CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Whatever became of people on the first Freedom Flight?

Over 40 years later, Cuban migrants remember the first Freedom Flights.

By Luisa Yanez. lyanez@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Sun, Apr. 09, 2006.

The first flight to a new life in America began with only a few hours' notice. Seventy-five frightened Cubans hurriedly left behind everything -- their homes, their careers, their way of life.

Some of them even left some of their children behind in Cuba.

They landed in Miami on Dec. 1, 1965, as pioneers in a U.S. sponsored airlift -- dubbed the Freedom Flights -- that would eventually bring 260,000 Cubans to the United States over seven years.

Some new refugees resettled in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere, but many eventually returned to Miami.

More than 40 years later, The Miami Herald set out to find out what became of those who traveled on that very first flight to freedom.

The newspaper traced 32 people listed on the first flight's original manifest, which was recently donated to the Historical Museum of Southern Florida.

Here are some of their stories:

THE MARRERO FAMILY

Winning a seat on the first freedom flight marked a rebirth for Antero Marrero.

''I became a free man again the day I left Cuba,'' said Marrero, who made the trip with his wife, Esther, and two daughters, 3 and 13.

His luck changed, too. Five years after arriving, he won a company raffle that helped him purchase his first home.

''At no moment has it crossed my mind that I didn't take the right step in leaving Cuba that day,'' said Marrero, who is now 83. He is widowed, and living with his youngest daughter, Esperanza ''Hope'' Barnes, 44, in southwest Miami-Dade.

Family members vividly remember how Cuban militiamen came to their home the day before the flight.

''This officer swiped glue on a sticker he was going to use to seal our front door and told us we had until right before it dried to get everything we wanted out of our home,'' said Marrero's eldest daughter, Esther Garrandes, now 53, and a Miami-Dade Public Schools employee.

The man whistled while he waited.

''My wife started throwing the clothes out the front door to grab later,'' said the elder Marrero, a high school teacher who had already spirited his eldest son, Tony, to New York.

As her parents gathered up their life, Esther rushed to say goodbye to her best friend who lived a block away. ''We hugged and cried in the street,'' she said.

Before she knew it, their home was sealed and the family stood outside. Esther's mother had left her purse inside -- stuffed with passports and legal papers.

Esther became a cat burglar. "I had to jump from a neighbor's balcony into ours and get inside our apartment through a back door. I ran in, grabbed my mother's purse and ran off without getting caught.''

The family quickly resettled to New York.

The family was joined by six other relatives. At one point, 14 people shared a one-bedroom apartment. Then in 1967, Marrero's son visited relatives in Miami, applied for a job at a bank and was hired. The entire Marrero family moved down with him.

Antero landed a job at a Hialeah shoe factory. At an office raffle in 1970, he won a new Chevrolet Impala, sold it for $3,500 and used the money for a downpayment on a house in Opa-locka. The price: $10,500.

''I did the right thing leaving Cuba,'' Antero Marrero said.

THE CHAPELIN FAMILY

For Antonia Chapelin Villanueva, the day she learned her future would move to the United States is frozen in time. Her family almost missed the flight.

Like the other passengers, they had been been given just a few hours' notice to pack and get to a staging point, a mansion outside Havana called El Laguito. By the time they arrived at 7 a.m, the others were on buses headed to Varadero Airport for the flight to Miami.

Irritated Cuban officials told the Chapelins: "Forget it, you missed the flight.''

Fellow Cubans on the bus started yelling at the soldiers to allow them to board. The soldiers relented.

''I remember feeling so strange on the plane,'' she said. "It was so sudden. I was sad to leave, but I wanted to leave. My mother was very afraid.''

In Miami, the Chapelins spent one night at the Refugee House, a building at Opa-locka Airport, a stop-over for the refugees in transit.

''My first impression of Miami: what a beautiful city,'' Antonia Chapelin said.

So they returned. Her mother, now 92, and younger brother, 54, also made their way back to Miami.

Life was hard at first for her, her mother Matilde, and younger brother Lazaro, who were resettled in Chicago with her older brother, who had left Cuba years earlier.

