CUBA NEWS
The Miami Herald

Cuba's aging society straining resources

The Cuban government has been confronting a demographic reality that promises to wreak havoc on an already overburdened social service system.

By Miami Herald Staff, cuba@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Dec. 07, 2006

HAVANA - Regla, a 38-year-old security guard, is precisely the type of married woman the Cuban government is worried about: She had a baby 17 years ago and called it quits.

Money is tight and so is housing, so she had an abortion each of the four more times she got pregnant. Her teen daughter terminated a pregnancy last year, too.

''With this economic situation, who can have more children?'' Regla said. "We're in the special period that never ends. Abortions are free and have no stigma attached. Everybody does it. Everybody.''

Regla's attitude is not unusual. In a nation faced with chronic shortages of everything from housing to food, more and more women are choosing to have just one child -- or none at all. A country with one of the hemisphere's highest life expectancy rates and lowest birthrates finds itself with a dwindling population -- one that in just 13 years will see the number of retired people outnumber the labor force.

The Cuban government-run media has tackled the issue in recent months, running remarkably candid coverage of a demographic phenomenon that promises to wreak havoc on an already strained social service system. As Fidel Castro -- himself 80 -- languishes in his sick bed, the effort to sustain the socialist society he built is being constantly challenged by emigration, aging adults and childless women.

''I'm 41, my son is 23, and I decided: That's it. No more,'' said Idania, an office worker in the city of Santa Clara, whose last name, like others in this report, was withheld for fear of reprisals. "You want to give your children absolutely everything in life. If you are in a situation where you can't give your child absolutely everything, then why have more kids?''

Consider:

o Since 1978, Cuba's fertility rate has decreased to levels that can no longer sustain current population levels. Now at 11.2 million, the Cuban media says it is unlikely to ever reach 12 million.

o During the 1960s and 1970s, Cuba's annual birthrate was about 250,000. In 2005, there were slightly more than 120,000 births, despite there being 1 million women of reproductive age.

MORE SENIORS

o Seniors age 60 and older now make up about 16 percent of Cuba's population. The Cuban government estimates that by 2025, 26 percent of Cubans will be elderly.

o If current trends don't change, Cuba will join the 11 countries with the world's oldest populations, Granma, the island's main daily newspaper, reported.

''In a few years, it is almost certain that the demand for senior citizen centers, dining halls, homes and other senior citizen facilities will exceed the new factories and schools,'' Granma said.

Another newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, put it like this: "If in 10 years we haven't reached a coherent reproduction policy, we'll see each other more frequently at wakes than at children's birthday parties.''

Among the causes, Granma cited ''material'' problems such as housing shortages, high cost of living, lack of day-care centers and goods like children's clothing. The paper also acknowledged the outward migration of adults of child-bearing age, but said positive changes such as advances for women in the workforce and availability of birth control also contributed.

But experts say Cuba's declining birthrate and aging populace is nothing new. Cuba's population rate started to slip in the 1950s, just as it did in Europe and other nations. The birthrate is 1.62 children per woman, compared to the United States' 2.04 birthrate.

But about 1.4 million new immigrants enter the United States every year, while Cuba sees tens of thousands leave.

With Castro sick and his revolution perhaps on the brink of radical change, the situation is particularly critical, said sociologist Mauricio Font. If communism collapses after Castro's death, Cuba is likely to witness a massive outward migration of its much-needed youth, as occurred in Eastern Europe.

''What we know of Cuba is that the young people are not particularly happy and are searching for more opportunities,'' said Font, director of the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at the Graduate Center in New York. "People are leaving, and it's going to get worse. That's something to think about. It's going to be a huge challenge with or without a transition.''

DIFFERENT VIEW

A decline in population isn't necessarily bad, said Arie Hoekman, Cuba director for the United Nations Population Fund. Cuba, which suffered a sharp economic decline after the fall of the Soviet Union -- the ''special period'' that Regla referred to -- probably could not sustain massive population spurts.

