The Miami
Herald. March 4, 2001.
Former U.S. Army general meets for 12 hours with Fidel Castro
The Miami Herald. By Vivian Sequera. Associated Press
Writer. March 4, 2002.
HAVANA - (AP) -- A retired U.S. Army general said Sunday he talked for 12
hours with Fidel Castro and encouraged the Cuban president to release 250
political prisoners in this island's jails in an effort to encourage dialogue
with the United States.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now a university professor visiting the island with
the Center for Defense Information, told a news conference that Cuba did not
present a military risk to the United States. ''They represent zero threat to
the United States,'' he said.
The general said he told Cuban authorities during meetings on Saturday that
the United States did not present a military risk to the island, either. He said
he also met with Castro's younger brother, Gen. Raul Castro, Cuba's defense
minister.
McCaffrey said he supported increased cooperation between the United States
and Cuba in the areas of drug interdiction and fighting terrorism.
''I see no evidence at all that the Cubans are in any way facilitating drug
trafficking,'' the former White House drug policy director said. "Indeed, I
see good evidence of the opposite. I strong believe that Cuba is an island of
resistance to drug traffic.''
Some Cuban exile groups and conservative members of Congress in the past
have accused the communist country of involvement in the narcotics trade.
McCaffrey said he also did not believe that Cuba was a terrorism threat to
the United States, as some Cuban exile groups insist. ''I don't believe they are
harboring terrorist organizations,'' he said.
Cuba remains on the U.S. State Department's terrorism watch list, primarily
because of the presence on the island of some Basque separatists, former members
of Puerto Rican nationalist groups, and a handful of American fugitives -- many
of them former Black Panthers -- who have lived here for decades.
Both the United States and Cuba must change to help create a dialogue
between the nations, said the general.
''It's time to leave the chasm of 1958-59 and move to 2002 -- on both
sides,'' said McCaffrey.
The United States should care more about Latin America in general and Cuba
in particular, he said, rather than allowing the Cuban-American community to
control the political debate over the Caribbean island.
Cuba also should do more to improve communication with the United States,
and releasing the political prisoners would be a good start, McCaffrey said. He
did not say what Castro's response was, except that he received "an
attentive and respectful hearing.''
McCaffrey now teaches national security studies at West Point military
academy. The Center for Defense Information is an independent military research
organization based in Washington.
The trip is among a flood of visits Cuba has seen this year by American
groups seeking to learn more about the communist island just 90 miles from U.S.
shores. The visitors have included members of Congress, business organizations,
representatives of non-governmental organizations.
Related links
Castro
linked to drug trade / WorldNetDaily
Cuba
and Cocaine / Chicago Sun-Times
Cuban
Drug Trafficking
Cuba's role in
the drug trade / DEA
Foolish to cooperate
with Cuba against drugs / John Suarez / Miami Herald
Castro’s
drug-running links
Cuban defector accuses
Castro of drugs traffic
Cubans seized from embassy
Castro police arrest 21 men in bus crash
BY Tim Johnson. tjohnson@krwashington.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 02, 2002.
WASHINGTON - Responding to a request from Mexico, special police forces in
Cuba entered the Mexican Embassy in Havana before dawn Friday and forcibly
removed 21 young men who had crashed through a gate into the diplomatic compound
30 hours earlier.
Mexico appealed to President Fidel Castro to treat those arrested in a
humane manner. Officials in Washington echoed the appeal. The whereabouts of the
detainees were unclear, however.
The episode began Wednesday evening when 21 young men rammed a hijacked bus
through a metal gate of the Mexican Embassy in the Miramar section of Havana. In
their wake, hundreds of young Cubans flocked to the compound, seeking a way to
leave the island. They were dispersed by club-swinging security forces. More
than 150 Cubans were arrested.
Cuba, in a four-paragraph statement, described the 21 men as ''criminals,
anti-social elements and lumpen'' and said 13 of the 21 had criminal records
ranging from armed robbery to drug trafficking. ''Lumpen'' is a pejorative
Marxist term used to describe allegedly inferior members of the working class.
''At 4:30 a.m., a special unarmed squad carried out the eviction, which took
place in an orderly fashion and according to the request and desire of the
Mexican government, without the slightest incident,'' a Cuban statement said.
Police placed trucks and other obstacles near the embassy to prevent
reporters outside from seeing the night-time operation. Journalists heard
occasional shouts.
