CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Four killed in car crash had just visited Cuba

Posted on Mon, Jun. 21, 2004

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - (AP) -- The family of four Kentuckians killed in a north Florida accident says the group was returning from visiting relatives in Cuba.

Mariela Mendivil, 40, of Louisville, was driving north on Interstate 75 near the Florida-Georgia border Friday when her station wagon struck a guardrail and came into the path of a tractor-trailer, the Florida Highway Patrol said. She died, as did Gladys Rodriguez Serafin, 39, and two of Mendivil's sons, Daniel Viscaino Mendivil, 14, and Nelson Valdez Mendivil, 5.

Rodriguez Serafin's daughter, Zuemy Alvarez, survived the crash. The truck driver, from Tennessee, suffered minor injuries, police said.

Mendivil was wearing a shoulder restraint but none of the passengers was wearing a seat belt, FHP Lt. Mike Burroughs said.

Mendivil's other son, 19-year-old Carlos Acosta, said his mother had visited her parents and other relatives in Santiago, Cuba. She emigrated from Cuba nine years ago, said Acosta, an Army private based at Fort Campbell.

Rodriguez Serafin's niece, Yoaris Ledesma, of Louisville, said she was taking her daughter to visit her father in Cuba after being in the United States for almost three years. The two were divorced.

''Her dream was to bring Zuemy to this country so that she could become a better person and have a good future,'' Ledesma said. "That's the only reason she came to this country. That's what she always used to say.''

Zuemy Rodriguez Serafin, heading into seventh grade, was hospitalized with a broken hip and possibly broken teeth, Ledesma said. The families left Louisville May 26 and left for home Friday morning, she said.

Group: Migrant slashed wrist to stay

By Richard Brand. rbrand@herald.com. Posted on Mon, Jun. 21, 2004.

A Cuban migrant intercepted by the Coast Guard slashed his wrist, apparently to prevent repatriation to the communist island, an anti-Castro group in Miami said Sunday.

Coast Guard officials would not confirm the account, but would not deny it either.

''Until we close the case, we cannot discuss it,'' said Petty Officer Luis Negron.

The Democracy Movement identified the migrant as Hector Martín Sánchez, picked up along with four other migrants in waters between Florida and Cuba.

''Hector Martín slashed his wrist aboard the cutter. He was bleeding profusely,'' said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of Democracy Movement, who said he is not related to the migrant. Sánchez said he corroborated the account with sources in Cuba and relatives of the migrants in Miami.

Sanchez said four migrants were repatriated Saturday afternoon and that Hector Martín Sánchez would likely be returned once his condition improves. Sanchez said the migrant is receiving medical treatment aboard a cutter, but he did not know his condition.

The journey for many migrants -- across shark-inhabited waters -- is filled with peril and uncertainty. Even when caught, migrants sometimes take desperate measures to make it to U.S. territory.

Cuban migrants who make it to shore typically can stay while those intercepted at sea are usually repatriated, a policy informally known as "wet foot/dry foot.''

Last year, a group of migrants intercepted off the Florida Keys told Coast Guard officers they had just taken pills and were ill. Members of that group were taken ashore for medical treatment, and eventually were allowed to stay.

American has an eye on Cuba's old cars

Posted on Mon, Jun. 21, 2004

An urban planner from Philadelphia says Cuban owners of antique autos would represent a good market for U.S. spare parts if U.S. firms were free to do business with Cuba.

HAVANA - Barely a travel article about Cuba is published without a mention of the vintage 1950s Chevrolets, Fords, Plymouths and Buicks that add so much color and tourist appeal to the island.

But few Americans have thought of the old gas-guzzlers as a business opportunity.

Rick Shnitzler, founder of TailLight Diplomacy (TLD), says Cuban owners of antique autos would represent a good market for U.S. spare parts, both originals and reproductions, if U.S. firms were free to do business with Cuba.

For now, however, the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba remains and all Shnitzler can do is dream, and occasionally help out his like-minded counterparts in Havana.

''Recently, we were able to deliver copies of original factory-issued sales brochures which will enable Cuba to restore its oldest car, a 1905 Cadillac Model F Touring, to factory specifications,'' he said.

Since its formation in 2000, the nonprofit TLD has pushed hard for lifting of the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba,

''TLD seeks to create the conditions for Americans to meet their Cuban peers face-to-face,'' a fact sheet about the organization says. "TLD advocates that Cubans conserve and maintain their existing fleet of pre-1960s American cars, trucks and motorcycles, and that Americans join with Cubans to restore this . . . patrimony as an economic asset and Cuba's contribution to worldwide 20th century culture.''

