The Miami Herald
August 6, 2001.
Japan says Cuba must honor agreement
By Vivian Sequera. Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Japan is considering increasing its cooperation with Cuba
but says it needs guarantees that the government will comply with agreements,
the island's Japanese ambassador said Wednesday.
Developing "economic relations is the goal that our two countries are
hoping for,'' said Ambassador Mutsuo Mabuchi. But "some obstacles exist on
both sides. The biggest difficulty is the different manner of approaching
business.
"Complying with a contract is essential in running a business. The
Japanese side is afraid that the Cubans won't take an agreement seriously.''
Mabuchi didn't mention specific examples. But other foreign diplomats have
complained about business practices in Cuba.
In July during a visit to the Communist island, Germany's economy and
technology minister, Werner Muller, said Cuban authorities promised him they
would try to solve any problems that German business officials came across. He
said difficulties included the process of hiring Cubans, a slow bureaucracy and
high taxes.
The Soviet Union's collapse a decade ago created a crisis for the Cuban
economy, and the county was unable to pay its debts to countries like Japan.
Cuba and Japan have signed two different agreements -- in 1998 and 2000 --
to reorganize debt payments. The ambassador declined to reveal the amount of
those debts.
However, diplomatic sources have said that Cuba owes at least 30 Japanese
companies roughly dlrs 1.3 million.
The majority of Japanese businesses withdrew from the island, but they began
returning after Cuban President Fidel Castro traveled there in 1995 and
re-established contacts to try to resolve the debt problem.
Mabuchi said Japan would like to increase cooperation with Cuba on tourism,
the environment and agriculture.
Flotilla activist, two other exiles indicted
Charge tied to entry into Cuban waters
By Sara Olkon And Jay Weaver. solkon@herald.com
The U.S. attorney's office Wednesday indicted Cuban exile activist Ramón
Saúl Sánchez and two other men on conspiracy charges -- the first
time anyone has been criminally charged by the federal government for illegally
entering Cuban waters.
The trio allegedly ignored a Coast Guard warning to return to international
waters during a flotilla protest on July 14, violating a 1996 presidential
decree primarily aimed at deterring people from causing a confrontation with the
Cuban government.
Sánchez is the leader of the Democracy Movement, which several times
has launched anti-Castro protests and memorial services at sea. The indictment
comes almost 13 months after he signed a consent decree acknowledging that the
presidential proclamation prohibiting entry into Cuban waters is "lawful,
valid and constitutional.''
He said he signed the agreement so the federal government would return his
boat the Human Rights, which had been seized by the Coast Guard after a December
1998 flotilla that allegedly infringed on Cuban waters.
"We thought it was only for the Human Rights and didn't apply to other
vessels,'' Sánchez said Wednesday.
"I feel sad, but at the same time, I feel strong to face whatever
consequences because what I'm claiming is right and moral,'' he said.
Sánchez and Miami residents Alberto Pérez and Pablo Rodríguez,
also Democracy Movement members, are scheduled to appear at 1:30 p.m. Friday
before U.S. Magistrate Hugh Morgan in Key West.
They are charged with: conspiracy to enter Cuban territorial waters without
Coast Guard authorization and knowingly entering Cuban waters without Coast
Guard authorization. They face up to 10 years in prison, fines and forfeiture of
their boat if convicted.
Federal prosecutors in Miami said this was the first time that anyone has
been charged with violating the Florida security zone -- established by
President Bill Clinton less than a week after the Cuban military shot down two
Brothers to the Rescue planes over the Florida Straits on Feb. 24, 1996. Four
Cuban exiles in the planes were killed.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Sabin said his office, headed by U.S.
Attorney Guy Lewis, consulted with U.S. Justice Department officials before
charging Sánchez and the others.
"It's the first prosecution where we had the evidence to support the
charges,'' Sabin said, adding that no local federal agency has ever referred
such a case to the local U.S. attorney's office before now.
Sabin said the indictment does not signal a heightened effort by the U.S.
government to keep exile activists from crossing into Cuban territory and
potentially provoke another confrontation.
"We applied the evidence to the law and we will be uniformly applying
it to anyone who violates it,'' Sabin said.
Justice Department officials were unavailable for comment Wednesday evening.
Joe Geller, an attorney representing Sánchez and the movement, called
the government's move "shocking.''
"It's unbelievable that someone who threw flowers in the water as a
memorial to people killed and that someone who supports the principles of
nonviolence is treated in this fashion,'' he said.
On July 14, prosecutors charged, Sánchez and his boat mates ignored
bullhorn warnings and rushed into Cuban waters on a 23-foot, twin-engine vessel
named My Right to Return.
