CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Cubans complete defense drills against a potential U.S. attack

Posted on Mon, Dec. 20, 2004

Cuban troops and civilians ended a week of defense exercises to prepare for a possible U.S. attack during President Bush's second term.

HAVANA, 20 - (AP) -- Cubans awoke to air raid sirens Sunday, and practiced shooting, putting on gas masks and doing duck-and-cover drills as the communist nation wrapped up a weeklong series of defense exercises to prepare for a potential attack by the United States.

The activities, called the Strategic Bastion 2004 Exercise, were aimed at evaluating how prepared Cuban society is to face possible military action against Cuba during a second term by President Bush.

State-run newspapers reported Sunday that the exercises were a success and that Cuba's ''capacity to resist and overcome an imperialist aggression'' was demonstrated.

Since even before the United States launched its attack on Iraq last year, Cuban authorities have insisted that a similar U.S. strike on their country is possible.

''The risks of a [U.S.] aggression are real,'' President Fidel Castro said Sunday on Cuban television, which showed the Cuban leader checking in with officials throughout the country, via teleconference, on the status of operations.

American authorities have repeatedly rejected that idea, saying there are no plans to attack Cuba.

Last week, the U.S. State Department said the large-scale exercises in Cuba were really meant to distract people from the hardships of their lives.

Cuban army troops, reservists and militia members spent the week firing rockets, launching grenades and practicing drills with civilians.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets, taking their prearranged places under the doctrine of ''The People's War,'' in which every citizen, young and old, participates in the defense of the country.

Children were sent to schools early Sunday to practice duck-and-cover drills. Civilians performed shooting exercises in makeshift ranges, as well as conducted first aid and put on gas masks. Work groups gathered to discuss how to guarantee food, water and healthcare for the population in the event of an attack, as well as to plan evacuations.

State media reported that a total of four million Cubans participated throughout the week in the exercise, which began Dec. 13 and was the biggest of its kind on the island in 18 years. International news organizations were not given official access.

Families get first taste of a Christmas in U.S.

Newly arrived children and families got to celebrate Christmas early Sunday, thanks to a federally funded refugee assistance organization.

By Rebecca Dellagloria. rdellagloria@herald.com. Posted on Mon, Dec. 20, 2004.

When Christmastime came around in Colombia, Juan Carlos Quintero didn't have to worry about putting gifts under the tree. In his native country, the college professor had a home, an apartment, and a housekeeper to clean both.

Things have changed a lot since he moved to Coral Springs in August 2003.

''We came here and we started from zero,'' said Quintero, who said his family had to leave the strife-torn country after he was threatened for assisting victims of human trafficking. "It changes your lifestyle totally.''

On Sunday, the Quinteros, along with dozens of other newly arrived families, got a head start on the holiday festivities at a party hosted by the International Rescue Committee at the Polish American Club in Miami. The committee assists asylees, Cuban parolees and refugees with rent, job training, referrals for English classes and other services.

Families feasted while children were treated to games, face painting and a gift-bearing Santa and Mrs. Claus. For some families, this might be the most Christmas cheer sent their way this year.

AN OPPORTUNITY

''They may not have the funds to celebrate Christmas the way they would in their country,'' said Leslye Boban, director of the committee's Miami office.

'We wanted to give them the opportunity to celebrate Christmas the way we do in the U.S. and to see smiles on their kids' faces.''

The Quintero family didn't celebrate Christmas last year because they have struggled financially. Juan Carlos Quintero now works as a salesman, and his wife -- an accountant in Colombia -- is a stay-at-home mother of three.

''At this moment, it's better than last year,'' said Quintero, who said he is finally starting to feel accustomed to life in the United States. "We have some savings to get the children Christmas gifts.''

Another person who attended, a mother of seven named Andre, fled Haiti with her husband and children nearly two years ago. Although they escaped political persecution in their homeland, where Andre said her mother's house was set on fire, life has been hard here as well. Santa skipped over their one-bedroom apartment last year.

''We didn't have money,'' said Andre, who asked that her last name and the names of her children not be published. They didn't even have the ''proper clothes'' to attend church, she said.

