As for Villaverde, he spent 18 years in Cuban prisons as a political
prisoner. The 67-year-old's slaying prompted some anti-Castro activists to pin
the crime on Fidel Castro.
The day of the shooting, Villaverde's groundskeeper recalled that a Castro
agent once pointed at Villaverde during a human rights convention in Geneva and
essentially said, "You're going to pay for this back in Miami.''
On the afternoon of April 21, Lazo -- a horse trainer and owner of Rancho
Valparaiso -- was taking handyman Verona to the back of his property in a golf
cart. Verona had been hired to build an exercise area for horses.
The pair stopped at the entrance gate. Lazo stepped out to lock it when a
gunman jumped out of a dark-colored sport utility vehicle and opened fire,
shooting Lazo in the head and Verona as he sat in the cart.
The handyman's relatives were convinced he was killed because he was a
witness to Lazo's death.
''We think he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and it got him
killed,'' a nephew said.
At the time, police acknowledged that was a possibility.
Roughly seven weeks later, as detectives were still investigating the
shootings, Villaverde was ambushed in similar style -- a car pulled up as he
stood in front of his entrance gate, and a gunman opened fire.
Both crimes occurred in the rural Redland, a far-flung patchwork of ranches,
nurseries and homes zoned to allow farm animals -- an unlikely destination for
homicide detectives. Both involved men who owned horses.
Lazo trained and stabled paso fino horses on his ranch. Villaverde owned
several horses -- including a paso fino, according to those who knew him -- and
kept them stabled behind his house.
In recent months he had traded some of his animals.
''He had the most gorgeous Arabian [horse] but he sold it,'' said neighbor
Suzanne Miller. "It was the prettiest horse I've ever seen, and I know
animals.''
Villaverde's wife, Regina, declined to comment.
Several other prominent members of the Cuban exile community refused to talk
to The Herald.
The motives behind the killings remain unclear.
In Lazo's case, neighbors reported finding nails scattered across the road
in the weeks leading up to his death -- puncturing tires and threatening to keep
customers from the stables and nurseries. Those who lived and worked on the
street felt it was part of a feud.
With Villaverde, those who knew him acknowledge his list of possible enemies
was long.
He served decades in Cuban prisons, and at one time said he had been trained
by the CIA. He and brother Rafael, who once ran the Little Havana Activities
Center, were indicted in the early 1980s in connection with a drug-smuggling
ring. The charges were eventually dropped.
But Jorge Villaverde eventually spent two years in federal prison after
prosecutors charged him and a man living in his house with possession of machine
guns and unregistered silencers. Villaverde insisted he kept the cache of
weapons for the revolution he planned to liberate Cuba.
Some in Miami's anti-Castro circles remain convinced this caused his death.
''He was against Castro, simple as that,'' said Juan Pérez Franco,
president of Brigade 2506, a veterans' group for those involved in the the
ill-fated invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs, which included Rafael Villaverde.
"He was a political prisoner, and then continued his cause after coming
here.'' | 