Except for a handful of newer automobiles belonging to diplomats, no American cars have been shipped to Cuba since 1960, when the Eisenhower administration imposed a ban on all U.S. exports to the island following Fidel Castro's rise to power.

Shnitzler, a 60-year-old urban planner from Philadelphia who visited Cuba twice before the 1959 revolution and once in 2000, said his organization has sent letters to at least 70 members of Congress in hopes of making it easier for U.S. antique-auto enthusiasts to visit the island before too many of their dream cars disappear.

He said that Cuba's Ministry of Interior reported in 2003 that 31,760 pre-1959 American passenger cars were registered, down sharply from the 37,680 vintage cars registered in 2001. The total of passengers cars was about 192,000, he said.

About half of the old American vehicles on Cuba's streets are from the 1950s, with Chevrolets more numerous than any other make. Another 25 percent are from the 1940s, with the remainder from the 1930s.

Shnitzler figures about 75 percent of the American antiques are worth restoring, and figures there's also a significant number of antique trucks and motorcycles.

Using 2004 retail prices, Shnitzler calculates Cuba's market for U.S. restoration parts at $47 million to $81 million.

''That's a substantial opportunity,'' said Jim Spoonhower, vice president of market research at the California-based Specialty Equipment Market Association, whose members include manufacturers, wholesalers and installers of auto parts.

''But a lot will depend on the level of restoration the owner wants to do. If the cars have been pampered, but in maintaining them they've had to custom-fabricate or take parts from other vehicles, then replacing those with real reproductions or original equipment could involve substantial expense,'' he added.

''Some of the original molds have been bought by restoration companies and they'll make the equivalent of a restoration part. You can also get original parts from salvage yards, but probably the larger percentage would come from current-day reproductions,'' Spoonhower said.

Doug Drake, president emeritus of the 63,000-member Antique Automobile Club of America, says TLD's goals are admirable. Cuban antique-car owners "have done a great job of improvising and making their own parts, but they need spare parts.''

Eduardo Mesejo, director of the government-run Automobile Warehouse in Old Havana and the island's official vintage car expert, said the prevalence of old American cars in Cuba was natural.

''Our economic conditions favored trade with the United States. It was cheaper to import cars from the U.S. than from Europe,'' Mesejo said.

Mesejo also criticized a government program in the 1990s that encouraged Cubans to trade in their antique cars in exchange for a new Soviet-built Lada. The program, known as Classic Cars, was administered by state agency Cubalse, which sold some of the antiques abroad.

''That program was a mistake because it bled our national patrimony,'' Mesejo said. "Many important cars left Cuba and were taken to many countries including the United States and Puerto Rico.''

Mesejo, a mechanical engineer, has been in charge since 1996 of the Automobile Deposit, an Old Havana museum where some 40,000 tourists a year pay $1 each to see 34 gems of Cuba's antique fleet.

They include a 1930 Cadillac V-16, a 1956 Mercedes-Benz, a 1924 Packard sedan, a 1926 Willys Overland Whippet Model 96 touring car, a 1980 Daimler limousine donated by the British Embassy and a 1926 Rolls-Royce.

Federal rules quash boating trips to Cuba

By Jennifer Babson. jbabson@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Jun. 20, 2004.

KEY WEST - Almost everybody who has lived for any length of time at this end of an island chain knows somebody who has crossed the Florida Straits -- if they haven't made the trip already themselves.

Among those boaters is the city's colorful former mayor, Charles ''Sonny'' McCoy, now a county commissioner, who famously water-skiied to Cuba in 1978, and has returned by boat several times since.

Whether many of the Keys-to-Cuba trips taken by others were ''legal,'' well, that's another matter entirely.

For years, it was rarely an issue, because federal officials charged with regulating and enforcing the 42-year-old embargo against Cuba didn't vigorously examine pleasure boaters unless they were suspected of hauling contraband or cocaine.

At the dock, officials 'would say, 'Do you have any Cohibas?' and we'd say, 'We smoked them all on the way back!' '' McCoy said. ''Then they'd say, 'Next time, save us some.'' It was very light-hearted.''

But that jovial era may be over.

A series of new federal rules, regulations, and procedures have already begun to quash ''regular'' recreational traffic between Key West and Cuba, according to local boaters.

