CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Pardoned exile trio back home

Nearly four years after being arrested in Panama on accusations of plotting to kill Fidel Castro, three Cuban exiles from Miami-Dade return home.

By Elaine De Valle, edevalle@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Aug. 27, 2004

Three Miami Cuban exiles jailed after Fidel Castro claimed they were plotting to assassinate him came home amid cheers and tears at Opa-locka Airport on Thursday, having been pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso.

A fourth, alleged mastermind Luis Posada Carriles -- a man Castro once called ''the worst terrorist in the hemisphere'' -- immediately went into hiding.

Making victory V's with both hands as he was swallowed in a sea of hugs and handshakes, one of the three men, Guillermo Novo, said he had a message for Castro: ''Te la ganamos.'' We beat you.

''We suffered for four years [in prison] but we won the battle. We have one victory against Fidel,'' Novo said. "He wanted us to spend 20 years in prison.''

Novo, Posada, Gaspar Jiménez and Pedro Remón -- all involved in past anti-Castro violence -- were arrested in Panama in 2000 on charges that they planned to kill Castro during his visit to the Ibero-American Summit, held in Panama that year. Though Panamanian courts ruled that there was not enough evidence to accuse the men of attempted murder or possession of explosives, they were convicted in April of endangering public safety and sentenced to up to eight years.

Moscoso pardoned the men Wednesday, less than a week before she is to leave office, telling The Herald she did so for ''humanitarian reasons'' and because she feared that her successor would extradite the men to Cuba, where they could face a firing squad.

'At 5 in the morning [Thursday] they woke us. 'Get up. You're leaving,' '' Remón said. "They gave us five minutes to get dressed.''

Jiménez, 69, was rushed to an area hospital with high blood pressure after he landed at Opa-locka aboard one of two small airplanes chartered by Santiago Alvarez, a longtime friend of the four and Miami developer who spearheaded a campaign to raise money for their legal defense.

Alvarez said the second plane stopped in an undisclosed country to drop off Posada, who is not a U.S. citizen.

He has both admitted and denied orchestrating a dozen terror bombings of Havana tourist spots in 1997 in which one person, an Italian tourist, was killed. He was tried in Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 but was found not guilty and escaped from jail while awaiting retrial.

''Nobody knows where he is and nobody is going to know,'' Alvarez told The Herald. He would not disclose the cost of the airplane charters or the name of the company involved.

''That was one of the conditions [the pilots] placed. Because if the Cubans know who they are, later those planes won't get access to fly over Cuban airspace,'' he said.

Alvarez said he spoke to Posada by phone early Thursday after Posada landed at the secret location. ''He is well, happy,'' Alvarez said, adding that Posada has no current interest in coming to the United States.

The other three, all U.S. citizens, are Miami-Dade residents and returned to the homes they left behind four years ago.

The men and their supporters have long insisted that they went to Panama to help a Cuban army general who planned to defect during Castro's summit visit. But soon after he arrived, Castro announced that Posada and the others were there to kill him. Police arrested them.

About 50 relatives and supporters -- including Miami Commissioner Angel González and the Cuban Liberty Council's Alberto Hernández -- waited several hours Thursday as the men were questioned by U.S. Customs and immigration officials at Opa-locka Airport.

Among those waiting: Peter ''Pedrito'' Remón, 7, who brought two Florida Marlins caps for the occasion -- one for himself and another for his father. Peter recognized his father immediately and pushed his way through a wall of TV cameramen to hand him the cap with a big, gap-toothed smile.

Novo, whose two brothers died while he was in prison, said he would visit his sister later Thursday, call another sister in New York and visit friends who have supported him and his family.

''I dreamt of this day, but I did not have the confidence that it would come,'' he said. "This is a triumph for the Cuban exile. . . . It was the Cuban exile community that did this.''

Before they hurried to meet their father at a hospital, Jiménez's two grown daughters were unable to contain their tears as they waited. ''I haven't seen him in 2 ½ years. I want to hug him,'' Sonia Jiménez-Victores said. "We are very, very grateful to President Mireya Moscoso for doing this.''

Praise for the Panamanian president, who lived in Miami for 11 years in the 1980s and 1990s, was plentiful.

''As a woman I salute her, and all Panamanians for having elected her,'' said Miriam Novo.

The news did not make everyone happy, however. Some question the hero's welcome for men who have been linked to anti-Castro violence.

''It just brings up some dreadful memories for my mother,'' said Al Milian, whose father, radio commentator Emilio Milian, lost his legs in a car bombing in which Jiménez was indicted, although the indictment was later dropped.

