CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Spy convict faces deportation to Cuba, lawyer says

A convicted Cuban spy who belonged to the now-dismantled Wasp Network faces deportation and would be the third forced to leave the country.

By Alfonso Chardy, achardy@herald.com. Posted on Mon, Sep. 12, 2005.

Marisol Gari, an Orlando woman convicted of spying for the Cuban government, has been detained for possible deportation back to the island, her Miami attorney says.

Louis Casuso told The Herald his client was detained two weeks ago and is now being held at a detention facility outside Miami-Dade County in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which carries out deportation orders.

If deported, Gari, 46, would be the third person linked to the infamous Wasp Network expelled since the FBI busted the group in 1998.

The Wasp Network, or La Red Avispa, was an alleged Cuban spy group uncovered by U.S. agents. Five Wasp ringleaders were tried and convicted in Miami, though their case was recently reversed on appeal. The five now await a new trial.

Casuso said the deportation of Gari would be a betrayal of U.S. government promises of protection in exchange for cooperation. ''It would be an injustice,'' Casuso said. If Gari is sent back now, he said, she will face torture.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami declined to comment.

In April, another Wasp suspect, Juan Emilio Aboy, of Miami-Dade, was deported when Havana suddenly agreed to take him back. In 1998, the wife of a convicted Wasp ringleader was sent back.

Normally, U.S. immigration authorities decline to expel Cuban nationals to Cuba, or if they do Cuba refuses to take back the Cubans ordered deported.

2001 ARREST

Gari and her American husband, George, were arrested in Orlando Aug. 31, 2001, and charged in connection with alleged Wasp efforts to spy on the Miami-Dade County-based U.S. Southern Command and the Cuban American National Foundation. The Garis had moved to Orlando after having lived in the Miami area for about eight years.

Marisol agreed to plead guilty to a spying-related charge soon after the arrest. Subsequently George also agreed to plead guilty.

Marisol formally pleaded guilty Sept. 20, 2001, during an unusual closed hearing in Miami federal court before U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages.

Sources familiar with case told The Herald at the time that Marisol's sealed plea agreement called for her cooperation with federal prosecutors in their continuing investigation.

Casuso, her lawyer, said this past week he could not discuss precisely how Marisol assisted U.S. authorities.

But federal officials familiar with the case said U.S. officials were sufficiently pleased to try to persuade immigration officials not to deport her.

SENTENCING

On Jan. 4, 2002, Judge Ungaro-Benages sentenced Marisol to 3 ½ years in federal prison and her husband to seven.

When her prison time was up last year, Marisol was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and put in deportation proceedings. She was initially held at an immigration facility in Key West where an immigration judge on Oct. 4 ordered her removal to Cuba.

Marisol did not appeal the order, which became final after the 30-day appeal window closed.

Some foreign nationals in deportation proceedings ask for asylum and other forms of protection at their removal hearings. If they have a criminal record, foreigners do not qualify for asylum but often can get deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, especially if they come from countries like Cuba where human rights abuses are said to be rampant.

Some Cubans, however, opt not to invoke deferral and hope for release after Cuba refuses to take them back. U.S. authorities often release Cubans under terms of a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting indefinite detention for foreigners whose countries won't take them back.

Marisol was released under supervision after more than three months in immigration custody and told to obtain travel documents to Cuba through the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Casuso said.

But she deliberately did not request the documents for fear the diplomatic mission would issue them, Casuso said.

U.S.-Cuba trade advocate tells of disappointment

John Kavulich, former head of an organization advocating U.S.-Cuba trade, explained how he became disillusioned.

By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Sep. 09, 2005.

CHEEKTOWAGA, New York - John Kavulich's voice dripped with sarcasm as he summarized his decade as a top U.S. expert on the Cuban economy.

''I went from being the anointed one to the disappointed one,'' said the former president of a group whose members included huge U.S. companies interested in trade with Cuba.

Since the mid-1990s, Kavulich was the virtual poster boy for those who argued that U.S. commerce with Cuba could pry open its communist system. He had done just that in the former Soviet Union and figured he could do the same in Havana.

But earlier this year he resigned as head of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, bitterly complaining about U.S. and Cuban officials who put politics before profits, sleazy business practices and naive media reporting.

