Published Thursday, March 23, 2000, in the Miami Herald
President of Cuba's film institute retiring
From Herald Wire Services
HAVANA -- Alfredo Guevara, a leading figure in Cuban culture, resigned his post as head of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC), to take up ``international tasks related to culture,'' the Cuban government announced Wednesday.
A two-paragraph note in the Communist Party daily Granma said that, at Guevara's request, President Fidel Castro ``has relieved him of his duties.''
Replacing Guevara, 74, will be poet Omar Gonzalez, president of the Cuban Book Institute. Gonzalez, in turn, will be replaced by Iroel Sanchez Espinoza, director of the Abril publishing house.
At a press conference, Guevara said he is resigning to engage in ``activities of a practical and intellectual nature. I need to express myself and find ways to tell my truths.''
He said he is working on a book and several other literary projects about the history of the Cuban Revolution.
Among the first well-known Cuban intellectuals to embrace socialism after the 1959 revolution, Guevara was a defender of the country's artists who criticized Cuban society while still remaining respectful of its Communist system.
Guantanamera, a 1995 Cuban film that poked fun at the absurdities suffered by a family arranging a relative's funeral, typified that philosophy. The film was criticized three years later in a lengthy speech by Castro.
Guevara was president of ICAIC for 22 years after the institute's creation in 1959 but left to serve as Cuba's delegate to UNESCO for 10 years. Then Castro summoned him back to ICAIC's helm for the next nine years.
Both sides in case seek accord
Despite talks, positions said to be at odds
By Jay Weaver, Frank Davies And Andres Viglucci . aviglucci@herald.com
Even as the Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives vowed to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in their fight to prevent the boy's return to Cuba, their lawyers and government officials have been quietly seeking a compromise that would avert a long legal battle and unrest on the streets of Miami.
Sources involved in or knowledgeable about the talks, which have been going on for weeks, say both sides remain far apart. An attempt at mediation by U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., collapsed last week even after the Miami relatives offered to drop some of their legal claims in exchange for
an immigration court hearing for Elian, several sources said.
But the effort to negotiate a solution to the international custody battle continued Wednesday in Miami, when government lawyers and attorneys for the Miami relatives sat down at the U.S. attorney's office downtown.
The meeting, convened by government officials, focused on what the Miami relatives' lawyers plan to do next rather than on deal-making, sources said.
After the meeting, both sides said they would continue talking. The discussions will continue even while the Miami relatives' lawyers prepare an appeal of a federal court decision Tuesday that upheld U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's authority to send Elian home to his father in Cuba.
``We're maintaining a dialogue with the Department of Justice, and I think everyone agrees that it's important we continue that dialogue,'' said Kendall Coffey, one of the attorneys representing Elian's Miami relatives.
Coffey, the former U.S. attorney in Miami, declined to go into specifics.
In addition to Coffey, Roger Bernstein, Linda Osberg-Braun and Barbara Lagoa represented the interests of Elian's Miami relatives at the meeting. Representing the government side were U.S. Attorney Thomas Scott, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis and Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter Lee,
along with INS lawyers William Howard and Dan Vara.
The relatives' lawyers have made one wish plain: They hope the government will agree to take no action to remove Elian until their appeal of U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore's order is concluded. So far, though, the government has not responded publicly to the plea.
Officials at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, however, stressed that the fact they're willing to talk doesn't mean that Reno is softening her position that Elian must go home -- only that they're open to working out a mutually acceptable way of accomplishing that goal.
VIOLENCE CONCERN
Government officials have acknowledged that they have been hesitant to take aggressive action in the case, such as forcibly removing Elian, in part because of concern over setting off potentially violent demonstrations by Cuban exiles.
``The court has sustained our decision, and we want to work with all the parties involved in moving toward an orderly process of effectuating that,'' said Maria Cardona, chief spokeswoman for the INS in Washington, declining to discuss particulars.
Behind the scenes, however, Reno is coming under increasing pressure to act decisively now that her ruling has the firm backing of a federal judge.
On Wednesday evening, Reno met in her office with influential Washington lawyer Gregory Craig, who is representing Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Craig did not return a call to his office. Reno issued a brief statement reiterating her intention of returning Elian to Cuba.
``I believe it is time for Elian to be reunited with his father,'' the statement said in part. ``I told Mr. Craig that we will work with everybody concerned to achieve this goal in an orderly, fair and prompt manner.''
INTERNAL DEBATE
Tuesday's ruling by Moore has spurred internal debate inside the Department of Justice over whether to move quickly to return Elian to Cuba, or allow time for the appeal to be concluded, a process that could take months. Forcibly removing the child from the Little Havana home of his relatives is
the last option being considered, but has not been ruled out, one source said.
