Yahoo! May 18, 2000
Castro Calls Cuba 'Freest Country'
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Fidel Castro defended his country's human rights record, saying that communist Cuba has not been plagued with the disappearances, instances of torture and death squads of other Latin American nations.
``This is the freest country in the world,'' Castro told a gathering of hundreds of farmers Wednesday.
Still bruised by last month's U.N. vote to censure Cuba for rights violations, Castro challenged his listeners to name a single such act during his four decades in power.
``Raise your hand if you know of a single disappearance'' Castro said.
Latin American governments in the past often spirited away political enemies, leaving family and friends uncertain of whether their loved ones were dead or alive.
Castro also said Cuba has had no extrajudicial executions or death squads that have surged periodically in other parts of the Western Hemisphere.
``No one can raise their hand!'' he said triumphantly during the evening speech to Cuban farmers gathered for a national congress.
The 73-year-old leader mocked those who refer to his government as a dictatorship.
``It's a dictatorship of ideas,'' he said. ``A dictatorship of thoughts, a dictatorship of ideals!''
International human rights organization do not accuse Cuba of disappearances, or of operating death squads. But they regularly criticize the government for denying citizens basic political and civil rights such as freedom of expression and assembly.
Poland and the Czech Republic, former socialist allies, submitted the U.N. motion that passed 21-18 to censure the island nation for its human rights record, especially citing political repression.
Alleged INS Spy Trial Opens
By Meg Richards, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 17 (AP) - A U.S. immigration official passed a government secret to a friend with ties to Cuba for money and to prove his value as a business associate, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
Mariano Faget, 54, a veteran Immigration and Naturalization Service official, is charged with violating the U.S. Espionage Act by revealing classified information and lying about contacts with Cuban officials. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
In opening the prosecution's case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dick Gregorie told the jury that as a high-ranking official, Faget had access to secret government files. Faget was acting district deputy director in Miami.
``You're going to have to decide which side Mr. Faget is on,'' Gregorie said. ``We're not talking about communism. This is not about political philosophy ... whether you believe in the embargo (against trade with Cuba) or not. This is a Miami case: M-I-A ... it's about money, information and
access.''
Defense attorney Edward O'Donnell told jurors that Faget acted in good faith out of concern for his old friend and would never have done anything to compromise national security.
When arrested Feb. 17, Faget told the FBI: ``I want you to know that what I did was to protect my friend. I would do nothing to jeopardize the security of my country,'' O'Donnell quoted his client as saying.
The FBI began surveillance of Faget in February 1999 after he went to a bar and met a Cuban diplomat who the agency suspected was an intelligence official. A year later, Faget was told as part of an FBI sting that the Cuban official wanted to defect, and that that information was classified.
When Faget then used his personal cell phone to alert his longtime friend, Pedro Font, he did so out of concern for Font's safety, not to alert Cuban officials, O'Donnell said.
Font was meeting that day with top Cuban diplomat Jose Imperatori, and Faget wanted Font to have the information for his own protection, O'Donnell said.
``Just listen to the conversation,'' said O'Donnell. ``It's not, 'Listen, so you can tell Imperatori.' It's just the other way around.''
Gregorie alleges Font and Faget created a corporation to conduct business with Cuba, and while Font and other partners put up money, Faget had nothing to give except his status as a government official.
Font worked with Faget's father for a government agency that repressed communism in pre-Castro Cuba, O'Donnell said.
``Mariano Faget didn't need to do anything to cement his relationship with Pedro Font,'' O'Donnell said. ``Font would give him the world when he retires. Font loves this man.''
Orioles Avoid Cuban Players Who Have Defected
BALTIMORE, 17 (Reuters) - The Baltimore Orioles, who played Cuba's national baseball team last year in a historic attempt at baseball diplomacy, said on Wednesday that they will not sign players who have defected from Cuba for fear of harming U.S.-Cuban relations.
A spokesman for the Major League Baseball club said the ''unwritten policy'' has been in effect since last spring, when the Orioles became the first U.S. team to play on Cuban soil since 1959 and later hosted the Cubans for an unprecedented second game at their Camden Yards ballpark in downtown
Baltimore.
``We don't want to do anything that is disruptive, including hiring defectors or encouraging others to do so,'' Orioles spokesman Bill Stetka told Reuters.
For that reason, the American League team has not approached Cuban players including Adrian Hernandez, who used forged documents to leave Havana on a commercial airliner in January, or Danys Baez, who walked away from the Cuban national team last summer in Canada.
About a dozen Cuban players have defected to the United States over the past decade.
Baseball diplomacy supporters including Orioles owner Peter Angelos intended last year's two-game series, which ended with a 1-1 tie, as a groundbreaker that would help ease tense U.S.-Cuban relations and inaugurate a new tradition of exhibition games between Cuban and Major League teams.
But the series also ignited anger within the Cuban-American community and, this year, insiders say plans for more series have been hampered by the raucous public protests and debate over 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor, Elian Gonzalez.
The Clinton administration granted a waiver allowing the Orioles to visit Cuba as part of an adjustment to the economic embargo that Washington has maintained against the communist nation since 1962.
The Washington Times, which first reported the Orioles' policy toward Cuban defectors on Wednesday, said the series had been part of a White House bid to normalize relations with Cuban President Fidel Castro.
``After the good will created between the two countries by the visit, we -- Mr. Angelos in particular -- feel it best to not do anything that could be interpreted as being disrespectful or ... encouraging players to defect,'' the Times quoted Orioles vice president Syd Thrift as saying.
``That about says it,'' Stetka told Reuters.
Last year's final game, which the Orioles lost 12-6 in Baltimore, ended with the defection of a former Cuban pitcher who had helped to coach the Cuban National Team.
Elian's Scarf Outrages Exiles
MIAMI (AP) - Cuban Americans were outraged after seeing photographs of Elian Gonzalez wearing a blue scarf, which is the uniform of the Pioneers, a communist youth group.
The Cuban Americans said Tuesday the photographs, published in the Cuban newspaper Granma, are proof that the Castro government is brainwashing the 6-year-old boy.
Cuban diplomats scoffed at the accusations that Elian is being brainwashed. They said the scarf is part of his school uniform.
``Children go to school in uniform - just the way they do at private schools in the United States. I don't see what the problem is,'' said Luis Fernandez, spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington.
While federal courts decide whether to send Elian back to Cuba, he has been living at a Maryland retreat with his father. He has been there since shortly after he was seized by federal agents last month from the home of Miami relatives.
The five photographs apparently were taken while he was receiving instruction from a Cuban teacher sent to Maryland. It is unclear when they were taken.
``No - it seems communism has penetrated the United States,'' said Ramon Chong, a Miami area security guard who came to the United States from Cuba four years ago.
Elian has been in the United States since Thanksgiving Day, when two men out fishing found him clinging to an inner tube off the coast of South Florida. The boy's mother died trying to flee their country in a boat that capsized.
Kendall Coffey, an attorney for Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonazlez, said the Miami relatives plan to complain to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona said Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, selects the boy's clothes.
``It is not the INS's business what Elian wears on daily basis,'' she said.
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