Published Friday, July 20, 2001 in
The Miami Herald
Castro and Aristide tour museum
Posted at 6:02 p.m. EDT Thursday, July 19, 2001
HAVANA (AP)-- The hope of Haiti, the most impoverished country in the
Western Hemisphere, is to advance from misery to simple poverty, Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Cuban university students today.
During his talk at the University of Havana, Aristide said that "no
government can talk about successes or triumphs without the conditions of its
people.''
"Education for everyone -- that is what we want, to make a human
investment,'' Aristide said as he wrapped up his first official visit to Cuba. "Health
for everyone -- that is what we want, to make a human investment.
"Our struggle today is to be rich ... our struggle is to pass from
misery to poverty,'' he added.
It was Aristide's first visit to Cuba since he was re-elected to a
nonconsecutive second term last November. He was ending his first presidential
term when the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 1996.
Cuba has increasingly reached out to help Haiti, its neighbor to the east,
in recent years. More than 600 Cubans currently are volunteering services in
Haiti in the fields of public health, education, fishing, agriculture, sugar,
construction and sports.
During the visit that began Monday, Aristide has thanked Cuba for its
assistance to his country.
Aristide met with President Fidel Castro during his stay, and accompanied
him Wednesday night on a tour of Cuba's newly renovated National Museum of Fine
Arts.
Renovation of the museum complex, anchored by the Palacio de Bellas Artes,
or Palace of Fine Arts, and the nearby Asturian Center took more than two years
and cost more than $14.5 million. The complex features nearly 50,000 works of
art, ranging from the colonial period to modern times.
Speaking for three hours at the museum's door after the tour, Castro denied
reports from Miami that his government had sold precious works of art during the
1990s to help survive the nation's financial crisis.
"Not only are they not for sale, they will be defended with the blood
of our people,'' he said.
Radio host latest to quit Cuban foundation
By Elaine De Valle And Carol Rosenberg .
edevalle@herald.com
Popular Cuban radio talk-show host Ninoska Pérez Castellón
quit the Cuban American National Foundation on Thursday, just days before a
board meeting where the future of her beloved broadcast radio wing, La Voz de la
Fundación, will be discussed.
The veteran spokeswoman had been with the foundation for 15 years. Her
husband, Roberto Martín Pérez, 66, a longtime Cuban dissident who
wed Pérez Castellón six months after his exile, also quit the
influential lobby. He is considered a prominent member because of his nearly 28
years of being jailed by Fidel Castro's government.
"He is the ideological soul of the foundation,'' said Emilio Izquierdo,
a fellow political prisoner.
The departures -- a year after the quiet exit of at least four other
important members -- came as a big blow to the image of unity within the
organization, which has sought to increase its influence after the June 2000
return to Cuba of Elián González. CANF officials failed to
successfully argue the exile sentiment in favor of keeping the rafter boy in the
United States.
NEW HIRES
In the aftermath, Jorge Mas Santos -- who took over the foundation after his
father, CANF founder Jorge Mas Canosa, died in 1997 -- hired Joe Garcia as
executive director and former U.S. diplomat Dennis Hays. Then, he gave them
higher-profile roles than that of Pérez Castellón.
"To bring in people from outside with contracts? Patriots don't need
contracts,'' said Mirta Iglesias, who was executive assistant to foundation
President Francisco "Pepe'' Hernández before she left last summer.
"After Jorge's death, we thought we could go on, but the people who
took over did not have the qualities to keep it going,'' Iglesias said.
"We were there in the most critical moments of the foundation and our
opinions were not sought.''
The resignation comes at a time of simmering discontent among some elders of
the organization over Mas' support of new CANF campaigns. They have included
more public outreach to island dissidents, notably his stated support of efforts
to get financial and material aid to independent businesses, which some veteran
activists have characterized as naive.
MORE MAY LEAVE
Many in the exile community are waiting for the other shoe to drop --
expecting more resignations from the group's old-guard ranks within days.
"Since the son took the reins of the foundation, it has been going
down,'' said Jose Antonio "Tony'' Llamas, another member who left in 1999
because he did not agree with the direction Mas was taking.
"There has been a huge discontent and, little by little, some of us
have jumped ship,'' he said.
"We are all dispensable, but not Ninoska. Ninoska is indispensable for
the Cuban cause. This is a huge blow,'' said Llamas, who was acquitted in 1999
of plotting to assassinate Castro when he visited the island of Margarita off
the coast of Venezuela in 1997.
"The prestige Ninoska has is unprecedented and unmatched by anyone
there. Ninoska and Roberto Martín Pérez have a lot of recognition
not only in exile but in Cuba. She has an audience in Cuba that is immense,''
Llamas added.
Garcia said Pérez Castellón did not submit a letter of
resignation before packing up and leaving Thursday afternoon, but she personally
notified Mas of her decision to quit.
FUNDING QUESTIONS
Both Mas and Hernández cited differences of opinion between Pérez
Castellón and the rest of the leadership over funding for La Voz de la
Fundación, the Voice of the Foundation, which sends shortwave-radio
broadcasts to Cuba.
"We are still going to take our message of hope to Cubans on the
island,'' Mas said, "but we are going to do that in different ways than we
were doing it before.''
Mas tried to refocus the news on the CANF congress this weekend in Puerto
Rico, where more than 100 board members and trustees will meet to discuss future
CANF strategies and objectives, including the broadcasts, he said.
"That's what I'm focusing on. We have a lot of good projects on the
table. Some tactical changes, but we will continue to put Fidel Castro on the
defensive. Our goal of liberty and democracy for Cuba remains the same, but
there are going to be changes.''
He also said the foundation will "always have an open door'' for Pérez
Castellón.