''I was nostalgic and angry a lot,'' said Antonia, now 58, of Hialeah, who is a nanny for the children of a Miami-Dade doctor.

Then, she fell in love with a Cuban friend of her brother and married six months after arriving in Chicago. The couple had two kids. They moved to Miami in 1972, where her husband retired from his construction job.

''I have no complaints,'' she said.

THE GONZALEZ FAMILY

Her coveted seat on the first flight out of Cuba was a double-edged sword for Eloina Gonzalez.

She was to be reunited with her husband who had already gone to New York, but her heart was breaking. She was leaving behind her 15-year-old son with relatives because the Cuban government prohibited males eligible for the military -- those 15 and older -- from leaving. ''It was the hardest thing I ever did,'' she said. ''When that plane took off, I was crying. When it landed, I was still crying,'' said Gonzalez, 77, who retired in 1996 from a New York plastic bag factory and moved to Homestead.

It would be 11 years before Gonzalez and her son were reunited. ''By then, he was 26, married and had two kids,'' she said. "I missed all that.''

Today, her life revolves around her 16 grandchildren and six great-grand children.

''It was hard leaving Cuba, but I'm glad I got my family out. I'm very thankful to the United States,'' she said.

THE TABARES FAMILY

The Tabares family was one of the few allowed to settle in Miami with sponsoring relatives. But they moved months later to California, where Norma, Fernando and their son, George, still remain.

''We had the opportunity to raise our children in a free country and accomplished all we wanted in life with hard work,'' said Norma Tabares in an e-mail from California.

Tabares, now 68, describes her life today as ''comfortable.'' She recently retired from Verizon. Her husband, 79, is a retired engineer.

The Tabares family left Cuba much the same way as the others on Flight #1: in a mad rush.

''We felt a sense of happiness because we would finally be reunited with our family in the U.S. and the immense sadness of knowing that we were leaving our homeland for good.'' She added: "We were very lucky to be on that flight and we thank God everyday for the opportunity this great country gave us. God bless America.''

THE ANORGA FAMILY

José Anorga, then 27, felt fortunate he did not have to resettle to a cold climate like many other Cubans on that first flight. He was resettled in Broward County, which then had few Cubans.

Anorga arrived that day with his pregnant wife, Rebeca, 19, and their baby daughter.

Rebeca Anorga's sister, Maria, was also supposed to be on that flight. But she gave up her seat at the last minute because she, too, was pregnant and feared losing the baby.

The couple moved in with Anorga's brother, a well-known religious leader in Miami -- the Rev. Martin Anorga of the First Spanish Presbyterian Church. The couple stayed with José's brother for a month before setting out on their own.

José first landed a job at a furniture company in downtown Miami as delivery driver.

Slowly, the Anorgas carved out a better life. The couple eventually purchased a home -- for $11,000 -- in Hollywood, where they have lived for 35 years.

Miami Herald researcher Paul Hodges contributed to this report.

3 weeks after fleeing, return to Cuba fatal

The three men shot at by Cuban border guards Wednesday were involved in an immigrant smuggling attempt, a Cuban television show reported Friday.

By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Sat, Apr. 08, 2006.

The man killed Wednesday by Cuban border guards during an alleged immigrant-smuggling attempt had left Cuba just three weeks earlier, Cuban media reported Friday.

Geovel González Morera paid smugglers to get him and his girlfriend out of Cuba on March 14, but he was back on Cuban shores just before dawn Wednesday on a Florida-registered 40-foot speedboat heading to pick up 43 people, Cuban TV reported.

The Cuban Border Guard shot at the vessel as it approached the shore of Pinar del Río in southwestern Cuba with three men aboard when it refused orders to stop and rammed a Naval patrol boat, the Cuban newspaper Granma said Thursday. González died, and a Cuban-American man from Miami named Rosendo Salgado Castro was wounded.

