CUBA NEWS
March 29, 2004

CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

2 groups differ on Cuba but not on use of power

Posted on Mon, Mar. 29, 2004.

Two groups of wealthy Cuban exile businessmen differ in their views but adopt the same approach on influencing U.S. policy toward the island.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@herald.com.

In a Cuban exile community that has often relied on mass protests and radio broadcasts during the past four decades, two competing organizations backed by wealthy businessmen are taking a different approach.

One is the Cuba Study Group, an alliance born of frustration after some of the richest Cuban exiles in the world found themselves powerless in the aftermath of the Elián González custody controversy. They are seen as moderates.

The other is Cuba Democracy Advocates, a smaller, newer group formed last year by businessmen Leopoldo Fernandez-Pujals and Gus Machado to lobby Congress to get tougher on Cuba.

While the organizations differ in ideology, their approaches are similar. Both entered the Cuba debate after conducting polls to back up their contentions. Both are funded by wealthy men relatively new to public activism.

And both are skirting the traditional approach of taking their anti-Castro message directly to the people through Spanish radio and television. Instead, they are directing their efforts at people in positions of power who can influence relations between the United States and Cuba.

''It's a very interesting period where we're having a different kind of dialogue,'' said Mauricio Claver-Clarone, the lawyer lobbying Congress full time for Cuba Democracy Advocates. "It's more directed at the future of Cuba and the Cuban community.''

Cuba Democracy Advocates entered the public arena earlier this month when it released a poll showing that Cuban Americans retain hard-line attitudes toward Fidel Castro. The poll, which was criticized by some as having unbalanced questions, also found there was little support for the Varela Project, an effort to gather thousands of signatures on the island to petition the Cuban government to allow basic civil liberties.

CHANGING PERCEPTION

The Cuba Study Group formed three years ago, in the aftermath of Cuban exiles sparring with the federal government over rafter child Elián and being portrayed in much of the national and international media as closed-minded, irrational, monolithic.

Its members set out to change that perception. And in its brief life, the private, all-male group has emerged as one of the most influential and controversial Cuban exile organizations in Miami.

Led by banker Carlos Saladrigas, its dozen-plus members include Eagle Brands Chairman Carlos de la Cruz and lawyer Cesar Alvarez, CEO and president of the Greenberg Traurig law firm in Miami. It is best known for releasing a poll last year that showed Cuban exiles were more moderate in their views -- a conclusion other exile groups rejected.

Like Cuba Democracy Advocates, the group is trying to win a debate through persuasion using a businessman's approach -- numbers, facts, figures, analyses.

NEW TREND

''The pattern is new, from [the Cuban American National Foundation] to the study group to this advocacy group,'' said Florida International University Professor Damian Fernandez. "Cuban businessmen have traditionally been outside of politics. This might be a sign that Cuban-American business elites want to be very much political players.''

The Cuba Study Group has met with a long list of VIPs in its effort to broaden the scope of dialogue among exiles and to portray Cuban Americans as open-minded and progressive. Among them: former President Jimmy Carter; former Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel; Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, leader of the Varela Project; and former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda.

FROM WITHIN

Although group members differ on specifics, they are held together by the beliefs that Cuba must change its current system, and that the process should occur peacefully and from within the island. They support the ideals of the Varela Project.

''Exiles can't appear like barbarians at the gate waiting to attack,'' Saladrigas said. "We have always concentrated on urgency but forgotten that there are two other sides of change: a message of reconciliation, and increasing the rewards of change.''

Members can join only if they are invited, and must pay a minimum of $18,000 in dues every year, although some invest much more.

Three of the group's current members, de la Cruz, Alvarez and Jorge Perez, the chairman of The Related Group, were recently included in a Herald list of the 12 most powerful businessmen in Miami-Dade County.

The group's agenda and moderate stance have made its members a target for some conservative anti-Castro activists.

For example, lawyer Juan O'Naghten, who is Miami Mayor Manny Diaz's law partner, questions the effectiveness of the U.S. embargo of Cuba, although he says it shouldn't be lifted unilaterally.

''I believe that had the embargo been lifted somewhere between 1989 and 1991, there's a good probability that the regime would not have been there today,'' O'Naghten said in a recent interview.

Cuba Study Group co-founder de la Cruz feels that travel to Cuba could help bring about change and should not be further restricted.