``There are a lot of things we are considering,'' a Justice Department official said, declining to elaborate.
Even less clear is what the Miami relatives hope to gain from negotiating, given the government's stated unwillingness to budge from its position ruling out any kind of immigration or asylum hearing for Elian.
But their overtures to the government, which led to the Torricelli mediation, may reflect a recognition of their narrowing legal and political options. Independent legal experts say the appellate court in Atlanta is highly unlikely to overrule Moore, while proposals in Congress to grant Elian
legal status to circumvent INS control of his case remain stalled.
At the very least, the family's lawyers have asked the government to take no immediate action to remove Elian.
ALL THE WAY
The lawyers said Wednesday they would go as far as the Supreme Court if necessary to prevent the 6-year-old child, who lost his mother in an ill-fated smuggling trip in November, from being returned to Cuba.
``Yes, definitely, the case of Elian Gonzalez is important enough to go all the way to the Supreme Court,'' said Spencer Eig, a member of the family's legal team.
Eig and Coffey, speaking to local and national media during an early morning round of interviews at La Carreta restaurant in Little Havana, reiterated their hope that immigration officials will not remove Elian from his Miami relatives' Little Havana home while their appeal is being readied.
``There is no emergency to return him to Cuba,'' Eig said. ``Let the appeals process play out. Elian deserves his day in court.''
Sources said the family's attorneys tried to gain the government's agreement to allow that during the conversations mediated by Torricelli.
FULL HEARING
The family's goal, sources said, was to obtain for Elian a full-blown hearing that would allow them to air their concerns over conditions the boy would face if returned to Cuba, and allegations that the boy's father and grandmothers had been coerced by the government to call for his return to
the island.
One offer from the relatives was to drop the custody petition they filed in Miami-Dade's family court.
``It never came to fruition,'' said a source familiar with the negotiations. ``But that go-around is an indication that all the parties involved are open to a resolution.''
Torricelli, however, suggested that Justice officials were unwilling to bend on allowing some kind of hearing for Elian -- the issue over which the boy's relatives sued and lost in Moore's courtroom. He did not say that he intervened in the talks, but confirmed that they took place.
``It's regrettable that this case is now being resolved in the courts over legal technicalities without exposing conditions in Cuba or exploring whether the father is acting out of free will,'' Torricelli said.
``The Department of Justice does not appear to be sensitive to the interests of the child.''
Herald staff writer Alfonso Chardy contributed to this report.
Fate of Dade's Cuba ban rests with high court
By Frank Davies . fdavies@herald.com
WASHINGTON -- Harking back to the boycotts of the Boston Tea Party era, a Massachusetts official Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to allow local governments to use purchasing power to economically punish repressive governments.
But business groups and the Clinton administration argued against a 1996 Massachusetts law that banned the state from buying products or services from companies that do business with the military dictatorship of Myanmar, also known as Burma.
That ban, struck down by lower courts, is similar to dozens of laws and ordinances around the country, including Miami-Dade County's ban on doing business with any firm that deals with Cuba. Legal observers say these restrictions would be in jeopardy if the Supreme Court doesn't revive the
Massachusetts law.
The Supreme Court is expected to make its decision by July.
HARD QUESTIONS
In their questions, Supreme Court justices gave few clues about how they leaned in this case, but clearly struggled with the issue of whether states and localities can aim public business away from nations with objectionable policies, or if that interferes with the federal governments foreign
policy and trade responsibilities.
Asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Can Massachusetts ``go its own way? Doesnt that clash with the authority the founders wanted the national government to have?'' Mused Justice David Souter: ``Can [the state] go beyond the expression of views into regulation?''
Thomas Barnico, an assistant attorney general for Massachusetts, said his state was not regulating commerce but ``exercising its right to make choices in the marketplace'' about Myanmar, and that Congress chose not to override that effort.
``If you go back to the framers, who knew boycotts well and held them dear, its highly unlikely they would deny this to the states,'' said Barnico, whose state was the site of boycotts of British products on the eve of the Revolutionary War in 1776.
Massachusetts was supported by legal briefs from 16 counties and cities, 22 states, several human rights organizations and 78 members of Congress, ranging from such liberals as Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California to conservative Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami
Republican.
`UNNECESSARY IRRITANT'
Solicitor General Seth Waxman joined lawyers for the National Foreign Trade Council in arguing that the Massachusetts law interfered with foreign trade policy, even though Congress approved its own set of sanctions on Myanmar similar to the state law.