Milian declined to comment further, saying his father had forgiven his attackers and had asked his sons -- on his deathbed -- to do the same.

'Rafter mail' raises terror concerns

Terrorists could use the same method as the Cuban 'rafter in a box' who mailed herself to Miami, experts and officials said.

By Susannah A. Nesmith And Luisa Yanez, snesmith@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Aug. 27, 2004

The young Cuban woman who express-mailed herself to Miami this week was not the first to try such a stunt, and officials acknowledged Thursday that a determined terrorist could slip through U.S. security the same way.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents say they can't physically check every person, package and container that comes into the United States. Similarly, Transportation Security Administration officials say they can't physically check for explosives in every box and crate that goes on a domestic flight.

''All cargo is inspected and the highest risk pieces are the ones that get checked,'' said TSA spokeswoman Jennifer Marty, adding that if officials tried to used explosives-sniffing dogs or machines on every single item, "commerce would come to a halt.''

Instead, TSA and Customs agents target shipments and packages they consider suspicious and conduct random checks on others.

On a typical day, Customs agents around the country process more than 1.1 million passengers, more than 57,000 trucks and containers, 580 vessels, 2,459 aircraft and 323,622 vehicles entering the United States.

Miami International Airport receives eight million foreign passengers a year, and the port receives 250,000 containers.

TOO MANY DELAYS

There are simply too many planes, people, ships and containers entering the United States to run every single one through an X-ray machine or check each one with dogs.

''We have to enforce the laws, protect the country and facilitate commerce,'' said Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Zachary Mann. "We can't hold ships up. We can't hold airplanes up.''

Mann pointed out that despite the efforts of 41,000 Customs employees, people manage to get through the net of border security in a variety of ways.

''Does it happen? Yes, it does,'' he said. "This was a box. You get people who get on airplanes in the wheel wells or come in go-fast boats. There are a lot of desperate people trying to get to this country because it is a great place.''

Mark Mahler, of Miami-based American K-9 Detection Services, has sniffer dogs that can find stowaways in cargo, but he doesn't get much demand for that service.

''I don't think anybody really knows how widespread it is,'' he said. "That's one of the concerns. It's kind of frightening to think she just mailed herself.''

IN THE PROCESS

The Cuban woman, who came by plane from the Bahamas and was discovered by DHL workers at a warehouse Tuesday night when she made noise inside a crate, might have been caught later in the security process, Mann said.

''There would have been a very good chance that she would have been detected anyhow,'' Mann said. "I can't get into the details on the box, on any box that would draw our attention, but the woman had to get out [of the airport] one way or the other.''

Others who have shipped or mailed themselves in containers have been caught. A homesick 26-year-old mailed himself from New York home to Texas last year, but he was caught and arrested on arrival.

A suspected Egyptian terrorist trying to get into Canada was caught in Italy in October 2001. He was traveling in a cargo container outfitted with a bed and a bucket for a bathroom and he had airport maps, security passes and a satellite telephone with him.

In at least one recent incident, terrorists apparently used the cargo method and weren't caught. Israeli officials believe that two teenage suicide bombers who killed 10 people in the port of Ashdod in March were smuggled out of the heavily secured Gaza Strip in a container.

''You have Gaza absolutely fenced off . . . and this is Israel, where things are super, super tight,'' said security consultant Mike Ackerman of the Miami-based Ackerman Group. "Can people smuggle themselves into the U.S. that way? Sure.''

Immigration officials would not comment on the status of the Cuban woman, who hasn't been publicly identified.

STATE OF MIND

The only hint of the mystery woman's state of mind came from another new arrival who made it to South Florida by boat this week. He said he rode with the woman in a government van transporting migrants to be processed.

''She was crying and nervous, but she told me I would soon learn of her story in all the television channels,'' Reydel Rodriguez told Spanish-language reporters Tuesday night.

On Thursday, at the county health clinic in Little Havana where new Cuban migrants must undergo medical tests, employees and patients were on the lookout for the mystery woman one person labeled "the rafter in a box.''

Storm deals economic blow to Cuba: $1 billion

By Elaine De Valle, edevalle@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Aug. 26, 2004.

Since Hurricane Charley destroyed her Havana home nearly two weeks ago, Miguelina Ane and her two children -- 10-year-old Ruth and 16-month-old Enrique -- have slept on the floor of the front porch of another house.

''My eldest daughter, who lives with her in-laws, she gives us what little she can to eat every day so that the children are not hungry,'' Ane, the wife of a jailed dissident, told The Herald in a telephone interview.

