Published Friday, January 19, 2001, in the
Miami Herald
Cuba delays stating its intentions for detained Czechs
By Jane Bussey. jbussey@herald.com
Cuban authorities delayed an expected announcement Thursday about the fate
of two prominent Czech politicians, whose arrests a week ago came in the midst
of what Amnesty International is calling a new political crackdown against
dissidents on the island.
Facing a deepening diplomatic crisis with its one-time Cold War ally, the
Czech Cabinet went into an emergency session to discuss the plight of Ivan
Pilip, a member of the Czech parliament, and Jan Bubenik, a former student
leader.
Czech Foreign Ministry spokesman Ales Pospisil said Czech charge d'affaires
in Havana, Josef Marsicek, was denied access to Pilip and Bubenik on Thursday
because prison authorities said the diplomat lacked authorization from the Cuban
Foreign Ministry.
Pilip and Bubenik were arrested in the provincial city of Ciego de Avila
last Friday and are being held in a prison near Havana on charges of making "subversive''
contacts and other activities prohibited for visitors on tourist visas.
Although Czech diplomats insisted that Cuban judicial authorities were to
rule whether the men would be formally charged in Cuban courts, no decision was
announced on Thursday. The International Press Center at the Cuban Foreign
Ministry said they had received no word on an expected decision.
The mounting tension came as Amnesty International, the London-based human
rights group, sent a letter to the Cuban government, denouncing "a new wave
of political oppression'' and calling for the release of jailed dissidents.
"The increasing number of people jailed for peacefully exercising their
rights to freedom of expression, clearly demonstrates the level to which the
government will go in order to weaken the political opposition and suppress
dissidents,'' Amnesty International said in a letter sent earlier this week.
Cuban President Fidel Castro himself stepped up the pressure with a speech
televised late Wednesday in which he railed against certain unspecified
journalists, although he pointedly singled out "reporters tolerated by the
agencies they represent,'' for writing stories "slandering'' the
revolution.
"They not only transmit lies, but rude insults, rude insults against
the revolution and particularly against me,'' Castro said, adding a veiled
threat that the government might consider closing down news agencies rather than
expelling the journalists and suggesting that the agencies themselves put the
journalist on a plane to leave Cuba.
Although Castro did not cite anyone by name, just a week ago state
television made a harsh and personal attack on the reporting of Pascal Fletcher,
a correspondent for a British newspaper, The Financial Times, who is also a
part-time reporter for the Reuters news agency.
The government staged the burial of two Cubans who died when they were
stowaways on an aircraft flying to Britain and prepared for a massive
demonstration today to protest U.S. immigration policy that gives residency to
Cubans who manage to reach U.S. shores.
While the Cuban media was silent Thursday on the subject of the two jailed
Czech citizens, in Prague, representatives of both governments took to the
airwaves to defend their government positions in the midst of a series of
meetings.
Cuban Chargé d'affaires David Paulovich told Czech television that
the Cuban government has evidence against the two men. "We have never
accused anybody without evidence,'' Paulovich said, according to the Czech News
Agency CTK.
Paulovich also said that the top Czech diplomat in Havana had been able to
meet with the two imprisoned men, a claim denied by authorities in Prague, who
said Marsicek had been denied access.
Czech political analysts were commenting on the possible concessions that
the Czech Republic could make to negotiate Pilip and Bubenik's release, in
particular refraining from condemning Cuba's human rights record at an upcoming
United Nations forum in Geneva in April.
Commentator Petruska Sustrova wrote in the daily Lidove Noviny that the
government faced a tough decision because many politicians and diplomats
insisted that Prague should not "irritate Castro'' because of the dissident
question.
"But how can we say that the Cuban regime does not violate human rights
when our own citizens have been arrested there for something that is not
punishable or wrong?'' Sustrova wrote.
Following the Cabinet session, Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Rychetsky said
that the government would send a third note of protest over the detentions using
other diplomatic channels. Cuban diplomats returned two earlier notes calling
for the release of the two men.
Authorities in the Czech capital requested help from members of the European
Union and the Organization of European Security and Cooperation. Foreign
Minister Jan Kavan said he had also sent letters to Chilean President Ricardo
Lagos and Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, asking them to
intercede with Cuban authorities.
