The Miami Herald.
July 24, 2001.
Imprisoned Castro foe rejects use of terror
Posada denies he bombed airliner
By Frances Robles. frobles@herald.com. Published Tuesday,
July 24, 2001
PANAMA CITY -- At 73, sick and in jail after decades on the run, alleged
would-be Fidel Castro assassin Luis Posada Carriles says this: I renounce
terrorism.
In a 17-page, hand-written letter to The Herald from his jail cell in
Panama, Posada denied bombing a Cubana de Aviación jetliner that killed
73 people in 1976, absolved the Cuban American National Foundation of
responsibility in a string of attacks on the island, and urged Cuba's army to
stage its own insurrection to oust Castro -- "with minimal bloodshed.''
Now jailed for allegedly orchestrating a plot to kill Castro at last year's
Ibero-American Summit in Panama, Posada and cellmate Pedro Remón of Miami
say they were duped, tricked by a "clique of henchmen'' who set an
elaborate sting to nail Cuba's most wanted fugitive.
"We emphatically declare that we repudiate terrorism as a strategy for
struggle,'' Posada said. "And at the same time vigorously condemn the state
terrorism that from the early days became the hallmark of the regime of dictator
Fidel Castro.''
Posada is a Bay of Pigs veteran, former CIA operative, and accused bomber of
a plane that carried the Cuban national fencing team. Acquitted but still
imprisoned, he escaped from a Venezuela prison in 1985 and was in hiding until
his arrest in 2000. Over the years, he has been linked to terrorist acts or
assassination plots in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Havana and
Honduras.
NOVEMBER ARRESTS
In previous interviews, Posada took responsibility for the 1997 bombings of
Havana hotels which killed an Italian tourist and injured about a dozen more.
His clandestine life ended November 17, when he and three Miami men -- Remón,
Gaspar Jiménez and Guillermo Novo -- were arrested in Panama for
allegedly planning to set off bombs and shoot down planes in an attempt to kill
their most-hated foe.
Remón, a 57-year-old former truck salesman, was sentenced to 10 years
in federal prison in 1986 after pleading guilty to the March 1980 attempted
murder of Cuba's former delegate to the United Nations and to an attempted
bombing of the Cuban U.N. Mission in December 1979. He was living in a Kendall
condo until his arrest eight months ago.
The two wrote responses -- penned by Remón -- to questions from The
Herald and sent through Panama City defense attorney Martín Cruz and
Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, who is raising money for their defense.
INDIRECT ANSWERS
The imprisoned pair ignored some questions, danced around others, and
replied to allegations with counter-charges aimed at the Castro government.
Asked what acts against Castro he had committed, Posada replied:
"All of us who love God must feel sorrow for the useless sacrifice of
innocent lives,'' Posada said. "Although in the past, in the decade of the
sixties -- when we enjoyed the moral and military support of our natural ally to
the North -- we freedom- and democracy-loving Cubans were engaged in tactics of
action and sabotage that were similar, but did not involve the useless sacrifice
of innocents.''
Posada and Remón maintain that their mission at last year's gathering
of Latin American presidents was to smuggle out a high-ranking Cuban defector.
The defector, they say, turned out to be a decoy.
'PROPAGANDA SHOW'
The men say they were followed by Cuban agents in El Salvador, Costa Rica
and Panama. The Cuban government, they said, clearly knew no murder plot was
afoot but wanted to grandstand at the Ibero-American Summit.
"The true object was to turn all this into a propaganda show,'' they
said.
The four are now awaiting trial. Posada, who has skin cancer, complained
that prosecutors are unwilling to provide "cautionary measures'' so he can
receive proper medical treatment. He was hospitalized in February after passing
out in his jail cell.
"At the age of 73, you can't expect much from a physically weakened
body,'' he said. "The doctors' diagnoses are not encouraging.''
Prosecutor Argentina Barrera did not return calls seeking comment nor did
Cuban diplomats in Panama and Washington, D.C.
Defense attorney Rogelio Cruz said the criminal trial might commence in
October. In April, the Panamanian government denied Cuba's extradition requests.
"I think this was a trick of Fidel's to finish Posada off for good,''
Cruz said. "What evidence is there?''
WHY POSADA LIED
In his letter, Posada swore "before his country and compatriots'' that
he is innocent of the "abominable deed'' he is most noted for: the downing
of the Cubana airliner. He also said he erred in 1998 when he told The New York
Times that it was Cuban American National Foundation founder Jorge Mas Canosa
who was bankrolling him.