``Massachusetts has created a considerable sense of irritation with our trading partners and allies,'' said Waxman, who described the state law as ``a wholly unnecessary irritant'' to administration efforts at coordinating an international response to Myanmar.
Timothy Dyk, lawyer for the trade council, called the state law ``improper regulation accomplished through purchasing.''
S. AFRICA BOYCOTTS
Waxman also noted that while many states and cities enacted boycotts and divestiture efforts against South Africa during the apartheid era, Congress explicitly urged states to do that.
Some of the South Africa boycotts were challenged legally, but the issue never reached the Supreme Court.
Outside the court, several dozen demonstrators held a ``free Burma'' rally during the arguments. Robert Stumberg, a Georgetown law professor who works for several human rights groups, said the courts decision in this case will be closely watched by many state and local governments.
``The Miami-Dade ordinance, for example, would be in jeopardy if the court ruled against this law, depending on the wording,'' Stumberg said.
``When it comes to issues of public spending, there are many close cousins'' to the Massachusetts law, he added.
Cubans land on small island
Lisa Fuss . lfuss@herald.com
ISLAMORADA -- Twenty-two Cuban immigrants believed to have been smuggled into the United States were found early Wednesday on a small uninhabited island near Old Settler Park.
According to the U.S. Border Patrol, 10 men, seven women and five children were discovered by a local fisherman at about 7:30 a.m. The U.S. Coast Guard picked up the group and turned them over to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. The Border Patrol later took custody of the Cubans.
Dan Geogeghan, assistant chief for the Border Patrol in Pembroke Pines, said the group claimed that they traveled from Cuba aboard a small, wooden boat, but no vessel was found at the scene.
``Judging from appearances, and the fact that there was no boat, they were probably smuggled in,'' Geogeghan said.
The Cubans were transported to the Border Patrol's Pembroke Pines office for questioning and later taken to the Krome Detention Center.
Torture victims aid center planned
By Marika Lynch . mlynch@herald.com
Rape victims, inmates who spent weeks crammed in 18-inch-wide cells, and prisoners bludgeoned by their captors may soon have a refuge in South Florida.
A local immigrant advocacy group, with the support of three Florida members of Congress, announced plans Wednesday to open a rehabilitation center for torture victims if it gets funding. One of 15 nationwide, the center would offer free medical care, from dental work to counseling.
The center would provide care to people such as Fanni Quintero.
The North Miami factory worker unbuttoned her white blouse at a news conference Wednesday to show an inch-wide scar on her breast -- a reminder, she said, of when a Nicaraguan jail guard beat her with the butt of his rifle.
"We keep it to ourselves, because every time we talk about it we relive it, said Quintero, 49. "When you tell people, they think you invented it. But these are things that can't be invented.
Some immigrant advocates say a separate center for victims of mental and physical torture is needed because of the shame survivors such as Quintero feel. Silence leads to misdiagnosis, said Douglas Johnson, executive director of Minnesota's Center for Victims of Torture, the nation's first such
facility.
``What we find is that doctors don't ask . . . people about the extent of the traumatic experiences people went through, and the refugees and trauma victims don't self-disclose them because they are filled with shame,'' Johnson said.
Before the torture victims' program began, some Minnesota doctors gave the wrong treatment for ailments that they ultimately realized were trauma-based.
Johnson said survivors he encounters often suffer from depression and consider suicide -- symptoms they often pass to children and other family members.
SEEKING A SITE
International Educational Missions is looking for a site in either Miami-Dade County or Broward County. The 13-year-old Boynton Beach-based group is headed by Richard Krieger, an associate director for refugees under President Reagan. The group has yet to raise the $500,000 in private donations
needed to open, Krieger said, though once it does Krieger said the federal government and a United Nations fund for torture victims have promised money. The group also expects doctors to volunteer their time.
Because of South Florida's demographics, clients likely will come from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Guatemala. The center will accept clients regardless of their political beliefs or those of their captors, Krieger said.
Some 22,000 torture survivors live in South Florida, the group said, extrapolating from national statistics on torture victims. Immigrant-rich states New York and California have three similar rehabilitation centers each.
Rep. Peter Deutsch, who added his support along with Reps. Mark Foley and Bill McCollum, applauded the project.
'CENTER OVERDUE'
"Florida, as one of the great receiving states of refugees in the United States, is long overdue for a rehabilitation center to care for those victims who have sought the refuge and comfort of our state and our nation, said Deutsch, who is also an Educational Missions board member.
But some local immigration experts question whether there will be enough clients to justify an entire center.
