CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Castro puts special peso above dollar in its value

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Mar. 25, 2005.

Advancing a campaign of economic strengthening on the island, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced Thursday that the so-called ''convertible peso'' -- which had been equal to the U.S. dollar since it was created a decade ago -- would increase in value by 8 percent effective next month.

Castro also said a fixed exchange rate for both sales and purchases of the convertible peso would be implemented on April 9.

The revaluation follows last week's 7 percent increase in the value of the Cuban peso, from 27 to 25 to the U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar no longer circulates as legal tender on the island.

''We are defending our resources, our economy,'' Castro told an audience of Communist Party leaders, government officials, military and members of various other state-sponsored organizations. "We know what we are doing and we have faith in what we are doing. We've entered a new era.''

''If they want mercenaries, let them have to pay more,'' Castro said, referring to dissidents who receive dollars from American supporters.

The four-hour address was Castro's third in as many weeks that focused on a rebounding economy, ending corruption and a crippling energy crisis that he has repeatedly promised would be remedied by early next year.

''We will bring it to an end, let there be no doubt about that,'' Castro, 78, said in a speech broadcast on Cuban radio and television. "The idea is to improve living conditions. We are preparing so that there will be no shortage of anything.''

Thursday's address came on the same day two American Republican legislators visiting Havana -- Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Rep. Wally Herger of California -- promised to back renewed efforts in Washington to push through legislation that will ease sanctions on the communist-ruled country.

Lawmakers advocate lifting travel sanctions

Two Republican lawmakers say they will push for rules to ease travel sanctions on Cuba, arguing tourism and trade will undermine Fidel Castro's government.

By Anita Snow, Associated Press. Posted on Fri, Mar. 25, 2005.

HAVANA - Saying American tourism and trade can do more to undermine Fidel Castro's government than the current U.S. policy of isolating Cuba, two conservative American lawmakers promised Thursday to back more legislation that will ease restrictions on the communist country.

''I don't think that for the next four years we can maintain this policy,'' Jeff Flake, a Republican representative from Arizona told a small group of international journalists.

''We need to do what we did in Eastern Europe,'' by putting more Americans in contact with Cubans, said Representative Wally Herger of California, another Republican who favors free trade with Cuba. "Change will not come from the policies we've had in the past.''

Flake said this summer he will make his fourth attempt to get Congress to approve an amendment to a Treasury Department spending bill that would eliminate funding for enforcement of the U.S. travel ban against Cuba and thus allow Americans to travel to the island.

Even if ''Castro tries to sequester tourists, they get out'' and among the Cuban people, Flake said. "They tip, they purchase, they have a corrosive effect on the regime.''

Flake said he didn't sponsor the spending bill amendment in 2004 because it was a presidential election year, but did back a similar one in the three consecutive years. All three times it was eliminated from the bill in conference meetings before going before a full congressional vote.

FOOD RESTRICTIONS

Under a 2000 law that created an exception to the U.S. sanctions, American food and other agricultural products may be sold directly to the island on a cash-only basis. Cuba has contracted to buy about $1.2 billion in American goods since the island began taking advantage of the law in late 2001.

In recent months, new interpretations of the law by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush have tied up some sales by requiring Cuba make the payments in full before shipments leave American ports.

A Republican lawmaker from the Kansas, Representative Jerry Moran, has introduced one of at least two pieces of legislation that would clarify those rules. Moran, who sponsored the earlier law allowing the sales, visited Cuba separately this week to get a better sense of how recent moves concerning payments affected trade.

DIPLOMACY

During their trip, which was winding up Thursday, Flake and Herger met with Cuban officials including Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon, and representatives of Cuba's food import agency Alimport.

The lawmakers, who expressed a deep commitment to supporting opponents of the government, also met with several dissidents, including democracy drive organizer Oswaldo Paya, key religious leaders, and the chief of the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here.

Flake, who visited Cuba several times in the past, said he was surprised by a new optimism among communist officials about the island's future strengthened by new trade agreements with Venezuela and China, as well as discoveries of petroleum deposits off the island's coast.

''I didn't realize how confident the government is about the next couple of years. It just confirms for me that we can't just sit around and wait for Fidel to die,'' Flake said of the 78-year-old Castro. "And we shouldn't.''

Cuban man suspected of torture is released

A Cuban held at Krome detention center as a torture suspect since last year was released after immigration authorities were unable to deport him to Cuba.

By Alfonso Chardy, achardy@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Mar. 24, 2005

Jorge de Cárdenas Agostini, arrested in June on suspicion of supervising a team of torturers in Cuba, has been released from the Krome detention center, where he had been held for months awaiting deportation to Cuba -- a country that generally refuses to take back Cuban exiles.

Sources familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini had indicated during testimony in a previous deportation case that he had worked for a Cuban intelligence unit and supervised a team that allegedly tortured dissidents opposed to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

ALLEGATIONS DENIED

Linda Osberg-Braun, the immigration attorney who represents de Cárdenas Agostini, has denied the allegations. On Wednesday, she declined to discuss the case in detail on or the reasons for her client's release from the West Miami-Dade center last month. De Cárdenas Agostini could not be reached for comment.

