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Posted on Thu, Sep. 19, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
Cuba denies misleading U.S. on terror
By Juan O. Tamayo. Jtamayo@Herald.Com
An angry Cuban government Wednesday denied allegations that it deliberately
tried to mislead U.S. investigators on the war on terrorism, saying it had in
fact offered genuine help to Washington, only to be rebuffed.
''False and slanderous. It is a colossal lie,'' Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez
Roque said of the allegations leveled Tuesday by Dan Fisk, deputy assistant
secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs.
''Only a twisted and sick mind like Fisk's could hold such ideas about a
nation that has itself been the victim of terrorism attacks for many years,''
added Luis Fernández, spokesman for Cuba's diplomatic mission in
Washington.
Fisk stirred up always contentious U.S.-Cuban relations when he asserted
that a dozen Cuban agents had tried to peddle disinformation to U.S. terrorism
investigators on three continents since the Sept. 11 attacks.
U.S. and Cuban officials agreed on one thing: Fisk's comments were timed to
influence U.S. public opinion just as Congress considers a bill that might relax
enforcement of the U.S. ban on tourist travel to Cuba.
His allegations ''were timed to wake people up to the kind of evil things
that Cubans do, all the time, all over the world,'' said a senior Bush
administration official.
''It is unjustifiable to deceive the American people and international
public opinion with the sole purpose of maintaining an outdated and ridiculous
policy toward Cuba,'' Pérez Roque said during a news conference in New
York, where he is attending U.N. sessions.
CIA spokesmen said the agency never comments on intelligence matters, but a
State Department official said again that Fisk's comments had been approved
before he spoke -- presumably by the CIA.
''This was looked at by a lot of eyes. This was not just Dan Fisk, lone
wolf,'' the official said. "We are not in the business of handing out bad
information.''
Cuba is on the State Department's list of nations that support terrorism,
largely because it harbors wanted criminals such as Puerto Rican bomber
Guillermo Morales and Black Panther member Joanne Chesimard.
On Wednesday, Cuban officials portrayed the island as eager to help with the
war on terror, noting that President Fidel Castro had condemned the Sept. 11
attacks and had not protested the U.S. Navy's use of its base in Guantánamo
as a prison for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects.
Pérez Roque noted that Washington had rejected Cuba's offer last year
of 100 million tablets of the antibiotic Ciprox, used to treat anthrax
infections, and Cuban-developed equipment used to "break up anthrax
strains.''
But trying to mislead Washington on something as sensitive as the war on
terrorism would be a much riskier venture that begs the question of why Castro
would even try it, said a former member of an FBI task force that handled some
of the contacts with the Cubans.
The most realistic answer, he added, may be that Castro believes that
Washington is so desperate for intelligence on terrorism that it's the perfect
time to try to plant a new crop of spies close to the FBI or CIA.
''Then again Castro probably wakes up every morning thinking of how to play
with America's head,'' the official added. "Maybe he's playing games just
for the sake of playing games.''
Separately, a U.S. government expert on Cuba said that while he had no
knowledge of the facts behind Fisk's allegations, he wondered how the state
department official could be sure that Havana intended to mislead the U.S.
terrorism investigators.
Perhaps, he said, Castro's agents may be inadvertently passing on erroneous
information simply because Havana's intelligence agencies have only limited
knowledge of Islamic terrorist groups.
Correspondent Stewart Stogel in New York contributed to
this report.
Embargo on Cuba stands, Bush advisor assures exiles
Rival rallies near Capitol express views on U.S. policy
By Tim Johnson. Tjohnson@Herald.Com
WASHINGTON - As noisy, dueling rallies over Cuba took place near the
Capitol, a senior White House advisor Wednesday assured a group of Cuban
Americans that President Bush will quash any effort by Congress to dismantle an
embargo of Cuba.
Karl Rove, senior political advisor to Bush, spoke at a private meeting
before more than 50 supporters of the 4-decade-old embargo and pledged that it
will remain in effect.
''Rove once again reiterated the administration's strong stand that the
president will not waver on this,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami
Republican who attended the morning meeting.
'DON'T WORRY'
Ros-Lehtinen said she received personal assurances from Bush a few days ago
that he will turn back any attempt to weaken the embargo. "He said, 'I have
three words for you: No te preocupes, Ros-Lehtinen said, repeating Bush's
Spanish phrase, which means "Don't worry.''
Even as Ros-Lehtinen said she was confident that the embargo would remain in
effect, one administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
opponents appear emboldened by the support of the agriculture industry and
increasing numbers of legislators who are fighting the embargo.
