CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Dissident mourns exodus of ideas

A newly arrived Cuban dissident said the popularity of the Castro government is dwindling, but the island is suffering from 'an abandonment of thought.'

By Wilfredo Cancio Isla, El Nuevo Herald. Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005.

A growing number of Cubans who don't belong to dissident groups are rejecting Fidel Castro's government, says the first member of the so-called Group of 75 to arrive in the United States.

''There is a strong underground social dissidence that has many ways of confronting the regime -- people who look for independent spaces . . . and whose rejection is shown in indifference to the political discourse,'' dissident Manuel Vazquez Portal told El Nuevo Herald after arriving in Miami this week.

Vazquez Portal, 54, was among 75 independent journalists and political dissidents who were arrested in March 2003, provoking an international outcry. Accused of collaborating with U.S. diplomats in Havana, they were convicted of treason and sentenced to prison terms averaging 20 years in the largest crackdown on dissident in recent history.

Vazquez Portal was sentenced to 18 years but was among 14 prisoners released on medical parole last year (he suffers from emphysema). He arrived in the United States on Tuesday night with his wife and their 11-year-old son.

Independent journalist and poet Raul Rivero, among the most prominent of the prisoners, left Cuba for Spain in April.

''The departure of Vazquez Portal leaves everyone here more unprotected,'' said Laura Pollan, head of the Women in White movement, an organization of spouses of political prisoners that itself has become a dissident group. She is the wife of political prisoner Hector Maseda.

Vazquez Portal, she said, "just left and I already feel that I am missing him.''

CUBA ON HIS MIND

Vazquez Portal said there is plenty of reason to worry about Cuba.

''There is a large percentage of indifference in all sectors of society,'' he said. "I leave behind a country that is devastated economically and spiritually, where the slow and continuous exodus of professionals and intellectuals has caused a brain drain on the island.''

Journalist and poet, Vazquez Portal decided to abandon his post in Pionero, a state-owned weekly, in 1989 because he was uncomfortable with the political situation in the country.

In 1995, he became involved in independent journalism and two years later founded the Group of Work Decency, which functioned as an alternative news agency and what he called a creative space "without doctrinal intoxications.''

In November, he was given permission to leave Cuba after denouncing the Castro government's obstacles to emigration.

''I took the road of the Jews, because in Cuba my presence was useless, having to keep silent in order to not go back to prison,'' he said.

NEW HOME BASE?

Punctuating his words with emphatic gestures, Vazquez Portal said he is thinking about staying in Miami, where he will work for CubaNet, an agency devoted to spreading the work of independent Cuban journalists.

Among his immediate projects is the publication of Written Without Permission: Reports from the Cell, a 400-page compilation of his prison diaries, poetry, letters from his wife and testimonies from his days in prison in Santiago, Cuba.

Vazquez Portal said the arrest of the 75 opposition leaders in 2003 can be considered ''a punch, but not a knockout'' for Cuba's dissident movement.

''Political dissidence and independent journalism have begun to absorb the punch and are coming out stronger, as the Women of White movement and the [May] meeting of the Assembly to Promote a Civil Society shows,'' he said. That Havana meeting was the first open convention of dissidents under Castro.

''There is a belief that you can continue to fight even from prison and that the fight against dictatorship is a type of relay race,'' he said.

Images of Cuba put island show in hot water

A CD featuring Havana Night Club has been taken off the market after a West Kendall woman complained about a video she viewed as pro-Castro.

By Lydia Martin. lmartin@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun. 11, 2005.

Producers of Havana Night Club, the Las Vegas show featuring a cast of Cuban defectors, have yanked a CD of the show's music because it riled a West Kendall woman who said a video on it promotes tourism to Cuba.

The CD, titled Energy & Passion, also provided a link to a website that led to information on hotel bargains in Cuba and how to circumvent U.S. travel restrictions to the island.

''I felt used, and mocked,'' said Dinorah Rangel, 60. She began to fire off e-mails to acquaintances, and word got back to the producers of the show. In response, the producers stopped selling the CD -- which were marketed at their shows -- and released a statement saying, "The offending material will be removed from any future production/pressings of . . . Energy & Passion. Havana Night Club, its companies and cast are committed to artistic freedom and liberty and apologize to anyone that this misunderstanding may have offended.''

PAST DISPUTES

The episode evoked memories of past South Florida disputes involving performers whose independence from the Cuban government was questioned in the exile community.

In applying for a United States visa, Havana Night Club supplied voluminous documents asserting its independence.

Rangel, an administrative assistant from West Kendall, paid $20 for the CD while attending the group's May 27 performance at the University of Miami, one of three that played to sold-out crowds in South Florida.

''I went from link to link and there was everything from information on how to travel to Cuba through Canada to anti-American propaganda about Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo,'' Rangel said.

Rangel shot off a passionate e-mail to friends, who forwarded it to other friends, who sent the e-mail to Cuban Americans all over the country.

The statement from the producers said the music video on the CD, a remake of a prerevolutionary ditty, Conozca a Cuba Primero (Get to Know Cuba First), "was not intended to promote or encourage travel to Cuba.''

The song originally promoted domestic tourism to Cubans who in pre-1959 might have hopped ships and planes to foreign destinations without seeing the rest of their homeland first. The music video on the CD features cast members showing a tourist all the sights.

''The CD was produced in 2000, prior to any plans for a United States tour,'' the statement said.

