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Posted on Fri, Jun. 06, 2003 in
The Miami Herald.
EU set to review relations with Cuba
By Nancy San Martin. Nsanmartin@Herald.Com
The European Union announced Thursday it would review bilateral relations
with Cuba -- which had been growing closer -- because of the ''deplorable
actions'' by the government, including the arrests of dissidents and the
execution of three men who tried to hijack a passenger ferry to the United
States.
In a biting statement issued in Brussels on behalf of the entire 15-nation
bloc, the EU said it was ''deeply concerned about the continuing flagrant
violation of human rights and of fundamental freedoms of members of the Cuban
opposition and of independent journalists,'' according to The Associated Press.
Among the measures the EU unanimously approved: limiting bilateral
high-level government visits, reducing the profile of member states'
participation in cultural events and inviting Cuban dissidents abroad.
The EU action was viewed by some as a major diplomatic setback for Cuba.
''They can't proceed with any kind of bilateral cooperation agreement,''
said Joaquín Roy, director of the European Union Center, a study center
at the University of Miami. "It puts a lot of pressure on the government.
Cuba remains the only Latin American country not having a bilateral
cooperation agreement.''
The EU also condemned the firing squad execution in April of three
hijackers, saying Cuban authorities ''broke the de-facto moratorium on the death
penalty,'' the AP reported.
The EU action comes on the heels of an Amnesty International report that
listed 75 imprisoned government opponents as "prisoners of conscience.''
The dissidents were rounded up during an island-wide sweep in mid-March and
are serving sentences of up to 28 years.
The EU called on Cuba for the immediate release of all political prisoners
and demanded authorities take steps to make sure that ''in the meantime,
prisoners do not suffer unduly and are not exposed to inhumane treatment,''
according to news agency AFP.
On another diplomatic front, Cuban and American diplomats will gather in New
York today for round 19 of the semi-annual U.S.-Cuba Migration Talks.
The meeting is supposed to focus on the existing migration accords, but this
will be the first time envoys from both countries will formally face each other
since the dissident crackdown and the ouster of 14 Cuban diplomats. In a
statement published Thursday, Cuba said it was prepared to ''debate'' issues it
considers essential for maintaining the migration accords.
The talks, alternatively held in Havana and New York every six months, were
set up by 1994 and 1995 accords designed to promote orderly migration between
the two countries.
It also established the issuance of 20,000 travel documents each year for
Cubans seeking to emigrate.
Cuba has complained about a sharp decrease in the number of documents issued
so far this year.
U.S. officials have said the decrease is the result of a backlog and tougher
screening procedures established since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but
intend to fulfill the requirement.
Making waves: Cuban American leads cutter
By Elaine De Valle. Edevalle@Herald.Com
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Jorge Martinez still remembers his house in Havana and
the uniform he wore to school, though he was only 7 years old when his family
left Cuba. They still feel grateful to then-President Jimmy Carter, who exerted
pressure for the release of his father, a political prisoner who served 11 years
in Castro's prisons.
Martinez, now 31, made history Thursday when he became the first Cuban
American to be given command of a Coast Guard cutter.
''It's an honor for me and my parents,'' Martinez said after taking command
of the 110-foot Maui, based at the agency's Miami Beach station. "The
mission is difficult and dangerous, but it's one I believe in and I'm eager to
start.''
Part of that mission will be to intercept and repatriate Cubans who flee the
island and try to enter the United States illegally, something Martinez -- who
still has relatives in Cuba -- says gives him mixed feelings.
''It tugs at the heart strings a little bit, but it's a mandate and it's
part of my mission,'' he said. "I understand and empathize with what they
are trying to do. But there are legal ways of coming to this country.''
U.S. policy on Cuban migrants -- often called the ''wet foot/dry foot
policy'' because it allows Cubans who make it to land to stay while those caught
at sea are sent back -- at times has put the Coast Guard at odds with the Cuban
exile community. Demonstrations have been organized to protest what some have
called the agency's excessive force.
Ramón Saúl Sánchez, leader of the Democracia Movement
and an organizer of several protests, said he was glad that a Cuban-American has
been promoted to a cutter command.
''Anything they do to be more representative of the complexity of our
community is a good thing,'' Sánchez said, adding that his protests were
never against the crew members of the Coast Guard.
''We are not protesting the men and women of the Coast Guard, who are just
abiding with policy and law. We are protesting the policy of the White House and
Justice Department, not them,'' Sánchez said.
'We do understand that they have a difficult duty when the president says,
'You have to return these people,' '' said Sánchez, who faces deportation
proceedings after his arrest Tuesday on immigration charges. "They save the
lives of people they know are desperate to be free and then see themselves
having to take people back to Cuba and hand them to Castro.''
