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Cuban Hijacker Confessions Can't Be Used
By Catherine Wilson, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI, 7 - Confessions by two of six admitted
Cuban hijackers should not be used at trial because
FBI agents forgot to give them their Miranda warnings
until afterward, a judge said Thursday.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge John O'Sullivan said
edited summaries of confessions by the other four
defendants can be admitted at a trial scheduled
to start next month in Key West, where the Cubana
Airlines DC-3 landed March 19.
O'Sullivan concluded the agents broke a cardinal
rule of interrogation.
"Unwarned statements that are otherwise
voluntary must be excluded," he wrote. "A
defendant cannot waive Miranda after the fact."
O'Sullivan's recommendation went to a trial judge,
and prosecutors have 10 days to ask that judge
to overrule him.
The FBI and prosecutors have acknowledged Miranda
warnings were overlooked in the questioning of
Neudis Infantes Hernandez and Alvenis Arias Izquierdo.
Martin Feigenbaum, attorney for Infantes, said
he was pleased with the ruling, but it was too
early to tell how it would affect the case's outcome.
Matt Dates, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's
office, had no comment on the rulings.
The decision will be unwelcome news in Cuba,
where the communist government has accused the
United States of being soft on hijackers.
The air piracy charges carry a possible sentence
of 20 years to life in federal prison.
Ex-Cuban Rebel Leader Returns From Exile
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 7 - Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo, a rebel leader
in the Cuban revolution who long ago broke with
Fidel Castro's government and served 22 years
in prison, said Thursday he was returning from
exile to operate an opposition movement.
Gutierrez-Menoyo, who traveled to the communist
island several weeks ago for a family vacation,
said he would stay to promote democracy.
The 68-year-old former rebel commander made his
announcement at Havana's international airport,
where he was seeing off his wife and three sons
who had come with him for the vacation.
"They are leaving, but this time I harbor
the hope that they can be reunited with me in
the near future," Gutierrez-Menoyo told reporters.
"At the same time, I hope that one day Cubans
can enter and leave their country freely without
the need for a visa."
Castro's government, which has maintained a cautious
relationship with Gutierrez-Menoyo since he met
with the Cuban leader in 1995, had no immediate
response.
Gutierrez-Menoyo has been granted permission
several times to make nonpolitical family visits
to his homeland in recent years.
His Cambio Cubano movement, which promotes dialogue
and reconciliation among Cubans of all political
stripes, including Castro's government, is seen
as far more centrist than most opposition groups.
The slender man with long, thinning white hair
and metal framed spectacles said he initially
planned to stay with relatives in Havana.
Gutierrez-Menoyo insisted that he was not violating
the law by remaining in Cuba, but it was unclear
if Cuban authorities would agree or if they would
see his move as a challenge to the government.
Gutierrez-Menoyo insisted it was not a challenge
and his actions would be peaceful.
"I come to work for an open agenda in favor
for peace and the reconciliation of all Cubans,"
he said.
"I reaffirm my belief in a social democratic
ideal tied to the world's progressive movements,"
he added. "I reject any kind of destabilizing
movements or those that act for the interests
of foreign powers or governments."
Gutierrez-Menoyo, who is nearly blind, was a
commander who fought in the Cuban revolution that
triumphed on Jan. 1, 1959, when then-President
Fulgencio Batista left the country, leaving Castro
in power.
Gutierrez-Menoyo later broke ranks and went to
Miami, where he became military leader for the
newly formed anti-Castro group Alpha 66.
In 1964, he landed in Cuba with three men in
hopes of launching an armed uprising. But he was
captured and went on to spend 22 years in Cuban
prisons.
Since the 1980s, he has lived in exile, most
recently in Miami.
Gutierrez-Menoyo has criticized the Cuban government's
March crackdown on dissidents, including independent
journalists, democracy activists and opposition
political leaders.
Cuban prosecutors accused the dissidents of being
mercenaries who were working with American officials
to harm the socialist system - something the defendants
denied. Cuban tribunals later sentenced 75 of
them to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years.
Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela living in
harsh conditions
By Alexandra Olson, Associated Press Writer
CARACAS, Venezuela - Cuban doctor Vivian Iglesias
hears gunfire at night while trying to sleep.
She's seen two murder victims, and someone ripped
a gold chain off her neck two days after she arrived
in April.
For her willingness to brave Caracas' Resplandor
slum, Iglesias has earned the admiration of her
patients in this hamlet of tin shacks stacked
atop one another. Many here are getting personal
medical attention for the first time.
Iglesias is one of 1,000 Cuban doctors working
and living in Caracas slums under a program sponsored
by President Hugo Chavez. In exchange, Venezuela
is providing Cuba with oil.
"We never thought we'd get a doctor around
these parts," says Yanis Narvaez, 26, holding
her feverish toddler inside her leaky shanty while
Iglesias took his temperature. "I don't think
she is doing anything bad like a lot of people
say just because she is Cuban."