Although producers declined to speak directly to The Herald, their written statement says the parent companies of the show stopped controlling content of the website in question, www.cubaximo.com, in August 2004. It's unclear who now owns it.

Even before this latest flap, some exiles questioned whether Havana Night Club always operated independently of the government.

While based in Havana, the troupe was allowed to tour the world giving performances -- a privilege usually accorded only performers aligned with Fidel Castro.

''I saw the CD. And my immediate reaction was probably similar to many people in Miami,'' said Dennis Hays, a former State Department official who once headed the Cuba desk.

''But they explained that they made that CD a long time ago when they were based in Havana,'' said Hays, who as managing director of the law firm Tew Cardenas lobbied to get the Havana Night Club cast into the United States.

Alfredo Mesa, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, which helped the cast defect, says they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

''Some of the best talent from Cuba that we celebrate today had to live under the system at some point and work under the system,'' said Mesa. "At the end of the day, they are a group that fought for their freedom and that's what matters.''

The story still doesn't sit right with some Miamians.

''When I left there, I was furious,'' said Carlos Coto, a real estate broker who attended a Miami show.

"It was surprising to me how much they used the colors red and black, and the red star, which is symbolic of Che Guevara. There were even camouflage costumes at the beginning. The iconography was completely Fidel Castro.''

IMAGERY EXPLAINED

In a second statement, producers explained the imagery:

"The show is a journey through the history of the Cuban culture. . . . In the Afro-Cuban religion, the god of destiny is Ellegua, the traditional colors used to represent him are black and red. The words liberty, dream, freedom, passion, love and life are spray panted in red in the scene Ritmo de la Noche followed by a red star, which explodes into tiny pieces, symbolizing the destruction of communism.''

Said Mesa of CANF:

"I was just at a Heat game. Everybody was in red. Does that mean everybody in the arena was a communist? We are beyond that kind of thinking in Miami.''

Report links Posada to bombing

A CIA document released by a private archive quoted Luis Posada Carriles as saying plans were underway for the bombing of a Cuba airplane.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005.

Four days before anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles is scheduled to appear before an immigration court in Texas, the private National Security Archive posted a declassified CIA document from 1976 that quotes Posada as saying, "We are going to hit a Cuban airplane.''

The source of that information is not known, although it is described as ''a former Venezuelan government official'' who is "usually a reliable reporter.''

SPYING ON EXILES

The new documents also suggest that Posada was spying on Cuban exiles for the CIA. One 1976 memo from the CIA to the FBI said, "Posada also was used as a source of information on Cuban exile activities.''

The once-secret documents are the latest twist in the Posada case, which will be detailed in immigration hearings next week.

Posada is asking the U.S. government to grant him political asylum, arguing that Cuban government agents want to kill him.

Posada has repeatedly denied any involvement in the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976 that killed 73 people.

Venezuelan courts acquitted him twice in that case, but he said he escaped from prison while prosecutors appealed.

Posada sneaked into the United States in late March and was detained last month by immigration authorities outside a house in Southwest Miami-Dade, where he had been living.

Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto, could not be reached for comment Thursday night. Soto has previously said that his client was not involved in any terrorism, wants to live peacefully in Miami and is being unfairly maligned by the Cuban government and its backers.

The declassified papers were posted Thursday by the National Security Archive, a private, not-for-profit repository of declassified government records, its website says.

The archive has released scores of documents since word first spread that Posada may be here.

BONAO MEETING

The papers also give more details about a 1976 meeting in the Dominican Republic town of Bonao, believed by many in the intelligence community to be where a wave of anti-Castro attacks were planned for the following months, including the airliner bombing.

At Bonao, according to a June 1976 FBI document, militant exiles, headed by Orlando Bosch, formed an umbrella group called CORU, a Spanish acronym for United Revolutionary Command. Bosch told The Herald recently that Posada was at Bonao with him at least one night.

An unidentified source quoted one CORU member as claiming that CORU was responsible for the airliner bombing, a once-confidential FBI document says.

The member 'stated that as far as he was concerned, this bombing and the resulting deaths were fully justified because CORU was 'at war' with the Fidel Castro regime.''

The five exile organizations that comprised CORU, according to the documents, were: Accion Cubana, Cuban National Liberation Front; Cuban Nationalist Movement, Brigade 2506; and 17th of April Movement.

''These groups agreed to jointly participate in the planning, financing and carrying out of terrorist operations and attacks against Cuba,'' one FBI document states.

The 1976 CIA memo said Bosch was in Venezuela in the weeks leading up to the jetliner bombing "under the protection of Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez.''

Soon after Bosch's arrival in Caracas, where he was helped by Posada, a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser was held for him by Hildo Folgar, a prominent surgeon and Cuban exile. Posada attended the fundraiser, according to the CIA document.

Bosch was also acquitted in the airliner attack and was eventually freed from a Venezuelan prison. He lives in Miami and could not be reached for comment.

SOME UNHAPPY

But not all the members of CORU celebrated the jetliner bombing, according to the papers.

'The bombing of the DC-8 has caused some serious debates within CORU, and it is now apparent that at least one of the member 'action groups' will withdraw from CORU,'' the October 1976 document states. The information came from "a confidential source who has furnished reliable information in the past.''

The documents released also claim that in the mid-1960s, Posada supposedly helped a group trying to overthrow the Guatemalan government -- while telling on his colleagues in that case and others: "Posada reported to the agency and later to the FBI on his involvement in and activities of this group, and subsequent other Cuban exile activist organizations with which he became affiliated.''