And the potential stakes for violating the embargo have risen sharply in the past two weeks.

On June 9, two Key West sailors, Peter Goldsmith, 55, and Michele Geslin, 56, were indicted on criminal charges that could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and up to 15 years in jail.

Their offense: allegedly violating the Trading With The Enemy Act by organizing and promoting a series of sailboat races between Key West and Cuba. Prosecutors say the pair were acting as unauthorized travel agents without a Treasury Department license.

Last week, the federal government released details of new Cuba embargo rules slated to go into effect at the end of the month. The changes would eliminate a controversial provision that has allowed boaters to visit Cuba as ''fully hosted'' guests of a nautical club operated by the Cuban government-owned Marina Hemingway, just outside of Havana.

MORE REQUIREMENTS

Within the next month, the Coast Guard is expected to release the details of more new requirements that would expressly bar from Cuban waters U.S. boaters who don't have an export license from the Commerce Department and a license from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, no matter where the trip to Cuba originated.

''We are not going to issue a permit until they can present the licenses from OFAC and Commerce,'' Tony Russell, a Miami-based Coast Guard spokesman, said. In the past, the Coast Guard routinely issued the permits regardless of whether vessels or the people on them were authorized by other federal agencies to visit Cuba.

Many local boaters feel an aspect of their way of life is under siege: after all, they say, Key West's geographical and cultural proximity to Cuba are a matter of history and tradition. But critics say the lax attitude toward boaters visiting Cuba has gone on too long.

Statistics and anecdotal evidence indicate that Bush administration promises to examine boat trips to Cuba more closely may have already had an impact.

The Coast Guard received 263 written requests for vessels to leave the Security Zone off Florida's Coast and enter Cuban waters between October 2002 and Sept. 30, 2003, according to Russell. Since Oct. 1 of last year, only 88 requests have been made. A tiny fraction of the requests was denied both years, he said, mostly because the applicants filled out paperwork incorrectly or inadequately.

American boats have all but dried up at Marina Hemingway, according to its commodore, Jose M. Diaz Escrich, who called the new rules "an artificial wall.''

''There has been a very substantial decrease -- practically we don't have the arrival of any American boats,'' he said, through a translator.

Though some of the new rules have yet to go into effect, they've already made some who would otherwise be inclined to go think twice or abandon their Cuba plans.

''I've been going for the past 10 or 12 years, but I didn't go this year,'' said Joe Mercurio, 61, captain of the charter boat Triple Time.

Mercurio said every time boaters figure out a way to comply with regulations, the feds throw them a curveball.

"First you couldn't spend no money, then they said you have to get an export permit license for the groceries you are taking over and eating yourself.''

Still, some wonder if the tough talk is a product of election-year politics they hope will fade in a matter of months.

''I know hundreds of people who have traveled to Cuba, almost thousands. I don't even know a single person who has ever been fined,'' said Craig Eubank, a Key West charter boat captain who has been to Cuba 37 times in the past 11 years, about 1/3 of them by boat.

While some boaters have sought U.S. government permission to make the trip, others have opted to make the trip without Coast Guard permission, though that's a risky approach.

''People in the Keys tend to do their own thing, like Hemingway did. He would just take his boat and go over there,'' said Eubank, who has a fiancée and 7-month old son in Cuba. Eubank, captain of the Mr. Z. sportfishing boat, said he has always gone to Cuba legally.

AN ISLAND'S APPEAL

Like many locals who've made the trip - which can take 20 hours by sailboat or five hours by powerboat - Eubank said the island holds a special appeal.

A number of boaters who've made the trip 'fully-hosted' admit they have spent money in Cuba but were careful to destroy the receipts. For many, though, the allure of sailing or cruising to Cuba has more to do with a desire to get to know an island that used to be a quick ferry hop away.

''It was our sister country for a long time, remember that,'' said one sailor, who did not want his name used. "It's probably hard for people in the rest of the country to understand that we are so close to Cuba.''

Cuban torture suspect arrested in Dade

Immigration agents have arrested a Cuban man on suspicion of being a torturer -- a charge strongly denied by his lawyer and family, who say he fled Cuba to escape the Castro regime.

By Alfonso Chardy, achardy@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun. 19, 2004.

Federal immigration agents have arrested a Cuban man in Miami on suspicion he may have supervised a team of torturers who targeted dissidents opposed to Fidel Castro -- a charge strongly denied by his attorney.

