CUBA
NEWS The
Miami Herald
All eyes are on dissidents' assembly
A gathering of Cuban
dissidents in Havana may be disrupted, but
the government is unlikely to suffer any
political ramifications, experts said.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2005.
As Cuban dissidents attempt to converge
today for a historic gathering in Havana
to develop a plan for a future democratic
society, international observers will be
watching the Communist government.
The European Commission has expressed disappointment
over Cuba's refusal to allow two Polish
lawmakers to enter the country -- despite
their diplomatic passports -- to participate
in the two-day Assembly to Promote Civil
Society, an ambitious effort to gather opponents
of Fidel Castro's government and its unyielding
political controls.
The entry ban comes as European Union governments
plan to reevaluate their relations with
Cuba next month and review diplomatic sanctions.
The sanctions, imposed in response to Cuba's
crackdown on dissidents in 2003, were temporarily
lifted in January.
An EU commission spokesman on Thursday
said Cuba's refusal to allow the Polish
lawmakers to attend today's meeting was
''a pity'' and ''does certainly not go in
the direction the European Union has set.''
But experts said verbal reprimands would
probably be the only ramifications for Castro's
government if it opts to disrupt the Havana
reunion.
'The consensus of the EU will be, 'We are
not going to make things worse,' '' said
Joaquín Roy, director of the University
of Miami's European Union Center. "That
means that they don't want to go down in
history as shouting . . . so that more people
are punished and Fidel Castro wins.''
Antonio Jorge, an international relations
professor at Florida International University,
said the Cuban government decided long ago
to take a hard line against dissidents and
not tolerate outside interference in internal
affairs.
''They've proven to be completely unmovable
to change that policy,'' Jorge said. "The
very fact that they denied entry to the
Polish lawmakers means that Castro doesn't
care about defying the European Union.''
In Havana, meanwhile, assembly organizers
expressed confidence they would have a successful
turnout even as division within the dissident
movement took a bitter tone.
Prominent leader Oswaldo Paya, who sharply
disagrees with assembly organizers on their
refusal to negotiate reforms with those
now in power, issued a statement calling
the gathering ''a big fraud against the
opposition,'' The Associated Press reported.
The statement also accused assembly organizers
of working with Cuban state security and
receiving support from Miami-based exiles,
to the benefit of Castro's government.
Assembly organizers have acknowledged receiving
about $25,000 in donations, primarily from
Miami. But they have vehemently denied accusations
by the Cuban government and others that
the money is from the U.S. government.
Castro has accused dissidents of being
in cahoots with the Bush administration
and warned in a speech Monday night that
''mercenaries'' would receive "energetic
and appropriate responses from the revolution.''
At least 365 people have registered to
participate in the assembly, said Martha
Beatriz Roque, one of three main organizers.
''Things are moving along,'' Roque said
in a telephone interview from Havana. "We've
had a lot of little problems, but nothing
major so far. The government will likely
send undercover agents in an attempt to
stir provocations, but that's to be expected.''
Former rebel: Posada ordered torture
A former Venezuelan leftist
guerrilla fighter has accused Cuban exile
militant Luis Posada Carriles of ordering
his torture.
By Alfonso Chardy and Oscar
Corral, achardy@herald.com. Posted on Fri,
May. 20, 2005.
A former leftist guerrilla in Venezuela
claims that Luis Posada Carriles ordered
that he be tortured and also ordered the
murder of another guerrilla when Posada
was a senior intelligence officer for a
Venezuelan police agency in the 1970s.
Posada, a militant Cuban exile in U.S.
custody accused of illegally entering the
country, said in an interview with The Herald
last week that he had not ordered anyone's
torture while he headed a special operations
unit at the agency known as DISIP. Posada
also denied ordering the other guerrilla's
murder.
''When I got to DISIP I abolished torture,''
Posada said. "I fired anyone who tortured.''
On Thursday, U.S. officials formally charged
that Posada was in the country illegally
and ordered him held for deportation --
though his lawyer says he intends to ask
for asylum. He is being held in an El Paso
detention center.
