CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Experts question sense of revaluing Cuban peso

The Cuban currency has gained ground against the U.S. dollar as Fidel Castro tries to bridge the gap between Cubans who earn pesos and those who get U.S. dollars from abroad.

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Tue, Apr. 05, 2005

Cuba's recent strengthening of its currency is designed to close the gap in the purchasing power of those who earn only pesos and those who receive U.S. dollars from abroad, analysts say.

But the peso's revaluation makes no economic sense because the communist-ruled island's economy is not strong enough to back up the 7-8 percent increase in the value of its currency, the experts added.

When coupled with a government decision in November to charge a 10 percent fee on all dollars converted into pesos, the changes amount to a 17-18 percent strengthening of a currency that is not accepted anywhere outside Cuba.

The currency shifts -- the first changes in the peso's official exchange rates since 2001 -- came in two critical decisions:

o On March 18, the value of the common peso was strengthened by 7 percent, from 27 to 25 to the dollar.

o Effective Saturday, April 9, the value of the convertible peso -- a paper chit known as a chavito and introduced in 1994 as equal to the dollar -- will strengthen in value by 8 percent.

The common Cuban peso generally is used only for state salaries and the purchase of goods deeply subsidized -- and rationed -- by the government. Dollars and convertible pesos are required to purchase non-rationed goods, such as extra food and clothing, and electronics.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has said the convertible peso's one-to-one peg to the dollar had to be changed because the U.S. currency has been losing huge ground against other world currencies.

''Every day using the dollar gets riskier,'' Castro said. "The dollar isn't behaving well.''

Strengthening the peso is now possible, Havana officials claim, because of an economic surge due in large part to help from Venezuela, which is providing oil at below market prices, and China, which is investing in the island's valuable nickel industry.

EMBARRASSING GAP

But the real goal behind the currency shift, the experts said, was to close the gap between those Cubans who earn only pesos and those who receive the $400 million to $1 billion sent a year by Cubans abroad -- an embarrassing gap in a communist-ruled island.

Havana resident Rafael Guerra, for example, recalled how his machine operator's salary once was enough to cover his family expenses in the 1980s.

'THINGS GOT TOUGH'

''I lived very well with the money I earned. But then things got tough, the peso lost its value and a lot of people left their jobs because the salaries weren't worth it,'' Guerra, 34, said in a telephone interview. "With the peso worth more [now], people will want to go back to work.''

But the currency shifts also will have a negative effect on Cubans who receive remittances from abroad.

''People who rely on dollars see themselves really affected,'' said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a dissident Havana journalist who was released from prison in November. "Since I got out of jail, prices have gone up tremendously. People are very worried.''

Experts on the Cuban economy say, in fact, that the peso revaluations make no sense given the long, near-catastrophic state of the island's economic system.

'SYMBOLIC, POLITICAL'

A study released recently by Carmelo Mesa-Lago, one of the top U.S. experts on Cuba's economy, called the currency changes ''a symbolic, political decision geared to the outside world and . . . Cubans who only have pesos.'' The report was released at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

''The most important facet of what's going on here is that the basis Castro is using to trumpet these successes is solely the generosity of others'' such as Venezuela and China, said John Kavulich, who monitors Cuba's economy. "How is that a sustainable economic policy and how can they be proud of that rationale?''

'HAVE TO SEND MORE'

The currency shifts also created an additional burden for Cubans in the United States who send money to their relatives on the island.

''I have to send more, so that my family in Cuba doesn't end up with less,'' said José Vela, a Miami handyman who has increased his monthly remittances to his son on the island to $120 from $100. "Things have gotten very expensive over there. They can't afford to lose any money.''

Castro, island mourn pope

Fidel Castro declared three days of mourning for Pope John Paul II, and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who'll attend the funeral, extolled John Paul Sunday in Havana.

By Vanessa Arrington, Associated Press. Posted on Mon, Apr. 04, 2005

HAVANA - Cuba's Fidel Castro expressed condolences for the death of Pope John Paul II, declaring three days of official mourning that began Sunday on the communist-run island.