The other survivor now in custody in Cuba, Julio Rafael Mesa Fariñas -- a Cuban American who has lived for 26 years in Miami -- told authorities that he got involved in human smuggling to pay off a $20,000 debt. He owes the money to smugglers who helped get his wife and child out of Cuba to Mexico last year, and the smugglers are holding the woman and baby at a safehouse along the Gulf of Mexico until the debt is paid, the Cuban TV show Mesa Redonda reported Friday.

''This is the first I'm hearing of it,'' Mesa's daughter from another relationship, Maria Watson, told The Miami Herald in a telephone interview. "This is all hitting me at once.''

Watson said her father, a Hialeah truck driver, left Cuba as a teenager but travels there to see his mother. He recently married and had a baby with a Cuban woman. The woman and baby are living in Mexico and Mesa had moved there to be close to them, she said.

''They are going hungry in Mexico,'' Watson said.

Reached by telephone in Mexico, Mesa's wife hung up on a reporter from The Miami Herald.

Authorities on the island allege that Mesa was part of a human smuggling ring that charges Cubans up to $10,000 each for passage from Cuba to Mexico. The ring, the Cuban media reported, is run by a Cienfuegos native named Joan Alberto García, who has a Flagler Street address, but lives in Cancún with his wife.

The Miami Herald called García's Miami home and the person who picked up the phone said she did not know his whereabouts.

PREVIOUS CHARGES

García was indicted on federal immigrant smuggling charges in the United States in 2002 and is a fugitive. The show said he has made about $2 million on these trips this year alone.

In all, the smuggling network made some 20 incursions involving the pickup of 480 migrants since last year, Mesa Redonda said.

Thirteen such voyages have been spotted so far this year, the Cuban show reported -- including eight by García's crew, the show said. Last year, 42 people died on similar trips, and 67 people were arrested in Cuba for taking part.

On Wednesday, the operation intended to pick up 43 people who had made a long and treacherous odyssey on foot and by bus to meet the boat on shore in Dayaniguas inlet, the TV announcers said.

The people -- 22 men, 14 women and seven children ages 23 months to 13 years -- were left stranded without food or water for two days while waiting for the boat. At least two of the children were hospitalized for dehydration.

The people came from five different Cuban provinces and did not know each other, the show said. Seventeen of them had attempted illegal escape earlier, news presenter Arlene Rodríguez said, and four had applied for visas from the U.S. Interests Section but were denied.

NO RESPONSE

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana said it has not been able to independently verify the Cuban government's version of events. A spokesman said Cuban authorities have not responded to requests for American diplomats to have consular access to the accused smugglers, both of whom are U.S. citizens.

Miami-Dade criminal records show that Salgado, who arrived in 1995, was arrested last year for grand theft, when he was caught stealing from the flower company where he worked.

Mesa, who arrived in 1980, was arrested 10 years ago for robbery, but the case was dropped. A misdemeanor battery arrest in 1995 was dismissed.

''He's in debt,'' TV show host Reinaldo Taladrid said. "So what does he do? To pay the debt, he got involved in smuggling to start making money.''

Miami Herald staff writers Andrea Torres, Rebecca Dellagloria and Miami Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

Cuba fires on U.S. boaters

Saying it was foiling a smuggling operation, the Cuban Border Guard killed one man and wounded another. The U.S. State Department called this 'deeply disturbing.'

By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Fri, Apr. 07, 2006.

The Cuban Border Guard opened fire on a boat carrying three men believed to be Cuban-American migrant smugglers -- killing one and wounding another -- in an incident the U.S. State Department called a "deeply disturbing matter.''

A Border Guard crew shot at the men aboard a Florida-registered, 40-foot speedboat just before dawn Wednesday in Cuban territorial waters off the southwestern coast, the Havana newspaper Granma reported Thursday. They had refused orders to halt and instead ''took aggressive action'' that nearly capsized the Border Guard vessel, the newspaper said.

The Border Guard gunfire wounded two of the men. One of them, who has not been identified, died later at a hospital in the province of Pinar del Río, according to Granma, which made no claim that the men were armed.