But Saladrigas says he is a supporter of the embargo and of the ban on travel because those policies can be used as bargaining chips for change. But he also says that ''purposeful'' travel should be expanded.

Stalwarts of the conservative anti-Castro fight say the group lacks credibility.

''I have never before seen the name of Carlos Saladrigas during all these years of La Lucha [the fight for Cuba's freedom],'' said Julio Cabarga, president of Cuban Municipalities in Exile. "What tends to be understood clearly is that Carlos Saladrigas has taken a line of appeasement to Fidel Castro's regime.''

Saladrigas rejects any accusation of appeasement.

A post-Castro transition in Cuba will likely occur in one of four ways, Saladrigas said: through a pact in which Cuban government elites negotiate with opposition groups on the island; through internal reform triggered by such efforts as the Varela Project; through revolution; or through the imposition of rule by internal or external forces.

The options of revolution and imposition would likely have high levels of violence and low levels of openness, an option he considers out of the question. Reform and a pact, however, would likely be peaceful.

SIMILAR TO CANF

The Cuba Study Group is ideologically similar to the Cuban American National Foundation, said CANF Executive Director Joe Garcia.

''They certainly don't win popularity contests,'' Garcia said of the study group. "These are very influential people. They put their pocketbook where their mouth is. None of them are trying to get elected to anything. But they've spent a lot of money trying to position themselves.''

De la Cruz explains that because group members are all successful businessmen, they bring a different perspective to the debate. He said neither he nor the group have business interests on the island.

Cuba Democracy Advocates also consists of wealthy exile businessmen with different views, but a similar approach to lobbying.

Co-founder Fernandez-Pujals -- who built a pizza empire in Spain and sold it for about $500 million a few years ago after taking it public -- said he was approached by Saladrigas but refused to join him.

''All the changes they want are cosmetic,'' he said.

Saladrigas said he never invited Fernandez-Pujals to join his group.

FIRM ON EMBARGO

Fernandez-Pujals recently formed Cuba Democracy Advocates with car dealer Machado, another wealthy exile. They have partnered with a young lawyer in Washington, D.C., Claver-Clarone, who is lobbying Congress full time to stand firm on the embargo.

Asked why he entered the Cuba debate at such a late stage in his life, Machado compared it to a spiritual conversion.

''It's like a religion,'' he said. "People bug you so much about trying to free Cuba that you end up being converted.''

Machado and Fernandez-Pujals met on an airplane during a flight from Madrid several years ago. They met Claver-Clarone at a social event last year and decided he would be their man in Washington.

Cuba Democracy Advocates is trying to make sure that trade and travel sanctions on Cuba remain in place.

''The Washington debate is centered on trade, tourism restrictions and commercial sanctions,'' Claver-Clarone said. "I want to make sure I have the feel of the community on those issues when I approach Congress.''

One independent observer, FIU Professor Lisandro Perez, who until recently headed the Cuba Research Institute, said he thought the Cuba Study Group had a strong start but has faded.

''I'm glad they've been able to promote discussion, but so far, I don't think they've been able to set a significant agenda here,'' Perez said.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, said both groups are effective but specifically mentioned Cuba Democracy Advocates as influential.

''They both want a free and independent Cuba, but they go at it in different ways,'' Ros-Lehtinen said. "[Cuba Democracy Advocates] are influencing public policy. Influencing policymakers is far more important than public relations.''

Havana Club moves up the rum ranks

By Larry Luxner, Special to The Herald. Posted on Mon, Mar. 29, 2004

HAVANA -- ''I'm just a humble rum merchant,'' says Alexandre Sirech as he sits in an office decorated with posters of 1950s Havana and shelves lined with liquor bottles of every size, shape and brand imaginable.

But in reality, the 37-year-old Frenchman from Bordeaux is director-general of Havana Club International S.A. and presides over one of the most successful joint ventures ever launched between foreign investors and Cuba's communist government.

In 2003, the company -- a partnership between French drinks giant Pernod Ricard and Cuba's Ministry of Food Industry -- shipped 1.92 million nine-liter cases of Havana Club rum. That's up from 1.73 million cases in 2002, when the brand ranked No. 53 on Impact magazine's list of the world's top 100 premium distilled spirits.