In a letter to the Vatican published Sunday on the front page of Juventud Rebelde newspaper, Castro called the pope's passing ''sad news'' and expressed "the most heartfelt condolences of the Cuban people and government.''

''Humanity will preserve an emotional memory of the tireless work of His Holiness John Paul II in favor of peace, justice and solidarity among all people,'' Castro wrote.

The Cuban leader also highlighted the pope's historic January 1998 visit to Cuba, saying it will remain "engraved in the memory of our nation as a transcendent moment in relations between the Vatican State and the Republic of Cuba.''

Cuba suspended all festivities, including an anniversary celebration for young communists and the final games of the popular national baseball series.

Cuban Catholics gathered Sunday in Havana's towering cathedral for Mass, led by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the island's top Roman Catholic churchman.

Ortega extolled John Paul's virtues and his message of peace, love and justice, saying, "The pope stirred humanity, just like Jesus did.''

The cardinal passed through the church after Mass greeting members of the crowd, some of whom kissed his hand.

The cardinal spoke with international reporters but declined to speculate on likely successors to the pope.

''The selection of the pope isn't produced from a candidacy,'' Ortega said. "The church . . . looks for what the church needs at this moment, and that reflection will be decisive.''

Ortega plans to celebrate a funeral Mass for the pope at the Havana cathedral this evening, then travel to Rome to attend the pope's funeral there and participate in the conclave of cardinals that will elect John Paul's successor.

Though he clearly did not want to mention himself as a candidate, Ortega did not reject the possibility that the future pope could come from Latin America.

Granma, the Communist Party daily and official government voice, devoted extensive coverage to the pope's death Sunday.

In an official declaration of the Foreign Ministry, the pope was viewed as "someone who worried about the poor, who combated neoliberalism and fought for peace.''

In a reference to the U.S. trade embargo, it added, 'We will also always remember his pronouncement against the blockade suffered by our country, which he qualified as 'restrictive economic measures imposed from outside the country, unjust and ethically unacceptable.' ''

Herald staff writer Nancy San Martin contributed to this report.

Mariel: From turmoil to triumph

The arrival of about 125,000 Cuban refugees in the 1980 Mariel boatlift caused chaos and changed Miami, but 25 years later, their story is mostly one of success.

By Oscar Corral And Andres Viglucci, ocorral@herald.com. Posted on Sun, Apr. 03, 2005

Special Section | The Legacy of Mariel

Ivette Motola was a seasick little girl clad in the only shirt she owned when she stepped off a leaky boat onto Key West in 1980 and boarded a bus to the Orange Bowl.

A few days later, an overcrowded shrimp boat brought ex-convict Pedro Oliva from Cuba to Key West and set him loose on American society.

Today, Motola, 31, is a Harvard-trained doctor. Oliva, 51, has just been released from years of federal detention with a long criminal record, including child molestation.

Almost 25 years after they arrived, their sharply divergent paths mark the extremes that have come to define the Mariel boatlift, an extraordinary social upheaval that roiled Miami and forever altered the city's makeup, politics and history.

In a brief but intense span of five months, an improvised and largely uncontrolled exile flotilla carried 125,266 dispossessed Cubans to U.S. shores from the port of Mariel -- not just relatives and friends of exiles, but also thousands of criminals, mental health patients and others cast out of Fidel Castro's communist society.

The influx overwhelmed government, schools and public services. A menacing minority of refugees set off on a harrowing crime spree. The boatlift exacerbated racial and ethnic tensions, hastening white non-Hispanic flight out of Miami and serving as a propellant for the riots that would soon devastate stretches of Liberty City.

The wounds are not forgotten, least of all by Mariel refugees, who bore some of the deepest.

Yet the story of the boatlift for most is one of once unimaginable success.

Just one generation later, the Mariel refugees have woven themselves into the everyday fabric of the city, gradually shedding the scornful label marielito to become office workers and professionals, laborers and students, productive citizens indistinguishable from the ordinary run of Miamians.

SLOW ACCEPTANCE

''It took years for people, including older Cuban exiles, to accept them as part of American society,'' said Guarioné Díaz, director of the Cuban American Planning Council, a nonprofit agency that helped resettle the refugees. ''It was a time of great turmoil. But now they are working. Their children are going to school. They are becoming American citizens. They have assimilated.''

