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23 Cuban Catholics defect in Canada
Group left Mass as pope preached
By Luisa Yanez. Lyanez@Herald.Com Posted On Tue, Jul. 30,
2002 .
Using Pope John Paul II's Sunday Mass as a cover, at least 23 Cuban pilgrims
defected during the World Youth Day celebrations in Toronto over the weekend,
eluding Cuban security police.
They remained in hiding Monday for fear they would be forced back to the
island, and Canadian supporters said their numbers might grow.
The defectors are being sheltered in safe houses by the Cuban-Canadian
Foundation, a group of Cuban exiles led by human rights activist Ismael Sambra.
The group of Catholics plans to seek political asylum, arguing that they
face persecution for their religious beliefs in communist Cuba, their supporters
said Monday.
''Freedom to express religious and political ideas -- this is what they
seek,'' Sambra said of the pilgrims, whom he described as professionals in their
20s.
About 200 Cubans traveled to Canada, according to media reports, after Fidel
Castro issued 11th-hour approval.
Sambra, in a telephone interview, wouldn't give further details on the
defectors until the other visiting Cubans leave Canada today, except to say that
others might join the defectors.
Sambra said his group did not persuade the Cubans to leave their delegation.
"They came with their own plans. . . . We did not invoke them to leave the
delegation. I want to make that clear.''
Joe Garcia, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban American National
Foundation, which is assisting the Canadian exile group, said of the defectors:
"They don't feel safe coming out until the entire Cuban delegation returns
to the island.''
CANF will help provide attorneys for the men and women as they prepare to
file their claims for political asylum claims in Canada.
''We have offered them any help they need,'' said Omar Lopez Montenegro, who
works with the human-rights branch of the foundation.
THE PROCESS NOW
Rejean Cantlon, spokesman for Canada's Citizenship and Immigration
Department, said he could not comment on the defected Cubans since no formal
applications have yet been made.
If they were to apply for refugee status, the Cubans would see immigration
officials in about a month, when a decision would be made on their eligibility
to apply. If rejected, they would be sent home.
Sambra said he feels there's a good chance Canada will allow the defectors
to stay.
Despite a friendly relationship between the governments of Cuba and Canada,
in recent times Canada has routinely granted requests for political asylum filed
by Cuban citizens.
''Canadians are beginning to get an idea of how things really are inside
Cuba,'' Sambra said. "I think they will be allowed to stay with no
problem.''
Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart sent a letter on behalf of the Cubans to the
Canadian ambassador to Washington as well as to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
He also contacted Otto Reich, Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs and the senior U.S. diplomat responsible for Cuban issues.
Díaz-Balart's message to Canadian officials: ''Protect those young
people. Don't force them back to Cuba,'' he said.
The congressman called the episode an embarrassment to Cuba, whose religious
leaders had boasted that defections were unlikely during the visit. It comes on
the heels of last week's arrival in Miami of Alcibiades Hidalgo, a one-time
high-ranking Cuban official.
Hidalgo, 56, has served variously as the manager of the office of Raúl
Castro -- Cuba's defense chief, the regime's number-two official, and President
Fidel Castro's brother and designated successor.
The defections of Hidalgo and the Cubans in Canada are ''proof that the
Castro regime is worse than ever,'' Díaz-Balart said. "It
demonstrates that no matter how many assurances are given, that people are not
going to willingly want to return to totalitarianism. I'm sure there were more
who would have liked to stay.''
FORESHADOWED
It remained unclear Monday how members of the faith group managed to elude
the security police, but they slipped away while the Pope preached to the
masses. Garcia and Díaz-Balart said they both had heard rumblings of
possible defections during the visit.
''We knew that a few were going to try to stay, but the number grew,''
Garcia said.
The defections were officially announced Monday in a somber statement issued
in Havana by Orlando Marquez, head of the Cuban Catholic Bishops Conference, who
returned from Canada.
''As of this morning, 23 young people have broken off from the delegation
with the intention of not returning to Cuba,'' Marquez said. "I have been
informed that this development has embittered the rest of the delegation.''
The official Cuban media had not reported on the defections as of Monday
evening.
Most of those defected are from the dioceses of Pinar del Río in
western Cuba, and Santiago de Cuba, on the island's eastern end.
Some of the youths were ''assisted by family members who traveled from the
United States, and others did so individually, leaving goodbye notes,'' Marquez
said.
Garcia said a New Jersey exile related to one of the defectors is in Canada,
but his role in the defections, if any, is unknown.
''I don't think any exiles from Miami have gone to Canada,'' Garcia said.
This past Wednesday, Guantánamo Bishop Carlos Balandrón said
in Toronto that the size of the relatively large Cuban delegation was a goodwill
gesture from President Fidel Castro toward the church. The Cuban delegation
included four bishops and several priests and nuns.
Nearly 60 percent of Cubans consider themselves Catholic but less than 4
percent actively practice the religion under the government of Fidel Castro.
Herald staff writer Carol Rosenberg and staff translator Renato Pérez
contributed to this report, which was supplemented by Herald wire services.
Coast guard repatriates 6 more Cubans
MIAMI -- The U.S. Coast Guard repatriated six Cuban migrants Monday, two
days after they were found in a crudely constructed boat six miles south of Long
Key.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard repatriated 12 other migrants, who were found
in three different groups last week.
The first of those groups was found July 22 in Biscayne Bay. The second
group was rescued July 23 about 10 miles south of Key Largo, and the third was
found Wednesday 15 miles north of Matanzas, Cuba, on a homemade raft. | 
