CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Violence against dissidents up

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Fri, Feb. 10, 2006.

HAVANA - Aggression against Cuban dissidents by government supporters is on the rise and becoming more violent, according to a report released Thursday by a veteran human rights activist.

Elizardo Sánchez, who heads the non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, lists nearly 30 apparently organized acts of harassment against dissidents, including verbal abuse, physical assault and illegal entry to homes.

The acts, which took place in several provinces across the island, occurred from Jan. 12 to Feb. 7, the report said.

''This is about a repressive, large-scale operation executed in response to a central government decision,'' the report said.

''Particularly worrisome is the level of physical and verbal violence, without precedent in recent years,'' it said.

There was no immediate reaction by Cuba's communist government.

In some cases, gangs of government supporters kept activists from leaving their homes for several days, according to the report. One dissident in the eastern province of Santiago was attacked by two men with steel bars, while a woman in the central region of Santa Clara had her finger dislocated in an assault, the report said.

Pro-government militants have broken into several dissidents' homes, the report said, taking items that included books and a fax machine.

The Havana-based commission called on the government to stop the acts, saying it was "totally irresponsible and immoral to artificially create a climate of political violence.''

Earlier in the week, wives of political prisoners known as the ''Ladies in White'' also issued a statement condemning recent harassment.

U.S.-owned hotel caught in the middle

The U.S.-Cuba confrontation has involved an American-owned hotel in Mexico City because of contradictory U.S. and Mexican laws.

By Jonathan Roeder, Special to The Miami Herald. Posted on Thu, Feb. 16, 2006.

MEXICO CITY - The venerable Hotel Sheraton María Isabel is one of the Mexican capital's oldest five-star hotels, on its main Reforma Avenue and next to the city's emblematic Angel of Independence monument.

But these days the hotel also has been a lightning rod for U.S.-Mexican tensions, presidential campaign jabs and even complaints of U.S. violations of Mexico's sovereignty.

The brouhaha started Feb. 4, when the hotel expelled several Cuban government officials staying there for a seminar with U.S. energy executives. U.S. Treasury officials told the hotel's American owners that they could be violating U.S. economic sanctions of the communist-ruled island.

Mexico's Foreign Relations and Tourism ministries, along with the Consumer Protection Agency, now say the hotel may have broken Mexican laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of nationality. Fines could total $500,000.

But it has been the Cuauhtémoc borough, where the hotel is located, that has been most vigorous in its actions. Code inspectors have found a long list of violations at the hotel, ranging from the absence of required Braille menus to unlicensed bars and insufficient emergency exits.

JUST DOING THEIR JOB

Cuauhtémoc chief Virginia Jaramillo has said her inspectors are only trying to do their jobs. But Jaramillo, a member of the left-of-center Democratic Revolution Party, has also told reporters the inspections were inspired by "patriotism.''

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the party's candidate in presidential elections set for July, has not mentioned the issue in his campaign speeches. But his party has accused conservative President Vicente Fox of reacting too weakly to the U.S.Treasury pressures.

''They say that we are scaring off foreign investment by going against the hotel,'' Jaramillo said. "The first thing this government should do is defend our national sovereignty.''

Jeffrey Davidow, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and now president of the Institute of the Americas at the University of California-San Diego, says that both governments mishandled the situation.

''This seems to be overzealousness on the part of the Treasury Department,'' he said. "But poor management on the part of the U.S. government should not generate equal incompetence on the part of the Mexicans in going after the Sheraton, which is something of a victim in this.''

He added that threats to close the hotel were "an abuse of power.''

The Sheraton was recently granted an injunction blocking any order to close while the hotel appeals Jaramillo's actions.

BORDER DEBATE

The Foreign Ministry's low-key response to the Sheraton case contrasts with the recent and very public volleys between the Fox administration and current U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza over drug trafficking and lack of security on the U.S.-Mexico border.

For months, Garza has been calling on Mexico to step up security on the border. Mexico has bristled at the criticism, saying that border security is the responsibility of both sides.

''In recent months, the level of rhetoric on both sides has gone up too high,'' Davidow said. "I think the Fox government, if they are trying to tamp this particular issue down, they're doing the right thing. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.''

Meanwhile, the hotel and its more than 600 employees face an uncertain future, and the U.S. business community in Mexico is concerned.

Larry Rubin, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico, which represents 93 percent of U.S. investment here, said that a special workshop is being organized to advise companies on how to comply with U.S. sanctions on Cuba.

''This is an issue where, if they follow Mexican law, they can be prosecuted in the States, and if they follow U.S. law here in Mexico, they'll certainly be prosecuted by the Mexican authorities,'' Rubin said.

"It's a very difficult situation for businesses here, and in particular U.S. businesses.''

Spy-case study criticized for bias

Analysts said a professor's study in the 'Cuban Five' case could have been compromised by his sympathy for Castro.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Mon, Feb. 13, 2006.

