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The
Miami Herald
Posada renews asylum bid at a hearing
held in Texas
Cuban militant Luis Posada
Carriles refiled a formal request for political
asylum, and a judge said he is considering
moving him to a facility closer to Miami.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@herald.com.
Posted on Tue, Jun. 14, 2005.
El PASO -- Dressed in a red government-issue
jumpsuit and a bullet-proof vest, anti-Castro
militant Luis Posada Carriles appeared for
his first immigration hearing Monday to
renew his request for political asylum and
insist that he can stay in the U.S. because
he is already a U.S. resident.
Posada's attorney, Eduardo Soto, asked
Judge William L. Abbott to transfer Posada
to Miami or another Florida facility, so
he could be closer to his lawyers and family.
No decisions were made at the hearing,
which lasted about an hour. Instead, the
judge set dates down the road to rule whether
to free Posada on bond, and whether he is
still a U.S. resident.
Part of the U.S. legal team against Posada,
including an Immigration and Customs Enforcement
attorney, Gina Garrett-Jackson, flew in
from Miami, as did Posada's lawyers. His
lawyer said it would be easier -- and cheaper
-- for him and the government to move Posada
to Miami.
''My client is entitled to sit with his
counsel and review the boxes and boxes of
documents,'' Soto said. The government is
"fully able to prosecute Posada in
Miami.''
Abbott acknowledged that Soto was representing
Posada before he was captured in Miami and
transferred to El Paso. And he said that
the preexisting attorney-client relationship
may be grounds enough to move Posada closer
to his lawyers. Abbott said he would issue
a written decision on the change of venue
request soon.
Soto said that since his client was once
a U.S. resident in the 1960s, he should
be allowed to stay in the U.S. Posada was
a resident before leaving for Venezuela
to work for DISIP, the Venezuelan political
police.
Posada did not return to Miami, at least
not officially, until late March, when he
claims he sneaked across the U.S.-Mexican
border. ICE generally considers that a foreign
national has abandoned his residency if
he stays out of the country for more than
a year without a reentry permit. That residency
issue will be decided at a separate hearing
in the next few weeks.
The U.S. government indicated it plans
to come on strong against Posada, handing
his lawyer two thick files filled with allegations
against him.
Garrett-Jackson for the first time expressed
publicly that the government was troubled
by Posada's actions in the 24 hours before
he was detained in Miami. She told Abbott
that Posada never voluntarily presented
himself to authorities in Miami before he
was detained. And she expressed frustration
that Posada skipped the asylum interview
appointment the government had given him
in May because his lawyer said he was sick,
and then two hours later, Posada hosted
a press conference in a west-Dade warehouse.
PROSECUTION'S VIEW
''At no time while he was in South Florida
did he present himself to authorities. However,
he did have a press conference in the Miami
area,'' Jackson said.
Soto responded that the government never
asked for Posada to turn himself in.
The atmosphere outside the El Paso detention
center was tense after the hearing. The
media asked Soto to answer questions outside
the facility, where an anti-war group was
staging a protest, holding up signs to deny
Posada asylum and free five Cuban spies
convicted of espionage in the United States.
As Soto spoke, the protesters crowded behind
him with the signs. Miami developer Santiago
Alvarez, who is Posada's friend and benefactor,
asked a protester: ''Are you a reporter?''
The protester said yes.
Alvarez, standing next to Soto, yelled
''Fidel Castro is the terrorist!'' Soon
after Soto ended the conference, the protesters
behind Soto began chanting ''extradite Posada
to Venezuela!'' Soto and Alvarez immediately
left.
Posada, 77, is wanted in Venezuela and
Cuba for alleged terrorism, including the
bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976 that
killed 73 people off the coast of Barbados.
Posada denies any involvement in the case.
Posada, who was born in Cuba but is a Venezuelan
citizen, was cleared by a military court
in the airliner attack, but he escaped from
prison while prosecutors appealed during
a second trial. Venezuela says it plans
to ask for his extradition this week.
Soto said he believes the government will
use those accusations against Posada to
try to deny him asylum. Another of Posada's
lawyers said they also plan to use a recently
declassified U.S. government document to
argue that Posada was not involved in the
airliner bombing. The document, recently
posted by the private National Security
Archive, was part of the Independent Counsel
investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal.
DECLASSIFIED REPORT
''Posada was not responsible for the downing
of the Cuban airliner, as he was accused''
says the document, based on a 1992 deposition
of Posada conducted by FBI agents in Honduras.
"Posada was involved in the armed struggle
against Castro, but he was not responsible
for blowing up the Cuban airliner in 1976.''
The document also said Posada wanted to
go to Washington for medical treatment after
he was nearly shot to death in Guatemala
in 1990. Posada told the FBI that at the
time, he had gone to the Venezuelan embassy
in Honduras and identified himself to them.
'He was told that the Venezuelan government
'does not have a political problem' with
Posada going to the United States,'' the
document states.
EU foreign ministers tell Cuba to improve
human rights
Posted on Tue, Jun. 14,
2005.