The allegations from Jesus Marrero, the
former Venezuelan guerrilla, are difficult
to verify, but they could open a new front
in the U.S. government's case against Posada
in immigration court.
The case is already expected to include
allegations that he masterminded the bombing
of a Cuban jetliner in 1976 and a string
of bombings at Cuban tourist spots in 1997.
Federal law prohibits asylum for any foreign
national believed to have committed a ''serious
nonpolitical crime'' or to have "engaged
in or incited terrorist activity.''
It also prohibits asylum for foreign nationals
found to have ''ordered, incited, assisted
or otherwise participated'' in persecution.
And a new law signed by President Bush on
Dec. 17 empowers immigration authorities
to deny admission and deport any foreigner
accused of persecution abroad.
Marrero, now an economist, said in a telephone
interview from Venezuela that when he was
in custody in 1973 he was interrogated by
Posada. After he refused to reveal names
of other members of Venezuela's leftist
guerrilla movement, Posada ordered his torture,
Marrero said.
'Posada said to me 'You will talk,' ''
Marrero recalled. "I know how you will
talk.''
Marrero said he was then taken to an abandoned
house on a hill overlooking Caracas and
tortured by other DISIP police officers.
He said he was placed on an iron drum-like
contraption and tortured with electric shocks
to his testicles and his right ear, and
wooden sticks were rammed into his ears.
Marrero said Posada never applied any torture
himself.
Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto, declined
to comment because he said he was not familiar
with the charges. ''If Luis says he has
no involvement, then there is no involvement,''
Soto said.
Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, Posada's
benefactor, said that if Marrero has proof
he should present it. Otherwise, his word
is worthless, Alvarez said.
''What he says carries the same weight
as what Hugo Chávez says,'' Alvarez
said, referring to the leftist Venezuelan
president.
In his May 11 interview with The Herald,
Posada denied knowing Marrero.
However, in his 1994 autobiography, The
Roads of the Warrior, Posada mentioned Marrero
as one of several members of the guerrilla
group Bandera Roja who were detained or
killed or who disappeared during his tenure.
In the book, Posada linked Bandera Roja
and other guerrilla groups to kidnappings,
assassinations and attacks on police units
in Caracas and other large Venezuelan cities.
Posada said in the book that the groups
were funded and trained by Cuba.
Marrero told The Herald that his group
was not financed by Cuba and that its leaders
had some disagreements with Cuban policies.
Marrero was at a rally in Caracas Thursday
aimed at collecting signatures to lobby
prosecutors to open a new extradition case
against Posada based on his torture allegations.
Marrero also accused Posada of ordering
the murder of another detained rebel whom
he identified by his nickname of Pancho
Alegria. Marrero later said that Alegria's
real name was Angel Maria Castillo of the
Guerrilla group PRV, (Revolutionary Party
of Venezuela).
Posada acknowledged to The Herald that
one of his subordinates at DISIP killed
Alegria, but denied having anything to do
with it. He said the officer found Alegria
on the street and shot him to death -- without
authorization. ''Pancho Alegria was a wanted
guerrilla. He was a captain of a guerrilla
group,'' Posada told The Herald. "A
subordinate of mine found him and killed
him. He did it on his own; he shouldn't
have done it.''
Posada said his former DISIP subordinate
is now serving a prison sentence in Miami
in an unrelated drug case. Posada said he
could remember only the man's first name,
Cristobal.
At the time that Posada was recruited by
top Venezuelan officials at DISIP in 1969,
one of his main responsibilities in Caracas
was to prevent communist Cuba from spreading
leftist insurrection throughout Venezuela.
He was given wide flexibility and autonomy
by the government of then-President Rafael
Caldera. Posada eventually became chief
of special operations, rewarded for his
success in suppressing leftist insurrection
in one of the Cold War's hottest fronts
in the hemisphere.
In his book, Posada said Venezuelan authorities
used harsh measures to combat leftist guerrillas.