A retired Florida International University psychology professor's admiration for Fidel Castro could have compromised the findings of a study he conducted that helped overturn the conviction of five Cubans accused of spying for the communist government, legal analysts told The Miami Herald.

The study, by FIU Professor Emeritus Gary P. Moran, concluded that Miami was so saturated with hate for Castro that the five defendants could not have received a fair trial. None of the jury members was Cuban American or of Cuban descent.

''Castro is a complicated world figure,'' Moran said in a phone interview Thursday night. "I think he is a very sincere man. I admire greatly how he has managed to survive with this great Satan [the United States] as his enemy. The U.S. government, which I don't have any respect for, has obviously been doing everything in its power to crush this man, but they haven't been able to do so.''

Moran's sympathy for the Cuban president, whose 47-year regime has been widely condemned by numerous human-rights groups for imprisoning political dissidents, could bring into question the credibility of his study, legal experts said. His study was cited heavily by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year when a three-judge panel overturned the 2001 verdict against the five Cubans, who remain in prison awaiting a new trial.

Oral arguments in the case will take place Tuesday before the appellate court in Atlanta, where lawyers for the five Cubans are expected to argue that their clients were denied a fair trial.

The design of Moran's poll and its conclusions troubled Rutgers University Professor Cliff Zukin, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the top organization in the country on surveys and polling. Zukin, who reviewed a copy of the poll obtained by The Miami Herald, said it appears that Moran's apparent opinions in favor of Castro seeped into his poll, which Zukin said used leading questions and flawed methodology that reflect bias.

''My concerns in question-wording are that the survey seems to be leading,'' Zukin said in an interview Sunday. Also, he said, "the first eight questions that come before the ninth question should come after it. . . . It's really pretty biasing. All those items are very one-sided. They are all anti-Castro and framed in the same way so an agreed statement would be anti-Castro.''

Zukin said that pollsters with strong opinions can conduct impartial surveys but that in Moran's case, his opinion "shows up in the work product.''

Linda Mills, professor of social work, law and public policy at New York University, said prosecutors in the spy case should present Moran's statements as new evidence. ''If I was a lawyer in this case, I'd be saying that new evidence has come to light and that, in fact, he has this personal bias, and we want to know whether or not that influenced the research,'' Mills said.

Moran said it is ''absolutely not true'' that his feelings about Castro were reflected in his poll or may have influenced conclusions he drew from the data. ''I'm not ashamed of my opinion that Fidel Castro is a serious Cuban patriot, doing his best for the Cuban people,'' Moran said in a telephone interview Sunday. "I have a lot more respect for him than I do for Bush and Cheney, who are outright liars.''

Moran wrote later in an e-mail to The Miami Herald that the first eight questions of his poll, "while occasionally somewhat leading, are the language used on talk radio and the goal is to see just how pervasive this prejudice is.''

Moran was handpicked by attorneys for one of the five spy-case defendants, Luis Medina, to conduct his survey, according to the appellate court decision.

''Medina explained that the traditional methodology for addressing pretrial publicity was not appropriate and proposed that Florida International University psychology professor Gary Patrick Moran conduct a telephone poll with a sample of 300 people,'' the appellate court wrote. "The district court granted the motion.''

''Usually the courts would not allow someone who had some kind of interest, like a strongly held view, to be the expert to do the study,'' said New York University legal-psychology professor Tom Tyler.

In the first trial, the judge discounted Moran's study because, among other reasons, questions were characterized in non-neutral terms, the sample was too small, and several questions were ambiguous, according to the appellate court decision.

Moran's survey results showed that 69 percent of all respondents and 74 percent of Hispanic respondents were ''prejudiced against persons charged with engaging in the activities named in the indictment,'' the court noted.

'A significant number, 57 percent of Hispanic respondents and 39.6 percent of all respondents, indicated that, 'because of their feelings and opinions about Castro's government,' they 'would find it difficult to be a fair and impartial juror in a trial of alleged Cuban spies,' '' the appellate court wrote, citing Moran's survey.

Zukin said those findings were reached from flawed research. He also said it seems that Moran calculated the response rate incorrectly, to reflect a higher rate.

When told that Zukin considered some of his poll questions leading, Moran said that ''some probably are, to some degree. It depends on your standards.'' But he added that in polling on change-of-venue cases, he has to strike a balance with questions that some academics might view as leading.

Moran also said he helped psychology professor Carlos M. Alvarez, arrested in January for allegedly being a Cuban agent and relaying information about the Cuban-American community to Havana, get his job at FIU in the 1970s. Moran said Cuban exiles "have seized upon Alvarez to try to resurrect their own paranoia.''

''These people [Cuban exiles] have already put me and Carlos Alvarez in the Red Wasp -- that's how crazy they are,'' Moran said in Sunday's interview.