''A dwindling younger population and high elderly population places challenges on social systems such as health, education, social security,'' Hoekman said. "On the other hand, continued growth would not be sustainable. They are already facing challenges.''

The biggest difficulty for Cuba will be to address the swelling numbers of elderly. Cuba already has about 300,000 people over the age of 80, but the government has focused its attention on other issues, such as tackling infant mortality and educating children. ''We've been seeing this coming for a very long time,'' said Lisandro Pérez, a sociology professor at Florida International University. "I think it is a problem. I don't think the Cuban health system is geared toward the catastrophic illnesses older people get.''

GROWING CHALLENGE

The strains are already showing. Elderly people earn less than $10 a month on their pensions, so many of the street vendors who peddle snacks and newspapers on the street are older adults who say they were forced to return to the workforce because they could not survive on their incomes.

''A lack of children is something the state has to worry about, not me. I say the thing elderly folks worry about is food,'' said Víctor, a 70-year-old newspaper seller. "Our health system is good, our education system is good, but our food situation is very bad.''

He was accompanied at an Old Havana plaza one recent afternoon by Cecilia, a 73-year-old grandmother who hops a bus to tourist areas to supplement her pension by begging for contributions from foreigners. She is worried because her 25-year-old grandson has not had any children.

''I'm concerned about the lack of children, sure,'' she said. "You have to have future generations. What society will we have if there are no children?''

The Miami Herald withheld the name of the correspondent who filed this report because the author lacked the Cuban journalist visa required to work on the island.

Cuban dissident's release creates 'false image'

Human rights activists in Cuba warned that the release of the seventh dissident in two months was not a sign of goodwill; 300 are still jailed

By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Dec. 07, 2006

A top Cuban dissident jailed in the 2003 nationwide crackdown was freed Wednesday for health reasons, making him the seventh political prisoner released in the past two months.

Héctor Palacios, 64, who was serving a 25-year sentence, is the most high-profile dissident let out of prison since Defense Minister Raúl Castro took charge of the country when his brother Fidel Castro underwent surgery four months ago.

But human rights activists in Cuba warned that the releases, which could be interpreted as a goodwill gesture on the part of Havana, come at the same time that the government has increased repression against other opponents.

''The latest releases show a trend, but remember 300 are still in jail, which is the highest in the hemisphere and proportionately one of the highest in the world,'' said human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez. "Today they released Héctor Palacios, but Monday they arrested independent journalist Ahmed Rodríguez and have held him incommunicado without charges.''

The Bush administration has rebuffed Raúl Castro's offers to open negotiations until conditions, including the release of political prisoners, are met.

''They are trying to create the false image that things are getting better,'' Sánchez said in a telephone interview from Havana.

Palacios was convicted of violating the Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Economy of Cuba, which essentially criminalizes political opposition to the Castro government.

He is the 16th prisoner caught up in the 2003 nationwide roundup of 75 political opponents to be released for health reasons.

''Personally, I feel good,'' Palacios said by telephone from Havana. ''But I feel a little hurt because I left a lot of dying people behind'' in prison, he said, noting that difficult conditions have sickened many prisoners.

Palacios fell ill shortly after his arrest and had been in a prison hospital for more than 2 ½ years for heart and circulatory problems, he said. ''It was a cell with a hospital bed,'' he said.

Government officials probably decided to release Palacios because they feared an internationally known dissident would die in custody, activists said.

The Cuban government has freed six other political prisoners in the past two months. Last month, it released five men arrested in July 2005 for their alleged participation in a protest at the French embassy.

''The government is trying to create certain expectations, but things are worse in Cuba,'' Palacios said. "The other people who were released are people who were held without charges for a year and a half. That's not release -- that's holding someone for a year and a half just because.''