Jorge Felipe de Cárdenas Agostini, 46, was picked up June 8 at his home in Miami and taken to the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade, where he is in deportation proceedings, according to officials familiar with the case. Cubans, however, are rarely deported because the Cuban government generally refuses to take exiles back.

De Cárdenas Agostini is the second Cuban arrested under a program begun in 2000 to track down foreign torture suspects living in the United States. The first was Eriberto Mederos, who was accused of having tortured anti-Castro political prisoners held at a psychiatric hospital in Cuba in the 1970s. He died in 2002, not long after a jury convicted him of lying on his citizenship application.

De Cárdenas Agostini is the nephew of Jorge de Cárdenas, a longtime lobbyist and political strategist charged with embezzlement, witness tampering and bribery during a Miami corruption scandal in the 1990s.

Jorge de Cárdenas pleaded guilty in 1997 to one count of obstructing justice, and was sentenced to one year in federal prison. After his release, he was sent to Krome to face possible deportation, but was released in 1999.

During deportation proceedings for Jorge de Cárdenas, the lobbyist, de Cárdenas Agostini testified about political conditions in Cuba in a bid to preempt his uncle's possible deportation.

Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami, said de Cárdenas Agostini was detained because he was ''suspected of engaging in persecution on behalf of the Cuban government.'' Gonzalez, however, said she could not release details.

ALLEGATIONS

But sources familiar with the government's case said that during the immigration court proceeding, de Cárdenas Agostini indicated that he worked for an intelligence unit and had supervised a team that allegedly tortured dissidents.

The de Cárdenas family referred calls to Linda Osberg-Braun, de Cárdenas Agostini's immigration attorney. She defended her client, saying he never tortured anyone or oversaw any torture unit.

''Absolutely not,'' Osberg-Braun said. "My client did not supervise a team of torturers. He was not involved in the persecution of others in any kind of way. They have mangled my client's testimony.''

Osberg-Braun said de Cárdenas Agostini was only trying to help his uncle, explaining what would happen to him were he to be returned to Cuba. She said that, on the contrary, her client worked to restore human rights in Cuba after he was expelled from the government in 1989.

''His only mistake was trying to help his uncle,'' Osberg-Braun said.

She said the CIA debriefed her client after his arrival in the United States. ''He revealed all his activities both when he was part of the Cuban government and after he was expelled,'' she said. "I can't believe the CIA would not have missed any of my client's activities and they know he is not a persecutor of others, and they knew it in 1996 when they thoroughly debriefed him.''

However, Osberg-Braun would not say precisely what her client said in testimony.

MISTAKE

Friends of de Cardenas Agostini who asked not to be identified said the arrest and allegations are a terrible mistake. They said he fled Cuba to escape the Castro regime because he was once associated with a Cuban general who was executed in 1989. These people said de Cárdenas Agostini testified merely to try to prevent his uncle's deportation -- never expecting that his own testimony would later be used against him.

They said he talked about having served at the Ministry of the Interior and working with Gen. Antonio de la Guardia, executed after drug-trafficking trials of him and Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, also executed.

Some experts on Cuban affairs believe the charges against Ochoa and de la Guardia were trumped up and that the executions were actually a purge of popular officers who might have posed a political threat to Castro.

De Cárdenas Agostini left Cuba in 1995 and arrived in the United States a year later through the Texas border.

Cuba travelers face a deadline to return to U.S.

Hundreds of Cuban Americans will be considered illegal travelers to Cuba if they do not return from the island before new travel rules take effect on June 30.

By Christina Hoag, choag@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun. 19, 2004.

Operators of charter flights to Cuba are scrambling to schedule flights to ferry hundreds of Cuban Americans back from the island before new travel regulations make them illegal visitors subject to $7,500 fines as of June 30.

The agencies are also trying to contact Cuban Americans already on the island who may not know that they have to return before the more restrictive rules take effect.

''It's quite a panic right now,'' said María Teresa Arau, chief executive and vice president of ABC Charters in Miami, one of seven local companies that operate flights to Cuba. "I'm in the process of contracting more planes, but I don't think I'll be able to accommodate everyone.''

The new rules, which have been pending for months, were published Wednesday in the Federal Register. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which regulates travel from the United States to Cuba, said the two weeks until they take effect allow travelers time to change schedules.