''They smell blood in the water,'' he said.
On opposite street corners within sight of the Capitol, supporters and
opponents of the embargo offered up their views.
''After 43 years, the current policy is an abysmal failure, and we are going
to change that policy,'' said Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat
and a member of the Cuba Working Group, a bipartisan coalition seeking to end
the embargo.
As 100 or so people applauded speakers calling for the end to the embargo,
scores of protesters across a street tried to drown out the event with their own
slogans.
''Shame on You!'' they shouted. Many held up signs declaring that Cuba
harbors terrorists and denouncing Cuban leader Fidel Castro as a criminal.
''If they lift the embargo, it will postpone the liberation of Cuba,'' said
Jose H. Lecusay, a retired mechanical engineer from Miami who fled the island as
a youth.
Efforts to chip away at the embargo have surged in Congress in recent years
-- always to be derailed at the 11th hour. On July 23, the House voted 262 to
167 to halt enforcement of restrictions banning most U.S. citizens from
traveling to Cuba.
The legislative move was attached to the Treasury-Postal spending bill,
which has yet to come before the Senate, where similar language relaxing U.S.
citizen travel to Cuba has been introduced.
Observers, though, say such a backlog of legislation has accumulated in
Congress that any proposed change on Cuba may fall by the wayside for the sake
of expediency.
''There are so many issues we haven't addressed -- the patient's bill of
rights, Medicare payback, I mean it just goes on and on,'' Delahunt said.
VETO PROMISED
Even if both houses of Congress were to approve a bill relaxing the Cuba
embargo, Bush has promised to veto it.
''We have no fear,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. "I don't think such a bill will
ever land on the president's desk.''
The divide between the two rallies was not only political but also
generational, with a number of young Cuban Americans showing up to call for
changes in policy toward Cuba.
''There are a lot of Cuban Americans who haven't been heard,'' said Marcelo
Siero, a computer engineer who flew in from Santa Cruz, Calif., to urge
relaxation of the embargo.
He ventured across the street to converse with some older Cuban Americans,
and immediately was brought into a high-decibel and impassioned Spanish-language
conversation about Castro.
''I just wanted a dialogue,'' he said, before plunging back into debate.
Cuba, U.S. unite against storm threat
By Martin Merzer. Mmerzer@Herald.Com
A hurricane was under construction Wednesday in the Caribbean, and though
the threat to South Florida diminished -- but did not disappear -- the threat to
Cuba intensified sharply.
So forecaster Richard Pasch picked up a telephone, punched in 13 digits,
tried again, tried a third time and finally got through. He manifested a sense
of urgency.
A storm called Isidore was expected to hit the western end of Cuba tonight
and Friday as a hurricane, and it could be bad. Then, as it moves through the
Gulf of Mexico, Isidore could clip the Florida Keys and its squalls could reach
Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Lives were at stake, in Cuba and possibly soon in Florida or elsewhere in
the United States, so international grievances and tensions were temporarily set
aside.
At 9:46 a.m. Wednesday, an American forecaster called a Cuban forecaster and
they began working together.
''The atmosphere doesn't know anything about frontiers,'' José
Rubiera, head of Cuba's Institute of Meteorology, later told The Herald.
''We have to have help from Cuba,'' said Max Mayfield, director the National
Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County. "They have information that can
help us, and we can help them.''
The cooperative effort to protect people from hurricanes inspired the phone
call.
''Hello? Hello?'' Pasch said. "Yes, this is Richard Pasch in Miami. At
the National Hurricane Center. El Centro Nacional de Huracanes. Yes. José?
Is this José?''
On the other end, Rubiera came on the line. Under international agreement,
U.S. forecasters coordinate hurricane warnings throughout the region, but Cuba
is responsible for issuing its own alerts.
Pasch spoke slowly and loudly through a static-filled connection. ''We
understand you want to issue a hurricane watch,'' he said. "For which
provinces?''
Speaking in English, Rubiera told him: Pinar del Río, the Isle of
Youth, the province and city of Havana, Matanzas, pretty much all of western
Cuba.
''OK,'' Pasch said. "We'll get it out at 15Z.''
''Z'' is meteorology-speak for Zulu or Greenwich Mean Time -- in this case,
11 a.m. EDT.
And there it was, on the next official advisory from the National Hurricane
Center:
"At 11 a.m. EDT, 1500Z, the government of Cuba has issued a hurricane
watch for western Cuba, from the provinces of Villa Clara and Cienfuegos
westward, and including the Isle of Youth.''