Palacios joined the dissident movement in 1993 and was director of the illegal Center for Independent Social Studies and advisor to the Round Table for Reflection. He worked as a coordinator for Concilio Cubano, a coalition of dissident groups, and was a leader of the All United movement.

In 1997, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for ''contemptuous'' statements about Fidel Castro.

''They sentenced me to 25 years,'' Palacios said. "For me that was a death sentence.''

Moderate exile groups join in urging easing of Cuba restrictions

Two dozen Cuban exile groups urged the Bush administration to ease travel restrictions and limits on humanitarian aid to Cuba.

By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Mon, Dec. 04, 2006

An umbrella group of influential Cuban exile organizations has joined the growing chorus of Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits calling for the United States to ease restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba.

About two dozen exile organizations, speaking in unison under the umbrella group Consenso Cubano, or Cuban Consensus, will release a report today calling for the Bush administration to ease travel restrictions. The groups say U.S. policies that restrict Cubans from visiting family members and that limit remittances and other humanitarian aid "violate fundamental rights of Cubans, damage the Cuban family, and constitute ethical contradictions.''

The announcement underscores a growing rift between hard-line exile leaders who want to preserve the sanctions, and more moderate Cuban Americans in Miami and dissidents in Cuba who feel that increasing interaction can help promote a peaceful transition to democracy.

The disconnection has manifested itself at a time that an ailing Fidel Castro is no longer in power in Cuba, having temporarily transferred authority to his brother Raúl. And last month, Democrats took control of the U.S. House and Senate, which could trigger a reexamination of U.S.-Cuba policy.

Just last week, U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Díaz-Balart appeared on a popular Spanish-language television talk show, A Mano Limpia, in which they defended U.S. policy toward Cuba.

The station conducted a viewer poll during the program, and it showed that most callers favored the easing of travel and remittance restrictions.

'ON THE BRINK'

''We are on the brink of potentially monumental changes in Cuba relating to Fidel Castro's demise,'' said state Rep. David Rivera, who spearheaded a call three years ago for the Bush administration to tighten the U.S. embargo.

"Now is not the time to be considering any relaxing of sanctions on the Castro dictatorship. That is not an option for the administration or the majority of Cuban Americans.''

Consenso Cubano, which includes mostly moderate exile groups such as the Cuba Study Group, Democracy Movement and the Cuban American National Foundation, plans to hold a news conference today.

Consenso groups are also asking the Cuban government to lift restrictions on family travel.

''The measures which limit or deny Cubans their fundamental rights to travel freely to and from Cuba for humanitarian or family reasons . . . and their ability to freely send and receive personal and family aid, violates the fundamental rights of Cubans,'' said Consenso's "humanitarian agenda.''

Oscar Visiedo, executive director of the Instituto de Estudios Cubanos, or Institute of Cuban Studies (not to be confused with the Cuba Study Group), said current restrictions on family travel and humanitarian assistance seem to be impeding a democratic transition on the island.

''My personal opinion is that we've seen that current policy isn't working,'' Visiedo said.

The announcement comes just a few days after top dissidents in Cuba signed a letter saying that easing remittance and travel restrictions to Cuba would help them in their struggle for freedom and democracy from within Cuba.

The dissidents said restrictions on family travel and on sending humanitarian aid "in no way help the struggle for democracy we wage inside our country.''

SHARED VIEWS?

Marcelino Miyares, president of the Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba, or Christian Democratic Party of Cuba, one of the Consenso organizations, said the dissidents' position shows that pro-democracy Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits are coming closer together in their policy thinking.

''They are thinking the same thing in Cuba as we are here,'' Miyares said.

Raúl sits in at big party

Cuba officially celebrates Fidel Castro's 80th birthday today, but the leader may be too sick to attend the ceremony

By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Sat, Dec. 02, 2006

Raúl Castro on Friday turned up at a ceremony marking brother Fidel's 80th birthday amid conflicting reports that Fidel is not suffering from cancer but is still too sick to attend the main event today

Raúl's daughter told the Reuters news agency in Havana that Fidel is unlikely to show at the main event celebrating his birthday, a military parade in Havana today.