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4 migrants who fled Cuba in taxicab-boat can stay

Of the 14 Cubans intercepted at sea in a vintage taxi, four were cleared to stay in the United States because it appeared they had valid immigration papers.

From Herald Wire Services. Posted on Sat, Jun. 11, 2005.

Four of the 14 Cubans intercepted at sea aboard a vintage taxi converted into a boat this week have been permitted to stay in the United States because they have valid immigration documents, but the others will be repatriated to Cuba, U.S. officials said.

Rafael Diaz Rey, the mechanic who built the blue, 1948 Mercury taxi-boat, his wife and their two children appear to have legitimate U.S. documents that would permit them to stay in this country, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

Diaz and his family were being sent first to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so their identities can be verified.

''It was a very difficult situation for us and for them and for the U.S. government,'' said Ramón Sául Sánchez, the head of the exile group Democracy Movemement, on Friday.

"A family reunited. Unfortunately, the rest of the people go back to a dictatorship.''

An attorney for Democracy Movement, which lobbied for the migrants, said Diaz and his family last year won the documents in an annual lottery in Cuba for legal travel to the United States. But the communist government of Fidel Castro refused to let the family leave, said the attorney, Wilfredo Allen.

''It was the Cuban government's refusal to let them go that drove them to commit this act,'' Allen said. "They had to act before the documents expired.''

After interviewing the remaining 10 migrants aboard the Coast Guard cutter Decisive, Homeland Security Department officials concluded they had no reasonable fear of being persecuted if they were repatriated to Cuba, according to documents filed in federal court.

Older exiles back Posada

A recent poll shows that a solid majority of Cuban exiles believe Luis Posada Carriles is a patriot, but only 47 percent of younger exiles view him favorably.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun. 11, 2005.

Cuban exiles are split along generational lines in their opinions about Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles, a recent poll shows.

Older Cuban exiles tend to feel strongly that Posada is a patriot who should be given asylum in the United States. Younger exiles are much more likely to think Posada is a terrorist and have a negative opinion of him.

Posada, who sneaked into the United States in late March and is now in custody on immigration charges, is suspected in several acts of anti-Castro terrorism over the last 40 years.

In Venezuela, he was acquitted twice of involvement in a 1976 Cuban airliner bombing that killed 73 people. He escaped a Venezuelan prison while prosecutors were appealing the acquittals. In Havana, Posada has been blamed for tourist site bombings that killed an Italian and wounded six in 1997.

The poll, conducted by Coral Gables-based Bendixen & Associates, gives an idea of where sentiments on Posada lie in the politically sensitive Cuban-American community. Sergio Bendixen said he funded the poll.

''Cuban exiles feel that when Posada was committing all of these acts of violence, that was the strategy then and he was following orders from the CIA,'' Bendixen said. "And they don't think it's fair to punish him now because the strategy has changed.''

According to the poll, 65 percent of Cuban exiles have a positive opinion of Posada. Exiles over 50 are much more likely to feel that way.

Less than half of exiles under 50, or about 47 percent, have a positive opinion of Posada; 75 percent of exiles 50 or older view him in a positive light. Altogether, 61 percent of exiles feel that he is a patriot instead of a terrorist.

Bendixen questioned 300 Cuban exiles living in Miami-Dade and Broward from May 12-23. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points. Sixty-four percent of those interviewed for the poll were 50 years or older, a group of exiles shown in previous polls to be more hard-line in how to deal with Fidel Castro's dictatorship than younger exiles. U.S.-born Cuban Americans were not included in the poll.

Cuban Americans have eschewed protests such as the ones that rocked Miami during the Elián González saga. And some 68 percent of those surveyed tend to feel that the transition toward democracy in Cuba should be peaceful instead of violent. Only 26 percent of exiles polled preferred a transition by force.

Bendixen's analysis: "Cuban exiles felt Posada was doing the right thing when he was doing it. But they wouldn't support him doing it now.''

Posada obviously stirs conflicting emotions.

Virginia Pérez, 68, feels that if he participated in blowing up the jetliner, he is a terrorist who should be brought to justice. ''But if they prove that he's not a terrorist, then he's a patriot,'' she said.

To Julio Castañeda, Posada is an enigma.

''There is not black and white here on whether he is a terrorist,'' Castañeda said. "It's a gray area. I think he is a warrior for the cause of Cuba. But I don't like the words patriot or terrorist.''

Rebecca Martínez, 47, a teacher who came from Cuba in 1989, believes Posada played a role in the jetliner bombing despite his acquittals. Cuba's fencing team was on the plane.

''When that happened with the plane I was a student at the University of Havana, and I was just 17,'' Martínez said. "I think he's a terrorist. Terrorism is the same here as wherever. If he had done things against Fidel or the other people in power in Cuba, fine, but not to kids who had nothing to do with politics.''

Posada is set to appear in immigration court Monday in El Paso, where he has been held since federal authorities detained him last month in Southwest Miami-Dade.

Castro con awaits a jail term

A federal judge today will decide how long a Cuban con man should spend behind bars for duping dozens in an elaborate scheme to cash in on anti-Castro sentiment.

By Jay Weaver. jweaver@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005.

He conned a cast of Cuban exiles, lawyers and bankers in an only-in-Miami scam to bring into the United States billions of dollars supposedly stolen from Fidel Castro's government.

But the con game masterminded by Roberto Martin, who arrived in South Florida from Cuba on a raft in 1994, comes to an end today in a federal courtroom in Miami.

