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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Minister: Cuban defense exercises will
serve to warn U.S.
Associated Press. Posted
on Tue, Dec. 07, 2004.
HAVANA - Defense Minister Raul Castro said
the reason Cuba plans to hold a series of
defense exercises for the general population
is so the United States will see it shouldn't
dare attack the communist country.
The exercises are "for (the United
States) to observe closely, so it doesn't
make the same mistakes it made in Vietnam
and is now making in Iraq," Castro,
the younger brother of Cuban President Fidel
Castro, told Cuban media Tuesday.
The exercises, to be held Dec. 13 to 19,
are aimed at evaluating how prepared Cuban
society is to face possible military action
against Cuba during a second term by U.S.
President George W. Bush.
Since even before the United States launched
its unilateral attack on Iraq last year,
Cuban authorities have insisted that a similar
U.S. strike on their country is possible.
American authorities have repeatedly rejected
that idea, saying there are no plans to
attack Cuba.
Castro said Washington has failed to learn
from past failed military aggressions, comparing
the current conflict in Iraq to Vietnam.
"History keeps repeating itself, step
by step," he said.
Participating in the exercises will be
Cuba's regular army troops, reserves and
militia as well as the defense forces of
the Interior Ministry, which oversees internal
security, and other defense organizations
that include much of the general population.
Couple face fine for Cuba trip
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@herald.com.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 07, 2004.
WASHINGTON - A missionary couple from Michigan
facing a $9,750 fine for illegally traveling
to Cuba in 2001 appeared Monday before a
U.S. court in Washington set up recently
to consider appeals against such fines.
U.S. Administrative Law Judge Irwin Schroeder,
who heard testimony for more than two hours
in the case of Michael and Andrea McCarthy,
said he would announce his ruling sometime
before Christmas.
U.S. citizens caught traveling illegally
to Cuba are fined by the Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC),
the agency in charge of enforcing all U.S.
sanctions against foreign countries. Each
Cuba travel ban violator can be fined up
to $55,000. Most try to appeal the fines
but until recently were in legal limbo because
the government never set up an appeal process.
The new administrative review process was
established last year, but heard its first
case in October. That case is not expected
to be settled before the McCarthy case,
according to opponents of U.S. sanctions
on Cuba monitoring the cases.
The Bush administration this year tightened
U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba, and
OFAC has increased its efforts to catch
and fine violators, drawing criticism from
some in Congress who say the agency should
be spending less resources on the Cuban
sanctions and more on tracking down and
seizing Osama Bin Laden's finances.
MORE HEARINGS
Dozens of cases like the McCarthys' could
come up for hearings in the new administrative
courts in coming months.
Molly Millerwise, an OFAC spokeswoman said
that of the 257 hearing requests filed by
alleged violators, 134 later decided to
settle out of court, netting the government
about $150,000 in civil penalties. Forty-eight
are awaiting a hearing and the remaining
cases are in various stages of consideration,
the spokeswoman added.
TAKING A STAND
The McCarthys, in their mid-40s and from
Port Huron, Mich., said they decided to
make a principled stand on the issue because
they went to Cuba for basically religious
purposes -- to visit a convent and distribute
medicine. They acknowledge they also spent
three days in a modest beach resort in south-central
Cuba.
Their defense argued that although they
were vaguely aware of the restrictions on
travel to Cuba, the provisions were confusing
and the Canadian firm that sold them the
travel package did not inform them of any
prohibitions.
Michael McCarthy told the court he attends
Mass several times a week and that it ''is
our birthright as Americans to be outreaching.''
He is a physician's assistant who has done
humanitarian work in the past in Mexico
and Haiti "to be connected to people
of our faith across cultures.''
He told the courtroom that a priest in
Chiapas told him about the Hermanas Pasionistas,
a nuns' group in Havana, and that he and
Andrea, a registered nurse, paid $1,420
for a package to travel to Cuba through
Canada to deliver medicine to the nuns.
In Cuba, the McCarthys spent about $120
to rent a car and buy gifts, including cigars
later confiscated when they admitted to
a U.S. customs officer on the U.S.-Canadian
border that they had traveled to Cuba.