'He's not going to the festivities, because everybody is telling him, 'We don't want you to move.' We're going to celebrate, but he should stay away and take it easy,' '' Mariela Castro told Reuters.

''My impression as an ordinary Cuban is that we are going to have him in another role, as the wise 80-year-old leader that now is going to take care of himself,'' she said.

CBS Evening News, citing no sources, meanwhile reported Friday from Havana that Fidel does not have cancer. U.S. officials have said they believe the Cuban leader has terminal cancer and will not live past 2007.

Raúl Castro made his first appearance at the weeklong birthday events Friday, a gathering of some of the foreign dignitaries in Cuba for the celebrations.

Raúl sat at the head table near President Evo Morales of Bolivia and Nicaragua's president-elect Daniel Ortega at the last of the events sponsored by the Guayasamín Foundation, a group that supports Fidel Castro. He did not speak.

But there remained intense speculation about whether Fidel would make an appearance at the massive military parade in his honor today.

''Fidel recovers! We shall have him among us!'' Vice President Carlos Lage said Friday night, without specifically referring to the military parade. "He will continue to lead us! We shall ask him to do so for several more years!''

Fidel did not attend the opening event for the week's activities, but sent a statement saying that his doctors had determined that he was too sick to attend.

Some 1,500 people have been attending a string of events initially scheduled four months ago, when Castro announced he was so sick that he needed to delay his Aug. 13 birthday celebrations until today -- the 50th anniversary of the start of the revolution.

Among other guests are Haitian President René Préval and Colombian Nobel prize-winner author Gabriel García Márquez.

Miami Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

Acts of civil protest on the rise in Cuba, report says

A new report by the Cuban Democratic Directorate shows the number of acts of civil disobedience on the island is on the rise, revealing growing discontent with the quality of life in Cuba.

By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Thu, Nov. 30, 2006

From candlelight vigils to hunger strikes and even a mountain hike, Fidel Castro opponents logged more than 3,300 acts of civil disobedience in Cuba last year, nearly twice the number of the year before, according to a report to be released today.

As Castro's government continues a campaign of reprisals against dissidents that began with a wave of arrests three years ago, members of the opposition movement say more people are speaking up and joining up.

''Repression generates rebellion,'' said Janisset Rivero, executive director of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, an exile organization that published Steps to Freedom, to be released tonight at the University of Miami.

The report's numbers underscore growing discontent with the quality of life in Cuba, and the government's inability to satisfy basic needs. And while the government's 2003 crackdown decapitated much of the dissident movement, each year the number of acts of civil resistance climbs, the report said. Among the group's findings:

o The central province of Villa Clara appears to be a hotbed of political opposition, logging far more protests than any other province. Even though nearly all of the island's internationally known dissident activists live in Havana, only 11 percent of last year's civil disobedience took place there.

o 25 hunger strikes were held by prisoners.

o The Ladies in White, the group of female relatives of the 75 political prisoners picked up in the 2003 sweep, held 182 different protests.

o The 3,322 acts logged in 2005 -- including 2,613 vigils -- represent an 85 percent increase over the 1,805 acts of civil disobedience in 2004.

'LOSING THEIR FEAR'

''What we're seeing is a direct relation between the incapacity of the regime's administration -- economically, politically, the errors they commit every day -- and the discontent of the people,'' Rivero said. "People see no hope, but they are losing their fear.''

The Directorate helps pro-democracy organizations on the island. It receives a portion of its funding, some $1 million, from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The USAID money goes to a project, separate from the civil disobedience report, that focuses on outreach.

The Directorate's federal funding has made it a frequent object of criticism from the Cuban government. The report has come out annually since 1997, documenting each reported act of disobedience by date and address and citing the source. When it began a decade ago, the listing was of a scant 44 events. That more than doubled to 100 events in 1998, eventually jumping to 1,328 in 2003.