He lied, he said, because reporters had threatened to publish top-secret
information that could have compromised members of the U.S. intelligence
community.
Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.
Ex-CANF member explains resignation
By Elaine De Valle And Carol Rosenberg .
edevalle@herald.com
Popular radio host Ninoska Pérez Castellón's feud with the
Cuban American National Foundation burst onto the Spanish-language airwaves
Monday, where the ex-spokeswoman accused the influential lobby of crushing
internal dissent while the lobby's leadership used the same station to defend
the group as democratic.
Chairman Jorge Mas Santos explained that foundation strategies and policies
-- such as efforts to indict Fidel Castro -- are decided by a majority vote of
its board of directors, who would never accept a dictatorial leader.
"Every decision we make is voted upon by our membership,'' said Mas,
son of the late founder Jorge Mas Canosa. "We believe strongly in
democratic principles, in the strength of democracy.''
Mas said he has the support of a majority of the foundation's 160-plus
members. Besides Pérez Castellón and her husband, former political
prisoner Roberto Martín Pérez, no one else has announced plans to
leave the organization.
Pérez Castellón, meanwhile, outlined what she said were a
series of contradictions and conflicts that betrayed the memory of Mas Canosa
and caused her to resign Thursday.
"It has stopped being the institution that so many of us helped create
and the object of Jorge Mas Canosa's dreams,'' Pérez Castellón
said.
Mas and CANF President Francisco "Pepe'' Hernandez -- as well as a
half-dozen other directors -- spoke first on a morning broadcast on WQBA, 1140
AM, defending the organization following its weekend congress in Puerto Rico. Pérez
Castellón had announced plans to explain on Monday her "painful
decision'' to leave on her regular afternoon program, Ninoska a la Una.
There, with reporters and photographers cramming the small studio, she wiped
away tears as she explained the reasons she decided to quit the group after 15
years.
It wasn't Mas' support of the Latin Grammys, she said. It wasn't the meeting
between CANF members and then-vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman after
the foundation had agreed not to endorse a candidate.
It wasn't even what she called plans to pull the plug on her shortwave La
Voz de la Fundación, or Voice of the Foundation, broadcasts to Cuba.
It was that those decisions were made "behind closed doors,'' said Pérez
Castellón, flanked by her husband, sister and niece.
Pérez Castellón said she had tried for a year to help redirect
what she called misguided policies and decisions.
"When they decided to make changes and bring in new people, they did it
with total disregard for those who had been there so long. If you criticized
anything they did, you became the enemy and they marginalized you, they excluded
you,'' she told The Herald, referring to a meeting several directors had with
Mas and Hernández after they came out in favor of the Latin Grammys' move
to Miami.
"And instead of taking the criticism as something constructive, these
people were seen as enemies. Some were taken out of the executive committee.''
Mas said the makeup of the executive committee changes constantly.
"It has changed in the last five years more than 10 times. . . . The
executive committee is evolving.''
Executive Director Joe Garcia said Pérez Castellón should have
stuck around if she wanted to change the direction of the foundation.
"She left. The one who does not believe in democracy is Ninoska,''
Garcia said. "There was a board meeting this weekend, she could've gone to
it and expressed her opinions and feelings, and we would've debated it.''
Fans of her radio show overwhelmingly supported Pérez Castellón's
decision. Many told her to start a splinter group.
Only two in dozens of callers questioned the wisdom of exposing a divided
foundation to the world.
Her announcement to resign came days after Hernández, the president,
went to her last week and said CANF would cut its radio broadcasts to Cuba -- La
Voz de la Fundación -- because it was too costly, she said.
"I thought it was extremely unjust to spend half a million dollars on a
party at the Freedom Tower, another $750,000 to a public relations company, and
to pay exorbitant salaries to incompetent people who know nothing about Cuba
while eliminating a project that meant so much to Jorge Mas Canosa and gave a
voice to the opposition inside Cuba.
"If the program has been so effective, why cut it when there is money
for so many other things?''
But Mas said there was never any intention to cut the program.
"I have said publicly over the course of the last week that we were
going to change our programming and find the best vehicle to get our message to
Cuba, and that was not in shortwave,'' he told The Herald on Monday night,
adding that the foundation had appointed a committee of five members who are
charged with finding the best alternative.
Pérez Castellón said the about-face was not a surprise.