''Demand has been exploding in Europe,'' he said, noting that Havana Club is now 50th on the Impact list. "If we keep up with this momentum, we should rank in the top 40 very soon.''

Havana Club has been able to score these gains even though the U.S. embargo bars sale of Cuban rum in the United States where 42 percent of the world's rum is consumed.

Earlier this month, the venture celebrated its 10th anniversary in a three-day extravaganza attended by Patrick Ricard, Pernod Ricard's president.

U.S. GOAL

Although it is embroiled in a long-running trademark dispute with rival rum giant Bacardi over the Havana Club name, Ricard was encouraged by a recent decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and would like to get into the U.S. market as soon as legally possible.

''If the U.S. lifts the embargo tomorrow morning, we'll be ready to begin selling rum to the United States,'' Ricard told reporters at a Havana press conference.

He added: ''We've won the battle but not the war'' -- a reference to a Jan. 29 decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reject motions by Bacardi to cancel the U.S. registration of the Havana Club trademark.

In its ruling, the Patent Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board upheld the validity of the U.S. registration and its most recent renewal by Havana Club International.

At issue was a petition requesting the cancellation of the registration on the grounds that the trademark was registered in the United States under allegedly fraudulent circumstances.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board also ruled that Havana Club Holdings had filed a proper renewal application in 1996 on behalf of Cubaexport and the Patent Office had acted appropriately in accepting the renewal and registration in Havana Club Holdings' name.

BACARDI DYNASTY

For Bacardi, the issue of who has the right to the Havana Club trademark is far from over.

''Contrary to that (the appeal board decision), Bacardi has the right to use the Havana Club brand in the United States,'' Patricia Neal, a spokeswoman for the rum giant, said last week. "The Pernod Ricard joint venture with Cuba has lost in every U.S. court.

''Under U.S. trademark law, trademark registration and usage rights are two distinct things,'' she said. ''Bacardi has the rights to use the brand having purchased them from the legitimate owner.'' Bacardi also established use in the United States, said Neal, when it sold rum under the Havana Club name in this country in 1995 and 1996.

Before the 1959 Cuban revolution, Bacardi was the leader in the Cuban market, but its facilities were nationalized by the Castro government.

Starting in 1934, the Arechabala family produced an aged rum in Cuba that was called Havana Club. But after the revolution, the Castro government took over the Arechabalas plant, the family went into exile in Spain and the government formally expropriated the assets of José Arechabala in October 1960.

The Bacardi and Arechabala families had known each other in Cuba. Through the years, Bacardi had made several attempts to acquire the brand before the Arechabala family finally agreed to sell it in 1995 and the sale was completed in 1997, Bacardi has said. But Sirech said the trademark wasn't theirs to sell: "Legally, the Arechabala family more or less abandoned the brand before the revolution. That's why a Cuban entity, Cubaexport, could register it. Anyone could have done that, because the brand had been abandoned and was free to be registered.''

COMPANY SECRETS

For Bacardi the issue is the legitimate ownership of the Havana Club brand -- something that the the Patent Office appeal board didn't address, saying "it has little or no experience in determing violations of statutes or regulations that do not directly concern registration of trademarks.''

Such matters as fraud, said the appeal board, should be determined in court or by a "government agency having competent jurisdiction.''

''We have until [this week] to make a determination whether we will take this to court,'' said Neal.

Sirech, meanwhile, is wary of Bacardi. He refuses to say exactly how many distilleries Havana Club operates, how big they are or even where they're located, outside of the large bottling plant in Santa Cruz del Norte, along Cuba's northern coast east of Havana.

''You have to be paranoid,'' he said. "We need to be extremely cautious, because we know we are being listened to.''

Sirech also wouldn't discuss revenue, though Impact puts Havana Club's annual sales at $250 million.

Last year the Pernod Ricard conglomerate reported revenues of 4.836 billion euros, or around $5.3 billion. According to Forbes magazine, the Castro government earns $23 million a year in hard currency from the venture.

When the Havana Club joint venture started, it wasn't a sure bet. Havana Club produced only 300,000 cases of rum in its first year, Sirech said, and most of that was exported to Russia under a barter agreement.

''There were many doubts about the Havana Club brand. It's funny to remember, because now it's the fastest-growing spirit brand on the market,'' said Sirech.