Unless he fakes another heart attack, Martin, 35, will be sentenced today to up to a decade in prison.

Martin, posing as a CIA operative, sweet-talked people into believing that he was a former Cuban intelligence officer who skimmed money from Castro's government and moved upward of $20 billion to Swiss bank accounts.

Working with a colleague who impersonated a real Secret Service agent, Martin convinced an entourage of exiles and others that he had official U.S. government support for his plan to move Castro's money -- and that he could make them rich with their up-front financial assistance.

Eager to help, they all got burned.

''First of all, it was clear my client was lying to me,'' Miami lawyer Christopher Rundle, who represented Martin in his business affairs in 2003, testified in court last summer.

"Secondly, it was clear I had evidence that my client was not who he claimed to be. Thirdly, it was clear he was making representations about third parties that were clearly not true, including their roles in the government.''

Rundle, the ex-husband of Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, did not want to talk about his former client. ''It's something that's a closed book,'' Rundle said Wednesday from his home in Vermont. He received immunity from federal prosecutors.

Martin, who pleaded guilty to mail fraud and other charges last fall, fleeced upward of $1 million from investors, lawyers and others who assisted him, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Clark.

Currently out on bail, Martin missed his initial sentencing last month after he admitted himself to Palmetto General Hospital, complaining of chest pains. The hospital discharged him because he was not ill.

Martin and his criminal defense attorney, Anthony Natale, could not be reached Thursday.

OUTLAW LIFE

Martin has led a scofflaw's life since he came ashore in 1994. No sooner having arrived, he posed as a salesman for Mayor's Jeweler and talked dozens of Cuban immigrants into investing in raw gold bullion to be manufacturered into jewelry -- promising huge returns.

Martin never paid them, bouncing checks from his parents' bank account. When confronted by angry victims, he sought protection in a local hospital, claiming chest pains.

At the same time, Martin assumed a new identity: the spy around town.

In April 1996, he dropped in at the offices of the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami to announce his mission in Miami: Kill Jorge Mas Canosa, then CANF chairman, President Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernandez and Ninoska Perez Castellon, the group's then spokesman. He claimed he was supposed to blow up the foundation's headquarters with a van packed with explosives.

Then-Miami Police Chief Donald Warshaw told reporters that he suspected Martin was a spy.

Perez said the foundation, at first, believed Martin's cloak-and-dagger tales because he seemed to have bona fide intelligence contacts in Cuba.

But after Martin was charged by the state attorney's office in the gold-jewelry scheme, his cover was blown.

''As soon as his face was in the newspapers, people started calling the foundation saying he had swindled them,'' Perez said Thursday. "He was a thief conning people for small amounts of money.''

In August 1997, Martin pleaded guilty to state fraud charges and received 10 years of probation.

But that didn't stop the crafty con man.

According to court records, Martin launched his most beguiling scam: Duping Cuban exiles to finance his plan to move billions of dollars that he said he ripped off from Castro's government and wanted to funnel to the United States. He claimed the money came from the Cuban president's alleged drug deals with traffickers.

With their financial assistance, they stood to make millions. One investor gave Martin $384,375; another gave him $180,000.

Martin, acting as a CIA operative, enlisted the aide of a co-conspirator, Christopher Johnson, of Hialeah, who impersonated a Secret Service agent.

A Miami divorce lawyer referred Martin to attorney Rundle and another lawyer who specialized in estate planning.

Martin himself allegedly forged Justice Department and National Security Council documents in which the U.S. Supreme Court designated Rundle as an ''independent federal prosecutor'' to represent Martin exclusively. Then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice's name was misspelled on one of the documents.

Rundle later represented himself as a federal prosecutor to Martin's investors and others at meetings in Washington and New York.

Meanwhile, Rundle and another Miami lawyer helped Martin set up bank accounts for investors at Salomon Smith Barney. Rundle received $20,000 in legal fees -- though he was promised millions for his services. ''He offered to pay me $2 million a year as an annual retainer,'' Rundle testified at a federal court hearing last summer.

PRIVATE CONCERNS

Rundle, privately, questioned Martin's truthfulness and whether he was becoming an ''unwitting'' participant in a crime.

When Rundle confronted him in his Miami office, Martin feigned another heart problem and admitted himself to a hospital.

Rundle started talking with federal prosecutors and agents in fall 2003.

Meanwhile, Martin was still strutting around town, now posing as a philanthropist. He was featured in a local Hispanic magazine and cable TV talk show.

He even offered to donate $1 million a year to La Liga Contra el Cancer, a nonprofit group for needy cancer patients.

The group's board of directors hosted a luncheon for him at its headquarters, where he was to deliver the first check. Martin never showed.

He later called Millie Garcia-Navarro, a volunteer and an aide to U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, telling her that he was in the hospital suffering from a heart problem. She never heard from him again.

''As long as I live, I will never forget that man,'' Garcia-Navarro said Thursday.

"He is the most disgraceful man I've ever known. . . . What kind of human being would play with an organization that saves lives. For what he did to La Liga, he should be given 100 years in prison.''

Let 'truckonauts' stay, group asks U.S. court

The latest Cuban 'truckonauts' stopped in the waters off the Keys have an exile group lobbying for their release.

By David Ovalle, dovalle@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Jun. 09, 2005.

Lawyers for a Cuban exile group went to federal court Wednesday to prevent the U.S. Coast Guard from repatriating 13 people stopped off the Keys in a watercraft fashioned from a 1948 Mercury taxi.