Her home was one of the more than 70,000 that the Cuban Communist Party's Granma newspaper on Wednesday reported were destroyed or damaged when Charley slammed into the western half of the island Aug. 13, killing four. The Granma report also estimated the damage at more than $1 billion.

That's about half of the $1.9 billion in damages caused in Cuba by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, and more than the $713 million reported in total damages from hurricanes Isidore and Lily in 2002, said Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a leading expert on Cuba's economy. Those three storms destroyed 36,000 dwellings and damaged another 272,000, he added.

''So this is an important blow to the economy, but it's not something that cannot be coped with,'' said Mesa-Lago, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Cuban government has repaired most of the infrastructure damage from the previous storms, he said, though housing construction has lagged.

MANY COMPLAINTS

But long after Charley's eye passed over Havana, residents are still complaining about lengthy power outages, downed telephone lines and water shortages because municipal pumps lack electricity.

''I understand, however, that there is very serious shortages of electricity and water in Havana and that there has been significant damage inflicted to major harvests like tobacco,'' Mesa-Lago said.

Granma quoted Pedro Sáez Montejo, first secretary of the Communist Party for Havana, as saying that Charley ruined thousands of acres of crops.

Sáez also said that thousands of state workers were deployed to deliver water, repair power and telephone lines and collect fallen trees and other debris.

José Antonio Fernández, president of the Cuban telephone company, was quoted as saying that while alternate routes would be found to restore some services by the end of the month, some of the cables would not be repaired until October.

According to the paper, about half of those living in Havana province, a mostly rural area around the capital, remained without electricity Tuesday.

The entire province of Pinar del Rio, farther to the west -- where people are reportedly still at shelters after the storms in 2002 -- were also without power for a record 11 days as of Tuesday.

Although the Cuban government evacuated more than 200,000 people from flood-prone areas before the storm, Ane said the area where she lived was not among them. Only when Charley began tearing apart the home did she leave.

''We had to leave there running when the rains got very hard. We had to abandon the house with what little clothes we could carry in our hands at that moment,'' Ane said. "Right now we are homeless. We are on the street.''

She said her husband, Enrique Mustelier, was jailed last month on charges of trying to leave the country illegally and had served prison time in the 1990s for organizing antigovernment demonstrations.

TURNED AWAY

That's why, she asserted, while the government provides shelter and a few other services to those who lost their homes, she was turned away.

''They told me I have no right to any assistance because of my form of thinking and my husband's form of thinking,'' Ane said. "The government told me that we can't count on them, that I am on my own.''

Moises Leonardo Rodríguez Valdés said Ane's is not the only case where authorities have denied emergency aid to members of the opposition. ''In Cuba, everything is politicized -- even a hurricane,'' Rodríguez said.

''Of course, they have proclaimed loudly and proudly about the recovery effort and how everything is going back to normal. But in Cuba, normality is abnormal,'' he said.

''In zones where the [electric] service has been restored, the people still have service that is intermittent. Yesterday there was an eight-hour blackout in parts of Havana. You walk around and you can still see piles of rubble everywhere,'' he said.

Pilar, a Havana woman in her 50s who asked that her surname not be published, said power is mostly normal on her street now after a week without any electricity. Gas and water were also out for a week, but have since returned to her Playa neighborhood.

What hasn't been quick, she said, was the cleanup effort.

''We're still picking up tree trunks and glass and garbage everywhere,'' she said.

One of the homes that were damaged belongs to the family of Sylvia Wilhelm, a Cuban-American activist in Miami.

''At my cousin's house, part of the roof and a door blew away,'' Wilhelm said. "There was substantial damage in the areas of Santa Fe. And trees have fallen everywhere.''

She is helping to collect goods to send to hurricane victims on the island. And Wednesday, Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora asked South Florida Catholics to contribute to a special collection at all parishes this weekend that will assist relief efforts in Florida and Cuba.

But earlier this week, Cuba rejected a U.S. government offer of $50,000 in post-hurricane aid to nongovernmental organizations as "cynical and hypocritical.''

A U.S. State Department official Wednesday said the government does not have an independent assessment of damages in Cuba because it has not sent a team to review damages on the ground.

Maradona seeks release

Posted on Thu, Aug. 26, 2004

A judge overseeing Diego Maradona's drug rehabilitation was evaluating whether to allow the former soccer great to continue his treatment outside Argentina.

Maradona, 43, has been confined to a psychiatric hospital for three months, after he was rushed twice to a clinic for heart and lung problems. He has pleaded with authorities to let him continue his treatment in Cuba, where he underwent drug rehab for four years.

Judge Norberto Garcia Vedia said Wednesday he would meet with Maradona's doctors in the coming days.