Under U.S. rules, tourist trips to Cuba
are forbidden but special licenses are available
for travel by humanitarian and religious
groups, journalists, academics and others.
The McCarthys did not have a special permit.
REDUCED AMOUNT
The government initially levied a $7,500
fine to each of the McCarthys but later
reduced the amount to a total of $9,750
because of mitigating circumstances, including
the fact that they spent at least two days
with the nuns.
Andrea McCarthy broke down in tears when
asked how she would pay the $9,750. ''We'd
probably take out a loan,'' she said. The
couple earns a combined annual income of
$65,000 and have four children, two in college.
They said they have only $500 in their savings
account.
They initially paid $2,000 to a lawyer
to represent them. Their current counsel,
Kurt Berggren, is representing them free
of charge.
The McCarthys' case is already being highlighted
by opponents of the restrictions on travel
to Cuba. ''No one can seriously argue that
punishing conscientious Americans who provide
medicines to a convent in Cuba will hasten
the transition on the island to democracy,''
said Sarah Stephens, with the Cuba Travel
Campaign at the Center for International
Policy, a Washington-based advocacy group.
President Bush has vowed to prepare for
and hasten Cuba's transition to democracy
after Cuban leader Fidel Castro is gone
by tightening U.S. sanctions on the island.
This summer, Bush cut the number of family
reunification trips that Cuban Americans
could make to the island to once every three
years instead of once a year.
Dissident's daughter criticizes Castro
The daughter of an imprisoned
dissident spoke out against Fidel Castro's
government and her father's incarceration.
By Vanessa Arrington, Associated
Press. Posted on Mon, Dec. 06, 2004.
PERICO, Cuba - Her political activist father
is her hero, and Sayli Navarro wants to
follow in his footsteps -- at any cost.
The soft-spoken, articulate teenager was
just 6 when her father went to prison the
first time for posting signs reading "Down
with Fidel.''
Now 18, she also criticizes President Fidel
Castro's communist government as well as
the second imprisonment of her father Felix
Navarro, one of dozens of government opponents
still behind bars after recent surprise
releases.
'DIABOLICAL'
In a letter delivered to Castro's Havana
offices in early September, she called his
government ''the world's most diabolical,''
and said it was time to reflect on the imprisonment
of people "only for thinking differently.''
For days, Navarro said she worried that
she, too, might be jailed, or that her father
would receive extra punishment. So far,
there has been no reaction.
The elder Navarro was among 75 dissidents
rounded up by Cuba's government in March
2003 and accused of receiving money from
U.S. officials to undermine the island's
system -- charges the activists and American
officials denied.
Last week, the government released six
of the prisoners, including writer Raúl
Rivero. Including seven others released
earlier this year, 13 of the original 75
have now been freed, all for medical reasons.
Navarro, 51, was transferred from his prison
cell in eastern Cuba's Guantánamo
province on Tuesday to nearby Santiago.
He was among many of the remaining prisoners
moved from provincial prisons to major Cuban
cities to receive medical checkups, sparking
hope among relatives they, too, might be
freed.
His daughter and wife, Sonia Alvarez, anxiously
await news about his fate.
''We are not sure, but we know that something
is happening,'' the daughter said. "Hope
is something we have yet to lose.''
Alvarez was less optimistic.
''I honestly don't think they will release
him,'' she said. " Hopefully they let
all the prisoners go, but I don't think
they will -- the old man [Castro] is very
stubborn.''
Surprised by Castro's descriptions of relative
comfort -- clean rooms, abundant water,
twice-a-month visits by family members,
the young woman decided to write to the
78-year-old president.
DECRIED PRACTICES
She decried the practices of keeping prisoners
hundreds of miles away from their families
in filthy, overcrowded cells, and allowing
family visits just once every three months.
Felix Navarro was a physics teacher and
local high school principal when he posted
the ''Down with Fidel'' signs in the early
1990s and was arrested.
He was released after nearly two years
in prison. Alvarez said her husband went
on to hold frequent political meetings in
his home, which were attended by Cubans
from various provinces and, at least once,
by U.S. Interests Section Chief James Cason.
Sayli Navarro said life as a dissident's
daughter has not been easy. During her father's
trial, neighbors from her tiny community
testified against him. But she said most
neighbors treat her and her mother well.
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