Department of State spokesman Richard Boucher condemned the arrest of the "two
distinguished Czech citizens,'' as did Republican Congressman Lincold Díaz-Balart.
Bubenik, who was a leader of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that pushed out the
Communist government, and Pilip, who has served as education and finance
minister, traveled to Cuba on a private trip to meet with dissidents, stopping
in Washington and Miami before traveling to the island on a flight through
Cancun, Mexico.
Bubenik's mother, Jitka Bubenik, told Prague radio that before her son left
Prague, he told her: "I have almost forgotten what everyday life under
socialism was like. In Cuba, I want to see what that looks like.''
Herald Staff Writer Renato Perez and Herald wire services contributed to
this report.
Attorney criticized INS chief
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@herald.com
An attorney for the relatives of Elián González on Thursday
accused Miami's top immigration official of declaring he was "so happy''
when he saw a photograph of a federal agent's gun pointed at a family supporter
during the government's seizure of the Cuban boy.
Attorney Frank Quintero said in federal court that Immigration and
Naturalization District Director Robert Wallis made the remark because the man
in the photograph had refused to shake his hand during negotiations on the boy's
return to Cuba before the raid on great-uncle Lázaro González's
home. He sued the government after the April 22 raid.
The man referred to in the photograph is Mario Miranda, a former Miami
Police officer and head of security for the Cuban American National Foundation,
according to Miami lawyer Ronald Guralnick, who also is representing the González
family.
During a hearing Thursday in federal court, Quintero told U.S. District
Judge Federico Moreno that Wallis' alleged remark about the man showed the
government's "evil intent.'' Wallis allegedly made the remark while he was
congratulating about 50 INS employees after the controversial raid that divided
South Florida along ethnic lines.
Quintero's accusation is based on a December deposition by a labor lawyer
for several unidentified INS workers. The attorney, Donald Appignani, refuses to
disclose their names and now faces a court motion to reveal them.
In a civil suit against the INS and Attorney General Janet Reno, the González
family is trying to prove that the government violated the family's
constitutional rights in carrying out the seizure of the 6-year-old boy to
reunite him with his father.
Moreno said he will decide Feb. 14 whether to recuse himself from the case
because he knows witnesses and others involved in the suit, and whether he will
dismiss the case on grounds that Reno and other top officials have "qualified
immunity.''
The judge also said he will decide whether to waive the attorney-client
privilege invoked by Appignani, thus compelling him to identify his clients.
Both sides in the legal dispute want it lifted, and Moreno indicated Thursday
that he is leaning in that direction.
During the predawn raid, INS agents allegedly knocked down Miranda and
forced him to spread his arms and legs. At the time, Miranda said that one agent
doused him with pepper spray while a second agent racked his shotgun and pushed
it against his ear.
Appignani said after Thursday's hearing that Wallis' alleged remark about
Miranda was offensive. "This is the type of behavior that fosters this
contempt toward the Cuban-American community,'' Appignani said.
Rodney Germain, a spokesman for the INS office in Miami, declined to comment
about the allegations, referring The Herald to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloyma M. Sanchez said her office was in no position to
comment.
Other allegations flew during Thursday's hearing.
Appignani said he was asked by the U.S. Justice Department to cooperate in
an internal probe into sensational court accusations about immigration
officials' handling of Elián's seizure. The Justice Department would not
confirm or deny that such a probe is under way.
Among the accusations: the INS's alleged destruction of raid-related
documents and custom-made souvenirs such as 120 coffee-cup holders that were
seen as derogatory to Miami's Cuban exile community.
The cup holder bore the message: "Operation Reunion . . . Miami Is
Behind You.'' It also bore the number "154,'' referring to the seconds it
took for immigration agents to remove Elián at gunpoint from his
relatives' Little Havana home. The cup holder also bore an image of a Cuban flag
inside a red circle with a diagonal line through it.
The cup holder was described by Appignani in his deposition, based on what
his INS clients had told him about it. But whenever he was asked about the basis
of his information, he asserted attorney-client privilege.