Four of the migrants taken into custody hold valid visas from the U.S. government, but Cuba had refused to allow them to leave the island, said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, head of the Democracy Movement in Miami.

The rest, if repatriated to Cuba, face persecution, he said.

Under U.S. policy, most Cubans who make it to U.S. soil are allowed to stay, while most nabbed at sea are returned to Cuba.

''After they have risked so much and have persevered so much to seek freedom in this country, it would be an injustice to deny them the possibility,'' Sánchez said.

The emergency motion was filed in federal court in Miami. A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman declined to comment on the case.

The 13 migrants were picked up just south of Summerland Key in the Lower Keys. It was the third time in recent years that a group of Cubans tried to make it to the United States aboard an improvised automobile boat.

The original ''truckonauts'' drew international media attention in July 2003 when they were stopped in a 1951 Chevy truck. The brain behind the original attempt, Luis Grass, has since made it to Miami after being resettled in Costa Rica.

Sanchez said among the migrants on this latest trip is a doctor named Nivia Valdez Galvez. She was given a U.S. visa last year, but was not allowed to leave because the Cuban government requires five years of service for medical personnel. Her son, Pablo Alonso Valdez, 16, was prohibited from leaving because he is nearing the age to serve in the Cuban military, Sanchez said.

Also accompanying Galvez: her husband, Rafael Diaz Rey and her other son, David Valdez, 11.

The Democracy Movement championed the case of Grass, the original truckonaut, last year after he and others -- riding in a 1959 Buick sedan -- were caught in a second attempt.

A federal judge ordered the Grass family to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Because of the worldwide media attention, he argued he faced a ''credible fear'' of persecution if he returned to the island.

In December, the U.S. and Costa Rica struck a deal, allowing the Grass family and a dozen others to live in San Jose. Grass later made it to the U.S. through Mexico.

A family member in Cuba told The Associated Press it was Diaz Rey's third attempt to cross on a car rigged as a boat. ''I hope they let them stay,'' said Marisela Rodriguez, his cousin.

Diaz Rey tried to cross in a 1947 Buick a decade ago but the vehicle had electrical problems. He tried again on the Buick sedan last year.

Many foreign investors being booted out of Cuba

Foreign business partners are being squeezed out of Cuba, which is turning to countries such as Venezuela and China.

By Marc Frank, Financial Times. Posted on Tue, Jun. 07, 2005.

It has been more than a decade since Cuba, suffering from a post-Soviet economic collapse and jitters about the United States, opened its door to foreign businesses.

Now many investors -- mainly European -- who took the plunge are being asked to leave.

Only half the homes rented to expatriates by the state's real-estate monopoly are now occupied, and at the Havana International School enrollment is down about a third from two years ago and falling.

On average, one joint venture and two smaller cooperative production ventures have closed each week since 2002, when there were 700 in the country.

Joint ventures are with state partners, who usually hold 50 percent or more of shares. Cooperative production agreements involve a foreign investor who supplies machinery, credits and supplies in exchange for a share of profit or a product, mainly in labor-intensive sectors such as light industry, the mechanical industry and food processing.

''I would not be surprised if in the end there are only around 50 joint ventures in the country and just a handful of cooperative production agreements,'' said an employee at the Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Ministry.

Relations with the European Union and other Western nations remain tense because of President Fidel Castro's repression of dissent, and Cuba is increasingly turning toward countries like such as China and Venezuela, which it sees as being less influenced by the United States.

Yet the purge appears to be related less to these factors than to recentralizing finance and trade and eliminating the partial autonomy that state concerns were granted in the 1990s.

READJUSTMENTS

''Changes over the last two years are introducing significant corrections in the Cuban economy, considerably limiting the action of market mechanisms,'' José Luis Rodríguez, economy and planning minister, told local economists last month.

Cuba is now interested in partnering only with well-known companies in strategic sectors of the economy, said Marta Lomas, foreign investment and economic cooperation minister.

Big concerns, at times operating through subsidiaries, are holding their own and include Nestle (bottled water and other consumer goods), the Spanish-French tobacco company Altaldis (cigars), Pernod Ricard (rum) and Bouygues (construction), both of France , Telecom Italia (telecommunications), NV Interbrew of Belgium (beer), Sherritt International of Canada (nickel, oil, gas and power), British-American Tobacco (cigarettes) and Sol Meliá of Spain (tourism).

European investors whose joint ventures are liquidating complain of endless haggling with state companies and ministry officials over how and when their share of investments will be paid, and the often millions of dollars they are owed for financing operating costs.

MONEY OWED

''If they want me to leave, OK, I'm a guest in their house. But what I can't accept is simply being booted out of here with no solid guarantee I will ever get my money back,'' said a Spanish businessman operating in Cuba since the early 1990s who is negotiating what he calls "the best possible bad bargain.''

Another company representative in a similar situation terms his Cuban partners' behavior "outrageous.''

''I have gone through endless meetings for more than a year with no result in terms of recovering our investment. They are trying to wear me down,'' he said, asking like others to remain anonymous for fear of making matters worse.

European diplomats say the Cubans are usually within their rights in ending business relationships but often do so with little explanation and with only the dubious promise that they will some day pay money owed foreign partners.

''What you have here is renationalization without compensation,'' one European commercial representative said.

Some companies are fighting in domestic courts, while others are considering international arbitration.

They are pessimistic, however, about being paid if they win.

Cuban officials did not respond to requests for interviews.

