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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Probe of assistance to exile is widened
By Juan O. Tamayo and Elaine
De Valle. Posted on Tue, Aug. 31, 2004.
Honduran President Roberto Maduro on Monday
said investigators are looking into whether
public functionaries allowed fugitive Cuban
exile Luis Posada Carriles to enter Honduras
illegally after his release from a prison
in Panama last week.
Simón Ferro, a Miami lawyer and
former U.S. ambassador to Panama, meanwhile
said the call he received from Panamanian
President Mireya Moscoso telling him that
she had pardoned Posada and three other
anti-Castro exiles was a "courtesy.''
Maduro told reporters in Honduras that
if Posada is captured, he will be deported
because, "If this gentleman is here,
he is here illegally, without permission,
without approval and without the agreement
of the government.''
He also said government officials were
investigating several people in the case,
including ''public functionaries'' who may
have had some ''responsibility'' for Posada's
slipping into Honduras.
Honduran officials have said Posada sneaked
into Honduras with a false U.S. passport,
one day after he was pardoned Wednesday,
after landing in the northwestern city of
San Pedro Sula aboard a chartered Learjet
that arrived from Panama.
An Associated Press story said Honduran
newspapers had reported that Posada was
spotted Sunday eating in a San Pedro Sula
hotel with Rafael Nodarse, a Cuban-American-Honduran
businessman who owns the Honduran Channel
6 television station.
A secretary at the station said Nodarse
was not available.
Nodarse has long been known as a Posada
friend and anti-Castro activist. He has
also helped several Cuban boat people who
landed in Honduras earlier this year, friends
said.
Posada, a long-time resident of neighboring
El Salvador, and three Miami Cubans were
arrested in Panama in 2000 on charges that
they planed to kill Cuban President Fidel
Castro. A Panamanian court dropped charges
of conspiracy to murder and possession of
explosives but in April convicted them of
endangering public safety and sentenced
them to up to eight years.
Posada has a long history of anti-Castro
violence, including a string of terror bombings
in Havana in 1997. Cuba has accused him
of involvement in the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people.
Moscoso pardoned the four exiles on Wednesday,
a week before she is to leave office, saying
she did not want to allow her successor
to deport them to Cuba, where they could
face firing squads.
Panama's media were abuzz Sunday with reports
of a tape recording of a message that Moscoso
left on the cellphone of Ferro, a Cuban-American
who served as U.S. ambassador to Panama
1999-2001.
The message said: ''Ambassador, good morning.
This is the president to inform you that
the four Cubans were already pardoned last
night and they have left the country,''
the tape says, according to the Cuban government.
"Three are on their way to Miami and
the other, well, in an unknown direction.
Goodbye. A hug.''
Panamanian media portrayed the recording
as evidence supporting Cuban charges that
the U.S. government pressured Moscoso to
pardon the four Cubans.
But Ferro told The Herald on Monday that
Moscoco called him back after he called
her Thursday morning to inquire about media
reports that she had pardoned the four Cubans
and Havana's threat to cut diplomatic relations
if she did so.
'It was just a friendly, 'We want you to
know that we support what you're doing and
your position,' and that was it,'' Ferro
said, adding that he called as a member
of Miami's Cuban exile community and not
as a former U.S. ambassador.
GOP platform praises crackdown on Cuba
From Herald Staff and Wire
Reports. Posted on Tue, Aug. 31, 2004.
President Bush's controversial crackdown
on travel to Cuba is applauded in the 2004
Republican party platform approved on Monday,
underscoring the campaign's belief it will
help motivate Cuban-American voters.
The document, which presents the party's
overall principles, praises Bush's most
controversial measures -- cutting back travel
to the island from once a year to once every
three years, as well as limiting gift parcels
to immediate family members. The platform
says the Bush panel that devised the measures
"provided a plan for agile, effective
and decisive assistance to the people of
Cuba.''
Democratic rival John Kerry, who hopes
to siphon some Cuban-American votes from
Bush, has called the president's new restrictions
on travel to Cuba too harsh on families
and has endorsed what he calls ''principled
travel'' to the island.
The Republican platform also declares that
''Republicans understand that the Castro
regime will not change by its own choice.''
And the document backs more money for Bush's
plan to launch regular airborne broadcasts
to Cuba and democracy-building efforts on
the island.
-- LESLEY CLARK
Republicans clash on Cuba in the final
days
The candidates for U.S.
Senate crisscross the state in the final
days of the campaign in which the Republican
front-runners continue to clash.
By Marc Caputo, mcaputo@herald.com.
Posted on Mon, Aug. 30, 2004.
As the nasty exchanges over abortion and
gay rights subsided, the front-running Republicans
in the U.S. Senate race found one last area
of disagreement Sunday: Democracy in Cuba.
Standing at the Versailles Restaurant with
exile community leader Rafael Diaz-Balart,
former Congressman Bill McCollum bashed
opponent Mel Martinez on Sunday for his
''support'' of the Varela Project, a nascent
Democracy movement in Cuba sanctioned by
Fidel Castro.
McCollum, speaking in the county that could
give Martinez the edge if Hispanic turnout
is heavy Tuesday, called the Varela Project
"a terrible undemocratic policy that
I would never support.''
But Martinez said he doesn't favor the
Varela Project. He said his opponent was
misrepresenting a White House-sanctioned
speech in which he spoke favorably of the
movement but failed to condemn its founder,
who opposes the embargo against the island.
''I have the same position as McCollum,''
Martinez said. "The Varela Project
is not the answer to Cuba's problems.''
HOUSING SECRETARY
Martinez said the attack was just one in
a line of unfair broadsides from McCollum's
campaign, which has criticized him for his
past leadership of the trial-lawyer lobby,
his past contributions to Democrats and
his tenure as President Bush's housing secretary.
A radio commercial that labeled his tenure
as a Cabinet member ''failed'' was condemned
Saturday by the White House at the urging
of Martinez's campaign.
The condemnation followed Gov. Jeb Bush's
request, at McCollum's urging, that Martinez
pull a television commercial that implied
McCollum favors gay marriage, which he doesn't.
Martinez said he thought the ad was accurate,
but yanked it off the air to project more
unity heading into the winner-take-all primary.
Martinez, running as a Christian conservative,
began his day at the South Biscayne Baptist
Church in storm-wrecked North Port, where
he garnered applause for his stand against
abortion and urging Christians to vote.
ATTENDED CHURCH
McCollum didn't get the same opportunity
to address congregants when he attended
Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
According to a poll conducted over the
weekend and released Sunday by InsiderAdvantage,
a firm affiliated with online news site
Sayfie Review, Martinez jumped 6 percentage
points, making him dead even with McCollum.
The poll of 400 likely Republican voters
has an error margin of 5 percent, meaning
the race is likely a dead heat.
InsiderAdvantage didn't bother polling
the Democratic race, where former Education
Commissioner Betty Castor is so far out
front that she's barely conducting the frenzied
city-to-city stops required in the final
days of a campaign.
Pembroke Pines Congressman Peter Deutsch,
running a distant second in most polls,
was busy churning out the Democratic base,
appearing at the Mount Hermon AME Church
in Fort Lauderdale with U.S. Rep. Alcee
Hastings of Miramar and at Kings Point in
Tamarac with U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, and
addressed a crowd of Jewish supporters with
a speech about Israel.
Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, running
a distant third, spent the day monitoring
Hurricane Frances and getting ready to attend
the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony.
Herald staff writers Beth Reinhard and
Michael Vasquez contributed to this story.
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