"She always has a place here. She is my friend. I have the highest
consideration and respect for her.''
HER SIDE
The sharp-tongued radio announcer was expected to explain her side of the
struggle Monday during her 1 to 3 p.m. perch on Ninoska a la Una, the
Spanish-language program on WQBA-AM (1140), where she has worked independently
of the foundation for years.
There, Lucrecia Ninoska Pérez Castellón, 51, has a loyal
following. Listeners admire her on-air antics, notably ringing up Cuban
government tourist venues and adopting a Spanish accent to illustrate what she
has long described as tourism apartheid on the island.
NO COMMENT YET
Thursday, she did not present her side because, as sometimes happens during
the baseball season, her show was preempted by a live broadcast of a Florida
Marlins game. She did not return several calls Thursday to her cellular phone
and home, where her niece said the phone was ringing off the hook.
Pérez Castellón has consistently refused to reply to Herald
inquiries about her stance on several controversial CANF positions, notably Mas'
support of the Latin Grammy Awards coming to Miami.
But Mas said her decision was not reached over one single issue. "This
did not happen overnight. It's been a long time coming.''
IN LITTLE HAVANA
Her departure was big news in Little Havana, where motorists would sometimes
honk their horns when she would take her live broadcasts on the road.
Fans rushed her with kisses and hugs outside the home where Elián
González lived with relatives for five months before a federal raid swept
him away April 22, 2000.
Some Cuban exiles reacted with disbelief. For a time, Pérez Castellón
was so popular among Cuban Americans that her name was floated as a possible
successor to Mas Canosa after his death four years ago.
Channel 51, the local Telemundo affiliate, stripped the report of her
resignation across the screen during an afternoon Spanish-language soap opera --
as if it were a hurricane warning.
Former bodyguard registers 'new' CANF
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com
Ask almost anyone along Eighth Street and they will tell you that the
president of the Cuban American National Foundation is Francisco "Pepe''
Hernández and its chairman is Jorge Mas Santos, the founder's son.
Anyone, that is, but Mario Blas Miranda.
The former personal bodyguard of foundation founder Jorge Mas Canosa raised
a ruckus this week by revealing that he registered an organization called the
Cuban American National Foundation with the Florida Secretary of State -- and
named himself president.
'ABANDONED' NAME
"I have rescued the name. It was abandoned,'' said Miranda, 49, the
one-time CANF security chief who has a private investigator's license.
"One of Castro's agents in Miami could've gotten this name, and
tomorrow when we woke up we could've seen, Come fly with the Cuban American
National Foundation to Cuba.''
Technically, it's true. A search of state corporate records reveals that the
organization headed by chairman Mas Santos, the founder's son, let lapse its
Florida title to the influential lobby two years ago -- while creating a
satellite nonprofit, The Jorge Mas Canosa Freedom Foundation.
On May 3, Miranda filed Florida articles of incorporation for himself as
initial officer of the Cuban American National Foundation Inc., using his home
address. Its stated mission: "Advocacy to advance the values of liberty,
democracy and human dignity.''
Joe Garcia, executive director of the organization that still calls itself
the Cuban American National Foundation, said the situation occurred during the
split in which someone apparently forgot to preserve the original title:
The Jorge Mas Canosa Freedom Foundation, he said, is a nonprofit that runs
scholarships, an endowment for Cuban studies and the fundraising effort for the
$40 million Freedom tower restoration, whose top floor is planned as a "shrine''
to the elder Mas.
CANF, meanwhile, is the 20-year-old political, lobbying wing of the
organization that is holding its annual meeting outside San Juan, Puerto Rico,
this weekend.
It has Washington offices designed to campaign against pro-Fidel Castro
efforts in the United States as well as the Little Havana headquarters at 1312
SW 27th Ave.
Garcia said he has hired tax lawyer Roland Sánchez-Medina Jr. of
Miami to sort out the whole mess.
"This is a silly matter which our attorneys are working on. The Cuban
American National Foundation has been and will always be the premier
organization working toward freedom for Cuba,'' Garcia said.
Miranda says he'll hire a lawyer by today.
On one aspect of the tug-of-war, however, both sides agree:
Those monthly $5 and $10 checks sent by long-time grass-roots supporters to
the Cuban American National Foundation are still going to the organization
headed by Hernández and Mas Santos, of which Ninoska Pérez Castellón
is a spokeswoman and radio personality.
'CARETAKER'
"No ma'am. I'm simply caretaker of the name,'' Miranda said in reply to
a question on whether he thinks that money should go to him.
"We have the bank account and the money,'' said Garcia, "unless
he's raiding my mail box.''
At the heart of the dispute is discontent with Mas Santos' stand in support
of bringing the Latin Grammy Awards to Miami in September.
Miranda and some other veteran CANF members bristled when Mas Santos
campaigned in Los Angeles last year to get the Grammy awards -- which will be
staged at AmericanAirline Arena opposite the Freedom Tower and will include
Cuban island performers as contestants and possible honorees.
Mas Santos' position: Miami must show itself as a tolerant world-class city
by hosting the prestigious show.
Miranda's reply: "That's an insult to the foundation and the ideals of
the foundation,'' he said, accusing Mas Santos of "rubbing elbows with the
Communists.''
Of the father he said: "I bet you he's turning in his grave because of
the way [the son] is handling this. Jorge Mas Canosa was not a politician; he
was a patriot.''
AFTER ELIAN
The rift emerged in the aftermath of the April 22, 2000, raid by federal
agents on the Little Havana home of Lázaro González to reunite
shipwreck survivor Elián González with his father.
Federal agents immobilized Miranda in the predawn episode.
Until then, Miranda had been an unofficial Elián bodyguard and a
regular fixture around the González home.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
