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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Cuban women protest and get results
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, Oct. 15, 2004.
WASHINGTON - At first, Bertha Soler Fernández
prayed for the release of her husband and
74 other Cuban dissidents jailed during
an island-wide crackdown last year. Then
she pleaded to have her husband transferred
to a Havana facility that could provide
medical attention.
Frustrated by the government's inaction,
Soler packed food and water, marched to
Havana's Revolution Plaza -- the centerpiece
of Cuba's communist landscape -- and vowed
not to move until Angel Moya Acosta got
what he needed.
The protest, joined by other wives in the
same predicament, ended 41 hours later when
state security cleared the park. But the
bold action prompted a medical procedure
for the prisoner and set a precedent for
civil disobedience in Cuba that has empowered
a group of ''Women in White,'' whose peaceful
resistance has managed to make strides in
the struggle for human rights, experts said.
''One thing they've been smart about is
that they're asking for specific things
the Cuban government can give,'' said Uva
de Aragón, assistant director at
Florida International University's Cuban
Research Institute. "If you start winning
small battles, then you become a force to
be reckoned with.''
Moya, a human rights activist, underwent
surgery for a herniated disc Wednesday and
was recovering in a prison medical ward
in Havana with his wife at his bedside.
REACHED GOAL
''The objective was reached,'' protest
participant Laura Pollán told The
Herald in a telephone interview from Havana.
"We didn't expect it to be resolved
so quickly, but they saw that we were determined
to stay at the plaza as long as necessary.
''We were afraid to stage an act of this
magnitude, but much stronger was our desire
and conviction for what we were doing,''
said Pollán, 56, wife of jailed independent
journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez,
60. "Today, the person at risk was
Moya. But tomorrow it could be the husband
of any one of us.''
The women say they have no political agenda.
''We are a peaceful group, a group of women
who are not at all political,'' said Beatriz
Pedroso, 52, whose 60-year-old husband,
independent journalist Julio César
Gálvez, is imprisoned. "But
all these arrests have forced us to step
forward to defend our families.
''What [Soler] did was very brave. The
fact that she was able to get her husband
transferred was a grand success,'' Pedroso
said.
The dissident movement in Cuba has had
little success in bringing about democratic
change.
But peaceful marches, candlelight vigils
and letters by the Women in White to government
officials, including Fidel Castro, have
received international attention and led
to the release in June of six of the 75
government opponents who had become gravely
ill.
Experts said the women's determination
has offered a platform for others trying
to obtain concessions.
''These women have tied the hands of the
repressive apparatus,'' said Ileana Fuentes,
president of Red Feminista Cubana, a Miami-based
organization committed to helping women
in Cuba become part of civil society. "They
have, in effect, conducted the ultimate
confrontation with the seat of power. They
have overcome the mother of all fears.''
TACTICAL MOVE
The women deliberately chose the plaza
for their protest because the site houses
the government's Council of State, the head
of government bureaucracy.
''What better place to protest than right
in front of them? We had to do something
to get a response,'' Pollán said.
"We have no preference for ideology,
political or religious tendencies. What
unites us is the pain from injustice, the
pain of having our husbands taken away from
us.''
Cuba experts said it is too soon to tell
whether the Women in White will evolve into
a major opposition movement, but the women
have demonstrated that some objectives can
be achieved even under a totalitarian regime.
''It would be very hard for the Cuban government
to use a violent way to repress them,''
de Aragón said. "There are certain
codes of conduct with women in Cuba, and
in most of the world, because the forces
of power are generally in the hands of men.
Women, if smart enough, can use their supposed
weaknesses to become stronger.''
In letters addressed to Castro this week,
two other wives pleaded for amnesty for
husbands with deteriorating health: ''Mr.
President, the solution is in your hands,
only immediate liberty could lead to the
recuperation of some of my husband's health,''
wrote Yamilé de los Angeles Llanes,
wife of José Luis García Paneque,
39, a physician and independent journalist.
She told Agence France-Press in Havana
that if there was no response to her letter
"the only solution we'll be left with
is to return to the plaza and wait.''
Cuban official fired, blamed for energy
woes
A Cuban official who
had been viewed as a possible successor
to President Fidel Castro was fired and
blamed for an energy crisis on the island.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, Oct. 15, 2004.
WASHINGTON - A prominent Havana official,
who was viewed as a possible successor to
Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was removed from
his ministerial post for what the government
called inefficiencies that led to a crippling
energy crisis.
But observers said Marcos Portal León's
dismissal as minister of basic industries
Thursday was more likely intended to bury
any notion that a replacement for Castro
exists while also providing a scapegoat
for an electricity shortfall. Cubans now
endure daily hours-long power outages.
''He must have heard himself mentioned
as a possible successor, started to act
as though it was a done deal, and blew it,''
said Jorge Domínguez, a Harvard University
Cuba expert. "His dismissal is a pretty
big deal. This guy was really a very effective
minister who had also risen politically.''
