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Posted On Wed, Jun. 19, 2002 in
The Miami
Herald
Cuban spy chief interceded for five in Florida jails, U.S. ex-general
says
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com.
A Cuban intelligence chief asked a retired commander of the Southern Command
earlier this year how Havana might help speed the release of the spies captured
in South Florida for, among other things, trying to infiltrate Southcom.
Retired Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm's reply: Wait, they were convicted in a
fair trial.
Wilhelm divulged the conversation with Gen. Jesús Bermúdez
Cutiño during a talk Tuesday on Cuba at Florida International University.
Wilhelm argued for improved Cuban-U.S. military cooperation.
Wilhelm has visited Cuba twice since retiring two years ago as commander in
chief of U.S. military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean -- and has
logged 20 hours of conversation with Fidel and Raúl Castro, together or
separately.
The Washington-based Center for Defense Information, a think tank often
critical of U.S. defense policy, sponsored the trips and is now planning a
''fact-finding mission'' on Cuba's chemical and biological weapon capacity,
Wilhelm said.
During the talks, neither Castro brother mentioned the spies of the
so-called Wasp Network that federal prosecutors said made Southcom a target of
infiltration in the 1990s.
But, Wilhelm said, Bermúdez made a spirited defense of the espionage
operation, arguing, ''We were really not spying against the United States.''
Instead, he claimed, their target was "those elements in the United States
who had destructive designs against Cuba.''
Testimony at the five spies' trial indicated that South Florida's exile
community was a main target of dirty tricks and infiltration by Cuban spies
trying to disrupt anti-Castro activities here. But members also were assigned to
find jobs at military bases in Florida.
Bermúdez, Wilhelm said, 'wanted to know what they could do to
mitigate the circumstances that those people found themselves in. My answer was:
'Nothing right now.' ''
Much of Wilhelm's talk focused on advocating U.S.-Cuban military ties,
especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11.
As Southcom chief from 1997 to 2000, he was forbidden to have any military
contact with Cuba, and had only visited the U.S.-controlled portion at Guantánamo
Bay. Now he says Southcom should be permitted to invite Cuban military officers
as observers in regional military exercises and to have closer collaboration on
interdiction of drug and migrant trafficking activities.
Wilhelm said that Fidel Castro agreed with him in February that there is a
post-Sept. 11 ''nexus'' between terror, narco-trafficking and illegal migration;
and agreed that there is a U.S.-Cuban common interest in combatting it.
He described Bermúdez, the Cuban intelligence chief, as ''pretty
frustrated'' by a lack of Bush administration appreciation for Cuban offers to
cooperate with the war on terror -- notably the opening of airspace on Sept. 11
and for al Qaeda prisoner flights from Afghanistan.
Wilhelm said his advice to Castro has been to ''find a way to stop these
cataclysmic events from happening every three years'' in U.S.-Cuban relations.
His examples were the Mariel Boatlift; the 1996 Cuban MiG shoot-down of two
Brothers to the Rescue aircraft; and the Elián González custody
battle.
8 million sign Cuba's petition affirming socialism
By Nancy San Martin. Nsanmartin@Herald.Com
In the face of a citizens' initiative calling for sweeping political change,
the Cuban government ended its campaign to affirm its socialist system Tuesday
with an overwhelming majority of registered voters lending their names to a
petition drive that leaves little, if any, room for a democratic overhaul.
Both measures are expected to be taken up by Cuba's National Assembly next
month, but it is unlikely the citizens' initiative known as the Varela Project
will move beyond the unicameral assembly chamber.
The Varela Project has received international support, but Cuban officials
have dismissed it as a U.S. ploy to undermine President Fidel Castro's
43-year-old revolution.
''We are not interested in making changes as a result of foreign government
pressure,'' said Luis Fernández, a spokesman for the Cuban Interests
Section in Washington, D.C.
Castro has shaped the government campaign as a formal protest to President
Bush's pledge not to ease U.S. trade or travel restrictions until Cuba holds
free, competitive elections and embraces other democratic changes.
Cuba's dissidents, however, say it is a response to their drive seeking
individual rights, amnesty for political prisoners, the right to private
enterprise and electoral changes.
That effort is essentially nullified because the government's amendment
proposal now under way declares the socialist system as "untouchable.''
More than eight million signatures from Cuba's 11 million residents had been
gathered by the deadline Tuesday, according to official figures.