Even so, Havana Club's total worldwide sales are less than a tenth of Bacardi's. As in previous years, Bacardi is still the world's most popular spirits brand, with 19.7 million cases of rum sold in 2003, a 1.5 percent gain over the 2002 figure of 19.4 million cases, according to Impact Databank, a leading source on the worldwide drinks industry.

PATIENT ATTITUDE

''We're suffering a lot at the moment from our absence in the American market,'' Sirech said. "But we're patient. We'll wait to see what evolves before embarking on anything.''

Sirech was interviewed for two hours at Havana Club's headquarters in the Vedado district of Havana. ''Outside of production, everything's done here in this little building -- strategy, pricing, advertising and promotions,'' he said.

Sirech was sent to Cuba four years ago to head the Havana Club venture. He oversees 203 employees, of which 136 work in the local division; the rest are in exports, marketing and finance. That doesn't include another 800 distillery workers, with whom Sirech has little or no contact.

He said ''fewer than five'' Havana Club employees know the brand's proprietary formula. ''Because of our legal battles with Bacardi, we keep our production process extremely secret,'' he said.

At present, Havana Club ranks as Pernod Ricard's sixth-biggest spirit brand in volume after Ricard, Seagram's Gin, Chivas Regal, Pasils 51 and Larios.

The company says the successful launch of two new products, Añejo Blanco and Añejo Oro, has contributed to Havana Club's strong performance. The Añejo Blanco, a pale straw-colored rum, is the base for most popular Cuban cocktails including the mojito. The second, which acquires its golden hue through aging in oak barrels, is particularly popular in Spain, where it's mixed with Coca-Cola to make a Cuba libre.

CUBAN MARKET

Since May 2003, the company has distributed its own products in Cuba. Currently the brand controls about 30 percent of the local market by volume and around 75 percent by value. Prices inside Cuba range from $3.90 to $10.90 per bottle, making the product expensive for Cubans.

''For some Cubans, a bottle of Havana Club would be a once-in-a-lifetime occasion,'' said Sirech. "Other Cubans have access to dollars through their families in the States, and these people have the means to buy Havana Club on a more regular basis.''

The brand's main local rivals are Ron Varadero and Ron Santiago de Cuba.

To raise the brand's profile, there is a Havana Club Rum Museum, located along the waterfront in Old Havana's restored historic district. The museum features a scale model of a 1930s sugar mill, complete with a working train. Housed in a colonial mansion dating from 1875, the museum was visited by 110,000 tourists last year.

Last summer, Havana Club launched a product called Loco. The ready-to-drink beverage is made with Havana Club rum and fruit juices. It's available in two flavors -- lemon and passion fruit -- and sells in hard-currency shops for $1 per 275-ml bottle.

At the other end of the price spectrum is Máximo, which took four years to develop and ''is a mix of very old things and very young things.'' Sirech wouldn't say much more about Máximo, except that it will be distilled in Cuba, and that total production will be just 400 cases every year.

Locally, it will sell for an astounding $200 a bottle -- more than the annual salary of the average Cuban worker.

Virgin Atlantic adds flights

Posted on Mon, Mar. 29, 2004

Virgin Atlantic said that it plans to launch nonstop flights from London Gatwick to Cuba and the Bahamas in July 2005.

The new flights will operate twice a week from London to Havana, starting July 21, 2005, and once a week from London to Nassau, starting July 18, 2005.

Virgin Atlantic will operate the flights with Boeing 747-400s.

Overall, the airline is increasing its capacity to the Caribbean by 20 percent, including adding additional frequencies to Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.

''I am delighted Virgin Atlantic is launching two new routes from London to the Caribbean and I'm sure that both Cuba and the Bahamas will be extremely popular with our passengers,'' said Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Atlantic. "Our presence on these routes will bring increased competition and better value for money which is ultimately good news for the traveling public.''

Virgin Atlantic said it also plans to increase service to the United States in October 2005, adding a fifth weekly flight from Gatwick to Las Vegas, and another daily flight from Gatwick to Orlando.

-Ina Paiva Cordle

Hundreds rally against 'tyrants' Castro and Chávez

By SUSANNAH A. NESMITH, snesmith@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Mar. 28, 2004

Wrapped in a Venezuelan flag, with a Cuban flag clipped to her baseball cap, Olivia Alvarez, 72, insisted Saturday that the two countries are living under equally evil dictators.

