By Mildrade Cherfils, Associated Press . Naples Daily News. Saturday, March 18, 2000
MIAMI - An exiled Cuban writer is giving back an honorary doctorate degree he received from Florida International University in 1993 to protest the university's support of a conference that includes dozens of academics from Cuba.
"They've done something that I consider very grievous and I couldn't accept it," said Guillermo Cabrera Infante Friday in a telephone interview from his home in England. "I couldn't possibly keep silent about that."
The Latin American Studies Association, the world's largest organization of scholars studying Latin American and Caribbean issues, is hosting a three-day conference that includes a 124-member delegation from Havana.
The writer, who left Cuba in 1965 and now lives in London's South Kensington section, called the Cuban academics "employees of the regime."
"There is nothing in Cuba that is independent," Cabrera Infante said. "They are all paid by the Ministry of Education, which means they are paid by Fidel Castro."
Cabrera Infante, 70, said he sent a fax Thursday to the office of FIU president Modesto Maidique, informing the Miami school that he was returning the honorary degree, called an Honoris Causa, as a means of denouncing the university's involvement in what he called "pro-Castro activities."
Cabrera Infante, whose works include "Three Sad Tigers" and "Infante's Inferno" said he would be mailing back the diploma and an accompanying medal he received from FIU.
From Thursday through Saturday, about 2,800 university professors from the United States and 2,200 from other countries are attending 691 two-hour seminars in three downtown hotels at the Miami conference.
Topics range from agriculture to the environment, according to Anthony Maingot, FIU anthropologist and program chairman of the conference.
Officials at Florida International sought to make it clear that while the university helped organize and coordinate the event - which is held in a different location every 18 months - it wasn't linked to the Cuban delegation.
"We are neither hosting, nor paying for these scholars to come to Miami," said university spokeswoman Maydel Santana-Bravo. "However we do respect their right to come and to give their presentations."
She said Maidique spoke to Cabrera Infante for about 30 minutes Friday, and asked the author to reconsider his position.
Cabrera Infante, in turn, said he would not change his mind despite the university's insistence that it isn't directly responsible for the Cuban scholars' attendance.
Returning the degree, which Cabrera Infante said he considered a distinct honor when he received it, remained the only protest possible, he said.
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