Last month, U.S. authorities accused Alvarez, 61, and his wife, Elsa Prieto Alvarez, 55, of operating as covert agents for Cuba for decades. U.S. prosecutors said that Carlos Alvarez, an associate professor at FIU, had spied for Cuba since 1977 and that his wife, a psychology counselor at the university, had done so since 1982. The Alvarezes have pleaded not guilty.

''It may well be technically a crime not to record yourself as an operative of a foreign government,'' Moran said of the Alvarez case. 'But I can't see that he's committed any crimes at all. But every time I hear his name mentioned by any Cubans, they say, "I hope they burn him.' ''

Miami Herald researcher Monika Z. Leal contributed to this report.

Cuban spy case nears crucial point

The long-running legal drama involving the convictions of five Cuban men accused of spying for Fidel Castro's government may be close to its end in an Atlanta courtroom.

By Jay Weaver. jweaver@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Mon, Feb. 13, 2006.

To many Cuban exiles, the five Cubans accused of spying for the Castro government were convicted in 2001 by a fair and impartial federal jury in Miami.

But to Cuban government supporters in the United States and around the world, the men are political prisoners who were merely defending their country against attacks by U.S.-based exile groups opposed to Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Now lawyers for the accused Cuban spies will argue before 12 federal appellate court judges in Atlanta on Tuesday that their clients did not receive a fair trial five years ago in Miami because the community was saturated with anti-Castro sentiment.

The appeals court has issued mixed opinions. In August, a three-judge panel overturned the original convictions, ruling in favor of the Cuban defendants. Two months later, the full court threw out that decision and agreed to hear the appeals case all over again.

Tuesday's oral arguments are being held just 10 days before the 10th anniversary of the Cuban government's shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters -- killing three Cuban Americans and one Cuban exile. One of the accused spies was convicted of conspiring to commit murder for his alleged role in the 1996 attack by Cuban Air Force fighters.

Relatives of the shootdown victims plan to attend Tuesday's hearing before the entire 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to show their support for the 2001 convictions of the five Cubans, now serving lengthy federal prison sentences.

''We felt this is something we should do,'' said Maggie Alejandre Khuly, whose brother, Armando Alejandre Jr., was one of the four Brothers pilots killed on Feb. 24, 1996. "It's something that matters very much to us.''

The other Brothers to the Rescue victims were Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales. The exile organization conducted humanitarian missions over the Florida Straits and leafleted Cuba.

Since last summer, Khuly and other victims' relatives have been on an emotional yo-yo, thanks to the Atlanta appellate court's two rulings in the highly publicized case.

In August, a three-judge panel of that court tossed out the convictions of the five accused Cuban spies, finding that the volatile mix of Miami's anti-Castro political climate and intense media coverage made a fair trial an impossibility in the city. In its 93-page opinion, the court found the six-month trial was inundated with news coverage and public protests from jury selection through the verdict -- all in the aftermath of the U.S. government's controversial decision to return 6-year-old rafter Elián González to Cuba.

'PERFECT STORM'

''A new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment and extensive publicity both before and during the trial merged with the improper prosecutorial references,'' the three-judge panel said.

Suddenly, the Cuban Five convictions were overturned, suggesting a new trial would have to be held outside Miami.

But then in November -- after Miami federal prosecutors challenged that decision -- a majority of the appellate court issued another jolt. They reinstated the convictions, setting the stage for Tuesday's hearing before the entire 12-member court.

The appeal revolves around a handful of legal matters, but the dispute essentially boils down to one question: Did U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard conduct a fair trial after denying the defendants' request that the case be held outside Miami?

On Tuesday, the defendants' lawyers and federal prosecutors will have 20 minutes each to answer that question.

They will likely focus on a few key issues -- zeroing in on a court-approved, pretrial survey of 300 Miami-Dade voters by Florida International University professor Gary Moran. It showed widespread community prejudice toward the five Cuban defendants.

''[T]he Moran survey was clear support for the intuitively expected premise that a community heavily affected by a massive exile population would be hostile to agents of the very government from which the population was in exile,'' argued one of the Cuban Five's lawyers, Philip Horowitz, in an appellate brief.

"Moran's survey -- with the support of substantial underlying data and additional comparative polling studies -- showed that the entirety of the Miami community, both exile and non-exile, was affected by abiding anti-Castro animus.''

But the U.S. Attorney's Office sharply disagreed with that view.

''The government urged [before trial] that little weight be given to Moran's conclusions,'' according to an appellate brief filed by Miami federal prosecutors. "It noted Moran's stereotyping and sweeping prejudgment of the community.''

Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, whose office prosecuted the so-called ''Wasp Network'' spy case during his tenure, defended Lenard's handling of jury selection. He noted that none of the 12 jurors was of Cuban descent.