''The police,'' Posada wrote, 'detained,
raided and interrogated using the harshest
methods of persuasion. As the saying goes,
'The play was rough and the mask had come
off.' ''
Marrero was first interviewed by the Cuban
government news agency Prensa Latina, which
Posada said in his book he ordered bugged
and investigated for allegedly fomenting
revolution in the 1970s. Marrero was 26
when arrested by DISIP at his home in Valencia,
an industrial city west of Caracas, on July
23, 1973.
He told The Herald that he was taken to
a holding cell in the basement of DISIP
headquarters in Caracas and kept in detention
for two months.
Exiles reluctant to publicly back militant
Posada
The case of Luis Posada
Carriles, an accused terrorist who is being
held in Texas, is not drawing loud protests
from Miami's Cuban exiles.
By Oscar Corral, Alfonso
Chardy and Luisa Yanez, ocorral@herald.com.
Posted on Thu, May. 19, 2005.
The last time federal agents seized a high-profile
Cuban native in Miami-Dade County, there
were demonstrations in the streets and angry
speeches on Spanish-language radio, and
anti-Castro exiles felt a lasting bitterness.
But Luis Posada Carriles, who was taken
into custody by U.S. agents on Tuesday,
is no Elián González.
Eager to avoid the blistering that Miami's
Cuban community took in 2000 as a result
of the Elián case, exile leaders
are preaching restraint when it comes to
Posada, 77, a militant accused in the 1976
bombing of a Cuban jetliner and other acts
of terrorism.
A group that had sponsored street demonstrations
in 2000 was asked to back off, for example,
and Spanish-language radio stations on Wednesday
appeared intent on building interest in
Friday's scheduled assembly of civil societies
in Cuba -- rather than fueling outrage over
Posada's fate.
''If the news over the next 48 hours is
reaction in Miami to Posada, then Fidel
[Castro] wins again and disrupts the assembly,''
said Alfredo Mesa, executive director of
the Cuban American National Foundation.
Some said it's a lesson from the Elián
protests, which fed a perception that the
exile community was fighting the U.S. government.
HELD IN TEXAS
Posada, meanwhile, is in custody in an
immigration detention center in El Paso,
his attorney said Wednesday. There, government
officials will decide by 2 p.m. today whether
to declare him an illegal immigrant.
Posada, who says he sneaked into the United
States at the Texas border in March and
rode into Miami aboard a Greyhound bus,
intends to renew his bid for political asylum,
said his attorney, Eduardo Soto. Posada
withdrew his asylum application just before
he was arrested.
Soto said he anticipates that Miami-area
witnesses will be called to testify in any
asylum case, either by himself or the government.
He said U.S. officials will doubtless be
gathering evidence on the 1976 jetliner
bombing, which killed 73 people, as well
as a 1997 series of bombings at tourist
sites in Cuba, which killed an Italian national.
Even if the government tries to link Posada
to the Cuba bombings, Soto said he could
argue that the 1997 bombings were political
acts -- and that the man who was killed
was not meant to be harmed. The aim, Soto
said, would be to prevent an immigration
judge from finding that Posada had committed
''a serious nonpolitical crime,'' which
would be a bar to asylum.
On the jetliner case -- for which Posada
was twice acquitted in Venezuela -- Soto
said: "I think there are things simply
impossible to prove.''
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement on Wednesday declined to discuss
Posada's whereabouts, but did not deny that
he was being held in El Paso.
The main immigration detention center there
is the El Paso Processing Center, which
is very similar to the Krome detention center
in West Miami-Dade County.
Soto said that he expects to file a motion
quickly to have Posada returned to South
Florida and released on bond.
IN LITTLE HAVANA
In Miami's Little Havana Wednesday, exile
leaders said they anticipated few protests
of Posada's arrest -- though many exiles
view him as a patriot for the cause of Cuban
freedom and hope he is granted asylum.
''We don't want to play into Castro's hands
and have him start criticizing us,'' said
Enrique Carrazana, 72, a Bay of Pigs veteran
sitting at a barber shop.