That meant winds of at least 74 mph were possible within 36 hours. The watch
was upgraded Wednesday night to a warning, meaning that hurricane winds were
expected within 24 hours.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the Cayman Islands and Jamaica,
whose residents endured a thorough soaking Wednesday.
Mayfield also came on the line, trading impressions of the storm with
Rubiera, thanking him for helping to clear the way for flights by U.S. Hurricane
Hunter aircraft through Cuban airspace.
Mayfield and Rubiera have met at meteorological conferences, and their
forecasters have become familiar with each other in recent years, but their
interaction is rarely seen in public.
''I think I get more Christmas cards from Cuban meteorologists than from my
own staff,'' Mayfield said.
Hurricane Hunter missions such as those flown Wednesday and consultations
with Cuban meteorologists, acknowledged to be among the world's best, helped
Mayfield and his forecasters get a better handle on Isidore.
The storm was expected to reach Cuba today with its outer edge and make
landfall Friday as a Category 1 hurricane -- with winds between 74 and 95 mph --
though it could become stronger. Rubiera said he predicted about eight inches of
rain and some flooding and wind damage.
''We are prepared,'' he said.
Long-term projections suggested that Isidore then would take a more
northwesterly course than previously believed, moving into the Gulf of Mexico as
a Category 2 hurricane but at an angle that could keep its core and much of its
rain away from South Florida.
Forecasters began speaking in terms of inches of rain in South Florida,
rather than feet. If the region is lucky, no serious wind will reach Miami-Dade
and Broward.
''I'm feeling a lot better than I did yesterday,'' Mayfield said, "knowing
that I don't have to put up my shutters, at least for now.''
South Floridians' good fortune could mean misfortune for someone else. When
a storm moves into the Gulf of Mexico, it has to make landfall somewhere, and
Isidore could grow into a large, powerful presence.
Its most likely destination appeared to be the coast of Texas or Mexico,
Mayfield said, but not until next week -- and not for sure.
He emphasized that long-term projections are inherently subject to error,
and atmospheric steering currents are extremely uncertain. It was too early to
draw any conclusions.
So, state and local emergency managers remained on alert.
They noted that only a small change in the projected course could bring
Isidore over the Keys.
''We're definitely eyeballing this one very carefully,'' said Mike Stone, a
spokesman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. "The Gulf
waters are so warm that these storms can go to hurricane strength in a matter of
hours.''
Mayfield and other forecasters agreed that Isidore had excellent growth
potential. Atmospheric conditions favored strengthening, and it was crawling
through water so warm it was ''like high-octane fuel,'' Mayfield said.
And that, he said, made Wednesday's cooperation with Cuban meteorologists
extremely important.
''Anything that moves through the Caribbean toward Florida has to go over
Cuba,'' he said. "We can't do a good job without their help. Who knows?
Maybe this will help political relations between our two countries.''
Herald staff writers Phil Long and Renato Pérez contributed to this
report.
INS releases nine Cubans
They sought asylum after Toronto trip
By Charles Rabin and Carolyn Salazar. Crabin@Herald.Com
Immigration officials on Wednesday set free nine Cuban refugees who had been
held for more than a month in upstate New York, after a phone call and letters
from prominent Miami Cuban-American Republicans to the White House and the U.S.
attorney general.
The five women and four men were released to family members from New Jersey,
Michigan and Florida. The group had been held in detention facilities in the
Buffalo area after they defected in Canada and crossed the U.S. border.
Seven of the nine are expected to move to Miami. The nine spent Wednesday
evening at the home of two Buffalo-area, Cuban-American women who attended the
asylum hearings and put up family members who were waiting for days for the
release of their loved ones.
''Today has been filled with so much emotion,'' said refugee Liz Juliet
Duque Castresana, 26, between bites of pizza at the Buffalo home.
Duque had been detained at the Erie County Holding Cell. "When we found
out, we just cried and hugged. We've been through so much -- but we finally got
our freedom.''
CROSSED BRIDGES
The group defected after a Catholic conference in Toronto in early August
after Pope John Paul II's visit there, by taking cab rides across the Peace and
Rainbow bridges at Niagara Falls and requesting asylum from Buffalo authorities.
Despite a ruling by the INS that all nine had a reasonable fear of
persecution upon returning to Cuba, they were denied parole.
That set off alarms with family members and caught the attention of U.S. Rep
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, and Florida's Republican Party chairman, Al Cárdenas.
Cárdenas called the detention ''clearly wrong'' because U.S. policy
calls for the release of Cuban refugees who reach dry land.
He said he called the White House.
WHAT LAW SAYS
Any Cuban who touches land before being detained by authorities can stay
after a brief detainment that generally lasts no longer than 48 hours. And the
Cuban Adjustment Act generally allows Cuban refugees to apply for permanent
residency within a year.
