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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
6 of 12 hijackers sent back by U.S. are freed
in Cuba
By Anita Snow. Associated Press
HAVANA - Police have freed six of the 12 Cubans
who stole a government boat last month and were
later repatriated by the U.S. Coast Guard, one
of the men said Tuesday. Their return to Cuba
created an uproar in South Florida despite Havana's
assurances that they would not be executed.
Word of the release came from 51-year-old Fermín
Suárez, the man who captained the boat,
in a telephone interview from the central-eastern
town of Nuevitas, about 340 miles east of Havana.
SON STILL HELD
Suárez said Cuban authorities let him
and five others walk free, but that his 27-year-old
son, Mijael Suárez, was among the six still
held in the provincial capital of Camagüey
pending trial on robbery charges.
There was no independent confirmation of the
Cubans' release from either Cuban or U.S. officials,
who have not commented on the case since the first
days after the July 21 repatriation.
Cuban exile leaders in South Florida had warned
that the Cubans' lives would be endangered if
they were returned to their communist homeland
because President Fidel Castro's government had
recently executed three men who hijacked another
boat in an effort to flee to the United States.
Washington is under increasing pressure from
the Cuban exile community to rethink its migration
policies despite accords aimed at ensuring orderly
migration between the two countries.
Even Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took issue with the
decision by his brother President Bush's administration
to repatriate the 12, citing concerns about a
recent crackdown on the opposition here and the
firing-squad executions of the three.
Suárez said he did not know why some men
were freed while others were held. He insisted
he was not complicit in the robbery of the boat
owned by Geocuba, a government company that does
geological exploration and mapping.
The experienced sea captain said that by piloting
the boat, ``I was only doing them a favor. Besides,
my son was with them.''
Although U.S. officials based in Cuba regularly
visit repatriated migrants to ensure they are
not being mistreated, Suarez said no American
official had visited him in the two weeks since
his return. He said he had not been harassed by
Cuban authorities.
ASSURANCES
American authorities last month said they agreed
to repatriate the Cubans after receiving assurances
that the would-be refugees aboard the boat would
not be executed for the theft or the kidnapping
of three Cuban security guards on the craft.
The Cuban government promised Washington that
prosecutors here would seek no more than 10 years
in prison for the people accused of commandeering
the craft.
In announcing last month's repatriation, Havana
called the move ``a valuable contribution by American
authorities in the fight against the hijacking
of planes and boats for illegal migration.''
U.S. officials said the Cubans were deemed ineligible
for amnesty because they had committed acts of
violence in Cuba as well as against Coast Guard
personnel who boarded the 36-foot boat in the
Florida Straits.
Under U.S. policy, most Cuban migrants intercepted
at sea are repatriated and those who reach land
are generally allowed to stay.
Rights activist imprisoned in Cuba is honored
By Elaine De Valle. Edevalle@Herald.Com
As Roberto de Miranda spent another day in a
Cuban prison and his wife, Soledad Rivas Verdecia,
was interrogated by state security agents in Havana,
the teacher was recognized Tuesday in Miami-Dade
as one of the island's leading pro-democracy activists.
De Miranda -- among the 75 dissidents and human
rights activists jailed in March in a crackdown
by the Cuban government -- was honored with the
Pedro Luis Boitel Award, named for a political
prisoner who died in 1972.
''De Miranda has devoted his life to the establishment
of free thought in Cuba, . . . tries to do his
best for liberation of thought among young Cubans,
and . . . to establish a society independent of
the government,'' said Filip Dimitrov, who was
prime minister of Bulgaria from 1991 to 1992.
''Such people are usually much hated by communist
regimes because civil society is one of the greatest
menaces to them,'' Dimitrov, a former dissident,
said.
De Miranda, serving a 20-year prison term, is
president of the Association of Independent Teachers,
an organization that seeks to keep political ideology
out of Cuban schools.
The mathematics teacher was fired from his post
in the 1980s because he refused to participate
in public political acts, according to the Miami-based
Cuban Democratic Directorate, one of the award's
sponsors. He also got in trouble because he resisted
pressure from school administrators and refused
to pass students with poor grades, a Directorate
spokeswoman said.
In 1992, he founded the association, comprising
hundreds of independent teachers who give lessons
in their homes and allow Cuba's parents an alternative
to the state-run system.
''They teach in their living rooms, without resources,
and are preparing the youth of Cuba for a democratic
future,'' said Lucrecia Rodríguez, a friend
and collaborator of de Miranda's, who accepted
the award on his behalf. ``They teach everything
-- English and math. But the most important is
the history of Cuba. In the school system, they
show the history that has been manipulated and
approved by Fidel Castro. They show the history
that has been manipulated and approved by Fidel
Castro.''
Also at the press conference -- on speaker phone
from Havana -- was the executive vice president
of the teacher's association, Roberto Larramendi,
who said he and other members were grateful for
the gesture. ''This honors not only Roberto de
Miranda but also the hundreds of teachers in the
association who labor to keep education free of
Communist ideology, which only teaches hate,''
Larramendi said in a telephone interview with
the Herald.
De Miranda collected many signatures for the
Varela Project, a grass-roots referendum movement
that seeks democratic reforms and the release
of political prisoners, said Orlando Gutierrez,
national secretary of the Directorate.
His wife, who spoke to the Herald by phone from
Havana Tuesday afternoon, says he suffers from
high blood pressure and pancreatic illness and
had suffered a heart attack in prison.
''It was a great surprise that he was chosen
for this distinguished honor and we feel very
proud of him,'' said Rivas, de Miranda's wife.
``All his life he has worked to educate. He lives
for children and helps everyone he can.''
Rivas said she was questioned at state security
offices Tuesday morning about dissidents' activities.
Agents have threatened to arrest her if she continues
to denounce her husband's imprisonment, she said.
Dimitrov -- a lawyer who headed the anticommunist
bloc Union of Democratic Forces that won the 1991
election in Bulgaria -- said the award lets Cuban
dissidents and their families know they are not
forgotten.
''You can imagine the pressure this family lives
under. It's very representative of the kind of
pressure under which the Cuban people live,''
he said. ``People who are fighting for freedom
need to feel they are not alone.''
The Pedro Boitel Award was created in 2001 by
a coalition of Eastern and Central European nongovernmental
organizations and the Cuban Democratic Directorate.
The recipient is decided by a jury of scholars,
activists and political leaders from around the
world.
Boitel, who fought against the Batista regime
and later against Castro's totalitarianism, was
a pioneer of civic resistance inside Castro's
jails. He died in prison after a 53-day hunger
strike.
Herald researcher Renato Pérez contributed
to this story.
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