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March 15, 2004

Jailed Cuban dissidents' loved ones unite to speak for them

A year after the Cuban government's crackdown, wives, parents and children of jailed dissidents have become their 'voices.'

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2004

Laura Pollán Toledo opened the door to her home in central Havana to find her partner of 13 years surrounded by a dozen state security agents and two neighborhood snitches who hauled away books, two typewriters and a fax machine.

As she stood frozen by the door, Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez asked for permission to talk to his common-law wife.

''Don't be nervous,'' he told Pollán, as he led her to a chair in the living room. "Don't worry about anything. I've done nothing to shame you. I am willing to go as far as necessary to defend my ideas.''

Maseda was among 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in a crackdown that began a year ago today. Despite worldwide condemnation and appeals for their release, all 75 remain behind bars in what analysts have described as the harshest attack on the island's dissidents in recent memory.

An Amnesty International report released this week again demanded their release.

''Detention of dissidents for the peaceful expression of their beliefs for even one day flouts international human rights safeguards,'' according to a statement issued by Amnesty.

The memory of that frightful night still makes Pollán break down in tears.

''Those moments, what I felt, I don't think I could ever put into words,'' Pollán said in a telephone interview from Havana on Wednesday, stopping to catch her breath between sobs. "It was very painful to come home to that.''

The jailed dissidents include independent journalists like Maseda, human rights activists, opposition party leaders, economists and citizens who converted their homes into independent libraries. Ten are over the age of 60, and at least 15 are reported to be suffering from deteriorating health.

Accused of working with U.S. diplomats in Havana to undermine President Fidel Castro's government, all were convicted in swift trials and sentenced to prison terms of six to 28 years.

Amnesty International has declared all 75 ''prisoners of conscience,'' making Cuba one of the countries with the highest number of such prisoners in the world.

NOT DESTROYED

The crackdown dealt a crushing blow to the dissident movement, which had been growing across the island and receiving international recognition. But it has not destroyed it.

Those who escaped arrest reorganized and continue to issue press releases and give interviews to the foreign press. Wives, parents and children of the jailed dissidents have taken up their cause.

''Before this, I was a simple wife. My life was devoted to family and work,'' said Pollán, 56, a high school teacher. "But this situation has turned my life 180 degrees.''

Maseda, 61, has been in solitary confinement at a prison in Santa Clara since he was transferred there soon after his arrest March 19, 2003. He was sentenced to 20 years.

An engineer and physicist by profession, he joined the dissident movement in the early '90s and helped organize the illegal Liberal Democratic Party of Cuba. He also wrote articles on history, the economy and culture, which were posted on various Internet sites.

LONG SEPARATION

Maseda had been detained previously numerous times. But Pollán knew the separation would be long this time when security agents told her to prepare a package of his personal items to be delivered to a holding cell the following day.

''I knew it was going to be difficult, but I never imagined they would give him 20 years,'' Pollán said.

She sees Maseda every three months in visits that are restricted to two hours. The last time she saw him was on Feb. 29 when rumors were again circulating that some of the older prisoners would soon be released.

Pollán admits that getting out of bed is difficult some days. But getting into it at night is even harder.

''When I get home and find myself all alone, I get very sad,'' she said. "My heart turns into a knot.''

Still, she remains determined not to let the sadness stomp out the will to continue to fight for the ultimate release of Maseda and the other political prisoners.

Every month, she gets together with the wives of other prisoners, and they read letters and poems sent to them by their husbands. They also meet at church on Sundays, dressed in white, to pray for their release. And whenever there is an opportunity to speak out, Pollán does not hesitate.

''We haven't stopped suffering,'' Pollán said. "The agony we've been through can't be erased. But we will do everything humanely possible to fight for the liberty of our husbands.

''The jailing of those 75 prisoners has brought us together,'' Pollán said. "Now, we are 75 families united as one. We are the voices of those prisoners. They can put bodies behind bars but they can't lock up the mind or the spirit.''

