Published Thursday, January 18, 2001, in the Miami Herald
Cuba rejects Czech protest of arrests
Prague seeks pair's release
By Jane Bussey. jbussey@herald.com
Cuban authorities rejected official protests Wednesday from the Czech
Republic over the detention of two prominent Czech citizens and repeated the
threat that the two leaders of the 1989 Velvet Revolution would be tried by a
``revolutionary tribunal.''
As top Cuban and Czech diplomats met face to face in Havana, Prague stepped
up pressure on the Cuban government to release Ivan Pilip, a member of the Czech
parliament, and Jan Bubenik, a corporate recruiter in Prague. The two men were
arrested in southeastern Cuba on Friday after meeting with two dissidents and
are currently being held in the Villa Marista prison in Havana.
The State Department condemned the detentions of the two men, while the
European Union mentioned the arrests in its semiannual report assessing the
Cuban situation. The Prague parliament late Wednesday moved to contact the
Inter-Parliamentary Union to call for the organization to rethink its scheduled
international meeting in Cuba in April. Prague Cardinal Miloslav Vlk made an
appeal to the archbishop of Havana, Jaime Ortega, calling the arrests absurd.
The arrest of two prominent Czech democracy leaders is set against the
backdrop of sharply worsening relations between Czech President Vaclav Havel and
President Fidel Castro of Cuba. Newspaper reports noted that Czech citizens
reject Havana's charges that the two men were acting as spies.
``Let's view the affair as Havana's retaliation for the anti-Cuban
resolution which the Czech Republic, together with Poland, pushed through some
time ago,'' said Milan Vodicka wrote in Mlada fronta Dnes, Prague's largest
circulation daily.
Following the resolution condemning Cuba's human rights record at a United
Nations forum in April, the Cuban government organized a protest of 100,000
people outside the Czech Embassy.
A Cuban tribunal must decide by noon today if authorities will level formal
charges against Pilip and Bubenik, who were detained in Ciego de Avila and
accused of carrying out activities that are not permitted on tourist visas.
``Tomorrow is D-Day,'' said Petr Janousek, spokesman for the Czech Embassy
in Washington. ``We are hoping for relief.''
The Czech chargé d'affaires in Havana, Josef Marsicek, spent less
than one hour on Wednesday at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, where Cuban officials
rejected two protest notes from Prague and announced that ``revolutionary
tribunals'' would try the two men.
Despite the standoff and the harsh words used by the official Cuban
newspaper Granma, Prague seemed to hold out hope for a peaceful settlement.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan said he believed the matter would be closed
``expeditiously and conciliatorily,'' the embassy in Washington said.
While Pilip is the most high-profile of the two -- he played a central role
in securing Prague as the site for last October's World Bank/International
Monetary Fund meeting and as a member of parliament has led revolts against his
party leadership -- Bubenik has the most famous face.
In 1989, as a 20-year-old medical student, Bubenik was drawn into the
November protests that toppled the Communist regime.
Bubenik became spokesman for the Velvet Revolution and went on to become a
member of the first post-Communist parliament.
Although he recently has pursued a career as a corporate recruiter with the
multinational firm Korn/Ferry, in 1999 he again burst into the limelight as he
helped to organize marches that were part of the pressure to make Czech
politicians more responsive to citizens.
``We have the goal of a more transparent, more pluralistic and open
society,'' Bubenik told The Los Angeles Times.
Pilip, who learned Spanish as a student in Madrid in 1988, has a reputation
for working long hours at the parliament. Before co-founding the Freedom Union
Party, he served as education and finance minister.
Herald special correspondent Rick Jervis in Prague contributed to this
report.
Cuba spy evidence invades bedroom
Havana provided romantic guidance
By Gail Epstein Nieves. gepstein@herald.com. Published
Thursday, January 18, 2001, in the Miami Herald
Talk about going undercover.
When it came to his love life, accused Cuban spy Antonio Guerrero couldn't
make a move without first consulting Havana.
Should he break up with his girlfriend or move in with her? Get married?
Have children?
Guerrero, 42, posed all of those questions to his intelligence bosses,
according to testimony in the Cuban spy trial Wednesday.
Guerrero's angst prompted lengthy analytical discussions between Miami and
Havana, some of which were read to jurors by FBI Agent Richard Giannotti.
Havana's primary concern: that Guerrero's relationship with Key West
masseuse Margaret Becker not cause ``any loss of common sense or sense of
responsibility'' that could endanger Guerrero's main mission -- infiltrating the
Boca Chica Naval Air Station.
Guerrero, a Miami native whose family moved back to Cuba, outlined the pros
and cons of the relationship.
Moving in with Becker would eliminate questions about why he maintained a
separate apartment and would make him look more normal. On the negative side,
sharing one living space would make clandestine communications and other work
more difficult because she did not know about his double life.
``What we are asking is that the status of our relationship with Maggie be
evaluated and that we be given the opportunity to decide whether to move into
Maggie's house in the next few months,'' he wrote in a 1996 report.
Guerrero found support in accused spymaster Gerardo Hernández, who
recommended to Havana that the couple stay together, according to a computer
report seized by the FBI and read to jurors by Giannotti.
``It is not easy in this environment to find a woman with the minimum moral
and social requirements,'' Hernández wrote. Even better, Guerrero's
girlfriend had ``leftist'' leanings and was not ``a Cuban spy maniac.''
Guerrero ultimately was allowed to move in with Becker, but with conditions.
He had to sidestep talk of marriage and avoid having children.
The attention that Guerrero's handlers devoted to the topic reflected the
intimate level of control that Cuba exerted over its agents' lives.
The discourse brought to mind Cuban double-defector Juan Pablo Roque, whose
marriage to an unwitting Miami woman helped him maintain a normal outward
appearance at the same time he spied for Cuba.
Roque mysteriously disappeared from Miami the day before the 1996 Brothers
to the Rescue shoot-down, in which Cuba killed four Miami men. He quickly
resurfaced in Cuba. Roque is a co-defendant in the case on trial.
Roque's former wife, Ana Margarita Martinez, won a default judgment against
the Cuban government. The damages portion of her case is set to be heard Feb.
20. She alleged that Roque committed sexual battery by having relations with her
and that the Cuban government shared responsibility.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 