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have yet to release evidence linking de Cárdenas Agostini to specific acts of torture.

In July, an immigration judge at Krome ordered de Cárdenas Agostini deported. He did not pursue appeals.

Federal officials familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini was granted supervised release because he could not be held indefinitely. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 prohibited indefinite detention of foreign nationals. But officials said they intend to deport de Cárdenas Agostini as soon as feasible.

''We will not cease our efforts to carry out de Cárdenas Agostini's order of removal as we are tasked with restoring integrity to our nation's immigration system,'' said Nina Pruneda, a Miami spokeswoman for ICE.

De Cárdenas Agostini was the second Cuban arrested in the United States as a torture suspect under a 5-year-old federal immigration program to deport foreign-born torture suspects.

The first was Eriberto Mederos, accused of torturing political prisoners held at a psychiatric hospital in Cuba in the 1970s. He died in 2002, soon after a Miami jury convicted him of lying on his naturalization application.

EIGHT MONTHS

Federal sources familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini was released Feb. 2, almost eight months after his arrest June 8 in Miami by ICE agents.

De Cárdenas Agostini's uncle, Jorge de Cárdenas Loredo, a lobbyist and political strategist, pleaded guilty in 1997 to one count of obstructing justice in a political scandal. He was sentenced to one year in federal prison, and sent to Krome after that. He was released in 1999.

During deportation proceedings for his uncle, de Cárdenas Agostini testified about political conditions in Cuba.

Sources familiar with the testimony said that de Cárdenas Agostini gave indications about the Cuban intelligence unit and the alleged torture of dissidents.

Osberg-Braun denied that de Cárdenas Agostini was involved in torture and said that his testimony was aimed at explaining Cuban politics and what would happen to his uncle were he returned to Cuba.

Friends of de Cárdenas Agostini said he fled Cuba because he once had been associated with Cuban Gen. Antonio de la Guardia, who was executed along with Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa after drug-trafficking trials. Some Cuba experts viewed both generals as opponents of Castro.

De Cárdenas Agostini left Cuba in 1995 and arrived in the United States a year later through the Texas border.

In Miami, he worked on remodeling homes and is now working in construction, a relative said Tuesday.

Herald research editor Monika Leal contributed to this report.

Dissidents energize exiles, lawmakers

Cuban dissidents chatted up congressional representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Díaz-Balart and floated a message of hope to Miami's Cuban exile community.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@herald.com. Posted on Wed, Mar. 23, 2005.

In a rare public phone conversation, Cuban dissidents told Miami congressional representatives Tuesday night that the government of Fidel Castro "has never been as weak as it is now.''

The chat via speakerphone energized the crowd of Bay of Pigs veterans meeting in Little Havana at Brigade 2506 headquarters to express support for a planned meeting of dissidents in Cuba on May 20.

U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Díaz-Balart crowded around the phone emitting the voice of a man who identified himself as Felix Antonio Bonne Carcasses, one of the Cuban dissidents organizing the Assembly to Promote Civil Society.

''If it weren't for the 53,000 barrels of oil that Hugo Chávez sends every day to Cuba, it would be over,'' Bonne Carcasses said. "You can be sure that we won't betray the confidence which Cubans have placed in us.''

Ros-Lehtinen yelled back at the phone: "Keep fighting. We're here with you.''

''You are a tremendous leader and one of our heroes,'' she added. "You are fighting in favor of principles that are accepted worldwide, but are rejected in Cuba. . . . Your cause is our cause.''

Ros-Lehtinen also told Bonne that the U.S. Congress has begun a program to ''adopt'' political prisoners in Cuban prisons.

TAKING A RISK

Bonne Carcasses took a risk by speaking publicly to the group of 50, which included members of the media. His declarations could land him in trouble with the Castro regime.

The Bay of Pigs Veterans, also known as Brigade 2506, declared their support for Carcasses and the May 20 meeting. They are the latest exile organization to say that they plan to support the dissidents in Cuba that day.

Just last week, the Cuban American National Foundation announced that for the first time, it will encourage its directors to travel to Cuba to attend the May assembly. It's not clear whether the Cuban government will allow any CANF members to attend.

MAY 20 ASSEMBLY

Veteran Segundo Miranda said Brigade 2506 plans to help the dissidents financially, but said they have not yet determined how they would send aid.

''We've put a lot of hope in this,'' Miranda said.

The May 20 assembly has not been sanctioned by Havana, and some believe Castro will not allow it to take place. But already, the assembly has received broad international support and attention, and stopping it abruptly would further tarnish Cuba's human rights record.

Bonne Carcasses said the dissidents in Cuba today are merely an ''extension'' of the Bay of Pigs veterans, fighting for the same liberty and democracy.

''The only difference is that we have opted for the peaceful route,'' he said.

'EXILES ARE UNITED'

Diaz-Balart told Bonne Carcasses that he strongly supported the May meeting and the dissident movement.