Mariel nudged Hispanics close to a numerical majority in Miami. It also laid the foundation for today's local Cuban-American political dominance. Some contend that the boatlift can also claim some credit for Miami's current economic and cultural resurgence.

''The sudden infusion of so many people with drive and with dreams catapulted the city forward,'' Motola said.

Finally, Mariel stamped Miami as the ultimate immigrant haven -- a place where, in spite of huge obstacles, newcomers can reinvent themselves and build new lives in economic and political freedom.

''Mariel was ultimately a story of triumph,'' said local filmmaker Li Perez, who made a documentary on the boatlift.

But consequences linger.

Resentment over the outpouring of government and volunteer aid for the refugees, especially when compared to the harsh detention of about 25,000 Haitian boat people whose arrival roughly coincided with the boatlift, played a role in the Liberty City riots.

Today it tinges memories of what many of Miami's black citizens recall as official favoritism toward Cuban refugees.

''They were given housing; they were given food and healthcare,'' said the Rev. Alfred Jones, a job developer for The Alternative Programs, a nonprofit agency that finds work for released inmates. ''People who had been here all their lives didn't receive that help. I felt it was unfair to blacks in the community. They just pushed the blacks aside, and things really haven't changed.''

And although the crime wave associated with Mariel waned long ago, the long detention by immigration authorities of Mariel refugees who committed serious crimes on U.S. soil ended in February of this year, with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that they could not be locked up indefinitely.

Nearly 750 people, many with serious criminal records, are being released. (Studies have shown that about 10 percent of Mariel refugees were criminals released from Cuban prisons.)

Among them is Oliva, who found a job as a roofer upon his arrival in Miami but went to prison in 1994 for domestic violence and lewd and lascivious assault on a child. Oliva is trying to get a work visa, and in the meantime he helps a friend haul trash.

''Now I'm worse off than when I came in Mariel,'' he said.

HOW IT BEGAN

The saga of Mariel began when a Cuban bus driver crashed his bus through the fence of the Peruvian Embassy in Havana with a group of would-be refugees. Castro pulled guards off the compound, and thousands of Cubans seeking to leave poured into the embassy grounds.

Castro responded by opening the port of Mariel to anyone who wanted to leave. Five months later, he abruptly shut it down.

Few who lived through Mariel can forget the tent cities set up at the Orange Bowl or beneath the Interstate I-95 span over the Miami River -- part of an unimaginable effort to house, feed, process and resettle the refugees. Although some were shipped to military bases in Arkansas and Pennsylvania, most were brought to Miami. Tens of thousands were accepted warmly and settled into new lives.

Harvard-trained doctor

Americans as ideal immigrants -- and many reacted by rejecting the Mariel Cubans as ''different,'' products of a communist system who were unprepared to duplicate their predecessors' success. It didn't help that many Mariel refugees were black or darker-skinned than the largely white Cubans who preceded them.

In South Beach, then a depressed neighborhood, Mariel criminals preyed on fearful Jewish retirees. Mentally ill refugees wandered the streets in Little Havana. Unemployed Mariel refugees hung out on corners in telltale inexpensive new jeans and sneakers handed out by resettlement groups, recalled Díaz of the the Cuban American Planning Council.

Recriminations flowed from white non-Hispanics who blamed government for failing to curb the boatlift. Tens of thousands left the county, and those who stayed struck back politically, eventually winning voters' approval of a measure -- much later repealed -- that prohibited local government from conducting business or issuing any documents in any language other than English.

Miami's national reputation went into pitched decline from the combined blows of Mariel, the violent ''cocaine cowboys'' and the Liberty City riots. Amid a national recession, unemployment rose and tourism slumped, sending the local economy into a tailspin.

The cost to the county and the state of managing the crisis was about $100 million.

''It was really a disaster,'' said Maurice Ferré, who was Miami's mayor at the time.

SEEDS OF SUCCESS

Perversely, though, all the bad publicity generated by Mariel may have planted the seeds for the revival of Miami now in full flower.