Critics say the "Inside the Barrio"
program is proof that Chavez wants to impose a
communist system like that of his friend and mentor,
Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Venezuela's opposition claims the doctors, along
with more than 1,000 Cuban sports trainers and
teachers here, have a socialist political agenda.
Chavez's open admiration for Castro in a country
that once defeated a Cuban-backed insurgency fuels
the criticism.
But Chavez and his supporters insist "Inside
the Barrio" and other Cuban-backed programs
are key to achieving a balance between socialism
and the free market policies he claims have impoverished
Latin America.
"It's not a question of the worth and ability
of the Cuban sports trainers, medical doctors
and teachers because it's useless to deny the
benefits of their presence," wrote Teodoro
Petkoff, a former guerrilla who is editor of Tal
Cual newspaper.
"Chavez, by creating the image that he is
marching toward a society modeled after Fidel's
Cuba, has created strong resistance to his government."
Chavez's government has sent more than 4,000
needy Venezuelans to Cuba for free medical treatment.
Cuban teachers are training 100,000 Venezuelan
volunteers for a national literacy campaign.
Venezuela, meanwhile, provides Cuba with crude
oil.
Cuba long has sent medical brigades to other
developing nations. It recently agreed to send
80 doctors and nurses to Trinidad and Tobago.
But the Venezuelan Medical Federation says the
Cubans are taking jobs needed by 8,000 unemployed
local physicians. The federation also complains
the Cubans haven't taken equivalency classes and
exams normally required for foreign doctors to
practice in Venezuela.
At the Jose Gregorio Hernandez public hospital
in western Caracas, doctors like Henry Prato fume
at government suggestions that they don't make
similar sacrifices to serve the poor.
A pediatrician, Prato earns $325 a month - half
what it costs to feed and house a family of five.
He and fellow doctors didn't get their state Christmas
bonuses last year. The nine-story hospital's elevators
don't work. Its bathrooms don't either.
Elsewhere, state doctors and nurses work double
shifts to make ends meet. Shortages of medicines
and bandages are common.
"In Venezuela, there are many doctors who
are much more prepared ... who know the treatments
used here, know what medicines are used here and
know the diseases in Venezuela," Prato said.
With one doctor for every 500 people, there's
no shortage, but many slum or rural residents
can't quickly get medical care, said Fernando
Bianco, president of the Caracas Metropolitan
District College of Doctors.
Bianco and government officials insist Venezuelans
eventually will replace Cubans in the program.
The Cubans live with host families and work in
clinics tucked in the maze of hillside shanties
ringing Caracas. The goal is to provide basic
health care for about 1 million people.
The Cubans receive a $250 monthly stipend.
The Cubans are needed now, Bianco says, because
most Venezuelan doctors fear living in slums.
In Iglesias' clinic, there is no evidence of
a political agenda, such as portraits of Castro
on walls or lectures about the Cuban system. The
only portrait is of Chavez, and a slogan painted
at the entrance says, "'Inside the Slum'
is the revolution advancing with the strength
of the people."
"I really never imagined things would be
like this," Iglesias says. "Robberies,
muggings. ... But I like the Venezuelans. I like
how they talk, their sayings, and if I can help,
that's great."
Cuban Jews Make Historic Visit to Israel
By Gavin Rabinowitz, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM, 7 - Ten Cuban Jews found themselves
standing in awe at Judaism's holiest site on Thursday,
after a year of tough negotiations to bring the
first group of Cuban Jews to Israel since Fidel
Castro came to power.
Israel and Cuba have had no diplomatic ties since
Cuba severed relations following the 1973 Mideast
war. The Cuban government was reluctant to give
the Jews permission to make the trip, fearing
they would not return.
Taking in the site where the biblical Jewish
Temples stood, by coincidence on the day when
Jews mourn their destruction, William Miller,
27, a Jewish community leader from Havana, said:
"I feel like I am walking in the Bible. ...
You read about all these places and now we are
here."
The 10-day visit was organized by an Israeli
government-backed program called "birthright."
It is the first such group to visit, though some
Cuban Jews have come to Israel on their own.
Organizers said it took more than a year to persuade
Cuba to allow the group to participate in the
project that each year brings about 15,000 young
Jewish adults from around the world to Israel.
Originally, just eight young Jews were due to
come, but Cuban authorities insisted that two
of the leaders of the Jewish community accompany
them to ensure that all returned, said Harriet
Gimpel of "birthright."
David Tacher, 52, from Santa Clara, who was appointed
to accompany the group, said if all return home,
it would ensure that future visits would be allowed.
"We just had to explain to the government
why it was important for us as Jews to come to
Israel," said Miller. "They understood
our reasons," Miller said, adding that relations
between the Jewish community and the Castro government
were "very good."
Miller said the trip would play an important
part in reviving Cuba's Jewish community, which
has dwindled from 15,000 before Castro's 1959
revolution to about 1,200 today.
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