''The opposition has taken a lower profile since July 2005, when Fidel Castro incited violence against us in a speech he gave,'' said Eliécer Consuegra Rivas, of the Eastern Democratic Alliance in Holguín. 'But as that happens, horizons broaden. The police will loot an independent library, and people on the street come forward and say, 'How are they going to take the books?' ''

Cuban dissident leaders say they lost momentum when the 75 were jailed, but have since overcome the leadership loss.

''The 2003 wave was a big blow to the opposition,'' said Juan Carlos González Leiva, a Ciego de Avila activist who was jailed for two years for heading the Cuban Human Rights Foundation. "It decapitated the movement, so that now we have opposition members leaving the country and being jailed. But there are two sides to that: we lose people to jail and exile, but those people have friends and family who join the ranks.''

LACK OF FUNDING

He said the opposition movement is stymied by a lack of funding and materials. The issue has been a sticking point for the Bush administration, which last year pledged to provide dissidents an additional $80 million.

But U.S. law prohibits AID from sending cash, and Cuban law prohibits dissidents from receiving it.

González cut the conversation short when he said the pro-government mob throwing rocks at the home of another dissident where González was using the phone had set the roof on fire. Reached later, he said a few pails of water put out the fire.

Complaint filed against Cuban lobbying group

A watchdog group in Washington has filed a complaint against a Cuban-American lobbying group, which called the allegation a 'political hit job.'

By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Wed, Nov. 29, 2006

WASHINGTON - A watchdog group has alleged a Cuban-American lobbying organization that favors tougher sanctions against Cuba broke Federal Election Commission regulations by having illegal links to a nonprofit group.

But the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee denied the allegations and noted that the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has filed several complaints against it, has received donations from groups opposed to U.S. sanctions on the island.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics filed a complaint in September asserting that several members of the nonprofit Cuba Democracy Advocates Inc. had illegal links to the PAC, which is supposed to operate independently of any other organization.

Leopoldo Fernández Pujals founded two nonprofit U.S. organizations in 2000 to oppose the communist government, using some of the proceeds of his $366 million sale of Spanish fast-food chain Telepizza in 1999, according to the FEC complaint.

Those two organizations eventually became Cuba Democracy Advocates, and Fernández appointed Mauricio Claver-Carone as director and Miami-Dade car dealer Gus Machado as treasurer. Machado then went on to create the PAC and Claver-Carone became its Washington director.

Claver-Carone and Machado, according to the complaint to the FEC, have ''day-to-day operational control'' of both the PAC and Cuba Democracy Advocates.

THE RULES

According to FEC rules, a connected PAC can only raise money from its affiliated organization, but the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC has raised $1.25 million from 3,000 individuals, mostly members of the Cuban-American community.

The group has donated to dozens of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and is widely seen as successfully influencing congressional votes on Cuba sanctions.

Claver-Carone denied the two organizations had done anything wrong, noting that the PAC is run by a 26-member board and a seven-member executive committee, most of whom have no connection with Cuba Democracy Advocates.

''So long as majority of board members do not cross over, there's absolutely no problem whatsoever,'' he told The Miami Herald. "Of the 26 board members, only one crosses over, and that's me.''

Claver-Carone said the latest complaint is the fourth filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics against his organization, constituting what he called a "political hit job.''

'AGAINST US'

''They're getting money from people that advocate against us,'' he said, citing a $75,000 donation to the watchdog group by the ARCA Foundation, a family-owned foundation, which says on its website that it pursues more social justice and equity. The ARCA group also has donated to groups like the Latin America Working Group and the Lexington Institute -- all opposed to U.S. policies on Cuba.

The FEC decided against prosecuting the group's previous allegations. Claver-Carone says refuting each allegation means paying a law firm between $15,000 and $20,000.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, denied the group is targeting the Cuba Democracy PAC for political reasons.

