CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Careful planning brought defectors to U.S.

Behind-the-scenes lobbying and careful record keeping persuaded the Bush administration to reverse course and grant visas to the Cuban performers who ultimately defected this week.

By Elaine De Valle, David Ovalle and Martin Merzer, mmerzer@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Nov. 20, 2004.

The tale spans two continents and touches Fidel Castro and Siegfried & Roy, a resourceful German-born producer and a politically adept Cuban-born exile leader, Colin Powell and Kevin Costner and 53 Cuban singers, dancers and musicians.

It ends, for now, in U.S. immigration computers and on the stage -- eight shows a week, mambo to reggathon -- of the Wayne Newton Theatre at the Stardust Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

And it ends, as well, with 50 members of the troupe called Havana Night Club uniting in one of the largest Cuban mass defections since Castro came to power 45 years ago, the beneficiaries of precision lobbying by supporters in Miami's Cuban community, the group's own fastidious record keeping, and an unusual reversal of the Bush administration's restrictive policy on Cuban entertainers.

One key moment: when Cuban exile leader Joe Garcia learned from the group's New York lawyer that many members wanted to defect.

Another: when the artists staged a risky public demonstration in Havana, documented by CNN.

And another: when the group's lawyer convinced the State Department that the cha-cha-cha was indeed inherently Cuban and dumped 800 pages of financial records on U.S. bureaucrats.

INDEPENDENT

''This is the first group or only group that sought to establish that they were independent of the Cuban regime, and they did it with documentary evidence,'' a U.S. State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Herald. "It was a compelling case.''

''We had to put our credibility on the line . . . ,'' said Garcia, former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, who wrote a letter to Secretary of State Powell on behalf of the group in early July and spearheaded the effort.

"These were people who were stuck, one more in the millions of victims of this regime. They asked for help.''

One of those people is Pedro Dikan, 31, a Havana Night Club singer: "When I left, me personally, I knew I wasn't coming back. I'm crazy about starting a new life.''

Several facets of the affair remain unclear, including why the Cuban government ultimately let them leave and how they orchestrated their unusual degree of common purpose, but this is what is known about the genesis and evolution of this week's defection of Havana Night Club:

17 COUNTRIES

Created six years ago by German director Nicole Durr, the group performed in 17 countries, sketching, in song and dance, Cuban nightlife from the early days of African influences through the big-band era of the 1940s and 1950s, and to the Cuban street rappers of today.

Then, last fall, came the chance they yearned for -- an invitation from Siegfried & Roy to perform at the Stardust. In Las Vegas. In the United States.

''Any singer would want to land here,'' Dikan said. "I'm Cuban. This has been a dream that I never thought I'd realize.''

U.S. BARRIERS

But the near-freeze in U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations soon created two barriers:

o Since November 2003, U.S. policy has strongly discouraged -- essentially banned -- visits by Cuban artists. The stated reason: Most of the money earned by Cuban artists who work overseas ends up in Castro's treasury.

''Our decision to prohibit performers from traveling here was based on the notion that, in effect, they are Cuban government employees and were providing resources to the regime,'' the State Department official said.

o The Castro government, apparently sensing the group's discontent and the possible defections, refused to process departure papers. Cuban officials said Havana Night Club's break with the nation's writers and artists union -- taken to demonstrate its independence -- rendered it suspicious.

DENIED VISAS

In large measure, the controversy began in January and February, when members of the group -- already well known in international entertainment circles as a class act and popular draw -- were denied U.S. visas.

''They were treated like all other performing artists were,'' the State Department official said. "The assumption was made that they were government employees and any proceeds they made here would accrue to the Cuban government.''

Cuban performers, just like Cuban architects in France or Cuban coaches in South America, normally are not paid directly by their overseas employers.

Instead, the money goes to the Cuban government and the workers receive a percentage of their earnings.

As word of the visa rejection spread, several high-profile Cuban exiles in Miami and elsewhere began applying pressure. The effort intensified after Garcia learned in late June from Pamela Falk, the group's attorney, that many members wanted to defect.

''We asked the State Department to reconsider, because we knew,'' Garcia said.

Garcia wrote the letter to Powell on June 25, and he and colleagues lobbied U.S. senators and diplomatic workers who were adhering to the hard-line ban.

ENVOY OF CASTRO?

The effort drew criticism from some who believed that Havana Night Club was just another regime-approved organization that would serve as an ambassador for Castro.

''All the right-wing folks attacked us because we were helping these supposed Communists come to America,'' Garcia said. "Even on radio they made attacks personally on me and on Dennis Hays.''

Hays, a former U.S. ambassador to Suriname, ran the Cuban American National Foundation office in Washington before he joined a lobbying firm run by Al Cárdenas, former chairman of the state Republican Party. Emilio Gonzalez, formerly with the National Security Council, also works for Cárdenas and participated in the effort.

CONNECTIONS

All are well plugged into the Bush administration and all worked their contacts on behalf of Havana Night Club.

''We knew these people couldn't defend themselves,'' Garcia said. "We've always helped, and that means doing the right thing as opposed to the popular thing.''

The group still had to overcome a policy hurdle -- proving that it was independent.

Enter Falk, an international trade attorney and professor at the City University of New York who represents the troupe.

At one point, she found herself having to convince bureaucrats that the cha-cha-cha is Cuban -- proof that the group offered something "culturally unique.''

She also hauled out 800 pages of financial records -- ''phone calls, receipts, everything,'' she said -- to prove Havana Night Club was independent.

DOCUMENTATION

It worked.

''They established the wage scales that the individuals were paid and where the funds came from, and they did not come from the Cuban regime,'' the State Department official said.

By the end of July, 46 cast members finally received U.S. visas.