The boatlift infused Miami, a place then derided by many as a cultural wasteland, with scores of artists, writers and musicians oppressed under Castro and now eager to practice their craft in freedom.

''After we got here, the art scene -- and South Florida's culture -- was greatly enriched by the artists, musicians and actors who came on those boats,'' said painter Andres Valerio, who came in the boatlift with his wife.

The film Scarface, and then the television series Miami Vice, glamorized the marielitos and the city's dangerous streets -- and helped lure visitors to nourish the revitalization of South Beach.

''It's a story about how something that was first viewed as negative by so many people ended up becoming something great for us. It made Miami a more cosmopolitan place,'' said Bernardo Benes, a Cuban exile whose controversial negotiations with the Cuban regime helped set the stage for the Mariel boatlift.

The unaccustomed stigma brought on by the boatlift prompted the exile leadership, formerly focused on battling Castro, to seek greater local political and economic clout. The Cuban American National Foundation, whose fundraising prowess gave Cuban Americans unparalleled influence in Washington, was launched. Exiles began to run for -- and win -- local elected jobs.

''The power structure of Miami, where Cuban Americans are so powerful, is a direct outgrowth of what happened that year,'' said Princeton University sociologist Alejandro Portes, a Cuban American who has written about the boatlift's impact on Miami.

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, a Cuban American who was the director of the Spanish American League Against Discrimination during the boatlift, said Mariel forced exiles to confront -- and proclaim -- their ethnic identity.

''Mariel had hurt the image that we worked so hard for 20 years to create,'' Diaz said. Twenty-five years later, in Ferré's view, Mariel's benefits to Miami outweigh its costs, heavy as they were.

''Time heals a lot of things,'' Ferré said. ''The question is this: Are the Mariel Cubans net givers or net takers? Look around Miami today. They are by far net givers.''

Cuban exile's presence would rally exiles, perplex U.S.

By Oscar Corral, Miami Herald. Posted on Sun, Apr. 03, 2005.

MIAMI - It was vintage Luis Posada Carriles: An obscure local Spanish-language television station announces that the famed anti-Castro fugitive is in Miami.

No independent confirmation that the dapper dresser nicknamed Bambi is in town. No media interviews. Just a report that quickly creates a stir.

Cuban exiles loyal to him rally in Miami. U.S. authorities are perplexed. Lips seal. Cuba pitches a fit because it considers him its own Osama bin Laden. Venezuela wants him back in prison. Lawyers are hired for him, though they say they've never laid eyes on him.

Only one thing is certain: If Posada is indeed in Miami, his visit mirrors his shadowy career as a CIA-trained spy, an explosives expert, escape artist, security advisor to presidents across the Caribbean and - some say - terrorist.

"He should be received as a hero," said Cuban-American developer Santiago Alvarez, who helped pay to hire a lawyer in Miami to represent Posada. "He is a symbol of the tenacity and patriotism of Cubans throughout 45 years of exile."

The determined but fruitless exile struggle to violently topple Cuban leader Fidel Castro since he took power in 1959 has defined Posada's career. It is a cause that has lost steam in recent years with the death of old-time militants like Nazario Sargen, who founded the anti-Castro paramilitary group Alpha 66.

Now, Posada appears poised to come in from the cold world of sabotage and conspiracy.

Born in 1928 in the south-central port of Cienfuegos, Posada quickly soured on Castro's revolution and joined Brigade 2506 before its disastrous landing at the Bay of Pigs.

His ship never hit shore, and he went on to be a CIA operative in Miami, specially trained in the science of explosives.

But by 1967 he was working with the Venezuelan police, tracking down pro-Castro guerrillas. And until 1976, when he and Miami pediatrician Orlando Bosch were arrested in Caracas for the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, he had been just another anti-Castro militant.

Venezuela's cumbersome legal system never convicted either man for the airplane bombing. Bosch eventually won his freedom, but Posada escaped from prison, while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal, in August 1985.