"I'm not willing to continue to lie to the press about things that
don't exist, and I don't want to be part of an organization whose people -- in
my opinion -- are not going to do good for Cuba,'' she said.
Ex-CANF spokeswoman criticizes group for 'lies'
By Jaime Hernandez. Associated Press Writer
MIAMI -- (AP) -- Former Cuban-American National Foundation spokeswoman
Ninoska Perez Castellon today criticized the exile group, saying she resigned
because of "lies'' by the organization's leaders and her disapproval of the
group's direction.
Perez Castellon, on her radio show on WQBA-AM, said CANF leader Jorge Mas
Santos slowly alienated her from the decision-making, adding that he and a
select few are the only ones who dictate policy.
Perez Castellon, who said she considered resigning for more than a year,
said her breaking point was the group's support of the Latin Grammys, which will
be hosted by Miami later this year.
"I heard about the Grammys through the press,'' she said. "No one
was consulted about that decision. I am not upset about the Grammys but how the
decision making was handled.''
Perez Castellon also criticized CANF spokesman Joe Garcia for saying the
group would continue funding a radio show beamed at Cuba after officials said
the show would be discontinued.
"I won't be part of these lies,'' she said. "If the group won't
agree with (former CANF leader) Jorge Mas Canosa's policies then it should have
the political courage to say so.''
Mas Canosa, Mas Santos' father, died in 1997.
Perez Castellon said she also disapproved of a Cuban exile festival at
Miami's Freedom Tower in May, calling it "a waste of half a million
dollars.''
When asked if she would either help form or join a new exile group, Perez
Castellon said she had "no reason to join another organization.''
Perez Castellon served as a fiery and highly visible anti-Castro voice for
the powerful exile group for 15 years.
A cultural mosaic along Calle Ocho
By Fabiola Santiago . Fsantiago@Herald.Com
The Cuba libre culture doesn't get more daring than this.
It's Friday night, the last one of the month, and along this stretch of
Calle Ocho, between Southwest 14th and 17th avenues, a festive throng strolls
sidewalks packed with art galleries, Cuban memorabilia shops, cigar bars.
La chiva, an old truck converted into a shuttle, drops off a round of
revelers on a corner where rum and Cokes flow and a three-man ensemble breaks
into a popular rumba of yesteryear.
"Adiós, mamá, adiós papá, que yo me voy con
Las Boyeras.''
Elbows and hips fly this way and that.
It's "Viernes Cultural,'' Cultural Friday, a year-old idea to inject
the faded heart of Little Havana with a renaissance of arts and culture.
Artists, poets, musicians -- and some notable neighborhood characters -- have
turned this charming old Miami neighborhood into a Bohemian, go-with-the-flow,
all-night party.
You never know exactly what to expect. Sometimes the best entertainment is
unscheduled, an impromptu descarga, a jam session of music, poetry or
performance art. The result is an eclectic mix of nostalgia and erotica, of
old-fashioned carnaval romp and beatnik pop culture with a decidedly
multicultural accent.
People jam cafeterias and restaurants, tables spilling outside in improvised
European style. The art of conversation is alive and well. That is until a flock
of flamenco dancers or a Cuban belly dancer bursts on the scene to spark up the
action.
"Nothing's premeditated,'' says artist Pedro Damián. "This
is like a big street fair that comes together because everything's very genuine
and spontaneous.''
On this night, Damián, better known for his painting and sculpture,
is introducing his new line of clothes at Maxoly Gallery.
Move over Banana Republic. Here comes Papaya Nation.
The double entendre is intended. Papaya, the tropical fruit also known as
fruta bomba, is Cuban street slang for the female sex organ. Skimpy tank tops,
trendy caps, suave Panama hats, preppy polos embroidered with the Papaya Nation
logo hang from the gallery's walls alongside somber paintings by Cuban masters
René Portocarrero Antonia Eiriz, Amelia Peláez.
NAKED MODEL
As people flow in and out of the crowded space, a naked model on stilettos
walks into the gallery from a back door. Her lean body is stenciled with flowers
and butterflies, her only "clothes'' a red cardboard heart on the spot
where a bikini bottom would be.
The model is Alanita, a staple Calle Ocho character, a former he who became
a surgically perfected she, stunningly statuesque and Barbie-like. People stare,
giggle, unsure of how to react, then watch others come upon Alanita and stare,
giggle, unsure of how to react.