In fact, she puts Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the same category as ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

''They're terrorists and the rest of the world needs to do something about them,'' Alvarez, from Venezuela, said at a rally in Little Havana to protest against the two Latin American presidents. "Now that we got Saddam, it's time for Cuba and Venezuela to be freed.''

The protest drew a few hundred people to Calle Ocho and Eighth Avenue for speeches by Venezuelan opposition leaders and Cuban exiles.

The Venezuelan opposition is calling for the left-leaning Chávez to step down. He was briefly ousted in April 2002 but regained power and has fought efforts to hold a recall vote. The opposition claims he has used the police to stifle protest and has jailed opposition leaders on bogus charges.

''The terrorists are closer to the United States than is believed,'' said Carlos Fernandez, former head of Venezuela's most powerful business union and an opposition leader. He went on to repeat allegations that Chávez had aided al Qaeda. Chávez denies those charges.

Fernandez, charged with treason in Venezuela for leading national strikes against the government, lives in Weston.

''We tried democratic methods,'' he said. "The tyrant, the antidemocrat Chávez closed the door on us. In Venezuela, there is no democracy. In Venezuela there is a dictatorship disguised as democracy. The international community must act before the situation becomes uncontrollable.''

State looks at tightening rules on travel to Cuba

Lawmakers are considering adding extra fees to charter flights to Cuba and requiring detailed itineraries for student trips.

By Michael Vasquez, mrvasquez@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Mar. 28, 2004

TALLAHASSEE - With the support of several Hispanic lawmakers from Miami-Dade County, the Florida Legislature is considering tightening rules on travel to Cuba -- slapping extra fees on charter airlines that fly to the island and requiring state universities organizing educational Cuba trips to submit detailed itineraries well in advance.

Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican and chief sponsor of the measures, said the proposed fees on charter flights would help pay for improved security at Florida airports and seaports, while the school reporting requirements would crack down on tourist excursions masquerading as academic trips.

Such tourist trips have been criticized by exile groups as helping prop up the regime of Fidel Castro.

''The public will know who's going on these trips and where they're going. Are they going to the Copacabana [nightclub]? Are they going to party?'' Rivera said. "I just want to know that the trip is genuine.''

The fees on charter planes make sense, Rivera said, because the money is coming from travel to a nation listed by the federal government as a sponsor of terrorism. Those traveling to such places should help finance security efforts back home, he said.

GUIDELINES

Rivera's legislation is titled Charter Travel to Terrorist States and avoids singling out Cuba by saying its guidelines apply to travel between Florida and any of the seven nations the U.S. State Department labels as supporting terrorism. Besides Cuba, the countries are Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Lybia, Syria and Sudan.

Because direct charter flights from Florida to any of the other nations are basically nonexistent, the bill ultimately applies to only one.

Rivera admitted as much to a House committee last week, saying, "You're basically looking at Cuba.''

The bill has six cosponsors in the House and won unanimous approval at its first committee stop last week. The Senate version, sponsored by Miami Republican Alex Diaz de la Portilla, gets its first committee stop Monday.

An official at one charter airline that would be saddled with the bill's extra fees -- which vary based on a plane's weight, but amount to thousands of dollars per flight -- accused Rivera and other state politicians backing the measure of playing election-year games to prove their toughness on Cuba.

'EVERYDAY PEOPLE'

''Obviously, this is something that would add to the fare,'' said Armando Garcia, vice president of Marazul Charters, who said the fees, if approved, would ultimately be paid, at least partly, by passengers. "The people who are going to be affected are the everyday people from the street who are going to visit their relatives.''

Florida International University Provost Mark Rosenberg wondered if Rivera's disclosure requirements could run afoul of federal guidelines on student privacy.

The school has a week-long trip to Havana planned this summer as part of a three-credit class, Humanities in Cuba.

FIU ''could have some issues'' with submitting the names and addresses of students going on such trips, Rosenberg said.

Rivera's bill calls for not only that, but also asks schools to provide at least 50 days in advance, a list of planned hotel and restaurant accommodations, scheduled meetings with governmental officials or average Cuban citizens and an accounting of how everyone's money will be spent.