''She allowed extensive questioning during jury selection; she allowed the defense to have additional strikes of potential jurors; she questioned the jury constantly about any contacts with the media,'' Lewis said. "The [Atlanta] appellate panel, unwisely, superjudged the way she conducted the trial.''

The six-month trial ended with the five defendants' convictions in June 2001.

Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero all received life sentences from Lenard. Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder stemming from the 1996 shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue's planes.

René González, a pilot accused of faking his defection to insinuate himself into the Brothers' exile organization, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fernando González, no relation, was sentenced to 19 years for trying to infiltrate the offices of Cuban-American politicians and shadowing prominent exiles.

The defendants have drawn support from around the globe with the help of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, a San Francisco-based advocacy group. It manages a website, www.freethecubanfive.org, and organized a worldwide letter-writing campaign.

The group has championed several causes -- from immediate release of the incarcerated men to a protest of the U.S. government's denial of visas for the wives of two prisoners, Gerardo Hernández and René González.

SEEKING PUBLICITY

After Tuesday's oral arguments, the committee plans a press conference near the courthouse in Atlanta to attract attention to its global campaign to "Free the Five.''

''We believe they will never be able to get a fair trial in Miami because they are accused of being agents for the Cuban government,'' said Alicia Jrapko, spokeswoman for the committee.

''We believe the government never proved its case at trial,'' she said. "We believe they were trying to defend their country against terrorist attacks. They were not spies. They were infiltrating those [exile] groups to prevent future terrorist actions.''

Walesa warns exiles about power vacuum

In Miami to offer lessons about Poland's transition to democracy two decades ago, Lech Walesa tells Cuban exiles they should prepare for the worst.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Fri, Feb. 10, 2006.

Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa, the electrician whose working-man heroics helped bring down communism in Eastern Europe, expressed a humor-laden dose of solidarity with Miami's Cuban exile community Thursday.

Walesa told the powerhouse crowd of about 200 -- which included mayors and Miami-Dade county commissioners, along with Emilio Estefan, Florida House Speaker-elect Marco Rubio and Brothers to the Rescue founder Jose Basulto -- that Cubans here and Cuba must be ready for a worst-case scenario after Fidel Castro.

''You should be prepared for when it happens, with well-structured ideas of what to do, because there could be anarchy,'' he said through a translator. "Anarchy is worse than anything else.''

Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement, led a nonviolent revolt against Poland's communist system in the 1980s. He said the labor-union led movement was fueled in no small part by the rise of Pope John Paul II, a Polish priest named to the Catholic Church's top post in the late 1970s, giving hope to Poland's largely Catholic populace.

Walesa seemed to take a shot at the U.S. government's attempts to bring freedom and democracy to Cuba after 47 years of Castro's rule, even hinting that Cuba is still communist by design.

''I start thinking that many Americans want to keep Cuba as a museum of Marxism in this hemisphere and that's why it has lasted so long,'' he said at the breakfast hosted by Miami Dade College at Miami's Biscayne Bay Marriott.

'I AM A REVOLUTIONARY'

To prepare the audience for his unorthodox views, Walesa announced a disclaimer: ''If someone doesn't like what I say, well, understand that I am a revolutionary.'' The theme of his speech was the need for ''moral politics'' in a global economy.

Walesa, whose silver hair and mustache are just a shade lighter than they were in the 1980s, is in Miami with his wife and daughter, for several events planned through Monday. The former electrician may not have the intellectual polish of other former Eastern European leaders who fought off communism. Nevertheless, Walesa is known for holding to his convictions in the face of Soviet oppression.

On the electronic billboard recently erected by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, for instance, one of the ''freedom'' blurbs that Cubans could read was a quote from Walesa: "Deep faith eliminates fear''.

In his speech Thursday -- and answering questions from the audience and reporters later -- Walesa offered few specifics for a transition to democracy in Cuba.

Instead, he focused on the need for "moral politics.''

He acknowledged that the United States is a military and economic powerhouse, but said ''there is something that is missing, moral politics.'' He said that one of the biggest problems facing the world is that it is now at the mercy of globalization but is still using "old systems.''

'OUR DRAMA'

''Our drama is that we have new times but are still thinking in the old way,'' he said.

Speaking of Castro, he said, "I feel Castro has already lost, and if he had some honor or courage, he would step aside.''

Asked whether the tight U.S. travel restrictions that prevent Americans from going to Cuba were helping or hurting attempts to democratize the island, Walesa dodged the question: "I see both issues and both sides.''

Walesa will be at the University of Miami on Monday to address a panel about the examples Poland's transition can give Cubans.

''There is a lesson to be learned from Poland,'' said UM Professor Jaime Suchlicki, who heads the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. "In Poland three factors coalesced: Solidarity and its labor movement, the Catholic church and U.S. support.''

PRINTER FRIENDLY