Some Cubans reached by phone Tuesday expressed support for the government
initiative, saying socialism is what they have become accustomed to and feel
comfortable with.
''Imagine, we live here, we are Cuban and have been under this system for
many years,'' said 65-year-old Havana resident Rosa Padrón Lee, a retired
worker of a food distribution warehouse. "I signed immediately. Nobody
forced me to. I signed because this system has benefited us, especially the
poor. Before the revolution, those who had money lived well, but those who
didn't could barely survive.''
Reynaldo Preueost of Isla de la Juventud said everyone in his household of
11 supported the amendment though they have heard of the Varela Project.
''We said yes to socialism,'' said Preueost, who was temporarily laid off
last year after Hurricane Michelle damaged the hotel where he works but
continues to receive 365 pesos, or $14, a month while the government makes
repairs.
''Everything I know about capitalism is negative,'' he said. "I'm black
and I'm familiar with the struggles that exist for blacks in the north. My house
is falling apart and we live humbly but I feel good. What little this country
has is equally shared. Why experiment with something different?''
Only one person admitted to not signing the petition.
''I didn't sign it but I don't want to talk about it because there are
things that can't be talked about here,'' said a woman in Villa Clara who
declined to give her name.
Herald intern Larissa Ruiz Campo contributed to this report.
Cuban spy suspect held without bond
By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@herald.com. Posted on Tue, Jun. 18,
2002.
A Cuban man facing deportation for allegedly spying on behalf of Fidel
Castro's government will continue to be held without bond at the Krome Detention
Center in Southwest Miami-Dade.
Lawyers for both the government and Juan Aboy said after a closed hearing
Tuesday morning that an immigration judge declared he had no jurisdiction over
whether to grant bond for Aboy -- taken into custody last month on allegations
he was part of the Wasp Network, a Cuban spy ring cracked by U.S. officials in
1998.
Several members of the ring have been tried and convicted in U.S. District
Court in Miami. But Aboy, 41, has not been charged with a crime.
Rather, immigration service agents arrested him at his Westchester home May
30 and took him to Krome. Instead of charging him, INS officials are seeking to
deport Aboy to Cuba for lying on his application to become a U.S. resident.
He arrived here after reaching the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
in the mid-1990s.
Immigration officials say he came as a Castro agent. But Aboy's attorney,
Grisel Ybarra, said today that government lawyers have failed to present
''strong evidence'' that her client worked for the Cuban government or tried to
infiltrate the U.S. Army Southern Command in Miami-Dade.
The lawyer says U.S. military officials hired her client, a professional
diver, for work in South Florida and that he also was a ship repairer at a navy
base in Arlington, Va., and worked at Turkey Point, where he was at one time
hired to dive into the No. 3 reactor to make repairs.
Dan Vara, district counsel for U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
in Miami, who represented the government at the hearing, said afterwards that it
has ''definitive evidence'' that Aboy was an agent for the Cuban government.
Another hearing on Aboy's case is planned for Thursday, also at the Krome
Detention Center, where he is being held in solitary confinement.
Search continues for Cuban migrants
By Jennifer Babson. Jbabson@Herald.Com. Posted on Tue, Jun.
18, 2002.
KEY WEST - The U.S. Coast Guard mounted a massive search and rescue effort
late Monday for seven Cuban migrants who are believed to have communicated with
ham radio operators in the Keys after the single engine on their 16-foot boat
conked out off the island's coast.
Deploying a C-130 plane, a jet and a cutter, the Coast Guard continued
scouring a broad swath of the Florida Straits into Tuesday afternoon.
Aboard the migrant boat, according to a man who identified himself to the
Herald over a radio as the vessel's captain, was an 18-year old woman who on
Monday became violently ill.
The man, who gave his name as Pedro, said the group left an area near
Matanzas Bay on Cuba's north coast about 1 a.m. Monday, only to encounter engine
trouble shortly after setting out for Florida. Most of the people on board were
men in their mid-20s, he said, neighbors from a town near Santa Cruz del Norte.
Over the next 24 hours, Pedro told the Herald and ham radio operators that
the boat drifted without power in currents somewhere off Cuba's coast. By 7:30
a.m. Tuesday morning, however, Pedro reported that he had revived the engine and
was headed toward Marathon using a compass as a navigational aid, a Tavernier
shortwave radio operator said. | 