The INS ordered the group's immediate release Wednesday, pending the
resolution of their immigration status.
The release came on the same day that INS Commissioner James Ziglar became
aware of the situation, INS spokesman Bill Strassberger said.
Ziglar had previously been recovering from back surgery, Strassberger said.
But some in the Cuban community said there was no excuse for the INS delay
in releasing the group -- even in Buffalo, an upstate New York city not
accustomed to dealing with asylum-seeking refugees.
''No one really believes the immigration chief is going through those papers
single-handedly,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. "It was a needless mess. This never
should have been a problem in the first place.''
FAMILY VISITED
Ros-Lehtinen said family members of three detainees visited her Miami
office, complaining and trying to secure their release.
Spurred by the visit, Ros-Lehtinen sent letters to Attorney General John
Ashcroft and President Bush on Tuesday.
In the letters, Ros-Lehtinen wrote:
"These young Cuban nationals have taken great risks to defy the
authority of the repressive Castro regime only to find themselves detained
indefinitely in the U.S. among common criminals without much hope of their
release and with the great fear of being deported to the prison that is Cuba.''
Strassberger could not be reached late Wednesday to say whether the INS was
contacted by the White House or Ashcroft.
The five women were released from the INS detention center in Buffalo at 3
p.m. Three hours later, the four men were allowed to leave a federal detention
center in Batavia, about 30 minutes east of Buffalo.
According to Ros-Lehtinen, those released were: Ana Maria Rodriguez
Laucirica; Marieta Diaz Rodriguez; Taymi Mok Hart; Carlos Ismar Naranjo Pacheco;
Francisco Richardo De La Torre Betancourt; Yordani Mollado Perez; Julio Lam
Salazar; Letty Valle Ramos; and Liz Juliet Duque Castresana.
'SO EMOTIONAL'
''We're all here crying. It's so emotional,'' said Lam's aunt, Norma Lam. "There
were rumors that they were going to be sent to Canada.''
Had that happened, Canadian authorities likely would have returned the group
to Cuba.
But Stephen Tills, an attorney representing the nine defectors, said intense
media and political pressure helped secure the group's release.
''It was a big relief, and I'm very happy, especially for the girls who have
been so down and depressed about the whole thing,'' said Tills, who was
preparing for the asylum cases when he learned the group was being released.
''I still feel like it's a dream. Imagine, after the nightmare we have been
going through,'' said Valle Ramos, 24.
"Every time a door would open for us, three would close. Now all we are
thinking about is going to see our family, integrate with society and start new
lives.''
Herald editorial board member Susana Barciela
contributed to this report.
Ventura: Embargo hasn't worked
Eliott Rodriguez
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura must have thought that during this interview he
and I would have an intellectual wrestling match about his coming trip to Cuba.
I was not trying to convince Ventura that the U.S. embargo on Cuba is an
effective foreign-policy tool (I don't believe it is) or that he shouldn't
travel to Cuba (he has every right to go). He plans to attend the U.S. Food and
Agribusiness Exhibition in Havana on Sept. 26-30. Organizers say that 236
American companies -- about a dozen from Minnesota -- will attend the trade
show.
E.R.: You were sent a letter from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush strongly urging you
to reconsider going to Cuba. What is your response?
J.V.: My response is that I'm going anyway. I'm a great believer that you
don't form an opinion about something unless you've been there. I have no basis
to form an opinion about Cuba until I go there. If Cuba is as bad as they say it
is, why wouldn't they want me to see it?
E.R.: What about the points in the governor's letter?
J.V.: With all due respect to the governor, I think he has his own problems
in Florida right now. You had voting trouble again. That ought to be
straightened out before he worries about what we're doing in Minnesota. We don't
have that problem up here. He's got human-services problems down there also.
I'll take care of Minnesota; he can take care of Florida.
E.R.: Having a large Cuban-American constituency, the governor is well aware
of the situation in Cuba. There are no free elections, no freedom of the press,
no opposition parties. Foreign companies that do business in Cuba do not pay
Cuban workers in dollars; workers are paid by the state in nonconvertible Cuban
currency. Shouldn't all that factor into your decision to promote business
there?
J.V.: Not a bit. How are you going to change a country without having a
relationship with it? I'll counter by saying I was in the Philippines the day
Ferdinand Marcos became a dictator. I didn't hear any outcry from the United
States. He took away the right to vote, personal weapon[s], the right of the
congress, the supreme court and everything we find so dear in the United States.
