Yahoo! May 8, 2000
Cuba, Protestors Dispute Assault
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 6 (AP) - It was one of those rare occasions when passions spawned by the Elian Gonzalez saga degenerated into violence. The consequences could take months to play out.
As night fell on April 14, about 15 Cuban men emerged from Cuba's diplomatic mission and assaulted a group of protesters demanding that the 6-year-old be allowed to remain in the United States.
No one disputes the altercation took place. Still, three weeks later, sharply differing accounts describe what provoked it.
Luis Fernandez, spokesman for the Cuban mission, said demonstrators jostled and spit at Cuban personnel and insulted women and children from the mission.
Fernandez also said the protesters passed ``objects'' through the tall iron fence in front of the mission, a breach, he says, of the ``inviolability'' of the diplomatic site. The mission lodged a strong protest note the following day with the State Department.
Brigida Benitez, a Cuban-American lawyer who participated in the protest, called Fernandez's account ``completely untrue.''
``We saw no women (from the mission), no one was spat upon, and there was no physical contact until they came out and attacked us,'' she says.
The State Department registered extreme concern with Cuban diplomats and demanded an explanation but has received none. ``We have not entered into details,'' Fernandez said Friday.
District of Columbia police have begun a criminal investigation as well. A police spokesman said the case is being treated as simple assault. The State Department is withholding further action until the police complete their investigation.
Other protesters corroborate Benitez's account, as does a sworn affidavit provided Benitez's law firm by a neighborhood resident, Jose Truman Acuna.
According to a translated version of his statement, Acuna said 14 or 15 men emerged from the mission and ``violently attacked the demonstrators with punches and kicks and even a metal object'' - said to have been a ruler. ``One of the men grabbed a female demonstrator who was carrying Cuban and
U.S. flags and threw her to the pavement with great force.''
Acuna said he calculated ``there were at least two attackers for each demonstrator. None of the demonstrators tried to fight back.''
The affidavit does not provide Acuna's address, but he said the location of his apartment gives him a clear view of the diplomatic mission. His nationality was not given; Benitez said he is from Central America.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, had been on U.S. soil for more than a week, but the boy's Miami relatives seemed unwilling to transfer custody of Elian to him.
Mission diplomats also were enraged by a video showing Elian saying, ``I don't want to go to Cuba. ... I want to stay here.'' The Cuban diplomats, and many Americans, felt the boy was coached and that his words should not be taken seriously.
On April 22, eight days after the incident, the situation changed dramatically when immigration agents seized Elian from his Miami relatives and reunited him with his father.
In cases of alleged criminal offenses by foreign diplomatic personnel, a State Department ``Foreign Affairs Manual'' says that the suspects are encouraged to waive diplomatic immunity so that the allegation may be fully adjudicated by U.S. authorities.
If the waiver request is rejected, the diplomats are expelled and are barred from ever returning to the United States.
It was not the first altercation involving U.S.-based Cuban diplomats.
In August 1994, about 15 people opposed to Cuba's communist system tried to lock a chain across the entrance of the Cuban mission in New York. A fight erupted as mission employees tried to remove the chain. The following April, the department ordered two of the diplomats to leave the country.
Cuba blamed the incident on American ``terrorist groups.''
Cuban Baseball Player Still Missing
By Brian Bakst, Associated Press Writer.
ST. PAUL, Minn. 8 (AP) - A Cuban college baseball player remained missing today while his teammates said they were trying hard not to be distracted by his possible defection.
``We came to the States to have a sports exchange and academics exchange, not to have a migration exchange,'' team captain Osmar Ernesto Fernandez said Sunday through an interpreter.
Mario Miguel Chaoui was last seen getting into a waiting car outside the Humphrey Terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Saturday afternoon, shortly after the team arrived to return a visit by the University of St. Thomas baseball team last winter.
The mood Sunday was sedate among members of ``Equipo Caribe,'' or Team Caribbean in English, which is composed mostly of students from the University of Havana and some students from a technical institute in the Cuban capital.
As he toured the state Capitol on Sunday, Fernandez struggled to explain why his teammate would leave.
``We don't know why he has made this decision,'' said Fernandez, 26, who has known Chaoui since boyhood. ``In Cuba, we have everything we need.''
Fernandez said the team was trying to downplay the distraction as it prepared for a game against St. Thomas at the Metrodome in Minneapolis on Tuesday. But he acknowledged anger many players felt upon hearing the news.
``Our first reaction was rage. We were a little bit upset,'' he said.
Neither the Cuban team, St. Thomas officials or the Immigration and Naturalization Service had heard from Chaoui since the car sped off from the airport, officials said.
Doug Hennes, a St. Thomas spokesman, said the school has been in contact with the INS, but the agency has limited authority in such cases.
``They can't do much other than wait for phone calls,'' Hennes said. ``Legally, the guy is in the United States on a 30 day visa, so he is not breaking any laws. He is away without leave from the team.''