''If you have an American citizen who's been shot and killed, I think that that is a deeply disturbing matter, and we would be very concerned about that,'' said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The Cuban government said 39 would-be migrants were detained as part of the incident, apparently still on land. Some of the 20 men, 12 women and seven children were sent home after being questioned by authorities, Granma reported.

The two captured survivors were identified as Rosendo Salgado Castro and Rafael Mesa Fariñas, who hold U.S. passports. Salgado was shot in the leg, according to a knowledgeable official in Havana who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak about the case.

''I read that garbage. I don't think it happened like that,'' Leydi Crespo, the daughter of Salgado's former companion, said from her Miami home. "They decided to shoot at them, just like they did to those Brothers to the Rescue planes. If he was trafficking people or not, you don't shoot them.''

Crespo and her mother, Ana Del Toro, said they have no idea what Salgado was doing near Cuba, and have no knowledge of him being involved in migrant smuggling. Salgado, 41, is an out-of-work truck driver who arrived in Miami in 1995 after a stint at the refugee camps at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.

Most of his family already lives in Miami, Crespo said. She added that no one in the family knows Rafael Mesa or John ''Blue Shark'' Roberto, the person the Cuban government said owned the boat.

''If he was smuggling people, they'll have to prove it,'' Del Toro said. "Rosendo doesn't even have any money. He doesn't have a single dollar. His car is parked in front of my house: it doesn't work.''

Granma said the men were first spotted at 3:45 a.m. Wednesday by a small Border Guard patrol boat east of San Felipe Key, as their boat headed northeast toward Cuba.

About an hour later, the crew of a fishing boat three miles south of Punta Caraguao, on the southern coast of Pinar del Río province, reported seeing a speedboat heading for Bacunagua Cove further to the east.

''With our Border Guard Troops activated, at 5:10 a.m., about two miles south of Bacunagua Cove, surface units detected the approach of a 40-foot speedboat ... with inboard engines,'' the paper said.

"When the Border Guard units ordered the speedboat's crew to halt, the traffickers responded with a defiant attitude and aggressive actions, including violent charges against one of the [Cuban] . . . crafts, which suffered multiple damages and was in danger of flipping over, endangering the lives of its combatants, who were maneuvering in conditions of darkness and poor visibility.

The operations chief ordered to open fire against the aggressor boat.''

The article said investigators have seen the Florida boat on prior occasions, most recently last month, when it rammed and damaged a Border Guard speedboat during a routine patrol.

Mesa Fariñas and Salgado Castro carried valid U.S. passports showing they visited the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo last month, Granma said, noting that Quintana Roo is known as an entry point for illegal Cuban migration.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana said it was notified of the incident some 22 hours later, in a 2 a.m. call to the Coast Guard officer assigned to the diplomatic mission.

The Cuban government blamed the incident on U.S. immigration policies it says encourage illegal migration, and accused Mexican government authorities in Quintana Roo and ''anti-Cuban mafia with connections in Miami'' of participating in smuggling rings.

Migrant smugglers ''are worse than the communists,'' said Miami activist Ramón Saúl Sánchez, who has advocated harsher penalties for smugglers. "If they got shot, I don't care. If they got shot because they were trying to smuggle people out of Cuba for money, they got what they deserve.''

The men face a precarious legal situation, because the Cuban government does not recognize dual citizenship.

If the men were born in Cuba -- and Salgado certainly was -- the government there will treat them as Cuban citizens, experts said.

''The Cuban government believes once a Cuban citizen, always a Cuban citizen,'' said attorney Mario Cano, who has represented accused smugglers in Miami.

"The bottom line is they are subject to the laws of Cuba. The Cubans will use this as an incentive to have others not engage in the same efforts.''

Aid for dissident causes delayed

Budget snags are delaying U.S. government payments to groups that seek democracy for Cuba.

By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006.

WASHINGTON - Administrative snags are delaying government aid to U.S.-based groups that support pro-democracy organizations and dissidents in Cuba, several U.S. officials and recipients said Wednesday.

The delays, though said to be a routine result of U.S. government operations, come at a time that the Bush administration is under pressure to cut spending, fueling nervousness among grant recipients.