NOTHING TO HIDE

Rosenberg said his school welcomed transparency, and had nothing to hide, but he did worry about scrutiny going too far.

''It could also lead to issues of what are you going to teach, and what are the actual materials used in the course,'' he said.

"I can't deny I have some concerns about the specificity of the information.''

The U.S. Treasury Department, which issues travel licenses for colleges and universities to visit Cuba, declined to comment on Rivera's proposal.

Spokeswoman Molly Millerwise did say the department had problems in the past with pseudo-educational trips that were really tourism in disguise.

In response, the federal government last year suspended the more informal, person-to-person education trips, limiting cultural exchanges to formal school-organized excursions.

''Any travel-related dollars that are going into Cuba, the majority go to Castro and his regime,'' Millerwise said. "Which can be used to further oppress his people.''

Dissidents' kin lament TV encounter

Cuban authorities release taped interviews with some of the relatives of jailed dissidents.

By Nancy San Martin And Nayiva Blanco, , nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Mar. 26, 2004

Cuba on Thursday released videotaped interviews with several relatives of 75 jailed dissidents, confirming the families' fears that their comments to Cuban TV would be manipulated to discredit allegations of prison abuses.

The release came as the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was holding its annual meeting in Geneva, where it has often condemned Cuba for human rights abuses after strong lobbying by U.S. and Western European diplomats.

In visits that began two weeks ago, reporters from Cuba's government-run television interviewed several relatives of the dissidents, sentenced to lengthy prison terms after brief trials a year ago.

The surprise interviews -- Cuba's government-controlled media almost never report on dissidents' activities -- immediately prompted concerns among the relatives that their words would be misused to discredit complaints about poor prison conditions, bad food and water and mistreatments.

DISMISSES COMPLAINTS

Thursday, portions of the interviews were released during a news conference in Havana at which Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque dismissed the complaints as a "campaign of exaggerations and lies.''

''There is a campaign against Cuba,'' Pérez Roque said, according to Agence France-Presse. He described the charges of mistreatment as "manipulated, tendentious information . . . lies.''

Pérez Roque then showed a 19-minute film of the wives, mothers and sisters of seven prisoners who have been reported as being in dire health. In the video, the women said their loved ones are receiving good medical care in prison hospitals.

In telephone interviews from Havana, the wives of two of the jailed dissidents told The Herald that they felt manipulated by the Cuban television interviews.

''The problem is that nobody had a chance to prepare,'' said Margarita Borges, whose husband, Edel José García, 58, was sentenced to 15 years. "I was so nervous that I couldn't think.''

The two women said the interviews started on March 14. At least one interview was conducted in Santa Clara, in central Cuba. They lasted about 30 minutes and focused on the medical treatment that their husbands have received, they said.

''I felt depressed and cried a lot after the interview when I figured out what they could do,'' said Dulce María Amador, whose husband Carmelo Díaz is serving a 16-year sentence. "I said the truth. I didn't lie, and if they manipulate it then that's a different story.''

It was not clear whether the two women interviewed by The Herald were among the seven included in the government video shown Thursday.

Amador, 42, said she became suspicious when the reporter only wanted to know about her husband's health and their prison wedding, while ignoring her pleas for her husband's freedom.

The Cuban TV interviewer ''had specific questions and knew everything about our situation,'' Amador said.

According to both women, the reporter also asked about their husbands' personal hygiene, eating schedule, reading materials, visitation rights, and any type of torture or mistreatment.

The women said they told the interviewer that although their husbands were not mistreated by authorities, they did not belong in jail.

''I am not pleased. I would be pleased if my husband was free,'' Borges said she told the Cuban reporter.

ALERTED OTHERS

Immediately after being interviewed, Borges and Amador called other wives and relatives to prepare them in case the TV crew showed up at their homes.

The crew did visit at least one other home but was turned away.

''If they would have called me a day before, I would have thought about it and said no, but they surprised me,'' Amador said.

Pérez Roque said Cuba ''does not have a vengeful attitude'' toward the dissidents, adding that Cuba is ''fulfilling minimum United Nations requirements on treatment of prisoners,'' Agence France-Presse reported from Havana.

He said prisoners are treated with ''respect for their physical and moral well-being,'' and "receive adequate medical attention, good food. They do not sleep on the floor but on a bed with a mattress, and are not in darkened cells or in isolation.''