''We believe they should follow FEC law,'' she said.

Castro's absence spurs little hope among Miami's exiles

By Gladys Amador And Elias Lopez, gamador@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Sun, Dec. 03, 2006

Fidel Castro's failure to appear at a military parade in Havana did little to erase the uncertainty many Cubans feel about the future of their island nation.

Still, from Hialeah to Little Havana, some Cubans held out hope that Castro's death would bring about major change in the island's communist government. Others, young and old alike, had their doubts.

''I think that while Raúl [Castro] is still in power, the change that Cuba needs to undergo will not take place,'' said Fran Diaz, 42, who directs a Miami-based band, La Orquesta Habana Soul.

He and others at La Carreta Restaurant on Hialeah's West 16th Avenue said they weren't making plans to return to Cuba anytime soon.

''Only if the island would accept U.S. policy asking them to hold open elections, free political prisoners and accept democracy, would I go once again,'' said Diaz, who was dressed in typical 1950s Cuba gear: all-white suit, two-toned shoes and a Panama hat.

''I think we would need a miracle for things to really change,'' said Roberto Hervis, a 27-year-old Cuban exile who left the island only six years ago. "I don't want to be negative; it's just the way I see it.''

Hervis was an English literature teacher in Cuba, but left when he won el bombo, the term Cubans use to describe the special U.S. visa lottery.

''The system unfortunately works so well that all the pieces are perfectly in place -- even if he's [Fidel Castro] not physically there anymore,'' he said.

For 60-year-old Jesus Perez, who came to the United States from Cuba some 30 years ago, his only immediate wish is that he be alive to witness Castro's death.

''It's the least that we deserve,'' he said as he puffed on a cigar.

Domingo Delmonte, 55, said he believes Castro's absence on Saturday spells trouble for the current government.

''Castro is the one who has given the regime a style, and a change will represent a risk and a lot of work,'' he said standing outside the Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho.

Angela Velazquez, 80, said she thinks Castro is already dead. ''But if he's not, from the [television images], he looks terminal,'' she said.

Artist and Cuban exile Reinaldo Martinez, 46, who left Cuba in 1980, professed his opinion with a politically charged montage outside the crowded Versailles restaurant.

Perched on a trailer, a life-size Fidel Castro was displayed chained inside a white white wooden coffin, with the Cuban leader wearing his familiar olive military fatigues.

At his side: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, with his signature red beret atop his head, playing the role of a weeping widow.

Propped up on the other side of Castro's coffin: the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda's Osama Bin Laden.

A sign overhead read "Welcome To Your Home -- The Devil.''

Freedom Tower tribute shows range of Cuban artist Carlos Alfonzo

By Fabiola Santiago. fsantiago@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on Wed, Dec. 06, 2006

In 1990, collector and developer Craig Robins commissioned Miami artist César Trasobares to videotape a day in the life of Cuban artist Carlos Alfonzo, a man struggling to survive the AIDS virus who was recognized as one of the top talents of his generation.

In one of the most poignant moments in the film, the doctor calls Alfonzo, interrupting his work.

Bad news: His T-cell count is dangerously low.

Trasobares asks Alfonzo, who is not only his subject but also his friend, if he wants to leave the filming for later, and puts aside the camera.

''No,'' Alfonzo says, as if realizing the fragile nature of his time. "Let's go on.''

The 80-minute videotape, never publicly shown before, is part of Carlos Alfonzo: Extreme Expressions, 1980-1991, an exhibition of paintings, sculpture and works on paper at The Freedom Tower through Jan. 28.

Its opening set to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach on Thursday, the show curated by New York art historian Julia P. Herzberg features 45 works, Trasobares' videotape, and an interview Herzberg did with Alfonzo in 1988.

''Audiences will see the entire video, which I think is extraordinary, exciting and poignant,'' Herzberg says. "For anyone who knew Carlos, it's the quintessential Carlos.