The Rev. Dennis Dease, the president of St. Thomas, who has worked hard to build connections between his school and the Cuban people, told reporters Sunday evening that the INS has asked the university to remain neutral.
``I'm just hoping that the young man will check in with us or immigration in the next few days,'' Dease said.
Dease said school officials made sure none of the St. Thomas players was harboring Chaoui. He said that the players were all as surprised to learn of his disappearance and that several players had been corresponding with him since their trip to Cuba in January.
The last time a Cuban team of college players came to the United States was in 1987 when a national team played several games at the Metrodome.
Cuba Orders U.S. To Pay Billions
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 6 (AP) - In a symbolic lawsuit, Cuba has ordered the United States to pay $121 billion in damages for causing the communist island economic harm during a four-decade-long trade embargo, state media reported Saturday.
In announcing the decision, the Communist Party daily Granma said that the U.S. government had been informed of the ruling on Friday.
American officials have never commented on the lawsuit, which was filed last year in an attempt to draw attention to the suffering that Cuba says its people have endured under the embargo imposed after President Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
The United States has also never commented on a similar previously filed lawsuit. In the first suit, a Cuban court in November found the U.S. government liable for deaths and damage caused by ``aggressive policies'' toward the island and ordered the United States to pay $181.1 billion in
reparations.
Both lawsuits appeared to be a response to the ruling by a U.S. federal judge in Miami last year ordering Cuba to pay $187 million to the families of three Americans killed in 1996 when Cuban military jets shot down two small private planes off the island's coast. The ruling has been appealed.
While the Cuban government used the suits to make a political point, it appeared unlikely that either would result in any damages being paid. There are no American funds in Cuba that could be seized.
Even local news coverage of the trial has been overshadowed by the government's ongoing focus on the case of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old castaway whose rescue off the coast of Florida last November set off an international custody battle that continues today.
The court's final ruling mentioned Elian, saying that the custody battle would never have occurred if not for the Cuban Adjustment Act, a 1966 U.S. law that allows Cubans who reach American soil to apply for U.S. residency. Elian fell under that law because he reached U.S. soil after he was
rescued and taken to a hospital for medical care.
On Saturday morning, the government estimated that 70,000 people showed up for a rally in eastern Cuba to press for the child's return to his communist homeland.
The government-organized rally in Puerto Padre, about 400 miles east of Havana, was the latest in a series of large events being held in different provincial cities each weekend. Located on Cuba's northern coast, Puerto Padre is a popular departure point for Cuban rafters trying to emigrate
illegally to the United States.
Cuba Declares U.S. Guilty in Anti-Embargo Lawsuit
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba, pursuing a largely symbolic domestic lawsuit against Washington for 40 years of economic sanctions, declared the U.S. government ``guilty'' on Saturday and ordered it to pay $121 billion in compensation.
Washington had ignored the suit, which was filed in a Cuban court in January by pro-government groups representing different sectors of Cuban society. U.S. officials dismissed it privately as having little international legal weight.
The Cuban lawsuit sought compensation.
Rallies Held in Miami Over Elian
MIAMI, 6 (AP) - Thousands of people rallied Saturday to call for unity amid mounting tensions following the removal of Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives.
More than 3,000 demonstrators in Cutler Ridge in south Miami-Dade County lined the streets and waved U.S. flags in support of the federal action.
``For the last five months all we've seen are the Cuban-Americans protesting,'' said Tom Strybala, 37. ``Why is it going to make things more divided for us to protest? It doesn't seem right to sit by and not say anything.''
At a major intersection in surburban Miami, about 350 people waved American flags and criticized recent actions taken by Miami Mayor Joe Carollo and held signs that read, ``Joe Must Go'' and ``Disagree, but do not disrespect.''
No arrests were made at either rally, police said.
The city has been divided since April 22, when armed agents with the Immigration and Naturalization Service seized the 6-year-old Cuban boy and reunited him with his father. Elian had lived with the Miami relatives since November, when his mother and 10 others drowned in a boat crossing from
Cuba.
The very public tug-of-war between city officials since the raid has sparked criticism that the city government is out of control.
Carollo criticized the police chief for not alerting him in advance about the federal raid, and fired the city manager. Police Chief William O'Brien resigned, saying he was tired of the mayor's destructive politics. City Manager Donald Warshaw remains in office, following a court injunction that
delayed his removal until after an investigation.
``I don't like what has happened with the mayor and with City Hall,'' said Gildo Rivas, 71, a Cuban-American who has lived in Miami for 45 years.
Robert Pearson-Martinez, 28, said he is tired of feeling misrepresented in his community. ``Lawlessness has been endorsed at the highest levels of city government,'' he said.
Rally organizers from Citizens for a Better Community said the gathering was intended to help patch community divisions.
Francis Quinn, vice chair and treasurer of the executive committee of the Reform Party, encouraged voters to express their displeasure in the next election.
``I brought 1,100 voter registrations forms today, and I hope to have them all filled,'' Quinn said. ``But I'm also out here to protest the current political system of Miami.''
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