''We encourage folks to use this time period to make travel arrangements to get back to the U.S.,'' said Molly Millerwise, a Treasury spokeswoman. A traveler returning after June 30 will be subject to a $7,500 fine, Millerwise said. First-time violators with mitigating circumstances have sometimes gotten off with a warning letter, she added.

LICENSES EXPIRE

Under the toughened new Cuba travel policy, Cuban Americans have to complete all travel to the island before June 30 because their current ''general licenses,'' which allow them to make annual trips to visit relatives, will expire on that date.

Cuban Americans now have to obtain a special license to visit only immediate family members and can make a trip only for a maximum of 14 days every three years. The trouble is that procedures and forms for the special license have not been issued, causing hundreds of people to cancel travel plans or alter them to return before June 30.

''The Treasury Department has notified us that they'll strictly enforce this,'' said Michael Zuccato, general manager of Cuba Travel Services, which has scheduled three extra flights from Havana to Miami for June 29.

As for people who are already in Cuba and had planned to stay into the summer, agencies said they hope relatives stateside will see media coverage of the new policy and notify their family members. ''It's impossible to contact them,'' Arau of ABC Charters said. "I have a man who left May 28 and isn't coming back until July. I don't know where he is. I don't ask them where they go.''

Charter operators had been told that as long as Cuban Americans left the United States by June 30, they were safe, said Francisco Aruca, chairman of Marazul, a charter company with offices in Miami and New Jersey.

Knowing that the rules were changing on June 30, many Cuban Americans rushed to schedule their outward-bound trips before that date, waiting for schools to break for the summer to be able to take children, he said.

CHANGING COURSE

It was not until late Wednesday before a Marazul employee noticed the new policy's provision about returning before June 30 and company lawyers contacted the Treasury Department for an interpretation, Aruca said.

''This has been implemented in a very shabby fashion,'' he said. "Almost certainly we will not be able to get enough planes to facilitate travel. There are hundreds of Cuban Americans who won't be able to travel.''

One is Alicia Burrola's sister-in-law, who had planned to celebrate her daughter's 15th birthday in Cuba over the July Fourth weekend. ''They've spent all this money, they've bought all the dresses,'' said Burrola, of Miami. "She's crying her heart out.''

Zuccato of Cuba Travel Services, which also operates flights to Havana from Los Angeles, said the charter operators also face a Catch-22 with the U.S. Department of Transportation. The DOT mandates that charter companies bring back every passenger they take. After June 30, that will run counter to the Treasury rule, which states that the companies cannot accept unlicensed travelers.

''We're trying to get a clarification on what we do, but no one's returning our calls,'' Zuccato said. "We thought it would be reasonable to give a grace period for these people to return. This law was implemented with little forethought or consideration to people.''

Once the charter companies get through this period, some firms said, they expect business to slow down significantly, especially in the short term, as the special license applications have not yet been issued and it is not known how long they will take to process.

Diplomats debate president's Cuba policy

Four former U.S. diplomats praised President Bush's new tightened restrictions on Cuba but said they would be tough on exiles with Cuban relatives.

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Sat, Jun. 19, 2004.

Four former U.S. ambassadors with vast experience on Cuba Friday rated President Bush's tightening of sanctions on the island as both an effective way to pressure Havana and a wrongful punishment of exiles with relatives in Havana.

''What we're talking about in Cuba is enabling the people . . . to stand up and say I can't take it any more,'' said Dennis Hays, former head of the State Department Cuba desk and former ambassador to Suriname.

Bush administration officials ''want to see Fidel Castro gone,'' Hayes told a seminar at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies that focused on a 500-page report submitted to Bush last month by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

The report is a compilation of rules and suggestions intended to hasten and prepare for the fall of Cuba's socialist system. Among the most controversial is restricting annual remittances and travel by Cuban Americans to the island.

Luis Lauredo, a Cuban American who served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States under President Bill Clinton said the measures were wrong. ''You don't legislate . . . human behavior like the very human tendency to try to help your family in Cuba,'' Lauredo said.

Manuel Rocha, who served in the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana in the 1990s, said that while the exile community is increasingly divided on whether Washington should maintain its economic embargo on Cuba, lifting it before Castro's demise would lead not to a transition toward democracy but to a mere leadership succession within the same communist system.

Former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick called on Cuban Americans to take the lead in ensuring that democracy flourishes in Cuba once there is a regime change.

''The United States will not be able to plan a very smooth landing for Cuba,'' she said. "Maybe the Cuban-American community is strong enough to collectively sustain a transition to a stable democratic transition.''