So, when her children -- who range in age from 1 to 13 years heard about the Christmas ''fete,'' they wanted to come. ''When the [International Rescue Committee] called to invite our kids to the party, we were very happy,'' she said.

Things have gotten better, she said, since the federally funded committee intervened, helping them with rent money and other bills. As for Christmas presents this year, ''I'm really hoping so,'' said her 13-year-old son, a student at Horace Mann Middle School.

NEW EXPERIENCE

For the De Varonas, this will be the first year the family celebrates Christmas -- officially. In their native Cuba, it's just not allowed.

''After Fidel [Castro] took power, the holiday was eliminated,'' said Frank De Varona, whose family moved to Miami in October.

In Cuba, Frank De Varona and his wife, Tania, were both doctors. Now, he works as a clerk at South Shore Hospital in Miami Beach, while she cares for their two children. He brought his family to the party Sunday to show ''appreciation and gratitude'' for all that the International Rescue Committee did for his family.

''They've helped to get me on my feet,'' De Varona said. "It's the least I could do.''

Aviators killed in Cuba to get Dade memorial

After four years of planning, work is set to begin on an airport memorial for the anti-Castro aviators who died in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

By Rebecca Dellagloria. rdellagloria@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Dec. 19, 2004.

The quarter acre between a flight school and a repair hangar at the Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport is nothing more than a strip of grass.

Within a year, a restored B-26 bomber -- the kind flown during the Bay of Pigs invasion more than four decades ago -- will sit atop a platform on the patchy ground. Beside it will rise a monument to the 10 Cuban-exile pilots and four American airmen killed in the ill-fated battle.

''For me it was a privilege to fly with these people, the ones who died -- the Americans, the Cubans,'' Gustavo C. Ponzoa said at a groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday.

On April 15, 1961, the pilot flew on a mission that destroyed part of Fidel Castro's Cuban air force while it was on the ground, paving the way for the start of the Bay of Pigs invasion two days later.

The memorial to the pilots has been in the works for years.

''The idea has been cooking for a long time,'' said Leo Bellón, an architect who designed the future site of the Bay of Pigs Air Battle Museum. "The pilots of the Bay of Pigs are getting older, so if we don't do it now, they'll die off.''

DIMENSIONS

When construction begins, likely by next spring, a four-column monument made of white Carrara marble will be erected. It will stand 20 feet tall and 30 feet long and wide. Inscribed on the columns will be the names of the fourteen men who died fighting Cuban forces -- along with the other pilots from Brigade 2506.

One of those pilots was Thomas ''Pete'' Ray. His daughter, Janet Ray Weininger, witnessed the ceremony with pride.

''My father was from the deep South. He believed deeply in his country,'' said Weininger, who won an $86.5 million judgment last month in Miami after suing the Cuban government and Castro for executing her father.

'FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM'

''He wasn't someone who talked about freedom,'' she said. "He was someone who went out and fought for freedom.''

Miami-Dade County provided the land for the memorial. Bellón, the architect, donated his work. Also contributing will be concrete company executive José ''Pepe'' Cancio, a former county commissioner, and builder Juan Delgado.

Cuban Pilots Association president Amado Cantillo, who fought with the invasion force on the beach, said the idea came when he realized that the Liberation Air Force was the only group from Brigade 2506 that didn't have its own memorial.

''We came back and there were monuments for the infantries and monuments for the Navy,'' Cantillo said, "and no monuments for the pilots.''

In 2000, the United States Air Force Museum donated the bomber, which had been sitting at a California airport for nearly 20 years.

Refurbishing the plane took eight months, and it now bears the markings of the Cuban air force -- which were applied as deception -- as did the 15 B-26s used during the invasion.

Initially, the refurbished plane was to be displayed in the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami, but financial and logistical complications made that impossible.

At the groundbreaking, Ponzoa, 80, recalled that the number of the aircraft he flew was 931 -- coincidentally, the same as the number on the plane displayed at Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport.

''To have a plane with the number I flew makes me so proud,'' Ponzoa said, his eyes welling with tears.

Though history has labled the Bay of Pigs invasion a disaster, County Commissioner Javier Souto believes some people don't understand its significance.