The University of Miami's Cuba Transition Report, for example, is awaiting a payment of $400,000 from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that was due Jan. 1. ''I presume that it's going to come in,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, who heads the project.

Since the university advances the money for the two-year program, which began last year, financing for the program is guaranteed, Suchliki added, but smaller operations will feel the pinch.

Javier de Céspedes, who heads the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a group that seeks to provide support for pro-democracy organizations in Cuba, said he is temporarily using other funding sources to cover what USAID is late in delivering. ''We just shift funds from other areas,'' he said.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, raised the issue with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly before a House hearing Wednesday, her office said.

Administration officials say the delays are the result of Congress' slow work in approving the spending bill that authorized the outlays through the State Department's Economic Support Fund (ESF). The money is then disbursed through USAID, and officials are now deciding how much to allocate to each Cuba program.

''Policy issues are not holding up ESF allocations,'' Jessica García, a spokeswoman for USAID, said in an e-mail.

In the 2004 fiscal year, USAID disbursed $21.3 million for Cuba programs, thanks to a big one-time allotment called for by President Bush's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

The amount decreased to $9 million in fiscal 2006, although the State Department says it is adding $2 million to be allotted through its Development Assistance program.

On March 16, Miami Republican Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen and seven other lawmakers wrote to Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the subcommittee on foreign operations of the House Appropriations Committee, asking that funding for Cuba democracy programs be increased to $23 million for the 2007 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. No action has been taken to date.

Cuban Coast Guard shoots alleged migrant smugglers

By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com .Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006.

Two men believed to be Cuban Americans smuggling Cuban migrants were shot -- one of them killed -- by the Cuban Coast Guard, the communist daily Granma reported today.

The Cuban government said the three, who were known to smuggle migrants out of Cuba through Mexico on a 40-foot Florida-registered fast boat, were spotted two miles from Ensenada de Bacunagua in western Pinar del Rio province at 5:10 a.m. Wednesday.

The boat, named Tiburon Azul -- Blue Shark --is owned by a Cuban American named John Roberto, the paper said.

Coast Guard officers ordered the boat to stop, but the ''traffickers responded with a defiant attitude and with aggressive actions including a violent attack,'' Granma said.

''The (Cuban Coast Guard) chief of operations ordered to open fire against the aggressor boat. It was paralyzed and boarded immediately,'' the paper said.

One of the men died Wednesday afternoon in Pinar del Río hospital. He has not been identified.

The two survivors in custody were identified as Rafael Mesa Fariñas and Rosendo Salgado Castro. The Cuban government said the men carried U.S. passports showing they visited the Mexican state of Quintana Roo last month. Quintana Roo is known as an entry point for illegal Cuban migration. The Cuban government notified the U.S. Interests Section in Havana of the incident at 2 a.m. today.

''We're trying to gather information on the case,'' said U.S. Interests Section spokesman Drew Blakeney. "Any time we have information of an American citizen imprisoned, we have ... certain consular obligations. Any time an American citizen is killed by another country's security forces it is a very serious situation for us.''

The Cuban government said 39 would be migrants apparently intercepted still on land - 20 men, 12 women and seven children -- were sent home after being questioned by authorities.

Posada seeks release from federal detention

Luis Posada Carriles has sued immigration authorities in a bid to win release from detention at a federal facility for immigrant detainees in Texas.

By Alfonso Chardy, achardy@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Fri, Apr. 07, 2006

Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles asked a federal court Thursday to order immigration authorities to release him because they are violating a Supreme Court decision against indefinite detention and failed to submit evidence that he threatens national security.

Posada's 112-page writ of habeas corpus, filed by his Coral Gables immigration attorney Eduardo Soto, seeks a ruling from an El Paso, Texas, federal judge instructing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release the 78-year-old former CIA operative from detention. He is currently at an El Paso facility for immigrants facing deportation or awaiting asylum.