U.S. law curtails resort's deals in Cuba

The Bush administration invoked a law regarding seized property, leading a Jamaican resort to curtail operations in Cuba.

By Christina Hoag, choag@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Jun. 17, 2004.

Jamaica's SuperClubs Super-Inclusive Resorts has pulled out of two hotel contracts in Cuba after the State Department threatened to cancel top executives' U.S. visas because the company is ''trafficking'' in property confiscated from Cuban Americans.

The move marks the first time the Bush administration has applied the controversial Helms-Burton law, which was invoked several times under the Clinton administration, according to the State Department.

The action comes as the White House is also tightening rules on travel to Cuba and remittances sent to the island. Last week, the two organizers of a regatta between Key West and Cuba were indicted on charges of running the unauthorized race.

The 1996 Helms-Burton law allows the U.S. government to sanction investors who make use of land that the communist regime confiscated from private citizens and U.S. companies in the wake of the 1959 Cuban revolution. Almost 6,000 claims have been filed over seized properties.

This case involves a claim by the Sánchez-Hill family to the land where the Breezes Costa Verde, a 480-room hotel, is located in Holguín province east of Havana.

Kingston-based SuperClubs has had the all-inclusive resort under contract to the Cuban government's tourism arm, Gaviota, for three years, said Zein Issa, SuperClubs' vice president of marketing.

'CAUGHT IN MIDDLE'

After receiving the May 6 letter from the State Department, which stated that managers and their families would lose their U.S. visas if they continued with Breezes Costa Verde, the company decided to cancel its contract, she said.

''We were caught in the middle of an international political struggle and we were the victims,'' said Issa, the daughter of SuperClubs President John Issa.

The other hotel that SuperClubs is relinquishing, the 436-room Grand Lido Varadero, which opened about a month ago, is not involved in a property claim dispute.

Issa would not elaborate. But a source close to the situation who did not want to be identified said it was pulled by the Cuban government in retaliation for the Breezes Costa Verde cancellation. SuperClubs still operates two resorts in Cuba, as well as others throughout the Caribbean and Brazil.

''This is a significant victory for us,'' said Nicholas J. Gutiérrez Jr., the Miami lawyer representing the Sánchez-Hill family and other Cuban-American claimants.

Gutiérrez said the Sánchez-Hills, now U.S. citizens who reside in Florida, New York and Venezuela, have been lobbying Washington for five years to take action on their former Santa Lucía sugar plantation.

The 100,000 acres of waterfront land, which the family had owned since 1857, is now occupied by nine hotels, run by Spanish, French, German and Canadian companies, as well as the SuperClubs property, he said.

The farm's sugar mill is now a museum, he added.

Gutiérrez said that the family had been in negotiations with SuperClubs over compensation for use of the land, but no deal was reached.

''They approached us to make a deal, but they didn't offer us anywhere near what was adequate,'' he said.

Similarly, Sol Meliá has offered the family ''a seven-figure sum'' in compensation for the Spanish tourism giant's four hotels on the old plantation, Gutiérrez said, but the family did not accept.

ELECTION YEAR

Analysts said it was no accident that the action came in an election year in which President Bush will need to court Cuban Americans to win a tight race in Florida.

It's also no accident that the administration targeted a Jamaican company, said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

''It's part of a trend of hardening some aspects of Cuba policy,'' Erikson said. "But let's face it, Jamaica is small potatoes. Jamaica doesn't have significant investment in the U.S. or is in a strategic position.''

Tangling with European or Canadian companies would have opened a Pandora's box for Bush at a time when U.S.-European relations are sensitive over Iraq, and European-Cuban ties are tense over dissident issues, Erikson said.

''The U.S. doesn't want to direct ire to Washington,'' he said.

Nevertheless, the move could serve to dissuade investors who are thinking about delving into Cuba's burgeoning tourism industry, although it's unlikely to scare off those who have already sunk money into the island, other experts said.

''Clearly, this is an attempt to put a little more bite into Cuba policies,'' said Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute. "This type of gesture inevitably discourages new investment.''

Commission set up to watch Cuba

European and Latin American activists and lawmakers announced in Miami the formation of a commission to monitor human rights abuses in Cuba.

By Michael A.W. Ottey, mottey@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Jun. 17, 2004.

A group of European and Latin American activists and lawmakers Wednesday announced the establishment of a joint commission to monitor human rights abuses and promote democracy in Cuba.