Protests over jailed Cuban dissidents are today

Several events protesting the incarceration of dissidents and opposition leaders in Cuba will be held today in South Florida.

By Elaine De Valle, edevalle@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2004

There will be 75 people -- teachers, priests, students, librarians, historians, entrepreneurs, artists and activists -- each representing one of the 75 Cuban dissidents and opposition leaders arrested beginning a year ago today.

They will stand along Biscayne Boulevard today, each with an 8-by-10 photograph of an independent teacher, writer, doctor, lawyer, librarian or human rights activist who was summarily tried and sentenced to long terms for ''crimes against the state.'' The photographs will be attached to a 12-foot board, creating a mural that may later be put on display.

Nearby, a makeshift cell will hold a typewriter and tape recorder, papers and pencils, books and blackboards -- things confiscated from raids on the dissidents' homes and used as ''evidence'' in their trials.

''There will also be a Cuban flag inside the cell. The entire nation is in prison,'' said Marilú del Toro, a spokeswoman for the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a nonprofit organization that supports island dissidents and organized the noontime demonstration in Miami.

ACROSS NATION

The event is just one of dozens across the nation and the globe to mark the first anniversary of the harshest crackdown by the Castro regime in decades.

Tonight there will be a conference on the civic movement on the island, followed by a candlelight vigil, organized by the Free Cuba Foundation at Florida International University.

But the procession at the Torch of Friendship, 301 N. Biscayne Blvd., is among the most dramatic. Participants will include Isabel Roque, the sister of Martha Beatriz Roque -- a leading Cuban activist known as one of the four Cubans who wrote The Homeland is for All -- and José Antonio Martínez, the brother of Jose Miguel Martínez Hernandez, another jailed dissident.

Others include filmmakers Sergio Giral, Eduardo Palmer and Nick Calzada, Bishop Agustín Román and Father Alberto Cutié, as well as Cuban exile activists like Brothers to the Rescue Founder José Basulto and Democracy Movement leader Ramón Saúl Sánchez.

ORDINARY PEOPLE

However, most ''stand-ins'' are ordinary people, like the dissidents, del Toro said.

''We wanted to stay away from the politicians and make it more a spectrum of civil society to reflect the civil society in Cuba that is suffering the brunt of the oppression,'' she explained.

Sylvia Hernandez, director of the Ramón Guiteras Library at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, will represent Victor Rolando Arroyo, who ran one of the biggest independent libraries in Cuba.

''I'm a librarian and I believe in the right of every citizen to read the book of his or her choice, I believe in the free expression of ideas,'' said Hernandez, 56. ''These are people just like us, who do the same things we do. Only there, they are criminals,'' she said.

A year after crackdown, Cuban dissidents remain behind bars

By NANCY SAN MARTIN, Miami Herald. Posted on Wed, Mar. 17, 2004

MIAMI - Laura Pollan Toledo opened the door to her home in central Havana to find her partner of 13 years surrounded by a dozen state security agents and two neighborhood snitches who hauled away books, two typewriters and a fax machine.

As she stood frozen by the door, Hector Maseda Gutierrez asked for permission to talk to his common-law wife.

"Don't be nervous," he told Pollan, as he led her to a chair in the living room. "Don't worry about anything. I've done nothing to shame you. I am willing to go as far as necessary to defend my ideas."

Maseda was among 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in crackdown that began a year ago Thursday. Despite worldwide condemnation and appeals for their release, all 75 remain behind bars in what analysts have described as the harshest attack on the island's dissidents in recent memory.

An Amnesty International report released this week again demanded their release.

"Detention of dissidents for the peaceful expression of their beliefs for even one day flouts international human rights safeguards," according to a statement issued by Amnesty.

The memory of that frightful night still makes Pollan break down in tears.