One year later he turned up in El Salvador, secretly working for U.S. National Security Council member Lt. Col. Oliver North and managing part of the supply operations for contra guerrillas fighting the Marxist-led Sandinista government in Nicaragua. At the same time, The Miami Herald reported, he was infiltrating the Salvadoran right on behalf of President Jose Napoleon Duarte.

Then, in 1990, he hit the headlines again after gunmen nearly killed him in Guatemala City, where the government had hired him as an expert in electronic surveillance. The attack, with silencer-equipped automatic weapons, shattered his jaw and left him with permanent speech difficulties that force him to slurp between phrases.

Helped to recover by Cuban exile and Guatemalan friends, he later speculated that the assassins were Castro agents. But in a 1991 interview with The Herald, he vowed to continue his struggle for a free Cuba.

"We have maintained the belligerence ... when people were immersed up there (in Miami) trying to live well, trying to forget Cuba. We did what we could to continue the fight. We didn't give up. Right or wrong."

Again he vanished for years, living mostly in El Salvador and Honduras and secretly increasing the thread count in his vast web of conspiracies. He reportedly planned to blow up a Cuban freighter in Honduras in 1993, and led a team of exiles to Colombia to try to assassinate Castro in 1994.

Then suddenly in 1997, a dozen or so bombs went off in tourist spots around Havana for the first time in decades, killing one tourist and wounding half a dozen others. A young Salvadoran, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, was arrested in Havana.

Herald reports linked Posada to the bombings and said Cuban exiles in South Florida had provided $15,000 in funding. The next year, the New York Times quoted Posada as saying he was responsible for the bombings and that leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation had "supported" his efforts to topple Castro. Posada later said he lied to the newspaper, and denied a role in the bombings.

Posada then melted back into shadows until November 2000, when he and Miami exiles Pedro Remon, Gaspar Jimenez and Guillermo Novo were arrested in Panama for allegedly plotting to assassinate Castro during a summit there.

They were convicted only on charges of endangering public safety and sentenced to up to eight years, but Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned them in late 2004. The three Miami men came home, but Posada went into hiding.

The four have claimed that they went to Panama to meet up with a Cuban army general who had signaled to them that he planned to defect while Castro was in Panama and would need their help getting out of the country - raising the specter of a possible setup by the Cuban intelligence services.

That whiff of a setup helped continue the speculation among some U.S. and Cuban exile intelligence experts that Havana's security agencies had sometimes managed to play Posada as a "tonto util" - a useful fool. Some of his plots, they say, seem almost tailor-made to help paint the Cuban communities in Miami and New Jersey as rabid terrorists.

The first hint Posada might be in the Miami area came Tuesday night, when Spanish-language station Channel 41 quoted three unidentified sources saying he was here and planned to "present himself to North American authorities."

And now, if he emerges in Miami, Posada might be again bringing the shadow of terrorism to Miami and sparking a U.S. confrontation with Cuba and Venezuela, both of which want him on terrorism charges.

Because of the Bush administration's global war on terror, it may be embarrassed by the presence here of an accused terrorist, even one who may have come in from the cold to retire and seek treatment for the skin cancer and other ailments that afflict the 77-year-old.

Even in a 1990 interview with The Herald, he mused about his aged cause.

"When you think about it, we've grown old with our enemies," he said. "Bosch is really old. Fidel Castro is old. And I'm old."

Asylum to be sought for Cuban militant

A close Miami associate of elusive Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles has begun hiring attorneys to represent his friend if and when he's ready to emerge from hiding.

By Elaine De Valle And Alfonso Chardy, achardy@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Apr. 01, 2005

A Coral Gables immigration attorney hired to represent Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles said Thursday he plans to ask the Department of Homeland Security for asylum and parole for his client so he can live in the United States without fear of extradition.

Attorney Eduardo Soto said he expects a tough battle on behalf of the controversial 77-year-old -- hailed by some as an anti-Castro icon, but wanted by two countries as a terrorism suspect. Posada, thought to be in hiding now in South Florida, has been accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976 when he lived in Venezuela and trying to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000 when he visited Panama.

''I anticipate a huge struggle here, both on the immigration front and in other matters,'' Soto said, referring to the possibility that Venezuela may seek Posada's extradition as a result of his 1985 escape from a prison where he was held in connection with the airliner bombing.