The nongovernment commission will pressure President Fidel Castro's government to respect the rights of citizens seeking democracy in the communist nation, said Francisco Landero, a Mexican federal congressman from the conservative National Action Party.

Also present at the announcement at Miami's Our Lady of Charity Shrine were Anna Maria Stame Cervone, an activist in Italy's conservative Christian Democratic party, and Alvaro Dubon, a conservative Guatemalan member of the Central American Parliament.

Relatives of political prisoners in Cuba and officials from various Cuban exile groups joined the news conference to support the commission.

Although the European Community and some Latin American countries, especially Mexico, have been pressing Cuba to improve its human rights situation, there has been little coordination so far between the two sides.

Stame said the Joint Commission of European and Latin American Parliamentarians in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in Cuba has 50 members from Chile, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico and Italy, and expects many more to join in coming weeks.

Commission members said they will push for the creation of a humanitarian fund to support nongovernment groups in Cuba and will support political change on the island.

They also want international human rights monitors to ''adopt'' political prisoners, checking on them to ensure fair treatment, and urged Latin American nations to follow the European Union's lead in inviting Cuban dissidents to functions at their embassies in Havana.

Landero said the commission would lend continuity to the increasing pressure on Castro by various Latin American and European government.

For agencies, tougher rules mean tigher belts

Businesses that arrange trips and remittances to Cuba are bracing for a slowdown as a stricter policy goes into effect June 30

By Christina Hoag, choag@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Jun. 17, 2004.

South Florida firms that specialize in trips to Cuba stand to lose a huge chunk of their business after June 30, when new travel rules will severely curtail visits to the island.

''We're already processing refunds. People are desperate; they're crying in our offices,'' said Armando García, vice president of Marazul, one of Miami's largest travel agencies that organizes visits to Cuba.

Under the new regulations, published on Wednesday:

o Cuban Americans may only travel to Cuba once every three years, instead of every year.

o They may go only go to visit immediate family members: parents, spouses, siblings, grandparents and children. Visits to such previously allowed relatives as uncles and cousins are out.

o They may spend no more than $50 a day while there -- a big drop from the previous limit of $167 a day -- and stay for no more than 14 days. In the past, no time limit was placed on Cuban Americans' visits to Cuba.

o They may only send money to immediate family members and not to any Communist Party officials.

That last rule has many businesses expecting to be severely affected by the drop in traffic, especially since it will take effect during the peak summer-vacation season. Merchants who send money to families on the island will also feel a pinch.

''A lot of agencies are going to have to close,'' said Doris S. Martínez, owner of the Miami travel agency Costamar Envíos. "A lot of people say they're going to go through third countries. I will not sell those tickets. I will obey the law. If I lose, I lose.''

Employees at such travel agencies as Havana Express in Hialeah already fear that they will lose their jobs with the expected reduction in clients.

''We're going to try to maintain ourselves,'' said María González, a worker at Havana Express, which employs five. "We also offer bookkeeping and immigration services.''

For everyone who does make the trip, the agencies will have to grapple with more cumbersome paperwork. Currently, a Cuban American signs an affidavit to receive a general license within a week to take a trip that year; under the new rules, she would have to apply for a more involved ''special license'' from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

''We don't know how long it's going to take,'' said García, of Marazul, which handles about 25,000 trips to Cuba a year. "Up to this moment, they have not sent the form for the license. They publish the rules, but they don't publish the concrete form that's needed.''

Another caveat is that the rules are retroactive -- which means the one-trip-every-three-years restriction applies to every Cuban American's last visit to the island.

Agencies say they're being flooded with calls from bewildered customers. Many, they say, are trying to get trips in before June 30.

The problem with that, as Marazul President Francisco Aruca sees it, is that if they do not return before that date, their trip and any money they may have spent in Cuba will be considered illegal under the new regulations and the consequences of that are unknown.

''This,'' he said, "is a mess.''

The new regulations will primarily affect more recent arrivals with many relatives and friends still on the island, as opposed to those who came in the 1960s with much of their families, said Damián Fernández, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

The changes have gotten ''a lukewarm reception in the community,'' he said, noting that some Cuban Americans particularly resent that the U.S. government is telling them who is and who isn't family.

''People are feeling, 'Don't mess with my family; don't politicize my family anymore,'' Fernández said. "People want a policy that's tough on governments but soft on people.'' 

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