Maria Dominguez, who runs a legal clinic at St. Thomas University, which last year served 2,500 people, mainly Cubans and Haitians, said she hasn't seen anyone identified as a torture victim on an asylum application in the last three years.
Haydee Marin, a researcher for the International Society for Human Rights, has seen more victims in her work researching Colombian immigrants in South Florida. Many of the 100 people she has interviewed said they have been tortured by guerrillas or Colombian police, she said. In one case, the
relatives of a prominent legislator were kidnapped by guerrillas for a year and 10 days, kept in a dark room and not allowed to bathe.
"All that can destroy a human being", Marin said.
VICTIMS' STORIES
Wednesday, a dozen former political prisoners with a combined 113 years behind bars spoke at Little Havana's Historic House of Cuban Political Prisoners on behalf of the center. There, in the Gallery of Martyrs, flanked by a portrait of Cuban liberator Jose Marti and 202 names of those who who
perished in Cuban prisons, the mostly Cuban and Nicaraguan survivors told their stories.
Luis Martinez, who was a prisoner in Tres Macios prison in Cuba's Oriente province, told of spending two weeks in the punishment drawers, where he stood with six other men in an 18-inch-wide cell. Martinez and the others went on a hunger strike to get out, he said, vomiting the food guards
forced into their mouths with shovels.
Another veteran of Cuban prisons, Eduardo Capote, raised his right hand for emphasis. His little finger was missing, chopped off, he said, when he tried to stop a guard from slicing his neck.
Quintero, a former national guard sergeant tortured in Nicaragua, wiped her eyes with a lime green handkerchief as she told of nightly rapes in her jail.
"That jail was hell for women, Quintero said. ``We have suffered enough.
MORE ON CENTER
To find out more about the rehabilitation center, call International Educational Missions at 561-733-0347. Donations can be sent to P.O. Box 740-300, Boynton Beach, FL 33474-0300.
Relatives: Boy aware of ruling
By Alfonso Chardy . achardy@herald.com
Elian Gonzalez's disappointed Miami relatives said in interviews Wednesday that the 6-year-old boy is well aware of the latest developments in his case.
``When these things happen, he starts asking or saying, `So, they want to send me back to Cuba?' '' said his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, whose lawsuit seeking an asylum hearing for the boy was dismissed Tuesday by a federal judge.
In a round of television, radio and newspaper interviews early Wednesday at La Carreta restaurant in Little Havana, Lazaro Gonzalez said Elian is aware of the judge's decision even if no one in the Miami family has specifically explained to him its significance.
``No one has to explain things to this child,'' Gonzalez said. ``He's very smart and realizes when something's going on because of the sudden appearance of the press, the reporters and the fact his family members get nervous and all the comings and goings.''
Georgina Cid, Elian's cousin, cried in front of the television cameras when she recounted how Elian feels about the possibility of being returned to Cuba so he could be reunited with his father.
``Elian has been saying over and over again that he doesn't want to go back,'' she said, sobbing. ``He says he wants his father to come here.''
Both Cid and Gonzalez told reporters it would be unfair for the U.S. government to suddenly uproot Elian from Miami.
``He's growing up here now,'' Gonzalez said. ``You can see the change in his face. When he first got here, his face showed uncertainty.
``Now, you can see the change in the videos -- his face beams in smiles because he's happy and he's adapted to his family in Miami.''
Gonzalez said Elian is doing well in school, where his favorite subject is English.
``He loves to speak English,'' Gonzalez said. ``English is his favorite subject in school along with physical education. He's very organized and does his homework without anyone having to tell him to do it. He loves his school and his friends there.''
Polita Grau, 85, dies; was first lady of Cuba
By Carol Rosenberg . crosenberg@herald.com
Polita Grau, the former first lady of Cuba who later served 14 years in Cuban prisons for conspiring with the CIA to topple Fidel Castro, died Wednesday at the Villa Maria Nursing Center in Miami. She was 84.
For many in Miami, she was revered as the godmother of Pedro Pan -- the Catholic Church-sponsored movement that encouraged Cuban parents to send their children to U.S. families and spare them communist re-education.
With her brother, Ramon, the Graus secretly distributed U.S. letterhead invitations from their Havana home that allowed 14,000 children to come here in the early 1960s. Among them were her own daughter and son, whom she sent to friends in Miami while she stayed behind to care for elderly
relatives.
But Polita Grau's Pedro Pan activities were just a small slice of a lifetime of activism and advocacy that spanned both sides of the Florida Straits -- with four separate periods of exile in Miami.
``It is the end of an era. Polita Grau was a piece of Cuban history,'' said DePaul University political scientist Maria de los Angeles Torres, who interviewed Grau many times in Miami.