''The world could have changed that day,'' said Souto, also a veteran of the invasion. "This will help remind the world what happened. There will be no mistake about it.''

Cuba strikes back in duel of displays

In response to a U.S. display in Havana calling attention to the plight of Cuban dissidents, Cuba erected a large billboard with, among other things, images of prisoner abuse in Iraq.

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Dec. 18, 2004.

Angered by a holiday display at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana that includes a sly reference to human rights, Cuba fired back Friday with its own dig -- huge billboards across the street showing U.S. abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The giant exhibit across from the U.S. Interests Section also includes swastikas, some stamped ''Made in the U.S.A.,'' and the Spanish words for ''Fascists'' and ''Infamy'' punctuating the photos from Abu Ghraib.

The billboards were erected overnight along the Malecón, Havana's busy seaside avenue, and workers spent Friday installing large spotlights to compete with the holiday display on the Interests Section's grounds -- a lighted Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman and the number 75 -- a reference to the 75 dissidents jailed last year during an islandwide crackdown.

Cuba has demanded the Interests Section pull down its display, but the building has diplomatic immunity. In the absence of full U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations, the Interests Sections in Havana and Washington act as virtual embassies.

''Of course we support the Christmas display,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell told The Associated Press. 'It's . . . celebrating an important moment in our faith and the faith of the Cuban people, and to put '75' on the side of the building was showing solidarity with people who are being held . . . and whose rights are being denied by the Cuban Government.''

''And the Cuban government's response is to put forward and show the world a swastika?'' Powell said. 'I don't think that is very wise on their part, and we will continue to stick by our troops down there, our diplomats down there and our Christmas display, with the '75.' ''

An official at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana earlier in the day called the dueling exhibits an "open show of the Cuban government's intolerance.''

''There couldn't be a better contrast,'' the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in a telephone interview. "You've got the U.S. wishing Cubans happy holidays and Frosty the Snowman waving at passersby and an effort to prompt discussion about human rights on one side. And, on the other side, you have these screaming Cuban government billboards.''

''The torture at Abu Ghraib, which President Bush has called abominable, has been investigated, reported and discussed fully and openly in the United States, and those who are responsible are being prosecuted,'' the official added.

"On the other hand, the Cuban government doesn't allow a single word of dissent in its media, it jails those who dare espouse different ideas and hasn't allowed . . . anyone to visit Cuba's political prisoners since the late 1980s.''

''If Cubans themselves could speak freely . . . then we wouldn't have to do any of this . . . to try to speak for them and get their message out,'' the American official said.

U.S. 'DESPERATE'

Officials at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington did not respond to Herald requests for comment. But earlier this week, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón called the American decorations ''rubbish'' and said James Cason, the chief U.S. diplomat in Havana, seemed "desperate to create problems.''

The competing exhibits prompted many tourists to snap pictures, although some Cuban passersby seemed confused by the intended message.

''This is well-placed, so the whole world understands that what's most important is humanity,'' Evelio Pérez, told the AP after walking past the Cuban billboards with his family.

JUST THE BEGINNING?

Behind closed doors, many Cubans chatted about the U.S.-Cuban tensions, escalated since Bush began tightening and expanding U.S. sanctions on Cuba this summer. They also wondered what might come next if Cason sticks to his vow to keep the decorations up until after the holidays.

Some fretted over speculation that the Cuban government would close operations at the American mission, located in the same building where the U.S. embassy once operated.

''That building provides a little ray of hope for the many people who want to get out of here,'' one Havana resident said in a telephone interview. "No one says anything in public but everybody is keeping a close eye on what is happening and they are nervous.''

Manuel Vázquez Portal, one of the 75 dissidents arrested last year and sentenced to up to 28 years in prison after summary trials, said the Cuban government's reaction to the U.S. display had gone "from the sublime to the ridiculous.''

''I see [the U.S. display] as a gesture of support for 75 innocent people,'' said Vázquez Portal, one of only 14 dissidents released so far. He spoke to the Herald in a telephone interview.

''It's too bad that Cuban prisoners have to be defended by a foreign government,'' he said.

PRINTER FRIENDLY