His recollections in an interview with the Herald touched on some of the dynamics within the Cuban government that could affect its post-Castro policies, and his belief that Havana's economic reports are not always truthful.

EXPERIENCE IN USSR

Kavulich's idea for spearheading a trade invasion of Cuba emerged from his experience in the perestroika-era Soviet Union in the 1980s, when he first represented U.S. companies that wanted to do business with Moscow and the worked as a marketing consultant for the Soviet government until 1991.

He first traveled to Cuba in 1992 to check on openings for American businesses -- the trade embargo on Cuba does not ban U.S. exports of medicine and medical supplies -- and launched the U.S.-Cuba trade council after a U.S. client asked for marketing data on Cuba.

''Basically, there was none,'' said Kavulich during an interview in this small town near Buffalo N.Y.. Born and raised in Buffalo, Kavulich, now 43, earned a business degree from George Washington University.

The council was founded as a New York-based nonprofit to merely monitor trade opportunities with Cuba on behalf of members such as Archer Daniels Midland, the world's largest grain processor; General Motors; Riceland Foods Inc. of Arkansas; Wal-Mart Stores, and The Sherwin-Williams Co.

But some of its members openly pushed for throwing the doors wide open. And the Cuban economic data that Kavulich gathered from about 30 contacts on the island and disseminated through a newsletter, the Economic Eye on Cuba, was long considered to be more reliable than Havana government figures.

Kavulich also kept up with U.S. laws and regulations on Cuba, and at times even offered friendly advise to Havana on how to sell the image of a pro-business Cuba.

For one of the council's first executive luncheons in New York City, Cuba's then-Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina turned up for a preliminary meeting wearing a sports jacket with rolled-up sleeves, loafers with no socks and a T-shirt with a tie printed on it.

''I said to him, 'With all due respect, I humbly suggest that you can't wear this,'' Kavulich said he told Robaina. The foreign minister arrived at the luncheon in a three-piece suit and delivered a 40-minute speech, not once mentioning Cuban leader Fidel Castro and instead insisting that Cuba was ready for business.

FAVORABLE MESSAGE

''This is what everybody wanted to hear, that it isn't all Castro-centric, that the whole country isn't about one man,'' Kavulich recalled

By 1995, Kavulich had a reputation as a dapper entrepreneur with a sharp mind who had access to the highest levels of the Cuban government. He was sought after by U.S. executives, policy makers, politicians and journalists.

But as his success grew, so did his problems.

U.S. competitors began complaining to Cuban officials that the trade council should be actively lobbying to ease U.S. sanctions on the island, Kavulich said, declining to identify them. And some Cuban officials began trying to block his efforts.

''There were people in both the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Trade who knew that the more change that came to Cuba, the less power, influence and job security they would have,'' he added.

By 1998 Kavulich had made up to 70 trips to Cuba. But he was clearly wearing out his welcome.

DENIED CUBAN VISA

He was denied a Cuban visa for Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998, even though members of the trade council donated $100,000 for some of the activities.

In 1999, he was excluded from meetings between U.S. businessmen and Cuban officials in New York and Washington. And in 2000, he was denied a visa to attend a Havana exhibition of U.S. healthcare products that he had helped to organize.

''My biggest frustration from the standpoint of [the trade council] . . . was that U.S. companies were restricted by U.S. law and regulation,'' he said. "But from a personal standpoint, the vast majority of my difficulties were manifested in Cuba.''

To win permission for the healthcare exhibition, Kavulich said, he went directly to Castro's then-personal assistant, Jesús Montané Oropesa. But foreign ministry officials accused him of going behind their backs, he added.

The trade council chief nevertheless seemed to be achieving his dream of vibrant U.S.-Cuba trade.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress approved a law allowing for the sale of American food and agricultural products to Cuba. And after Hurricane Michelle in 2001 destroyed much of Cuba's crops, Havana began importing American products. U.S. trade with the island has since averaged $300 million a year.

FINAL TRIP

In 2002 Kavulich made his final trip to Cuba, for the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition, an unprecedented event that attracted 293 exhibitors from 32 American states. Sales contracts worth about $93 million were signed at the week-long event.