Alanita works the room, fanning herself, an older woman at her side.
"It's her mother,'' someone says. "She's very supportive.''
Alanita walks through the crowd flashing it all, including a smile, and as
magically as she appeared, is lost to the night.
One Cultural Friday, Damián rounded up a group of neighborhood
musicians for an impromptu guaguancó jam in a small space next to El Pub
Restaurant on 15th Avenue. He dubbed the loaned space La Vena del Gusto, a
popular expression that means "whatever's your pleasure'' and displayed a
wildly red installation dedicated to Changó, goddess of thunder and
lightning, created by artist Leandro Soto.
"The musicians didn't even know each other before they started to
play,'' Damián says.
The jam sessions lasted a couple of Fridays and then everyone moved on.
Another popular fly-by-night venue: "Café Neuralgia,'' a spoof
of the popular Café Nostalgia, formerly of Little Havana, now in
glamorous Miami Beach.
The concept was born on the corner of Sixth Street and 12th Avenue, at
Freddy's Pizza, next to Los Latinos Supermarket, around the corner from where a
group of artists had set up workshops and exhibition spaces. The artists and
their entourages got hungry and went for pizza and beer, joining neighborhood
characters like "El Padrino,'' The Godfather, a
gold-chains-and-tropical-shirt kind of fun-loving dancer.
CAFE NEURALGIA
By all accounts, it was Little Havana poet Néstor Díaz de
Villegas, best known for his verses on the Flagler Street strangler, who
nicknamed the get-togethers Café Neuralgia.
Díaz de Villegas immortalized the scene in an essay.
Artists, poets, photographers, university professors, curious locals,
foreign tourists, friends of friends dance to the music of a juke box playing
the latest Elvis Crespo and Los Van-Van (yep, those on The Other Side).
Waitresses in polyester minis and skimpy tube tops bemoan the lack of good tips
but join in the dancing.
"You don't make any money here, but do we have fun!'' Díaz
Villegas quotes a waitress named Bárbara.
There is no use for nostalgia here, he says.
"What kind of nostalgia could there be in a place that gathers
Nicaraguans, Americans from Massachusetts, Spaniards, Argentineans, Hondurans,
Mexicans, all of the fauna of the Cuban sagüesera (southwest Miami) --
recent arrivals, balseros and Generation ñ?'' Díaz de Villegas
writes. "Neuralgia better describes today's Miami, where, as Bowie notes in
his last album, everything's falling into place.''
The Café Neuralgia name caught on so fast that people started calling
all over Little Havana looking for the place and wanting to make reservations.
HANG ON
Café Neuralgia is gone (until someone else maybe revives it), but
here's a concept you can hang on to, literally: la chiva.
Named after the folkloric Colombian bus, la chiva is an open-back truck
converted with some benches into a shuttle for Viernes Cultural revelers. It
runs all night transporting people from Southwest Eighth Street and 16th Avenue
to other hot spots in Little Havana, and as of last month, to downtown Miami's
funky Wallflower Gallery.
It's a riot to ride la chiva, especially when it's packed, as it swings
through the streets, the latest pop Latin tunes loudly blaring from its radio.
Neighbors catching the scene from their front porches wave. Revelers wave
back.
"Aguántate, muchachita!'' shouts a man with a beer in hand.
Hang on, girl!
He's got a point.
This is one packed chiva and that is one tight corner.
It's not a bad idea to consume a little free wine while visiting the Little
Havana art galleries before hopping on la chiva.
And Little Havana is filled with art and galleries these days.
It may not be the glamorous, pricey gallery walk of Coral Gables, but here,
artists rule.
This folkloric neighborhood is their canvas. Many set up their paintings and
sculpture on the sidewalks and leave their mark on murals adorning restaurants
and parks.
An empty lot on Calle Ocho across from Domino Park is transformed into an
open-air gallery with 13 four-by-eight-foot paintings by local artists.
In tropical yellows and greens, Los Hijos de la Nostalgia, The Children of
Nostalgia, by Miguel Ordoqui depicts a young man and woman before a palm-dotted
island. A black and white collage of metal pieces is Pedro Baldriche's "Bicho
1.'' To Cubans, bicho is an insect or slang for a scoundrel or a brat; for
Puerto Ricans, it's slang for penis.
It's one zany scene after another.
And the party lasts well into the night.
As Cubans like to say, "hasta que cante el gallo.''
Until the rooster crows.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