"Those moments, what I felt, I don't think I could ever put into words," Pollan said in a telephone interview from Havana Wednesday, stopping to catch her breath between sobs. "It was very painful to come home to that."

Accused of working with U.S. diplomats in Havana to undermine President Fidel Castro's government, all were convicted in swift trials and sentenced to prison terms of six to 28 years.

Amnesty International has declared all 75 "prisoners of conscience," making Cuba one of the countries with the highest number of such prisoners in the world.

The crackdown dealt a crushing blow to the dissident movement, which had been growing across the island and receiving international recognition. But it has not destroyed it.

Those who escaped arrest reorganized and continue to issue press releases and give interviews to the foreign press. Wives, parents and children of the jailed dissidents have taken up their cause.

"Before this, I was a simple wife. My life was devoted to family and work," said Pollan, 56, a high school teacher. "But this situation has turned my life 180 degrees."

Maseda, 61, has been in solitary confinement at a prison in Santa Clara since he was transferred there soon after his arrest March 19, 2003. He was sentenced to 20 years.

An engineer and physicist by profession, he joined the dissident movement in the early 90s and helped organize the illegal Liberal Democratic Party of Cuba. He also wrote articles on history, the economy and culture, which were posted on various Internet sites.

Maseda had been detained previously numerous times. But Pollan knew the separation would be long this time when security agents told her to prepare a package of his personal items to be delivered to a holding cell the following day.

"I knew it was going to be difficult, but I never imagined they would give him 20 years," Pollan said.

Pollan admits that getting out of bed is difficult some days. But getting into it at night is even harder.

"When I get home and find myself all alone, I get very sad," she said. "My heart turns into a knot."

Still, she remains determined not to let the sadness stomp out the will to continue to fight for the ultimate release of Maseda and the other political prisoners.

"We haven't stopped suffering," Pollan said. "The agony we've been through can't be erased. But we will do everything humanely possible to fight for the liberty of our husbands.

"The jailing of those 75 prisoners has brought us together," Pollan said. "Now, we are 75 families united as one. We are the voices of those prisoners. They can put bodies behind bars but they can't lock up the mind or the spirit."

Bush aide disclaims 2 GOP lawmakers' remarks on Cuba

The Bush campaign orchestrates a conference call to attack John Kerry on Cuba, but strong language from two Florida Republican congressmen distracts from the message.

By Peter Wallsten, pwallsten@herald.com. Posted on Wed, Mar. 17, 2004

Even as they accused Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of ''shrill rhetoric,'' two Florida Republicans representing President Bush's reelection campaign questioned Tuesday whether Kerry has had contact with Fidel Castro and Spain's "new Socialist government.''

The comments from U.S. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart of Miami and Mark Foley of West Palm Beach came during a conference call with reporters arranged by the Bush campaign to chastise the Massachusetts senator for his evolving positions on Cuba.

But even in a time of torrid attacks from both sides, the piercing language lumping together Cuba's dictator with the winners of a legitimate election in Spain veered far off the Bush campaign script.

Spain is a particularly sensitive political topic for the White House, given that the Socialists' surprising victory this week, coming in the wake of the country's worst terrorist attack in history, was credited to anger over the government's ties to Bush and the war in Iraq.

''We would never make a comparison between a democratically elected government and a dictatorship,'' said Bush spokesman Reed Dickens, in an interview after the conference call, distancing the campaign from the remarks of its surrogates. "What we will point out is Sen. Kerry makes serious accusations without the facts to back them up and has historically and consistently been wrong on Cuba.''

The exchange was the latest offshoot in a controversy that has been brewing since Kerry told donors during a Broward County breakfast last week that several world leaders have made it clear that they hope he defeats Bush in November. Kerry has refused to reveal who the leaders were, saying only that the anxiety abroad is evidence of the flaws in Bush's unilateralist foreign policy.

White House officials have suggested that Kerry lied, while Republican strategists have mocked him for winning the sympathies of North Korea's dictator and Europe's liberal newspapers.