Her passing, Torres said, was ``particularly significant in terms of women's involvement in Cuban politics.''
As a college student, she was involved in radical campus movements to undermine the Gen. Gerardo Machado regime. Later, she was a supporter of Cuba's 1959 revolution -- but turned against it soon after Castro started nationalizing industries.
Born in Havana on Nov. 19, 1915, Grau was probably destined for political and human rights activism. Her uncle was Ramon Grau San Martin, Cuba's president from 1933 to 1934 and from 1944 to 1948 -- and conferred upon his niece the ceremonial title of first lady during his first term.
``She has been much involved in democratic movements and later on became involved in supporting the revolution and then in the opposition of the revolution,'' Torres said.
So active was her disenchantment with the revolution that she plotted to topple the communist leader.
In 1965, she and her brother Ramon were arrested and charged with being CIA agents and allegedly forming an international espionage ring in Cuba.
She spent 14 years in jail, until Castro authorized a major release of political prisoners in 1978 -- as part of a later abandoned dialogue with Miami exiles encouraged by Jimmy Carter.
Her brother, who died in 1998, was freed eight years later.
``She was a brave woman. She wasn't afraid of anything. She felt very Cuban,'' said Miami businessman Bernardo Benes, who took part in the 1978 dialogue between exiles and Castro that resulted in her early release from a 30-year sentence.
Grau, who had suffered from congestive heart disease, had failing health in recent years, said her daughter Hilda ``Chury'' Aguero.
She described four periods of exile in Miami -- starting with her senior year in high school, when she graduated from St. Patrick's Academy on Miami Beach.
Although Grau was known widely as Polita, that name never appeared on any official identification document. She was born Maria Leopoldina Grau. In her post-prison arrival in the United States, her documents bore the name Maria Aguero, taken from her second husband.
When she became a U.S. citizen, she adopted yet another name: Pola Grau, the name on her naturalization certificate.
In addition to her daughter, survivors include six grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Visitation will be held until noon today at the Rivero Funeral Home, 8200 Bird Road. Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh will officiate at a 1 p.m. Mass today at St. Dominic's Catholic Church, 5909 NW Seventh St.
No cemetery service will be held. At her request, a cremation will take place, and her ashes will eventually be interred in Cuba.
Unity over Elian sought
By Ana Acle. acle@herald.com
Disappointed by a federal judge's decision in the Elian Gonzalez case and distrustful of government intentions, the leaders of 11 Cuban exile organizations told the community Wednesday to remain united and on emergency alert.
That moderate declaration came after a meeting that provided a rare, candid glimpse into internal debate, as the 15 leaders allowed reporters for a while to listen as they discussed strategy: Do they protest publicly before the appeals process ends or should they wait? Should they keep in mind
the upcoming presidential elections? What type of demonstration should they have?
The only answer later heard by the press: The demonstration should be a ``massive one,'' said Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of the Democracy Movement.
The loaded-gun question, what will happen in Miami if Elian is forced to return, drew incomplete answers.
The leaders know it is a delicate balance, like walking on a tightrope, to draw attention to their cause but not negative backlash, said Dr. Enrique Huertas, president of the Cuban Medical Association, made up of exile doctors. They said they prefer civil disobedience.
The discussion came a day after U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore upheld U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's authority to return Elian to his father in Cuba. The boy survived a shipwreck in the Florida Straits, but lost his mother.
``We owe the community a united response,'' said Sylvia Iriondo, president of Mothers Against Repression in Cuba.
The organization leaders reiterated their stance on the case, saying the boy must not be returned to Fidel Castro. He should be allowed to speak his mind in front of a judge, they said.
The United States also should respect his rights under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cuban refugees to apply for permanent residency after a year and a day of being in the United States, they said.
``We don't think Elian has had his day in court,'' Huertas said. ``Everyone has the right to ask for asylum. The law doesn't say how old you have to be.''
And, they said, they must not lose sight of the ultimate goal: to gain liberty and democracy for Cuba.
In their earlier discussion, they talked about the bigger picture: Elian's case is a microcosm of the struggle to free Cuba and its children from the oppressive Castro government.
``The struggle for a free Cuba is not only about one boy,'' added Rodolfo Rodriguez San Roman, representing the Cuban Political Prisoners Block. ``It is about thousands of children.''
The group believes the Clinton administration made a deal with the Cuban government.
``From the onset, this has been a blackmail,'' said Juan Perez-Franco, president of the 2506 Brigade, veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion. ``Castro is playing a good card. He had threatened the United States if the boy was not returned within [72] hours.''
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