Maradona broke down in tears Tuesday on TV as he talked of his battle with drugs and insisted he -- not a judge -- should have the final say about his health.

''I'm old enough to decide for myself what I should do with my life,'' he said in an interview on Argentina's Channel 9. "I've got so many obstacles up against me here in my country, I feel like a stranger.''

Maradona, who retired in 1997, led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title and the 1990 final.

A romp to remember as Cuba wins baseball gold

Cuba claims its third baseball gold, erasing the disappointment of 2000

By Michelle Kaufman, mkaufman@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Aug. 26, 2004.

ATHENS - The Cuban baseball team formed a circle around the pitcher's mound after its 6-2 Olympic gold-medal win against Australia, and all the players fell backward in unison like synchronized swimmers, tossing their red caps into the night sky.

A few minutes later, pitcher Pedro Luis Lazo ran from the tunnel into the media lounge, where the Japanese bronze-medal winners had been watching the game on television. Lazo slapped high-fives with the Japanese players, downed two Heinekens and dialed home on his cellphone. His teammates continued to celebrate on the field.

They waited four years for this moment, since losing to rival United States in the final of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and they were going to stretch out the party as long as possible. The Cuban players even did the wave on the medal platform.

''We cannot do without that baseball medal,'' Cuban Olympic Committee president Jose Ramon Fernandez said before the Games. "It's a matter of honor.''

Cuba has won 19 consecutive world titles and three of the four gold medals since baseball was added to the Olympic program. Four years ago, a team of minor-leaguers coached by Tommy Lasorda upset the Cubans for the gold medal. But the defending champions failed to make the eight-team tournament this time, and Cuba was a heavy favorite from the start.

A baseball tournament without the U.S. team seemed odd at times, particularly when Cuban and Australian fans tried to sing along with Take Me Out to the Ballgame, YMCA and We Will Rock You.

Cuba's run to the gold went virtually unnoticed in the United States. Most games were relegated to MSNBC, and most of the American press in Greece ignored the sport. Only a handful of major-league teams sent scouts. ''I don't think anyone's paying attention,'' Mike Cameron of the New York Mets told The Associated Press. "The Americans aren't playing; it's no fun.''

Cuban outfielder Frederich Cepeda said the U.S. team was not missed.

''Of course, the United States has a great team and they were the defending champion, but they did not deserve to be here because they didn't qualify and other teams did,'' he said. "The Australian team deserved to be in the final, and they did a great job.''

The baseball gold was Cuba's second of these Olympics. Shot putter Yumileidi Cumba was bumped up from silver to gold when the Russian winner was disqualified for doping.

''Baseball is the most popular sport in Cuba, and to win the gold medal is very significant for us,'' starting pitcher Norge Luis Vera said. "I feel very happy.''

Carlos Tabares, the center fielder, added: "I have no words to express my happiness. This medal is dedicated to my family, friends and everybody in Cuba.''

The Cubans banged out 13 hits, including a two-run home run by Cepeda, a two-run double by Eduardo Parent and a two-run single by Eriel Sanchez. Cepeda, who plays for Sancti Spiritus in the Cuban league, got the scoring started in the fourth inning with his home run to right-center field. Australia scored on a Paul Gonzalez solo homer in the fifth inning, and then loaded the bases, but Cuban reliever Adiel Palma struck out Brendan Kingman with two out and a full count.

Cuba widened the gap in the sixth, hitting four straight singles off Australian starter John Stephens, who plays in the Boston Red Sox farm system.

Australia might have made the Cubans sweat a bit more were it not for a questionable call in the fourth inning. With two men on and two out, Australia's Thomas Brice hit a deep line drive that Tabares chased down and snagged as he jumped into the fence. Brice was called out. TV replays showed Tabares had bobbled the ball and it bounced off the wall before he regained control. Australia protested but was denied.

''That catch was critical,'' Cepeda said. "It was a great play. After that catch, the wind went out of Australia's sails.''

Japan, boasting a collection of top pros, was expected to be in the final vs. Cuba, but Australia stunned it 1-0 in the semifinal. Japan routed Canada 11-2 in the bronze-medal game Wednesday.

Despite the loss, Australian coach Jon Deeble said making the final should advance the game in his country.

''This gave the game a lot of exposure back in Australia, and, hopefully, more kids will take up the game,'' said Deeble, an international scout for the Red Sox.

The question now is whether those kids -- and kids playing baseball in the U.S. and Cuba -- will get to play in an Olympics. The International Olympic Committee is reviewing the status of baseball this fall and will decide whether to leave it on the menu for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Cuba is hoping the answer is yes.

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