''At least we're now starting to get a roll call of people who do support him,'' said Foley during the Tuesday conference call, naming Castro and the "new socialist prime minister of Spain.''

Added Díaz-Balart: "Who are these foreign leaders? Is it Castro? Is it the new Socialist government of Spain?''

GRAHAM RESPONSE

The questions drew an immediate response from one of Kerry's most prominent Florida backers, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who defended his colleague's decision to not reveal the leaders' names.

Graham, a potential running mate for Kerry, noted that outgoing Prime Minister José María Aznar of the center-right Popular Party was fully embraced by the White House before his loss. ''I think that's an indication of the degree to which this administration has not only lost our credibility around the world but is causing those few places that continue to be our allies under this administration to be in jeopardy,'' Graham said.

Tuesday's Bush campaign conference call was part of a broader GOP strategy to paint Kerry as dishonest and waffling on key foreign policy issues, and to preemptively halt new efforts by Democratic strategists to court traditionally Republican Cuban-American voters in part by assailing Bush's own record on Cuba.

HERALD STORY

The call was intended to highlight a Sunday Herald story detailing how Kerry's recent embrace of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba contrasts with a long voting history generally sympathetic to increasing contact with the island. In particular, the story noted, he voted against the final version of 1996 legislation designed to strengthen trade sanctions on Cuba -- but told a Miami television reporter during a visit to South Florida last week that he backed the measure.

A dueling conference call organized by the Kerry camp featured Graham and Hialeah Mayor Raul Martínez, a Cuban-American Democrat, who assailed Bush's record on Cuba.

The Democrats noted that Bush's administration has maintained the Clinton policy of preventing lawsuits by U.S. citizens over land seized by the Cuban government after the 1959 revolution -- suggesting the president must contend with his own flip-flopping on the issue.

But both calls revealed the complexities facing each side.

For his part, Díaz-Balart acknowledged that he does not agree with Bush's move to prevent the lawsuits -- a reference to the controversial Title III provision of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that has never been enforced.

Kerry says he voted against the law because of that very provision. But Graham, who voted for it, acknowledged Tuesday that he disagreed with Kerry's logic.

Trial begins for four men accused in Castro plot

Luis Posada Carriles, Cuba's most wanted man, and three Miami men are on trial in Panama for possession of explosives that they allegedly planned to use to kill Fidel Castro.

By Frances Robles. frobles@herald.com. Posted on Tue, Mar. 16, 2004

PANAMA CITY - The four well-dressed and aged Cuban exiles are on trial on explosives charges, but Cubans in the courtroom want them to confront a different legacy: a 30-year-string of bombings, murders and attempted kidnappings.

In a Panama City courtroom Monday, prosecutors argued that the four defendants were planning to take another shot at Cuban President Fidel Castro by planting a bomb near the man they've spent 45 years hating.

On trial are Cuba's most famous fugitive, Luis Posada Carriles, and three Miami Cubans who together claim to have been on a mission to help a Cuban official defect -- not to kill Castro.

The four defendants are charged with possession of explosives, and some are charged with using false documents to enter Panama in 2000. Attempted murder charges were dropped because police never found detonating caps.

They face six years in prison if convicted, but have already served 3 ½ years.

VICTIMS' FAMILIES

The four defendants faced off in a dingy courtroom against the families of victims in other cases, attacks that the Cuban government says they carried out and never paid for.

''It's not that I'm convinced Posada Carriles blew up the plane, it's that he has publicly said so,'' said Carlos Cremata, whose father was a crew member of a Cubana de Aviación jetliner that blew up in 1976, killing 73 people. "He's not being judged in my father's case, but this is the first step. I came here so I can go back to Cuba and tell my mother there was justice.''

Acquitted in the airline bombing, Posada Carriles escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting retrial and went into hiding. He later claimed and then denied responsibility for a string of terrorist bombings in Havana.