The trip was part of a five-boat Democracy Movement flotilla that left a
Florida Keys marina to stage a memorial for 41 Cubans -- including children --
who drowned on July 13, 1994, after their tugboat was allegedly rammed and
flooded by Cuban gunboats. The Cubans had been trying to flee the island.
During the July memorial flotilla, the U.S. Coast Guard seized My Right to
Return, which remains in federal custody.
"The way it works is if someone wants to depart the Florida security
zone, with the intention of entering Cuban waters, they have to request a permit
from the Coast Guard,'' spokesman Ron LaBrec said.
The Florida security zone encompasses waters around the Sunshine State
except for parts of the Panhandle
LaBrec said the majority of the permits given to leave the security zone of
U.S. water were for recreational craft. Over 3,000 permits have been issued
since 1996, he said, and only three have been declined -- all from Democracy
Movement members.
"If you look at incidents in the past when there has been incursions
into Cuban waters, the Cubans have exercised their authority in those waters,''
LaBrec said. "Any activity outside of our law, could exacerbate the
potential for an incident at sea. It's a violation of U.S. law. It's not a
violation of U.S. law to go there for fishing.''
Geller said the group did not bother to apply for authorization in July
because the Coast Guard has only turned them down.
Sánchez's attorneys also said they will likely argue that he signed
the consent decree on Aug. 10, 2000, so he could get his boat back from
authorities. They also plan to argue that Sánchez has a right to express
himself freely under the U.S. Constitution.
"If you sign a statement that says I recognize this regulation [on the
security zone], that does not preclude you later on from saying this is a
violation of your constitutional rights,'' said Randall Marshall, legal director
for the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida, which has previously assisted
Sánchez in civil disputes with the United States.
28 Cubans land when smugglers ditch boat
By Jennifer Babson. jbabson@herald.com
KEY WEST -- U.S. Border Patrol agents combed a heavily wooded island off Key
West on Wednesday afternoon for three smugglers whose migrant-packed boat was
chased by the U.S. Coast Guard all the way from international waters near Havana
hours earlier.
After a nearly three-hour pursuit by the U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol,
the smugglers beached their 29-foot Renegade at full speed in the Marquesas
island chain, about 18 miles west of Key West.
Then they scrambled into thick mangroves before authorities could nab them.
The boat's 28 passengers, who told Border Patrol agents they left Baracoa,
Cuba, at 1 a.m. Wednesday, included 18 men, seven women, a boy and two girls,
said agency spokesman Norbert Gómez.
One of the women, who is six months pregnant, was treated at a Lower Keys
hospital for an ankle injury. A male passenger was also treated for a rib
injury.
As their passengers headed to the Krome Detention Center late Wednesday,
there was still no sign of the smugglers, whose boat, outfitted with twin
outboard engines, bore a Florida registration tag.
"They are still searching the mangroves, they haven't come up with them
yet,'' Gómez said.
"They are going to make an effort to continue the search. We want to
try to come up with them.''
Gómez declined to say how many agents were involved in the search.
The boat was first picked up on Coast Guard radar at about 3:30 a.m., 20
miles north of Havana in international waters, Coast Guard spokesman Jamie
Frederick said.
A Coast Guard cutter, a Coast Guard patrol boat and a U.S. Border Patrol
boat and helicopter chased the vessel to the Marquesas, where the smugglers
beached it in some mangroves at about 6:15 a.m. and bolted, Frederick said.
Frederick said: "They are on an island, it's desolate, there's no fresh
water, and there's really nowhere to escape. It's just going to be a matter of
time before they come out of the woods and turn themselves in.''
The latest migrant smuggling incident comes on the heels of an extremely
busy holiday weekend. More than 100 Cuban migrants landed in the Keys over the
three-day weekend, and 82 others were interdicted at sea by the Coast Guard.
Under the federal government's "wet foot, dry foot'' immigration
policy, Cuban migrants who reach U.S. soil -- including islands such as the
Marquesas and the Tortugas -- are permitted to stay, while those interdicted at
sea are typically repatriated.
Investigators believe the vast majority of Cuban migrants who arrive
illegally in the U.S. are no longer rafters but passengers ferried in by
organized groups that charge as much as $10,000 per person to make the 90-mile
crossing. Typically, the fares are paid by family members in the U.S.
As the business of human smuggling has become more lucrative, smugglers have
become more brazen -- risking bad weather, dangerously overloading boats and
dumping passengers on desolate islands without food or water. At least 12 Cubans
are believed to have died this year after stepping aboard U.S.-bound smuggling
boats. | 