Castro has criticized investors several times this year for arranging exclusive supply contracts for their own ventures. He has also said foreign traders enjoy profit margins of up to 40 percent.

One joint venture established a decade ago is being liquidated in spite of a 20-year contract.

It has always had a loss in its main business operations but managed to scrape out a profit by charging fees for labor, utilities and other services, the foreign investor in the company said.

''I do not understand their problem. The Cubans seem not to fathom win-win situations. For them it is a zero-sum game. They think anything you make should be theirs,'' the investor said.

The companies have little choice but to take a loss in equipment, warehoused products, personnel training and other costs built up over the years. Cuban law states they must sell what they have back to the government, which pays little, or to other foreigners, of whom there are fewer and fewer, or take what they have with them.

Alabama summit focuses on trade

A conference in Mobile, Ala., dealing with Cuba focuses on issues ranging from farm imports to young Elián González.

By Garry Mitchell, Associated Press. Posted on Tue, Jun. 07, 2005.

MOBILE, Ala. - Some lively dialogue about U.S. policy on Cuba is expected as farm exports from the Southeast take the spotlight at a two-day conference in Alabama's port city, chosen for the session because of its ''sister city'' cultural and shipping links to Havana.

The fourth National Summit on Cuba, to be held Friday and Saturday, is sponsored by the World Policy Institute based at the New School University in New York. Previous summits have drawn up to 350 participants.

''We are creating a forum for an intelligent and balanced discussion of U.S.-Cuba relations,'' said summit spokeswoman Lissa Weinmann, a researcher at the institute. She said the agenda for the meeting is "wide-ranging, but the focus is on trade.''

Some Cuban officials, who cannot attend, are expected to participate by phone or possible video hookup and answer various questions from the audience.

Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks is one of the 40 speakers, including other trade counterparts from states on the Gulf of Mexico. Sparks has made five trips to Havana since taking office in 2000.

''We're very proud of the relationship we've been able to build,'' Sparks said.

Trade with Cuba is profitable for Alabama farmers, he said, citing sales of poultry, soybeans, wood and cotton products.

Sparks said he has respect for the Bush administration, but he's critical of trade sanctions on Cuba in effect since 1963.

The government has attempted to isolate the communist island economically and deprive it of dollars, according to a U.S. Treasury Department publication.

Economic studies indicate Southern states took the hardest hit from the embargo, Weinmann says. The Mississippi Delta rice business, for example, lost some $150 million annually.

Sparks is among critics of the administration's rule that requires cash payments in advance for farm sales to Cuba. Sparks said it's "just another strong-arm tactic to try to stop us from doing business with Cuba.''

''It's been somewhat of an obstacle. We've been able to work around it temporarily,'' Sparks said of the Treasury Department regulation. But he said Alabama farmers haven't lost any money on trade deals with Cuba.

''Cuba has lived up to every agreement they signed,'' he said. "President Fidel Castro has never tried to put me on the spot. He's been very respectful of the administration.''

A phone call and e-mail to the State Department seeking comment on the Mobile meeting were not returned.

While the conference will focus on trade and U.S.-Cuba policy, Weinmann said she expects ''spirited, good dialogue'' on other issues, including the saga of Elián González, which she said "raises a lot of passion.''

Elián was found clinging to an inner tube off Florida's coast in late 1999. Then 5, Elián was among three Cubans who survived an attempt to reach the United States by sea. His mother perished with 10 others.

Elián was placed with relatives in Miami, who waged an unsuccessful seven-month custody battle to keep him in the United States. He returned to Cuba with his father in the summer of 2000.

''Part of what we want to investigate through these summits is, why would the administration want to curtail relationships?'' Weinmann said. ''We always seem to come back to a very vocal group in Miami,'' a reference to anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

The summit comes with Republican-led legislation pending that would eliminate a strict ban barring most travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba. Supporters say allowing ''people-to-people'' contact is the best way to bring political change to Cuba.

Weinmann said attempts in the last four years to pass the measure have been defeated in a congressional conference committee.

She said a separate GOP bill related to agricultural trade with Cuba could be considered this summer in Congress.

Posada discusses life as a federal detainee

An interview with Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles shed light on his plans if given asylum -- an angle reported Saturday. Now he talks about his U.S. detention.

By Oscar Corral And Alfonso Chardy, ocorral@herald.com. Posted on Mon, Jun. 06, 2005.

EL PASO - Luis Posada Carriles, the anti-Castro militant known for a life full of secrets and a debonair attitude, sat in an immigration courtroom surrounded by guards. He wore a red jumpsuit and a plastic ID bracelet instead of his usual expensive watch.

Posada, 77, is a federal detainee in El Paso, charged -- like thousands of other undocumented migrants -- with illegally entering the country. It's a sudden transformation from the almost mythic warrior of Cuban exile lore to illegal migrant.

Posada's situation is far from normal. He is sought by Cuba and Venezuela as an alleged terrorist, and he is being treated as a special prisoner here. He has his own room. He lives in self-imposed isolation, instead of sleeping in dormitories and sharing cafeteria meals with the other detained migrants, in part to avoid any confrontations.

A naturalized Venezuelan citizen, Posada is wanted by Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. He was acquitted twice of that crime in Venezuela and escaped from prison in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal.

Cuba accuses Posada of orchestrating a string of bombings in Havana in 1997, one of which killed an Italian tourist. Six people were injured in the explosions.