Indeed, Castro has daily branded Posada
a terrorist and ridiculed President Bush
as a hypocrite for waging a war on terrorism
while harboring Posada.
Ninoska Pérez Castellón,
an influential radio personality and founding
member of the hard-line Cuban Liberty Council,
said the community was reassured by the
Bush administration's statement Tuesday
that Posada would not be deported to Cuba
or Venezuela.
Some saw a partisan political factor in
the exiles' restraint.
Chin Martinez, a community activist and
the father of Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez,
said exiles, who favor the Republican Party,
should be defending Posada more vocally.
''If a Democratic president was in power,
there would be demonstrations,'' said Martinez,
80, who is a registered Democrat. "This
is about partisanship.''
In Washington, Miami's Cuban-American lawmakers
offered statements Wednesday backing the
''rule of law'' for Posada.
''Leaders are reticent to embrace or condone
anyone who has committed alleged terrorist
acts,'' said Damián Fernández,
director of the Cuban Research Institute
at Florida International University.
And Fernández predicted more moderation
from a community undergoing a generational
shift in its politics.
''We also learned from Elián,''
Fernández said. "That left a
bitter taste. We are more in tune to national
and public opinion. We are more reserved
in making a judgment on a case that's much
more dicey [than Elián's].''
Miguel Saavedra, head of Vigilia Mambisa,
a group known for its vigorous and impromptu
anti-Castro demonstrations, staged a brief
pro-Posada event in front of Versailles
restaurant in Little Havana Tuesday night.
But Saavedra said he fielded calls asking
"that we stay calm and stop demonstrating.''
In response, he said, he agreed to wait
72 hours to see what happens to Posada.
''I'm confident the U.S. and the CIA, whom
he worked for, will not turn their back
on him,'' Saavedra said.
Santiago Alvarez, Posada's key benefactor
in South Florida, told The Herald that Posada
had asked groups such as Vigilia Mambisa
to avoid large demonstrations.
''We have great respect for this country,
and we do not want to look like we are being
ungrateful,'' Alvarez said.
WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE
On Wednesday, the White House, too, sought
to deflect any controversy.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said
that Posada had been taken into custody
and that "there are laws and procedures
that are in place, and they're being followed
at this point.''
The hands-off approach stands in contrast
to that used in the case of exile extremist
Orlando Bosch, who was released into the
United States by Bush's father, President
George H.W. Bush.
In that case, Bosch's leading political
champion was U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
-- whose campaign chairman was Jeb Bush,
now Florida's governor. Jeb Bush visited
with pro-Bosch hunger-strikers in Miami
at the time.
But Gov. Bush on Wednesday questioned Posada's
status, noting, "I'm not sure he's
the symbol for the fight for freedom. There
are people in political prison in Cuba simply
because they've prayed to their God or they've
expressed dissent.''
Herald staff writers Nancy San Martin,
Lesley Clark and Susan Anasagasti contributed
to this report.
Venezuela: Cuba wouldn't get Posada
Posted on Thu, May. 19,
2005.
CARACAS - (AP) -- If the United States
extradites Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles,
wanted in a 1976 airliner bombing, he would
not be turned over to Cuba but would remain
in Venezuela to face justice, Venezuela's
vice president said Wednesday.
Venezuela has demanded that Posada, 77,
be extradited to face trial in the bombing,
which killed 73 people. The Cuban airliner
exploded near Barbados after departing from
Caracas. U.S. immigration authorities arrested
him Tuesday in Miami, where he was living
while awaiting a decision on his request
for asylum.
U.S. officials have said they would not
hand over those suspected of crimes to any
country that would then turn them over to
Fidel Castro's Cuba.
'There is no possibility that Venezuela
would turn him over to another country if
Posada Carriles' extradition to Venezuela
is approved,'' Vice President Jose Vicente
Rangel said.
"I think it's an excuse, a subterfuge,
that they are using precisely in order to
not approve the extradition. Bringing up
that he could be sent to Cuba . . . in this
way they elude the commitment and the obligation
they have to approve the extradition.''
Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen,
is wanted on murder and treason charges.