''Cuban exiles are united in backing your cause,'' the Republican legislator said. "We know the risks you take every day. Thanks for all that you are doing for the cause of a free Cuba.''

After the meeting, Bay of Pigs veteran Jose Eugenio Miranda, said the fight for a free Cuba is no longer a matter of weapons, as it was when he waded ashore under heavy fire on Playa Giron in 1961.

''The dissidents are a continuation of Brigade 2506,'' he said. "It's no longer a war to fight with weapons, but with ideas.''

Family makes epic journey to America

Third time's a charm for Cuban 'truckonaut' and his family

By Luisa Yanez, lyanez@herald.com. Posted on Tue, Mar. 22, 2005.

The mastermind behind the ''truckonauts,'' whose gutsy voyages to freedom from Cuba aboard 1950s-vintage vehicles failed, has finally made it to Miami.

He did it the hard way. By land.

Luis Grass' first two attempts were aboard a modified 1951 Chevy truck and a 1959 Buick car. He made international headlines when photographs of migrants on the amphibious contraptions surfaced, and his attorneys have said he was approached by producers interested in telling his life story.

Last week, Grass' third and successful attempt was by land, crossing the U.S. border with Mexico. Still, the ingenious and persistent Grass and his family said they hit some rough terrain.

''Trying to cross the Florida Straits on my floating cars was easier, I can tell you that,'' Grass, 36, said Monday at his attorney's office, where he and his wife, Isora, 27, described the final leg of their journey to the United States. "We encountered a million problems.''

TIRELESS ADVANCE

The couple, carrying their 5-year-old son Angel Luis, said they spent 24 days making their way on foot, hitchhiking, on taxi and buses across the borders of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

Sometimes they struggled through jungles where they encountered snakes, monkeys and every ''insect possible'' -- all to avoid detection as they traveled without legal papers.

''This last trip was the scariest,'' Isora said. ''We kept a positive attitude,'' her husband added.

HARD CONDITIONS

Money was short and some nights they slept in the open. Milk for their boy was hard to come by during the journey, which the trio started Feb. 16 in San Jose, Costa Rica, and ended March 12 by crossing into the United States at Matamoros, Mexico.

''It was hellish; we suffered a lot,'' Isora said. "But we're finally here.''

Once they reached Texas, they were held by immigration officials for several days in Brownsville, where they asked for political asylum, said their attorney, Wilfredo Allen.

A Department of Homeland Security official said the department doesn't comment on asylum claims.

The Grasses were eventually paroled and allowed to travel to Miami in a van. They arrived over the weekend at the home of Isora's brother, Ruben Garcia.

''A peace has finally come over me now that my wife and son are here in the United States,'' Grass said as he held his son, who sported Mickey Mouse overalls.

STICKING IT TO REGIME

In Miami, the family's determination to reach the United States is hailed as an embarrassment to the Cuban government.

''What you are hearing here is a story of the pursuit of freedom becoming a reality,'' said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, head of the Democracy Movement, which championed the family's quest to reach the United States.

Grass, a diminutive man with a spunky attitude, thanked his wife for going along with his ''crazy schemes,'' admitting he endangered their lives three times.

Grass, a mechanical engineer, spoke affectionately and with pride of his '51 Chevy truck, the first vehicle he converted into a floating truck and loaded with nine other friends and his family and headed for Miami in July 2003.

TRUCK WAS SPECIAL

He considers it his greatest creation and hopes he can build another as a symbol of the quest for freedom.

Grass said even the Cuban state security personnel who watched him sail out shook their heads in disbelief at the sight of a truck hitting the water running.

They also fired flares dangerously close to his gas tank, he said.

Grass later learned the officers' superiors first ignored their frantic late-night call to report that ''a truck was headed to Miami.'' They were chastised and told to stop drinking at night while on patrol, he said.

In the middle of the Florida Straits, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted the floating truck. They took everyone off and sent them home.

The Coast Guard sank the vessel with a hail of gunfire, declaring it a navigational hazard.

''I swallowed my tears,'' Grass said. "That truck had been everything to me. It was criminal to sink it; it was a symbol of liberty.''

Grass said he was the truck's second owner.

He had bought it several years ago from a neighbor who "bought it brand new in 1951.''

In Cuba, Grass said his life became difficult as the government labeled him a troublemaker.

Enter a broken-down '59 Buick he owned. Making it float was easy; he had experience. His family and a group of nine others set out in February 2004.

That trip, too, ended when the U.S. Coast Guard found them. But this time a Miami federal judge stepped in, ordering the Grass family sent to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, where they waited for asylum. Grass proved he had ''credible fear'' of persecution if returned to Cuba.

In December, the U.S. government and Costa Rica struck a deal, allowing the Grass family and a dozen others to go to live in San Jose.

The family was given $450 a month to live, but their rent alone was $325, Isora said. ''Life was hard,'' she said.

Grass said his goal had always been to make it to the United States, so he began planning their land trip.

He plans to find work -- and buy a car.

''There are so many kinds here,'' he said.

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