But as Cuban imports of U.S. goods increased, Kavulich began going public with controversial issues. The trade council's newsletter was first to report that Havana was buying goods from specific U.S. states in order to push their congressional representatives to vote for easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba.

It also first reported in 2003 that Havana was requiring U.S. firms and some U.S. politicians to sign ''advocacy agreements'' -- promising they would lobby Congress to ease the sanctions -- before Cuba would buy their goods.

''These agreements are a corruption of the commercial process,'' Kavulich complained at the time. "Once you include an advocacy clause, they're no longer commercial agreements; they're political documents.''

Kavulich also began alleging that Havana was manipulating its economic statistics -- and that too many U.S. journalists were using those figures without questioning them.

Cuban officials in retaliation began to suggest to trade council members that they should drop out and instead join more aggressive ease-the-sanctions groups, he said.

His interest in Cuba dwindled and his frustrations grew. So he quit the trade council.

''I am frustrated with the government of the United States, the government of the Republic of Cuba, members of the United States Congress and their staffs, representatives of organizations, state and local officials and with journalists,'' he wrote in a scathing resignation letter.

"I am witnessing an increasing lack of ethics . . . both in the United States and in Cuba.''

In Moscow, he told The Herald, "there was far more . . . honesty, far less ideology, far more pragmatism. But with Cuba, and it's not just in Cuba, it's with people in Washington and the organizations involved with the Cuba issue, it gets so personal and it gets so mean spirited and it gets so childish that I don't miss it at all.''

Martinez: Cuban aid should be welcomed

Sen. Mel Martinez said he was 'grateful' for Cuba's offer to send doctors to assist in the Katrina relief effort, though the Bush administration has not responded to the offer.

By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@herald.com. Posted on Thu, Sep. 08, 2005.

WASHINGTON - Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez said Wednesday that the U.S. government should accept Cuba's offer to send hundreds of doctors to treat victims of Hurricane Katrina, provided they are needed and "reasonably well-trained.''

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has offered to send nearly 1,600 physicians, potentially introducing another element of friction in the four-decade-long confrontation between the two adversaries. The Bush administration has said it will accept all offers of aid, but has also suggested that the United States did not need more doctors.

Castro's offer has put the administration in a tight spot. Refusal could be perceived as placing politics before the needs of victims.

Martinez, the first Cuban American to serve in the U.S. Senate, said he wondered if it was ''appropriate'' for Cuba to send the doctors, because many had already been dispatched to Venezuela and there was a shortage of medical help on the island. Cuba sends Venezuela doctors as part of payment for subsidized oil.

''But if we need doctors, and Cuba offers them and they provide good service, of course we should accept them,'' he said in his Washington office. "And we're grateful for that offer.''

DIFFERING VIEW

Martinez is distancing himself from some of his fellow Cuban-American lawmakers.

Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said: "I see no need for us to accept the doctors, because we have many U.S. doctors who can meet the medical needs of Katrina's victims. Cuban doctors should take care of poor Cubans who lack proper medical care on the island.''

Martinez recalled how Cuba rejected a U.S. offer to send $50,000 when the island was ravaged by Hurricane Dennis in July. ''I regretted that,'' he said.

Castro has refused all U.S. aid as long as Washington maintains the trade embargo against the island.

The Bush administration has not responded to Cuba's offer, which was made over a week ago.

''We will wait as many days as necessary,'' Castro said Sunday, when he thanked the doctors, many of whom had volunteered for the service.

VENEZUELA'S OFFER

Martinez also welcomed an offer by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a close ally of Castro and a fierce critic of the Bush administration, to donate $1 million to the Red Cross. Venezuela will also ship one million barrels of oil to the United States this month, in addition to the usual exports. Venezuela is the fourth-largest exporter of crude oil to the United States.

Asked if he thought Chávez was using the offer for political purposes, Martinez said, "I think at this time we accept any offers of assistance in good faith. He's offered oil. That would be very helpful.''

In December 1999, Washington dispatched two boatloads of aid for Venezuela when more than 15,000 people perished in mudslides. But Chávez refused help, and the vessels, which were transporting members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, were turned back. Venezuela never gave a reason for the refusal.

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