As Posada's legal team began taking shape Thursday, the Castro government signaled that it plans to use Posada's reported presence in Miami as the basis for stepped-up criticism of the United States.

'DOUBLE STANDARD'

Granma, the Cuban Communist Party's daily, said in its international edition Wednesday that Posada's presence ''confirms'' the Bush administration's "double standard to measure terrorism.''

Lázaro Barredo, a deputy in Cuba's National Assembly, appeared Wednesday night on a Havana television news program and branded the Posada situation as an "attack on decency.''

Meanwhile, U.S. government officials were publicly silent about Posada, who is not wanted on any charges in the United States. But a congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Herald: "There is some concern about how he got in. It raises questions about homeland security issues.''

News of Posada's possible arrival in South Florida broke Tuesday night when the Spanish-language television station Channel 41 quoted three unidentified sources as saying he was here and planning "to present himself to North American authorities.''

Soto said he is awaiting word on what Posada wants to do. Soto said he wouldn't comment on whether he has spoken to Posada but said he doesn't know where Posada is now.

''I will be further advised early next week what, if any, intention Mr. Posada Carriles has with respect to the United States,'' said Soto, adding that he agreed to take the case pro bono.

ATTORNEYS ON TAP

Posada's close friend and financial backer, Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, said he retained Soto and may also approach other attorneys, including Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami.

''Kendall Coffey has always been willing to defend us and has offered his services in the past, and he will be used if we need his specialties, for example, in the case of an extradition or criminal charges,'' Alvarez said.

Coffey declined to comment Thursday. ''I cannot speculate on future possibilities,'' he said.

EXTRADITION A WORRY

Alvarez said the immediate concern was whether Venezuela would formally ask for Posada's return if he comes forward in Miami.

Venezuela and the United States have an extradition treaty.

Recently, Venezuela asked the United States to extradite two former national guard lieutenants seeking asylum.

The pair face charges in connection with the 2003 bombings of the Spanish Embassy and Colombian consulate in Caracas.

Posada, Cuban-born and a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, is wanted for escaping from prison there 20 years ago while being investigated for the airliner bombing. He was acquitted twice in the case but was being held pending a prosecutors' appeal.

Soto said his initial goal would be to ensure that Posada can stay in the United States. He said that once Posada is ready to come forward, he would follow a two-track strategy of filing for asylum and parole under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.

Soto said an asylum application would be the proper strategy because "it is in his best interests to establish that he fears for his life should he be removed from the United States.''

A foreign national seeking asylum essentially gets to stay until the case is resolved -- though the asylum seeker can be detained.

Jack Bulger, Miami district director for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles asylum petitions, declined to discuss Posada's case specifically but said in general that such cases would be referred to an immigration judge if the person is denied asylum or parole.

'NONPOLITICAL CRIME'

Under immigration law, asylum may be denied to foreign nationals thought to have committed a ''serious nonpolitical crime'' before arriving in the United States.

For example, an immigration judge in February denied asylum to the two former national guard officers on the basis of Venezuela's extradition request.

But the judge also prohibited the U.S. government from deporting them to Caracas because "it is more likely than not that they would be tortured.''

In the Posada case, the Cuban government has formally sought his capture and extradition from several Latin American countries. Havana has said Posada would face a firing squad if caught and returned home.

WOUNDED IN 1990

Posada was seriously wounded in a 1990 assassination attempt in Guatemala while working as a security advisor for then-president Vinicio Cerezo. It was widely speculated at the time that Cuban agents were responsible.

Soto said he thinks he can make a strong case for asylum because Posada was not convicted in the airliner bombing.

But David Abraham, a University of Miami immigration law professor, said the Posada case could pose a legal and political dilemma for the Bush administration.

''The larger question is whether asylum should be granted to someone whose actions would ordinarily fit the definition of terrorism,'' Abraham said.

"But as we have seen in the past in South Florida, terrorist activities can be recast as freedom fighting if the political situation is supportive.''

Herald staff writers Nancy San Martin and Oscar Corral and researcher Monika Z. Leal contributed to this story.

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