Soto's filing opens a new chapter in the latest Posada saga. That began March 26, 2005, when he sneaked into the United States from Mexico, Posada has said, with the help of a migrant smuggler who drove him past the border. Posada was detained by ICE agents in Miami-Dade on May 17 after he failed to appear for an asylum interview in Miami and instead turned up at a clandestine news conference near Hialeah at which he indicated he was about to flee the country.

Posada has been held in El Paso since shortly after his detention. An immigration judge there ruled that he could not be deported to Cuba or Venezuela but authorized ICE to expel him to a third country.

In a letter to Posada March 22, ICE advised the militant that he will be held in custody until his removal because he posed a ''danger'' to the community and a ''risk'' to national security.

'NEVER ACCUSED'

Soto said his writ shows the federal government has no evidence that Posada is a threat to the United States. ''He has never been accused of any crime whatsoever in the United States,'' Soto said.

Posada was charged in Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner, but was acquitted by one court and then escaped from jail while the case was pending on appeal.

He was convicted in Panama in 2004 in connection with an alleged plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro but then was pardoned.

Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami spokeswoman for ICE, said her agency "will be reviewing the lawsuit.''

The central argument in Posada's lawsuit is that ICE is violating a 2001 Supreme Court ruling against indefinite detention of foreign nationals who have been ordered deported but cannot be expelled because immigration authorities are unable to find a foreign country to take them.

The Supreme Court ruled in Zadvydas v. Davis that immigration authorities could hold a foreign national a maximum of six months while they sought a country to take him or her.

If they could not remove the detainee, then he or she had to be put on supervised release.

Soto argues that Posada has been detained longer than six months and that ICE has ''failed to provide'' evidence that he poses a danger to the community or national security.

EXCEPTIONS ALLOWED

However, the high court said exceptions to the ruling against indefinite detention could be made if detainees were deemed "specially dangerous.''

The lawsuit contends that not only was Posada not a danger to national security but a loyal servant of the United States who advanced the national interest.

Among examples of Posada's services to the United States, Soto listed his work for the U.S. Army, the CIA and the Reagan administration during the contras' war against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

After Posada fled prison in Venezuela in the 1980s, he turned up in El Salvador as a member of a covert contra resupply network overseen by then National Security Council staffer Oliver North.

Dade district plans to yank book about Cuban children

School officials said they would pull a book with pictures of a Cuban communist youth group from grade school library shelves.

By Peter Bailey, pbailey@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006

A children's book may be removed from dozens of elementary school libraries throughout the district because it contains themes from Cuba's communist regime.

The book, Vamos a Cuba (A Visit to Cuba), is available at 33 schools, district officials say.

A portrait of kids outfitted as Pioneers -- Cuba's communist youth group -- is emblazoned across the book's cover. Inside pages show scenes of a joyous carnival held on July 26, the anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

After seeing the book, the parent of a Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary student promptly contacted officials at the West Miami-Dade school.

''The parent was offended with the book's content,'' district spokesman Joseph Garcia said Wednesday. "We're following School Board procedure to have the book removed from library shelves.''

First, a committee at the school will review the book's material, followed by district officials. If it's determined that censoring the book will not infringe on a student's right to a well-rounded education, a ruling will then be made on removing it.

In a memo sent Tuesday to board members, Superintendent Rudy Crew outlined his concerns: "The book has content and pictures that are reflective of the current Communist regime. Staff is following approved School Board rules to remove the book from all libraries.''

Garcia said this is the first time he is aware of school officials removing a book for those reasons.

The book was reviewed by a number of journals, including Publisher's Weekly. It is available through the Miami-Dade public library system, Garcia said.

The book is part of a travel series by Heinemann/Raintree, a Chicago-based publishing house that specializes in nonfiction books for classrooms and school libraries.

Officials at the publishing house say they were unaware of the controversy, but will investigate the district's concerns.

'We care greatly about our customers' concerns and we will look into this matter,'' said executive editor Tracey Crawford.

The publisher's website says the series is intended to help readers understand what it's like to be a child in another land. The books are geared toward children ages 5-7 in grades K-2. Other titles include A Visit to Colombia, A Visit to Costa Rica and A Visit to Puerto Rico.

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