He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985
while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of
his second acquittal in the Cubana Airlines
bombing.
If the United States denies the extradition
request, Rangel said, that would violate
a treaty from 1922. He said Venezuela could
appeal to world bodies if necessary.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
and close ally Castro say Posada is one
of the worst terrorists in the Americas,
and Castro led a march in Havana on Tuesday
to demand his arrest.
To find tribute to Celia, follow the
salsa sounds
By Lydia Martin. lmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Thu, May. 19, 2005.
WASHINGTON - Celia Cruz is making a ruckus
at the Smithsonian National Museum of American
History -- and not everybody is doing a
little rumba about it.
Whether you're checking out the walking
cane Ben Franklin bequeathed to George Washington
or you're wondering why you always thought
Fonzie's leather jacket was black when it's
actually brown or when you're on a different
floor of the museum strolling through Julia
Child's kitchen, you can hear that thunderous
voice:
''Quimbara cumbara cumba quimbamba!'' --
the Spanish scat from one of Celia Cruz's
biggest hits.
The Queen of Salsa's unmistakable contralto
carries from the third-floor exhibition
that opened Wednesday about her life and
music. It's never gotten quite this loud
up in here.
''Not even with the Beatles exhibition,''
says Melinda Machado, a spokeswoman for
the museum. Some folks who work there, well,
they wish the whole thing would be turned
down a notch or two.
''Marvette [Perez, the curator of the show]
told me she wanted to give it the feel of
a performance. So, yeah, I guess it flows
down the escalator and it makes some people
nervous,'' said Greg Blair, the independent
sound technician who hooked up the Cruz
show. "I call it an attractive nuisance.''
Perhaps not everyone understands the pull
of Celia Cruz. But it was certainly not
lost on Lorenzo and Olinda Robay of Lima,
Peru, on vacation and touring U.S. monuments.
They stopped a random woman on the street
Wednesday morning to ask for directions
to the White House.
''And I was on my way to see the Celia
exhibit,'' says Miriam Estrella, visiting
from Ecuador. 'They looked Latin to me.
So I told them, 'What you have to see is
the Celia Cruz show at the Smithsonian.'
And so they came with me. Because we're
talking about Celia Cruz.''
The show features Cruz's over-the-top wigs,
headpieces, gowns and shoes, rare photographs
and film, old albums, Grammys, gold records,
the beat-up Fendi bag she always took on
her travels and all but one of the dashboard-sized
saints she always packed along. The conspicuous
exception: Our Lady of Charity, the patron
saint of Cuba.
''We placed that one in her casket right
before the burial,'' said Omer Pardillo,
Cruz's manager, who attended a gala at the
museum Tuesday night to celebrate the opening
of the show. Also there was Pedro Knight,
looking frail and faded since he lost his
wife Celia.
''That woman has been everything to me,''
a moved Knight said at the opening. "We
will never be separated.''
Also part of the exhibit is the Greenwich,
Conn. marriage license from 1962 that lists
Geronimo Pedro Knight's occupation as ''musician''
and Celia Cruz Alfonso's as ''housework''
(although by then she was already a star
throughout the Latin world).
Perhaps nothing captures the spirit of
the Cuban singer better than a display full
of scuffed shoes: tall, rhinestoned, with
those trademark heel-less platforms or swans
for heels, the inserts so faded you can
barely make out the word Nieto -- the name
of the Mexican designer who made them all
for her. They are shoes that were definitely
danced in. And danced in.
By noon Wednesday, a steady stream of fans
made its way through the exhibit that's
big on the music and the kitsch, but light
on the politics. Some who attended the opening
party complained that Cruz was called an
''immigrant'' by the show, when she always
called herself a political refugee. Others
wondered why more wasn't made of the reasons
Cruz left Cuba.
As for the loud music?
Anita Lombillo Fernandez of Venezuela,
a medical secretary who has lived in Washington
30 years, doesn't see the problem.
"Who hasn't danced to at least one
Celia Cruz song in their life? And if they
haven't, why are they complaining, when
here's their chance?''
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