While his attorneys want him shipped to a Florida facility, Posada said Friday -- in his first interview with a U.S. publication since his detention -- that it might be better for him to be in Texas, away from all the talk and ''accusations'' about him swirling in Miami, as he pursues his request for asylum in the United States.

''It was more convenient for me to be outside of Miami so I don't receive all those accusations and foolishness,'' he said. "I have the right, well, it's not a right, but a privilege, that they give me asylum.''

It was a far cry from the last time Posada spoke to the media, the day he was detained in Miami-Dade County May 17. He had donned a fashionable white linen suit, dark tie and a blue tailored shirt for a news conference. He'd slipped into the United States weeks before, visiting friends in South Florida and indulging in his passion for painting. His presence caused an international stir and embarrassed U.S. security agencies.

During a Herald interview May 11, Posada sipped peach juice and soaked in the breeze from the balcony of a luxury Biscayne Bay condominium.

On Friday, Posada spoke at length about his life in custody, supposed contacts with a dissident Cuban military officer and a secret trip to Cuba that he says he made a few years ago.

Posada also claimed he had information that Fidel Castro will fall soon in a popular revolt.

The interview was monitored by a Homeland Security media spokeswoman, along with one of his attorneys, who advised Posada via speakerphone not to answer certain questions.

The storyteller and firebrand remained undaunted. He still crackled with anti-Castro rhetoric and offered no apologies for his behavior since sneaking into the country.

FEELS THREATENED

Posada said he always feels threatened because of what he called Castro's obsession with hunting him down -- though he noted that for now he feels safe in detention.

''I'm always under threat,'' he said. "But they never found me. Castro is most nervous when he doesn't know where I am.''

"Fidel Castro is a monster of malice.''

Just a few years ago, Posada claims, he sneaked into Cuba to meet with a dissident Cuban military officer. He refused to provide details other than to say that it happened in Baracoa, an old town in eastern Cuba.

''It's very delicate,'' he said.

Posada also addressed speculation in certain exile and intelligence circles that Castro is using him to harm the image of the Cuban exile community. The speculation is based on a perception that Posada's alleged exploits typically fail and help Cuba portray itself as a victim of exile terrorism. The allegations range from his allegedly meeting with Cuban spies to having a family member linked to the Cuban government.

In a 1991 interview, Posada told The Herald that two brothers and a sister had accepted jobs as professionals in communist Cuba. He said he hadn't spoken with his siblings since 1960, fearing contact would bring them harm.

FAMILY

Posada declined to discuss family connections in Cuba. He acknowledged the possibility that some of his Cuban government contacts may be spies. But he insisted that he doesn't serve the interests of the Cuban regime.

Although he wouldn't answer questions about allegations he participated in several terrorist acts, he readily rejected rumors that he was in Dallas on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

''Let me answer that,'' he told his attorney. ''I was pumping gas dressed as a lieutenant of the American Army in Fort Benning [Georgia] when that happened,'' he said. "How was I going to be in Dallas? What's going on is that they blame me for everything.''

After the 1961 failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Posada and many exiles received U.S. military training for possible future action against Cuba. That training also was meant to defuse their anger toward Washington over the invasion's defeat.

Posada said he still hopes to return to a free Cuba. He predicts that Cuba will soon be rid of Castro.

''Fidel Castro will fall violently,'' he said, basing his assessment on what he described as secret contacts within the Cuban government. "But how will he fall? A coup? God knows what will happen. Cuba is on the verge of all of that. The people will rebel.''

PRISON ROUTINE

Ensconced inside a barracks-like compound surrounded by chain-link fences, razor wire and desert, Posada wakes up before dawn, checks his blood pressure, and eats a light breakfast of milk or juice.

He forgoes the regular offerings of sausage and eggs.

Then he prays, he said, asking God for the liberation of Cuba. On Wednesdays, he attends Mass in a chapel.

''I don't ask much for myself,'' he said of his supplications. After prayers he reads Spanish and English publications but refuses to watch television. Without painting supplies, he has not been able to pursue his hobby, which he'd like to develop into a career if released from detention. He spends a half-hour each day in a small yard. The sun has imprinted his arms with a subtle farmer's tan.

Lunch consists of hamburgers or chicken, followed by an hourlong nap. More readings and prayers follow in the afternoon, an early dinner, then bed by 9 p.m. He refers to his red jumpsuits as his "baseball player outfit.''

''There are no pastelitos here,'' Posada said longingly, referring to the Cuban pastries found almost anywhere in Miami. But he noted that immigration officials treat him well in detention.

Posada's view never varies from the guards posted outside his room.

He is allowed to make almost unlimited calls to the outside world using prepaid cards or calling collect.

''They've offered to let me join the general population if I find myself too locked up, but I prefer to be alone,'' Posada said.

"What am I going to do mingling with the rest of the population here?''

I will fight to 'lead a normal life,' Posada says

Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles said he wants U.S. asylum so he can spend his days painting, but refused to say he would give up anti-Castro violence.

By Alfonso Chardy and Oscar Corral, ocorral@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun. 04, 2005.

EL PASO, Texas - Luis Posada Carriles, the anti-Castro militant whose appearance in South Florida created an international stir and embarrassed U.S. security agencies, said Friday he will fight to stay in the United States and devote his time to painting landscapes.

In his first interview with a U.S. publication since his detention last month in Southwest Miami-Dade, Posada refused to say whether he would give up violence in his anti-Castro crusade.