In November 2000, Castro told a stunned news conference at the Ibero-American Summit in Panama City that Posada Carriles was in town to murder him.

As prosecutors tell it, Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo, Pedro C. Remón and Gaspar Jiménez sneaked into Panama through the Costa Rica border in a scheme to assassinate Castro. According to the case file, Posada Carriles hired a friend's Panamanian driver to take him to the border to pick up his coconspirators, who carried 33 pounds of C-4 explosives.

The driver, José Hurtado, told investigators he found the bag in one of two rental cars the men used. He peeked inside and saw a marine radio, a remote-control firing system, cables and other items used to make a bomb. The startled chauffeur called his boss, César Matamoros, a Cuban who lives in Panama.

''It looks like they are up to strange things,'' Matamoros told him.

When Hurtado took the bag back to the men's hotel, the place was swarming with police, so he hid the bag under his bed and later buried it at his mother's house. Soon arrested, Hurtado told police where they could find the duffel bag decorated with a Florida Marlins emblem and a Herald logo. His cooperation didn't help: He and Matamoros are both defendants, too.

''We believe that bag was planted by Fidel Castro,'' defense lawyer Rogelio Cruz said. 'A Marlins' bag with a Miami Herald logo? The only thing it was missing was Bill Clinton's signature.''

Cruz maintains that the only thing linking the defendants to the explosives is the driver. The men claim they were on a secret mission to help the defection of a Cuban general who had earlier contacted Posada Carriles and told him he would be in Panama with Castro.

'WE'RE STILL WAITING'

''When they got caught here in Panama, we had hope,'' said Lissette Díaz, whose father, Artaigñan Díaz, was killed in Mexico, allegedly when Jiménez tried to kidnap the Cuban consul there. "It's been 27 years and we're still waiting.''

She was accompanied by Félix Victor Negrín and Domingo García Rodríguez, whose brothers were killed in separate incidents by a Mac-10 submachine gun that Cuba alleges was fired by Remón.

The defendants' families scoffed, saying the presence of the Cubans at the trial was a ''show'' financed by the Cuban government.

''Luckily in Panama there is democracy, and they have the right to travel wherever they want, as do we,'' said Jiménez's wife, María del Carmen. "I paid my own ticket. There's a big difference.''

Kerry's stance on Cuba attacked, defended

Associated Press, Posted on Tue, Mar. 16, 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Two Florida congressmen attacked John Kerry on Tuesday, saying he misled Miami residents about a vote on economic sanctions against Fidel Castro's regime, but Sen. Bob Graham came to the Democratic presidential candidate's defense.

Republican U.S. Reps. Mark Foley and Mario Diaz-Balart said Kerry lied during a recent South Florida stop when he said he voted for the 1997 Helms-Burton Act, which was designed to discourage foreign investment in Cuba by punishing foreign companies investing in property confiscated from Americans.

While Kerry voted for the original Senate bill, he voted against the final version, which added a provision called Title III that lets Americans sue people or companies who control properties confiscated from Americans in Cuba 40 years ago. President Clinton and President Bush have opted to waive enforcement of Title III.

Foley and Diaz-Balart said Cuban-Americans, who tend to strongly support Republicans, should be upset about Kerry's claim to have supported the bill.

"When they start reflecting on what Kerry said to them in Miami ... it's like coming into the living room and lying to somebody," Foley said. "That doesn't fare well with the Hispanic voters. I think he's in trouble with that corridor."

He and Diaz-Balart said Kerry has also been supportive of loosening sanctions against Cuba.

"Not only has he consistently voted - really on every issue - to go along with what the Castro regime is wanting, but then he just misstates his votes. He just outright says something that's just absolutely not true," said Diaz-Balart.

But Graham, D-Fla., and Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, a Democrat, defended Kerry and said it's President Bush that has not been tough on Cuba.