Sanchez, the assistant U.S. attorney, declined to comment about the
anti-Cuban allegations.
But she said her office looks forward to a "full airing'' about the
alleged destruction of raid documents.
On Thursday, immigration attorney Grisel Ybarra, who was arrested by Miami
Police after the Elián raid while raising money for jailed protesters,
showed up with an identical cup holder.
She said two women who did not identify themselves brought it to her Miami
office before Thanksgiving, and she recently brought it to the attention of
Guralnick and Quintero.
Film exposes duality of Cuban writer
By Rene Rodriguez, rrodriguez@herald.com. Posted at 8:03
a.m. EST Thursday, January 18, 2001
Early in Before Night Falls, Julian Schnabel's soulful, deeply moving film
about the late Cuban author/poet Reinaldo Arenas, a university professor warns
the young Arenas of the risks he faces in Fidel Castro's Cuba. "People that
make art are dangerous to any dictatorship,'' the teacher says. "Dictators
cannot control beauty. Thus, they try to extinguish it.''
But Arenas wrote anyway. Like all true artists, he was unable to deny the "incessant
tap-tap'' of his own imagination, no matter how great the consequences. Before
Night Falls, based on Arenas' autobiography, is a dreamy, passionate ode to
freedom -- of thought, of expression, of every person's innate right to simply
be.
Because the subject is Arenas, who came of age during the revolution and
paid dearly for it, the film doubles as a fiery, eloquent critique of Castro's
regime. Like many Cubans, Arenas initially supported it. But when Castro's
tyrannical grip on the island was established, Arenas became a target of
persecution, labeled a counterrevolutionary for his writing and his
homosexuality.
Played by the Spaniard Javier Bardem (Jamon Jamon, Mouth to Mouth), Arenas
is vulnerable yet defiant, fragile yet resilient. The actor captures Arenas'
feminine mannerisms and great, righteous fury, and he also conveys the dignity
and mounting desperation of Arenas' lifelong quest for an idealized freedom he
would never attain, even after he fled during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Whether
at home or abroad, Arenas was fated to remain a perpetual outsider, a
natural-born pariah who mined art from his pain.
Schnabel eschews the traditional narrative biopic style, using actual events
and fictional inventions to craft an impressionistic mosaic.
A celebrated painter, Schnabel gives Before Night Falls a stunning design
that often reflects Arenas' frame of mind: the lush, exotic greens and
impossibly tall trees of his rural childhood home; the bright, sun-baked streets
of a pristine 1960s Havana, loaded within finite promise; the grim, suffocating
dankness of the Morro prison where he spent two years; the glittering cityscape
of New York.
The movie is filled with indelible images, like a daring attempt to flee
Cuba by hot air balloon, or a shot of Arenas and his best friend Lazaro (Olivier
Martinez) sprawled across a convertible driving through the streets of New York,
looking up at the snow falling like confetti celebrating their arrival.
Schnabel juxtaposes documentary footage of the revolution with Arenas'
writings, including The Parade Begins, a joyous poem in which he recounts the
euphoria that greeted Castro's victory. Before Night Falls is often brash:
Schnabel is not shy about depicting Arenas' homosexuality, and cameos by Sean
Penn (as a mumbling peasant) and Johnny Depp (in two roles, including a
glamorous transvestite with a highly unusual talent) are bizarrely funny.
But the film's most memorable moments are its most heartbreaking ones, as
when Arenas, dying from AIDS but unable to afford medical treatment, is awakened
by a hospital nurse in New York and told it is time to go home. "To Cuba?''
he asks hopefully as he wakes up, still thick with sleep. The answer, of course,
is no, never again.
*** 1/2
BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
(R)
Cast: Javier Bardem, Andrea Di Stefano, Olivier Martinez,
Michael Wincott.
Director: Julian Schnabel.
Producer: Jon Kilik.
Screenwriters: Cunningham O'Keefe, Lazaro Gomez Carriles, Julian Schnabel.
A Fine Line Features release.
Vulgar language, brief
nudity, sexual situations, adult themes. Running time: 133 minutes.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald
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