''I hope,'' she adds, "that by bringing the voice directly through this particular interview, it will shed a new kind of understanding of the problems artists had across the board when they, in fact, knew they were facing death.''

The Freedom Tower retrospective is the first since the Miami Art Museum staged a retrospective of Alfonzo's work in 1997. That show traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the following year.

Alfonzo, who fled Cuba in the Mariel boatlift of 1980, died in Miami in 1991 of complications from AIDS. He was only 40, but he left an affecting body of work in an expressionist style all his own.

He developed his own language, using eyes, tears, spirals, daggers, nail-pierced tongues, to channel his range of feelings -- anger, alienation, despair -- on canvases and paper. He also tackled issues of sexual energy, violence, spirituality.

He used symbols from both santería -- he was a practitioner in Cuba -- and Catholicism, becoming interested in Christian hierography and belief after a 1986 trip to Rome.

Alfonzo grew up in a non-practicing Catholic household in which his mother ''was very religious until she wasn't,'' Herzberg says, because the Cuban Revolution discouraged religious worship. His works from 1983 to 1986 are laden with santería references to Changó with ax and double ax motifs to express the deity's power to cut through negative energy or to be a moral presence.

In the 1987 works In Flesh and In Spirit -- four pieces, two on paper and two canvases -- Alfonzo is exploring Catholism with images in which ''we have God turned backward,'' Herzberg notes.

''It's interesting how his trip to Italy, where he saw so much religious art, really affected him and motivated another thematic aspect of his investigation,'' Herzberg says.

The Freedom Tower exhibition, which includes works that were not in the MAM/Hirshhorn show, has been primarily organized with works from the Loumiet collection and some loans from Robins, an early supporter of Alfonzo who commissioned various works.

''There are works that have never been seen or have not been seen in this breadth,'' Herzberg says, citing In Flesh and In Spirit, from the Loumiet collection, as examples.

The exhibit also will include what Herzberg calls ''his masterpiece,'' The City (1989), three huge panels sized 96 by 84 inches. It's ''an archetype piece,'' based on the police beating of a man on a Miami street that Alfonzo witnessed.

''It was an opportunity for him to reflect on violence in a way, and on martyrdom, and on emotional states,'' Herzberg says. "It's fabulous.''

Many of the works will show how Alfonzo dealt with the knowledge that he was dying -- 1990 was ''the crucial year in which he dealt with it in his art,'' Herzberg says.

''He continued to evolve a vocabulary of symbolic motifs, which deal with life and death right until the end,'' she says. "In doing so, he also dealt with states of grace and transition from the here and now to the beyond.''

She points to three pieces, all of them Untitled, that depict small supplicant figures in large empty spaces, one a black figure on a yellow background, another a white figure on a black background, the third a red figure on a white background.

Herzberg is ending the Tower show with those three pieces, which have never been exhibited.

''They are quiet and poignant,'' Herzberg says. "He was always expressionistic, extremely so. That expressionistic, with lower case e, varies greatly and is a further example of a very mature artist, who by 1990 had achieved great mastery in his formal and in his thematic language.''

When Alfonzo came from Cuba, he was already a promising artist, as his work had been selected for exhibition in some Havana venues, which were small but historically significant. And within two years of his exile, he was participating in group exhibitions of Cuban artists in New York.

But the biggest shows have come after his death. Shortly after he died, he was exhibited at the 1991 Whitney Biennial. The MAM/Hirshhorn catalog, compiled by now Hirshhorn director Olga M. Viso, remains the most substantial scholarship done on his work, Herzberg says. Another 64-page catalog accompanies the new exhibit.

''Carlos was an artist who was extraordinarily serious in terms of his practice,'' Herzberg says. "He was humble ... He was extremely concerned with excellence and with the evolution that took place in his art in a relatively short time.''

Fabiola Santiago is The Miami Herald's visual arts writer.

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