"I'm not going to represent that I know everything John Kerry has ever said about Cuba, but I know as someone who has sat with him for the last 17 years that he has had a strong anti-Fidel Castro policy," Graham said.

Bush criticized Cuba policy during his 2000 campaign, and vowed to make it tougher, but has done little to follow through, said Martinez, mayor of Florida's fifth largest city.

"Too many times presidential candidates come to South Florida, scream out 'Viva Cuba Libre' and they get the votes and the get the money and they don't come back," Martinez said. "The perfect example that we have is President Bush."

Cuban exiles' trial in hands of judge

Four men accused of hatching a scheme to kill Fidel Castro now await a verdict in Panama City. A judge will decide.

By Frances Robles. frobles@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2004.

PANAMA CITY, Panama - The fate of Cuba's most wanted man landed Wednesday in the hands of a Panamanian judge, who will decide whether 76-year-old Luis Posada Carriles is guilty in an alleged plot to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro.

After a 3 ½-year wait, a three-day trial ended in the case against Posada and three other Cuban exiles with a long history of anti-Castro violence, arrested November 2000 in Panama City during a Castro visit here.

Prosecutors claim Posada, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Rémon and Gaspar Jiménez hatched a plot to plant a bomb at a Panama City university event headlining the Cuban president. The four were arrested when Castro told a Panama City press conference that Posada -- who had escaped from a Venezuelan prison while awaiting a retrial for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 and later confessed to a string of terror bombings in Havana in 1997 -- was in Panama and intended to kill him.

Panamanian police later found 33 pounds of C-4 explosives they said belonged to the group.

Posada has been an anti-Castro militant since the late 1950s, even before Castro seized power in the 1959 revolution.

''This fight between these two men goes back 50 years when they were both 20 years old and in college,'' said Emilio Royo Linares, defense attorney for César Matamoros, a Cuban-Panamanian accused of helping with the scheme's logistics.

"These men are both old now. I think they should just go back to their families.''

Where Posada goes depends on Judge José Ho Justiniani, presiding over the case after the last judge recused himself. He has 30 days to announce his verdict, but legally could take longer because of the 12,000-page case file dropped on his lap less than three months ago.

Posada and the others are charged with possession of explosives, illicit association and acting against public safety. Some are also accused of using false passports to enter Panama. The charge that could have brought them life sentences -- attempted murder -- was dropped because the C-4 explosives lacked detonators.

Defense attorney Rogelio Cruz said Posada faces about six years in prison, but prosecutors are pushing for more.

'NO CLEMENCY'

''There should be no clemency for these people,'' prosecutor Arquímedes Sáez said.

''We will not accept a sentence of less than 15 years,'' said Silvio Guerra, who represents university students as the would-be victims in the case.

Guerra attacked the foursome's account that they were actually in Panama to help a Cuban general defect. Investigators found airline tickets for the four to return to their respective homes, Guerra noted, but none for the military defector.

''They invented this tale about the defection of a Cuban general,'' said lawyer Julio Berríos, who also represents the potential victims. "They needed explosives for that? They needed three cars, financing and logistics?''

Cruz maintains that the only thing connecting the explosives to the four men is the word of the driver they hired, also a defendant. The bomb, he said, was planted by Cuban spies.

He urged the court to ignore the litany of prior murders, explosives charges, attempted kidnappings and terrorism cases the four men were accused of in the 1970s and '80s.

''I think I will convince the judge of their innocence,'' Cruz told The Herald. "Prosecutors wasted their time here, going down a road that went nowhere.''

VENEZUELA'S CLAIM

Venezuela's ambassador to Panama visited the trial, saying his country plans to push for Posada to be extradited to Caracas to face the trial he skipped out on in 1985. But given Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' tight relationship with Castro, Cruz said he doubts Panama would turn Posada over.

Panama has already rejected an extradition request from Cuba.

''Giving Posada to Chávez is giving him to Cuba,'' said Cruz, a former attorney general. "And Panama wouldn't do that.''