3 Cubans survive a deadly journey

Three Cuban migrants are helped ashore in Broward County and report that four of their fellow rafters died at sea.

By Jerry Berrios, Hector Florin And Noah Bierman, nbierman@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Mar. 26, 2004

As violent Caribbean waves pounded her flimsy inner tube, Milena González Martínez watched her husband and three others drown.

For five days she would think about their deaths, while struggling for her own survival on a perilous, weeklong journey from Cuba to Florida.

''I saw everyone drown in front of me,'' said González Martínez, of Havana, speaking softly from her hospital bed through swollen lips as she savored a cup of hot tea Thursday night.

González Martínez's trip ended when a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter scooped her up just offshore Thursday along Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. She started out with seven others -- in black rubber tubes strung together with cloth -- when she left Cuba on March 17.

Four men died, among them her husband, and one is officially missing. The U.S. Coast Guard called off a search for the missing rafter around 5:45 p.m. but planned to renew the search today.

As live footage hit TV screens Thursday, several local families watched nervously, looking for relatives among the newly arrived migrants. The fate of at least three other groups of rafters who left Cuba between last Sunday and Wednesday still is not known, said family members who spoke to The Herald.

They may have been intercepted by Cuban authorities or arrested in the Bahamas, family members speculate. Or they still may be struggling at sea.

''Nothing is a sure thing,'' said José Basulto, founding member of Brothers to the Rescue. He said he was contacted by a South Florida family whose loved ones left last Wednesday from a Havana beach and, apparently, were intercepted.

''The possibility of them making it out to the open sea is also scary, suicidal I'd say,'' Basulto said. "The weather conditions have been horrible.''

The three who arrived Thursday were weak and thirsty. They had run out of water Monday and had begun drinking urine.

''Where am I? Where am I?'' one of the rescued men, Carlos Bringiere Hernández, asked after he struggled to shore with rescuers. He had told his family he was leaving to buy cigarettes when he left Cuba last week.

''You're in Pompano,'' replied Lilian Garcia, 33, a beachside hotel employee who ran out to help. "You're in Florida. You're going to be fine.''

TAKEN TO HOSPITAL

The survivors were taken to Fort Lauderdale's Holy Cross Hospital.

Broward Sheriff's Office and Coast Guard officials got the first reports of the wave-tossed inner tubes just before noon Thursday. Within minutes, tourists were running to the beach.

With the help of a diver, a Coast Guard helicopter swooped above the ocean to grab González Martínez, 37.

The two men -- Bringiere Hernández, 38, and William Villavicencio Pérez, 31 -- made it closer to the beach.

One of the men appeared exhausted, but the other was trying to swim to shore. Garcia, an assistant manager at Villas by the Sea hotel, said she urged two bystanders to help. They plunged into the sea, just north of the fishing pier near Commercial Boulevard.

''The police didn't want us to touch them, but I didn't care,'' Garcia said.

Bringiere Hernández appeared OK.

''He kept saying to me he wanted to eat, he wanted water,'' Garcia said.

BSO detectives said the the survivors told them the group of seven men and one woman left Playa Jibacoa, east of Havana, the night of March 17.

Northeastern winds have churned up the waters in the past few days, with gusts reaching 35 miles an hour, said Kim Brabander, meteorologist with National Weather Service.

''In the past, we've had boats capsize with six-eight foot seas,'' he said.

The inner tubes, powered with a worn wooden oar, had little chance against the sea.

''Trying to make it to the U.S. in this type of vessel is a recipe for disaster,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Tony Russell, who put the seas at 10 to 12 feet.

LOOKING FOR BODIES

Late Thursday, the Coast Guard had a jet, a helicopter, several boats from Lake Worth and Fort Lauderdale, and an 87-foot cutter looking for bodies, Russell said.

Both González Martínez and Bringiere Hernández, said they left Cuba for economic reasons.

González Martínez left her 14-year-old twin sons in Havana with her mother.

Bringiere Hernández said he was fired from his job as a paramedic after his first unsuccessful attempt to leave the island.

This was his 14th try, he said. ''I can't be over there. How does one live without working?'' said Bringiere Hernández. "I lived like a poor man.''

Herald staff writers Sam Nitze and Jeannette Rivera-Lyles and The Associated Press contributed to this report.


 

 


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