(Seven others, who again were rejected because they had relatives in the United States, which clouded their motives and complicated their status, ended up in Germany and applied for parole from there into the United States. Six arrived Tuesday; the other's paperwork is still pending.)

Did the State Department know some or most of the group members were going to defect? ''They probably knew at some level,'' Garcia said.

The Cuban government apparently did, too.

The group's independence proved to be a roadblock back in Havana, where the government refused to issue the ''white cards'' required to leave the country.

PROTEST ON TV

Two days after the U.S. visas were issued, Durr was ordered out of Cuba.

In response, the troupe orchestrated a protest in front of the Ministry of Culture, captured on tape by CNN.

''The Cubans were very embarrassed by this,'' Falk said. "A protest in Cuba is just not done.''

Meanwhile, Costner -- the American actor who forged a relationship with Castro over a late-night dinner and movie in 2001 -- lobbied Cuban officials, Cárdenas said.

'Mounting public opinion in the entertainment industry was telling Castro, 'What are you doing?' '' Cárdenas said. "He finally, in the end, relented.''

NOT RETURNING

And now, 50 of the 53 are not going back.

Singer José Manuel, 38, left his family behind in Cuba.

''It's like the Cuban saying, la necesidad lo hace todo,'' necessity makes everything happen, he said. "I have my mom in Cuba, but this is my second family.

'Havana Nights' world in Cuba is over.''

Herald writer Timothy Pratt contributed to this report.

Daughter of pilot executed by Cuba wins suit

A Palmetto Bay woman was awarded nearly $87 million in a lawsuit against Fidel Castro and the Cuban government for the desecration of the body of her father, a CIA pilot during the Bay of Pigs.

By Jay Weaver. jweaver@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Nov. 19, 2004.

The daughter of a CIA pilot shot down during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and later executed by the Cuban government won an $86.5 million judgment on Thursday -- including huge punitive damages imposed against President Fidel Castro, his brother Raul and their country's army.

Janet Ray Weininger, of Palmetto Bay, was only 6 years old when her father, Thomas ''Pete'' Ray, was killed. His body was frozen, desecrated and put on display in a Havana morgue for 18 years before it was shipped back to his family.

After her court victory, Ray Weininger said she felt a deep connection to her late father and a reward of justice.

''I feel I have honored my father and stood with him,'' said Ray Weininger, a 50-year-old mother of two. "It's an incredibly good feeling. But at the same time, it's so painful I want to cry.''

Ray Weininger -- like a handful of others who also filed suits in state and federal courts in Miami -- was able to pierce the Cuban government's sovereign immunity under a 1996 law that allows victims of designated terrorist states to sue for damages. The 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act has allowed the families of Brothers to the Rescue fliers shot down by the Cuban Air Force, the jilted wife of a Cuban spy and the survivors of an American businessman executed during Cuba's revolution to challenge Castro's government in court.

In all the cases, the Cuban government has not defended itself at trial.

TROUBLE COLLECTING

Despite the legal victories, only the families of three Brothers' shootdown victims have been successful in collecting damages from seized Cuban assets held in U.S. banks. The total collection: $93 million -- only about half of the $187 million court judgment.

The families won their federal suit in 1997, but it took four years of heavy lobbying before the Treasury Department and President Clinton signed off on releasing the money.

The plaintiffs in the other two cases have not been as successful in collecting millions in damages.

''We have made great progress in collecting three [Cuban] planes,'' said attorney Fernando Zulueta.

The planes were seized after they were hijacked from Cuba and flown to the United States.

Two of the planes were sold at auction for a total of $19,000 in 2003, and the other was turned into an exile monument.

Zulueta represents Ana Margarita Martinez, the former wife of the Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque. She won $27 million in Miami Circuit Court in 2001.

Zulueta is also the lawyer for the family of Howard Anderson, who was shot by a Cuban firing squad after the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Andersons were awarded $67 million last year.

Zulueta and other lawyers are seeking to recover an estimated $100 million in frozen Cuban assets that remain in U.S. banks.

Ray Weininger's lawyers -- Spencer Eig, Joseph Zumpano and Leon Patricios -- said they plan to go after those assets or seize other Cuban properties held in the United States.

Ray Weininger's nonjury trial began Monday, when she and a few others testified about the father's death and the family's ordeal.

Pete Ray, an Alabama National Guard pilot, was flying for the CIA in the April 19, 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion when his plane was heaviliy damaged. He survived a crash landing, she testified. His plane went down near Fidel Castro's headquarters. He made it out of the plane alive, but was injured in a gun battle.

EXECUTION ORDERED

When her father was being treated by Cuban doctors for his wounds, the army carried out the orders of the Castro brothers and killed him with a single shot to his right temple, according to court evidence.

The body was kicked, spit on and displayed for political purposes during that period. Notified of his death, the Ray family was told only that he had died in the Caribbean Sea, with no other details.

Ray Weininger began her search for information as a child. But it wasn't until 1978 that Castro admitted that he had the body of a U.S. pilot killed in the 1961 invasion.

In December 1979, after the remains had been identified through dental records as those of Thomas Willard Ray, they were shipped home to the United States.

REPULSED

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ronald Dresnick, in his eight-page opinion, said he was particularly repelled by evidence detailing the Cuban officials' mistreatment of Ray's body.

''There was testimony at trial that Pete Ray's body, which was kept in a freezer in Havana, Cuba, for 18 years, was desecrated,'' Dresnick wrote.

"Eyewitness testimony established that high-ranking officials of the Cuban government would routinely remove Pete Ray's body from the freezer to mock it and to place their feet on top of his face.''

Dresnick awarded Ray Weininger $65 million in punitive damages and another $18 million as compensatory damages for pain and suffering. He also awarded more than $3.5 million to her father's estate, for which she is the representative.

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