Castro became personally involved in the incident, which threatened to
embarrass Mexican President Vicente Fox following his state visit to Havana in
early February. Mexico has maintained diplomatic ties with Cuba throughout
Castro's 43 years in power.
Current relations are less cordial than in the past, however, in part
because Fox visited with dissidents on the island Feb. 4, but the countries'
relationship remains generally friendly.
CASTRO'S OPERATION
''[Castro] himself designed . . . this operation,'' the Mexican Embassy's
No. 2 official, Andres Ordoñez, who witnessed the events, told Reuters. "There
was no blood . . . the whole thing took six minutes with an impressive neatness
and efficiency.''
Much about the episode remained unclear -- including whether the break-in
was organized or spontaneous and whether other political motives may have played
a role.
Mexico said the young men appeared to be ''led and manipulated'' to force
their way into its embassy and noted in a statement that "none of the
intruders sought political asylum or diplomatic asylum, or offered evidence that
they were subject to persecution or that their lives were in danger.''
''This is very murky,'' said Odilia Collazo, a well known Cuban dissident
reached by telephone in Havana. "It's all very weird. Why did all these
people have criminal records? There wasn't a decent person among them.''
REPEATED APPEALS
Mexico said it repeatedly appealed to the young men to leave the diplomatic
compound and finally asked Cuban authorities to intervene using "a minimum
of force.''
''From the moment they entered, we told them we considered them criminal
intruders . . . but we are not going to bring charges,'' Ordoñez told
Reuters. "They were manipulated . . . their sociocultural level is
extremely modest. They have no idea what the world is about.''
Mexico's ambassador to Havana, Ricardo Pascoe, told the EFE news agency that
Mexico was determined not to let the incident spark a mass arrival of Cubans to
swamp the embassy in an attempt to leave the island.
''Fortunately, it was resolved quickly,'' Pascoe said. "There was the
memory of what happened at the Peruvian Embassy, and we weren't willing for that
to occur again.''
GENESIS OF MARIEL
In 1980, in an event that began in a similar fashion, some 10,000 Cubans
swept into the Peruvian Embassy in Havana after a bus broke through its gates.
The crisis led Castro temporarily to ease restrictions on emigration, prompting
an exodus of some 125,000 Cubans in a boatlift from the port of Mariel to
Florida.
Incursions into other embassies erupted in subsequent years but none
triggered a major crisis.
Pascoe said he and Gustavo Iruegas, Mexico's deputy foreign minister for the
Caribbean and Latin America, met with Castro at 3:30 a.m. ''to review the
situation again and figure out if an eviction was really needed,'' EFE quoted
him as saying. "We agreed that there was no alternative.''
Pascoe said the Cubans voiced only a general desire to travel to Mexico.
In Mexico City, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Gloria Abella said the
intruders were "young people facing a difficult economic situation, like
many in Latin America.''
Wary of a new wave of disorderly and massive migration from Cuba, U.S.
officials reacted cautiously, asking only that the arrested Cubans be treated
fairly.
''We believe they must be treated justly, transparently, without reprisals,
and in accordance with international humanitarian standards,'' State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Boucher rejected a Cuban assertion that Radio Martí, a U.S.-financed
medium that broadcasts short-wave newscasts to the island, maliciously
instigated the embassy break-in by repeatedly airing a remark by Mexican Foreign
Minister Jorge Castañeda that "the doors of the embassy [of Mexico
in Havana] are open to all Cubans.''
DEFENDING BROADCAST
''Radio Martí is a professional media outlet. They reported the story
accurately, the way other media outlets in Miami did,'' Boucher said. He
defended Fox's meeting with dissidents Feb. 4 in Havana.
"We would hope that all embassies in Havana would be able to maintain
and expand relations with dissidents and with other independent voices in
Cuba.''
Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Mexican
Embassy incident had threatened to snowball. ''Hundreds and hundreds of people
eventually showed up [outside the Mexican Embassy],'' he said. 'They thought,
'Hey, they're giving away visas at the Mexican Embassy and I want to get one
before they run out.' ''
Collazo, who is president of a small opposition group, the Pro-Human Rights
Party of Cuba, said she believed the episode had been engineered by the Castro
government to send Fox a message.
''The main intention was to show the Mexicans that as long as they have
relations with dissidents [to Castro], problems will occur for them,'' she said. | 