We didn't do a thing about it; we continued pumping foreign aid to Marcos, which
he stole from the Filipino people. But because he was our puppet, sympathetic to
everything we wanted to do, we didn't have a problem with that dictator.
E.R.: Do you agree Fidel Castro is a dictator?
J.V.: Sure, I'm no fan of Castro.
E.R.: Then why are you going there to shake hands with Castro and do
business with him?
J.V.: Excuse me, it's not on my schedule that I'll shake hands with Castro.
His name isn't on it.
E.R.: So you don't plan to meet with Castro?
J.V.: If I get the opportunity, absolutely. But if I don't, I wouldn't lose
any sleep over it.
E.R.: Are you aware of Castro's record in more than 40 years of running that
country?
J.V.: Yes. I'm also aware that the embargo hasn't worked. The embargo was
made to get him out of power, and you just made the case against it. For 40
years, it has failed. Isn't it about time we find a new way?
E.R.: Why should the United States give Castro what he wants without getting
anything in return?
J.V.: Are we giving it to Castro, or to the Cuban people? I spoke to a good
friend of mine the other day, Tony Oliva, former Minnesota Twin who's as Cuban
as you can get. He told me to go. He has eight brothers and sisters who[m] he
hasn't seen in many years.
You know what this is really about? It's about votes in Florida. It won the
election for George Bush in the electoral vote. And Jeb needs it to get
re-elected. What you have here are career politicians pandering to their voting
publics so they can further advance their careers. Could I get elected in
Florida on my position on Cuba?
E.R.: You probably wouldn't get many Cuban-American votes.
J.V.: Well, that's what this is really about. It's politicians advancing
their careers so that they can win elections.
Ventura doesn't have to worry about winning elections; he's not seeking
re-election. He says that he knows what he'll be doing when he leaves office in
January. ''Never leave a job without having a job,'' he said, but he won't
disclose what the new job will be until after the November elections. Before
that happens, he will be in Cuba hawking Minnesota food products and sizing up
the country for himself.
Eliott Rodríguez is anchor at CBS-4 in Miami.
Editorial: Release cuban refugees / The Miami Herald
Posted on Wed, Sep. 18, 2002 in The Miami Herald.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has unreasonably locked up nine
Cuban Catholics who entered the United States from Canada, where they had
defected. The agency already has found that the Cubans have a credible fear of
being persecuted if returned to Cuba.
But INS officials in Buffalo, N.Y., say the Cubans are deportable to Canada.
Thus, the jailings pending asylum hearings, which could take months. This is
wrong.
It runs counter to long-standing INS policy for Cuban refugees and asylum
seekers in general. It also is a waste of INS resources that might be better
directed to ferret out terrorists or people who intend harm to this country. The
INS should release these asylum seekers to American relatives who are happy to
sponsor them. And the sooner the better.
REFUSED TO RETURN
The nine defectors went to Toronto as part of a Cuban church delegation to
Catholic world youth events that culminated in a mass by the Pope in July. They
are among more than 20 who refused to return to Cuba. Instead, the nine crossed
the border into Buffalo last month and surrendered to INS authorities.
Doing so allowed them to ask for asylum in the United States. It also
entitled them to the benefits of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which generally makes
Cubans eligible for parole and, eventually, for U.S. permanent residency.
Two other Cuban defectors from the same Catholic youth group who had crossed
into Buffalo earlier were treated as asylum seekers, as Cuban refugees usually
are. The INS paroled them within days, as soon as they passed their
credible-fear interviews. The two now await asylum hearings in freedom.
The nine Catholics who followed weren't as fortunate. Buffalo INS has had
them locked up at least a month. Attorney Stephen Tills said the men are in the
local INS detention center; the five women have been sent to local jails, some
alongside people charged with violent crimes.
Such treatment defies logic and established practice. Why should Buffalo INS
treat these persecuted Cubans contrary to long-standing INS policy and
differently from those who preceded them by mere days? The nine arrivals aren't
security risks. They all have U.S. sponsors. And, contrary to what Buffalo INS
implied with its parole denial, they aren't a flight risk. Where are they going
to run to? Certainly not to Cuba or Canada.
THEY WERE THREATENED
These refugees have every reason to stay and legitimately petition for legal
status. In Cuba, they were denied jobs, threatened and some jailed, says Mr.
Tills. The capricious turnabout that Buffalo INS has made in their cases is a
good argument for INS reform.
Nor should deterrence justify denying them entrance -- as we and the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have said in the case of Haitian asylum
seekers who should also be released. We hope that this is an isolated lapse in
judgment that will be corrected quickly. | 
