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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Claims of drug ties in envoy's expulsion
rejected
From Herald Staff and Wire
Reports. Posted on Fri, Jan. 09, 2004
HAVANA - The Cuban government Thursday
defended a Cuban diplomat expelled from
Washington last month, reportedly because
of his association with drug trafficking.
''The Foreign Ministry totally rejects
and categorically denies that comrade Roberto
Socorro García has associated with
people or activities related to drug trafficking
in the United States,'' said Rafael Dausá,
the ministry's director for North America,
in a statement published in Havana.
Socorro, a third secretary at the Cuban
mission in Washington, was the 19th Havana
diplomat expelled in little more than a
year both from Washington and Cuba's mission
to the United Nations in New York.
The high number of expulsions reflect the
Bush administration's decision to get tough
with Havana, especially after a harsh crackdown
on dissidents last spring.
The Associated Press quoted unidentified
U.S. officials in Washington last week as
saying that Socorro was expelled for associating
with criminal elements. But another publication
later cited anonymous officials accusing
Socorro of "criminal activity related
to narco-trafficking.''
The State Department officially would only
repeat the standard language whenever a
diplomat is expelled: ''activities incompatible
with his status as a diplomat.'' But knowledgeable
officials said the drug allegation was untrue.
Socorro was known to be one of several
Cuban diplomats who regularly visited five
convicted Cuban spies jailed around the
United States, under international agreements
that guarantee diplomats access to their
citizens jailed abroad.
Trip to Cuba turns into movie
By Idy Fernandez. imfernandez@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, Jan. 11, 2004
Growing up in Little Havana, Maria Bures
had nostalgia for an island she barely remembered.
Going back to Cuba though, even just for
a visit, was deemed morally wrong by her
family.
Yet, as an adult, Bures made the taboo
trek to Havana -- and took along her video
camera.
'All the pride my parents instilled in
me inadvertently fed the desire to see this
'mythical homeland' that they created,''
Bures said. "It's too painful for our
parents to go back. But unlike them, we're
not engulfed in that bitterness of those
who stayed and those who left.''
The result is the half-hour documentary
Lilly and I, which will be shown at 9 p.m.
Saturday at the Made In Miami Film and Video
Festival. The movie is about Bures' trip
with two other Cuban-American women, her
friend, singer Lilly Blanco and Lilly's
84-year-old grandmother.
Through the trip and movie, Bures wanted
to show how Cuban-Americans grappling with
questions about their past could find answers
by going back to the island.
But that didn't happen. The trip only raised
more questions for her.
''It was like opening Pandora's box because
the past we reconciled with was our parents,
not our own,'' Bures, 46, said.
The film was the San Francisco Art Institute
graduate's pet project.
As executive producer for the Coconut Grove-based
Pigeon Productions, she has made more than
500 commercials, including spots for AT&T,
Sears Roebuck and Co., and Kraft Foods.
Lily and I evolved in spurts over three
months, the fastest Bures has ever been
able to make a film with a tight budget.
With help from the Miami Light Project,
Bures says film costs were about $7,000.
''Sometimes it is frustrating to go from
producing a cellphone commercial with a
huge budget to working on your own project
with barely any budget at all,'' Bures said.
But Bures insists she loves making movies,
no matter the price. 'From the day I took
the film course in San Francisco, I became
enamored by the process and thought 'what
a great way to tell stories objectively
and make personal films at the same time,'
''she said.
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