LUXEMBOURG - (AP) -- European Union foreign
ministers demanded on Monday that Cuba remain
open to dialogue on improving human rights
or face another freeze in relations with
the bloc.
The EU ministers condemned as ''unacceptable''
the recent efforts of Cuban authorities
in Havana to silence opposition to the rule
of Fidel Castro. They also slammed last
month's expulsions of several European politicians
and journalists who wanted to attend an
opposition rally.
In a statement, the EU ministers called
on Havana "to abstain [in the] future
[from] similar actions which could derail
normal relations between Cuba and the European
Union.''
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn,
whose country holds the EU presidency, said
that although there was ''no satisfactory
progress concerning human rights in Cuba,''
the bloc would not reimpose political sanctions
against the country.
Asselborn said there would be ''more intense
and regular dialogue'' with Castro's opposition.
''These meetings will have to continue,''
he said.
The ministers said they were open to continuing
talks on human rights with Cuba's communist
authorities.
Cuba-EU ties have been strained for several
years over the issue of human rights and
political freedoms.
In January, the EU lifted political sanctions
meant to isolate Cuban authorities as a
sign of good will over the release of political
prisoners.
Revisiting Havana and a family legend
The Miami-based author
paints a lively picture of the grandeur
of Cuba in the '30s.
By Fabiola Santiago. fsantiago@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, Jun. 12, 2005.
WELCOME TO HAVANA, SENOR HEMINGWAY.
Alfredo José Estrada. Planeta. 344
pages. $22.95.
Havana in the 1930s brimmed with fledgling
literati, aspiring artists, musicians making
rumba music that would become world famous,
and, as this is a prerequisite of any Cuban
scene at any point in history, a thick dose
of political conspiracy and intrigue. The
action unfolded at funky bars and Bohemian
cafes in a city of striking architecture,
earning the Cuban capital the nickname "The
Paris of the Caribbean.''
The glamour, business opportunities and
-- perhaps most important -- free-flowing
rum lured to the island Prohibition-era
Americans, none more famous than Ernest
Hemingway, who embraced Cuba as his personal
paradise.
To this well-traveled stage comes Miami-based
Cuban-American writer Antonio José
Estrada with a novelist's fresh eye, spinning
Welcome to Havana, Señor Hemingway
around a family legend.
''My grandfather once knocked down Ernest
Hemingway, or so I was told,'' begins Estrada's
novel, narrated by a Cuban-American journalist
who visits Cuba to unearth details of "this
quixotic legend. . . . often recounted by
my Cuban relatives at family reunions, together
with stories of what they lost in the Revolution.''
Estrada's story stars Javier López
Angulo, a Cuban Harvard graduate who dreams
of being a novelist but, as the son of a
wealthy Spanish importer, is expected to
follow his father's footsteps in business.
He befriends Hemingway at the now famous
watering hole El Floridita, but the two
men eventually come to blows over the love
of a woman, Jane Mason, the flirtatious
wife of an American businessman and supposedly
the woman who inspired one of Hemingway's
best-known short stories, The Short Happy
Life of Francis Macomber.
Fans of Hemingway and Cuban history buffs,
especially anyone nostalgic for anything
that brings back the grandeur of old Cuba,
will love this novel, which is set in 1932.
But you've got to care about such trivial
details as Hemingway's golf game or lack
of it, or at least appreciate the research
that went into the strategic placement of
historic landmarks, events and institutions
that give the novel so much of its authentic
feel.
But readers who don't care for Hemingway
or Cuba may find the historical fiction
slow going. The pace only picks up slightly
with the added backdrop of the efforts of
the revolutionary group ABC to topple President
Gerardo Machado, a somewhat forgotten but
significant event that set the stage for
the dictators to come.
But this is a smartly executed first novel,
notable for gracefully written passages
and authentic dialogue, as in this exchange
between the unstable Jane and her best friend
Charlotte, who shows Jane a newspaper clipping
from El Diario La Marina announcing the
wedding of Alfredo to Adelaida, the Cuban
woman who would become the narrator's grandmother.
' 'The poor boy was in love with you,'
said Charlotte.
'Actually, I rather hoped he would fall
in love with you.'
'You were very bad to lead him on.'
'Don't be silly. Men fall in love all by
themselves, don't you think? We usually
have nothing to do with it.' ''
One of the Estrada's more subtle subplots
involves the grandfather's tormented attempts
to write a novel in Paris and the grandson's
quest to unearth and deliver the tale of
abuelo's brush with fame. Here, Estrada's
story rings most true, his characters are
most unique, and the role of Hemingway is
no longer important, even if the looming
presence of the famous author is never far
from the text.
Estrada's book also has an unusual literary
life of its own. Initially self-published
in a longer version, Welcome to Havana was
picked up by the Barcelona-based Grupo Planeta,
the largest publisher of Spanish letters.
It is now the first novel published in the
United States by Planeta's new English-language
imprint. So welcome to the world of literature,
Señor Estrada.
Fabiola Santiago is a Herald features writer.
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