Adding to the drama is Portal's personal
ties to the Castro family. He is married
to the niece of Castro's younger brother
Raúl, the designated successor.
''He was a protégé to Raúl,''
said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University
of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies. "This demonstrates Fidel's
power and another move toward more centralization
of power.''
The government statement lambasted Portal
for ''strong tendencies toward self-sufficiency
and underestimating the opinions of other
experienced colleagues'' and for "not
being capable . . . of warning the top leaders
of the [Communist] Party and the State about
the risks of an entirely preventable [energy]
crisis.''
Portal, 59, was named minister in 1983.
The announcement did not indicate if he
would still serve in the government. Efforts
to reach Cuban officials in Washington were
unsuccessful.
Portal will be replaced by Yadira García
Vera, a Communist Party leader with a chemical
engineering degree.
Justices hear arguments over Cubans'
indefinite detentions
In the case of two Mariel
refugees, the Supreme Court wrestles with
the detentions of unwanted immigrants.
By Stephen Henderson, shenderson@krwashington.com.
Posted on Thu, Oct. 14, 2004.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court debated
Wednesday the fate of two Cubans who are
scheduled for deportation, aren't welcome
back in their native land and exist in a
state of indefinite detention in America
that wouldn't be legal for other immigrants
or citizens.
Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler
told the justices that that is just as it
should be because the nation's need to protect
its borders requires that some foreign nationals
be treated as if they have no due-process
rights.
Advocates for the two Cubans said the government's
behavior was unconstitutional, and they
urged the justices to apply their ruling
barring indefinite detentions to the refugees.
The two were part of the 1980 Mariel boatlift,
in which 125,000 Cubans were welcomed to
the United States by President Jimmy Carter
as a humanitarian gesture.
'OTHER WAYS'
''The government has other ways to control
the borders without doing this,'' said John
Mills, an attorney for Daniel Benítez,
a Mariel Cuban who remains in federal custody
even though he has served his time for an
armed robbery. "If we can jail people
indefinitely in this country, Congress should
have to empower that specifically.''
Kneedler told the justices that it was
a matter of executive discretion. The detainees
have ''no vested right to due process,''
he said.
Benítez recently was moved to a
halfway house in Miami from a federal facility
near Denver but remains under the supervision
of the Bureau of Prisons. However, he has
been allowed to look for a job and is scheduled
to begin work as an electrician's assistant
today, according to Emilio de la Cal, a
Miami lawyer whose wife is a cousin of Benítez.
Benítez and Sergio Suarez Martínez,
who was convicted of sexual assault, have
challenged the government's right to keep
them in custody indefinitely.
CUBA WON'T TAKE THEM
Both have been convicted of crimes since
they got here, served time and face deportation.
But Cuba won't take them back, raising questions
about their legal status here.
The U.S. government says that because they
were granted immigration parole in 1980,
not legal admittance to the country, they
can be treated as immigrants who are arriving
for the first time at our shores. They have
no rights under the Constitution and can
be detained if Cuba won't accept them.
Benítez and Martínez say
they should be treated like other deportees,
who the high court ruled in 2001 cannot
be held more than six months after they
are ordered out of the country.
RAMIFICATIONS HUGE
The court's decision in this case will
have a profound effect on the Mariels who,
like Benítez and Martínez,
have committed crimes. The court could craft
an opinion that controls only their destinies,
but more likely will issue a broader ruling
about the status of all immigrants in their
position. The decision almost certainly
will have an effect on the Bush administration's
war on terrorism, which emphasizes more
border patrol and detentions of aliens deemed
to be threats.
The justices didn't present a united front
on either side Wednesday, but several expressed
skepticism about the government's position.
"You have no right to detain someone
indefinitely who snuck in illegally, but
somehow you do for someone who is here legally?''Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked.
Justice David Souter wondered about the
''fiction'' of pretending that the Mariel
Cubans, who've been here for nearly a quarter-century,
have no more rights than immigrants showing
up at the border right now.
TRULY 'NO' RIGHTS?
Justice John Paul Stevens asked how far
the government would carry the ''no rights''
argument.
''Can we kill them?'' he asked Kneedler,
suggesting through hyperbole that the argument
had to have some limits. It was a question
similar to one he asked last spring during
arguments over unchecked government detentions
of U.S. citizens and foreigners in the war
on terrorism.
In those cases, which could influence the
court's rulings in the Mariel cases, justices
curbed the Bush administration's power.
Mills, the Jacksonville attorney who argued
Benítez's case, told The Herald after
the hearing he was optimistic the justices
would rule for his client.
''The justices had a lot of difficulty
with the idea that a statute that treats
everybody the same on its face could be
interpreted more harshly for a Mariel Cuban,''
he said.
Herald Staff Writer Alfonso Chardy contributed
to this report.
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