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The Miami
Herald, May 2, 2002.
Millions march on May Day
Cuba most democratic country, Castro says
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Declaring his country to be the world's most democratic,
President Fidel Castro of Cuba characterized other Latin American leaders
Wednesday as hypocritical ''trash'' who bowed to U.S. pressure when they joined
an international vote urging improvement of human rights in Cuba.
Scoffing at those who say the communist government is undemocratic and
violates human rights, Castro told hundreds of thousands of people gathered for
an annual May Day celebration that his country was "the most independent on
the planet, the most just and with the most solidarity.
''It also is, by a long shot, the most democratic,'' insisted Castro. He
said that electoral candidates here are not nominated and elected by the
island's sole legal political party -- the Communist Party of Cuba -- but by the
citizenry.
The 50-minute speech in the Plaza of the Revolution demonstrated the
profound anger and sense of betrayal that Castro still feels over the role that
Latin American nations -- especially Mexico -- played in the U.N. Human Rights
Commission's mild rebuke against Cuba on April 19.
''What a bunch of trash are many who attempt to appear to be sovereign
leaders!'' Castro said, insisting Latin American heads of state were pressured
by ''El Imperio'' -- the United States -- to join the rights vote.
Wearing his traditional olive green uniform and cap, Castro spoke in the
searing Caribbean sun at a podium overlooking a sea of cheering, flag-waving
government supporters.
Cuban detainees find other countries to take them
Migrants were in Guantánamo
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Some Cuban migrants who had been detained
here for a prolonged period -- in some cases for more than three years -- have
found haven in Australia and Nicaragua, sources said Wednesday.
State Department officials declined to give the details of their removal
from this U.S. Navy Base.
But a diplomat specializing in the problem of migrants held here, Tom Gerth,
said 10 Cubans went to Australia via Great Britain about 2 ½ weeks ago,
including two families with children ages 3 to 15.
Another 24 arrived in Nicaragua on Wednesday afternoon and were undergoing a
resettlement process, according to U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, Democrat of Pembroke
Pines.
''These are people who literally went through minefields and risked their
lives to get out of Cuba,'' Deutsch said. "People who swam through
shark-infested waters. They are heroes in terms of the human condition.''
''This is wonderful news. When I visited with them more than two months ago,
they said they were willing to go anywhere,'' said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros
Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, who met with the migrants at this base in January
on a prison camp inspection tour. "Little did they know they would get as
close to the United States as Nicaragua. It's right next door.''
Relatives of some of the migrants live in her congressional district.
The Cubans had been living on this base in special segregated housing ever
since Immigration and Naturalization Service interviews found that there was a
''significant possibility'' that they would qualify for political asylum if they
were in the United States.
But since they were not entitled to be brought to the United States after
being stopped in Caribbean waters on rafts, or after they managed to otherwise
reach the base, U.S. diplomats were told to find a third country to give them
sanctuary, under a policy begun by the Clinton administration,.
Fewer than 10 were left on the base Wednesday, in new housing near Kittery
Beach. They were moved there as the military set up the prison project at Camp
Delta, not far from the migrant housing.
Among those who left to Australia were Alberto Perera Martinez, his wife
Haydeh Perez and two children, a daughter Heidy, and son Alberto, who had been
in Guantánamo for three years.
Supporters in Miami had expressed unhappiness about the educational
possibilities here. With some sailors' families living on the base, there is a
public school here but the Spanish-speaking migrants apparently would not or
could not attend it.
Herald Staff Writer Elaine de Valle contributed to this
report. | 