One of his lawyers prevented him from answering that question, as well as others on sensitive subjects raised by two Herald reporters who interviewed Posada in a heavily guarded courtroom at the El Paso detention center, within sight of the Mexican border.

A naturalized Venezuelan citizen, Posada is wanted by Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. He was acquitted twice of that crime in Venezuela and escaped from prison in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal.

HAVANA BOMBINGS

Cuba accuses Posada of orchestrating a string of bombings in Havana in 1997, one of which killed an Italian tourist. Six people were injured in the explosions.

Posada, 77, wore a bright red jump suit and blue canvas slip-on shoes during Friday's interview. He looked healthy and said he felt well. He refused to be photographed.

''In the United States, I want to lead a normal life,'' he said when asked how he intends to support himself if granted asylum. "I will paint and work for my fatherland. That's what I'm going to do.

"I'm doing paintings and I am selling them very well. That gives me enough to live on. I have no major aspirations. Once you reach my age, it's different.''

Posada has been painting landscapes since he was in custody in Venezuela. He said he has not been able to paint since arriving in El Paso and instead spends his time reading, praying, napping and chatting on the phone with family, friends and lawyers.

ACTIONS IN MIAMI

One question following Posada's detention is whether he was trying to sneak out of the country when he was detained on May 17. Even his chief benefactor, Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, has said that Posada was making a last stop to pick up personal belongings at a friend's house and was on his way out of the country when agents picked him up.

Posada categorically denied he was trying to flee. ''No, I was not planning to leave the country,'' he said.

Posada said he was alone with a friend when ''quite a few'' agents surrounded him outside the friend's house.

' 'Are you Luis Posada? We want to talk to you,' '' Posada recalled the agents saying. "They were very polite.''

Posada said his friend was not detained and that agents did not say where he was being taken until he landed in El Paso.

When he was asked to give details about what precisely he was doing or whose house he was in when he was picked up, Posada's attorney interrupted him, saying his client would not answer.

Posada said he did not feel betrayed by the U.S. government for detaining him for immigrating illegally. ''In no way,'' he stressed.

Posada expressed surprise -- and satisfaction -- that the U.S. government last week rejected Venezuela's demand that he be jailed for the purpose of extradition. The State Department said that a Venezuelan request for his arrest was incomplete.

''I didn't know,'' he said. "Holy Mother of God! That's good news that even my lawyers haven't given me.''

SKIPPED INTERVIEW

The last time Posada spoke with the media was at a muggy West Miami-Dade warehouse near Hialeah last month, when he skipped a scheduled asylum interview he had requested after slipping into the United States in late March.

On Friday he would not explain why he missed the interview but said he talked to the media to ''clarify'' allegations against him by the Cuban government. It's perceived that his news conference and an earlier interview with The Herald caused his detention.

''If I didn't go in the morning, in the afternoon they would have come looking for me,'' Posada said, alluding to dozens of agents who showed up earlier that day at the asylum office in downtown Miami.

Posada has one basic explanation for the bad things being said about him: It's all Fidel Castro's doing.

''What's going on is that I'm being blamed for everything that happens,'' he claimed. "All those things are the fallacies that Fidel Castro has invented about me.''

Posada declined to talk Friday about the Venezuelan and Cuban bombing cases. But in a May 11 interview with The Herald, Posada denied any role in the 1976 airliner attack and would only say of the 1997 bombings: "Let's leave it to history.''

One of the newest allegations is that Posada once was connected to organized crime through a notorious mob figure, Frank ''Lefty'' Rosenthal. The alleged link was mentioned in recently declassified FBI documents.

''I had no relation to him,'' Posada said of Rosenthal. He would not elaborate.

Posada said he is eagerly awaiting a June 13 immigration hearing. The government is expected to outline allegations he entered the country illegally.

''Many things will be decided there,'' Posada said, adding that he is optimistic about the outcome of his detention. "I won't be here for long.''

Leaders urge a proactive Cuba stance

At a UM seminar, leaders urged the OAS to explore a role in Cuba's transition to democracy and to be vigilant about human rights abuses.

By Jacqueline Charles. jcharles@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Jun. 05, 2005

More than two dozen foreign dignitaries Saturday joined a call in South Florida for the Organization of American States to make Cuba's transition to democracy one of its top priorities.

The University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies took advantage of the OAS' annual General Assembly, being held in Fort Lauderdale today through Tuesday, to organize a seminar on how the 34-hemispheric bloc can play a constructive role in Cuba's future.

''It is high time [the OAS] addresses the issue of Cuba and Cubans,'' said Martin Palous, the Czech Republic's ambassador to Washington. "If anything can come out of this general assembly . . . it is [that] Cuba is part of the American discussion. It would be a tremendous boost for Cuban freedom fighters.''

A dozen Latin American and European leaders have already signed a three-page declaration on Cuba passed around at the seminar and urging the OAS to "consider how it can play a constructive role in helping a future Cuban democratic transition government rejoin the hemispheric family of democracies and rebuild its political, legal, economic system.''

In addition, the resolution urged the OAS' Inter-American Human Rights Commission to remain vigilant on Cuba's human rights situation and help its people.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican who chaired the opening session, said the document is a positive step in the Cuban people's fight to end decades of suffering under Fidel Castro's rule.

"It's progress to have them sign a paper that acknowledges there are problems in Cuba and acknowledges they all have to work to get to the goal of freedom and democracies.''

Other participants included former presidents Luis Alberto Lacalle of Uruguay, Luis Alberto Monge of Costa Rica, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Eduardo Frei of Chile.

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