Martinez said he has to carry out his job.
''Our primary concern is the safety of lives at sea and our first priority
is to get them out of the water,'' he said, referring to all migrants.
"I'm a professional, and that's how I look at the mission. They are
human beings, and I have to treat them with respect, but I also have to perform
my mission.''
JOINED IN '91
Martinez -- who lives in Hollywood with his wife, Nancy, and two sons --
joined the Coast Guard in 1991 and graduated from the branch's academy in New
London, Conn., in 1995. His first assignment was as a deck watch officer aboard
the cutter Bear, based in Portsmouth, Va. The new orders Thursday were like a
homecoming -- Martinez was executive officer on the Maui for two years before he
was given land duty for three years.
In June 2000, he was assigned to the 7th District Command Center, where he
served as law enforcement and search and rescue controller for nearly a year.
Then he was tapped as military aide to Admiral Jay Carmichael, commander of the
7th District.
He said Thursday, when he took over for Lt. Carl Messalle -- who is bound
for graduate studies at Florida Atlantic University -- that he was glad to get
back on the open sea.
DAD'S PHOTOGRAPHS
His father, who was an ensign in the pre-Castro Cuban Navy and a teacher at
the naval academy, would show him photographs of himself and his crew mates when
Martinez was just a boy. ''He's the one who taught me love for the sea,'' the
lieutenant said.
Service and seawater must be in the family's blood, his mother, Adelfa
Martinez, said: Their other son, Lt. Gilbert Martinez, is in the U.S. Navy.
She and her husband traveled from their home in Paulsboro, N.J., for the
dockside ceremony in Miami Beach. Both said they know their son won't love
having to send fellow Cubans back to a cruel dictatorship.
''He has to feel it because he knows what they're going through,'' Adelfa
Martinez said. "He'll be sad about it, but there's nothing he can do.''
Gilberto Martinez, 69, said he would like to see the policy changed.
''They are trying to get here because there is so much suffering there in
Cuba,'' he said.
But the most important thing is that his son loves his job. "He is
doing what he loves and that is more important than salary or anything else.''
Dissident smuggles diary from Cuban jail
By Andrea Rodriguez. Associated Press. Posted on Thu, Jun.
05, 2003
HAVANA - Smuggled out by his wife, the diary of a recently jailed dissident
offers a rare firsthand look at life in a Cuban prison, telling of bad food,
rats in the cells and damp walls.
''The cell is a space of 1 ½ meters wide by 3 meters long [about 5 feet
by 10 feet],'' Manuel Vázquez Portal wrote in one entry. "A barred
door partially covered by a plate of steel. A barred window, through which enter
the sun's rays, the rain, the insects.''
There was no mention of any physical mistreatment, and the independent
journalist, who was sentenced to 18 years, said he is allowed to go out in the
sunshine once a day at Boniato prison in the eastern city of Santiago.
A photocopy of the diary was given to The Associated Press on Tuesday by his
wife, Yolanda Huerga. It was written in longhand with pen on loose pages of
blank paper that the family was allowed to give him during visits at the prison.
ONE OF 75
Vázquez was among 75 activists arrested in March during an islandwide
crackdown on dissidents that drew widespread international criticism.
Cuba's justice and foreign ministries did not respond to repeated requests
for comment on complaints by families about treatment of the dissidents. Some
relatives say medical care in the jails is inadequate and others say their loved
ones have been shut away in solitary confinement.
Vázquez's description could not be independently confirmed, because
foreign reporters and human rights groups do not have access to prisons on the
communist-run island.
Cuba last allowed the Red Cross into its prisons in 1988. Under the
organization's policy, the Red Cross later delivered a confidential report to
Castro's government.
Huerga declined to discuss how the journal was smuggled out of the prison
last weekend after a regular family visit. She said her husband gave permission
to give AP a photocopy of the diary, in which sporadic entries begin in late
April with his arrest and end on May 23.
''If for the simple act of practicing journalism they condemned me to 18
years without freedom, then nothing else can be unjust or extreme,'' Vázquez
wrote in one entry.
CELL'S FURNISHINGS
He described his cell's furnishings as a rickety cot, a dirty mattress
without sheets and pillow, a fetid toilet bowl. Rats scurry across the floor and
water drips down the walls, he wrote.
While Vázquez, 52, said he gets three meals a day, he said the food
is so bad it is ''indescribable.'' The journal contained no allegations of
physical abuse, and Vázquez described his relationship with guards as "respectful.'' | 
