CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Radio, TV Martí face a congressional
probe
A congressional investigation
of TV and Radio Martí is slated for
early 2007, a Massachusetts Democrat said.
By Christina Hoag And Oscar
Corral, choag@MiamiHerald.com. Posted on
Wed, Dec. 20, 2006.
Congress early next year will investigate
allegations of mismanagement and political
cronyism at taxpayer-funded Radio and TV
Martí, a ranking Democrat said Tuesday.
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. -- slated
to chair the oversight and investigations
subcommittee for the House International
Relations Committee -- said he will move
to hold hearings on the Martís in
late January or early February. His comments
came a day after Radio Mambí, WAQI-AM
(710), and Azteca América, WPMF-TV
38, each began carrying an hour of Martí
programming daily for payment.
''This will be a priority,'' said Delahunt,
who was in Cuba this week as part of a congressional
delegation. "There's mismanagement
. . . that really demands a thorough review.''
Government-funded media such as the Martís
cannot broadcast on U.S. airwaves because
their mission is to present the U.S. viewpoint
to foreign audiences. However, there are
loopholes in the law: Time on an AM transmitter
can be leased to circumvent signal-jamming,
and TV Martí can be ''inadvertently''
picked up by U.S. viewers as long as it
reaches Cuba.
The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which
oversees the Martí operation, portrays
the contracts as just another way to reach
Cubans on the island. Radio Mambí's
signal can reach Cuba under certain circumstances,
and WPMF-TV is carried on DirecTV, which
some Cubans can receive via a pirated signal.
Delahunt said the U.S. government is essentially
hiring the stations to reach mostly local
audiences, funded with taxpayer money. The
six-month contracts call for Mambí
to be paid $182,500 and WPMF $195,000. WPMF
general manager Enrique Landín said
Channel 38 also will sell commercials during
the Martí newscasts -- which enraged
Delahunt.
''Now we're subsidizing private commercial
stations,'' said Delahunt, who called the
Martís politically motivated boondoggles.
The Martís will receive $37 million
this year. "This is outrageous.''
The criticisms didn't surprise U.S. Rep.
Lincoln Díaz-Balart, who earmarks
funds for the Martí operation.
''I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for
Delahunt . . . to stop trying to help the
Cuban dictatorship,'' Díaz-Balart
said through his chief of staff, Ana Carbonell.
Larry Hart, a spokesman for the Broadcasting
Board of Governors, the government arm that
oversees the Martís, said the charges
of political patronage were "ridiculous.''
Both Radio Mambí and WPMF-TV were
selected after a media market survey, Hart
said. Although many government contracts
are awarded through competitive bidding,
the law allows some vendor contracts to
be issued as ''sole source'' -- without
bidding -- under circumstances such as urgency
or a unique service. In this case, Hart
said, time was of the essence after Cuban
leader Fidel Castro transferred power to
his brother Raúl in July.
''We have been redoubling efforts to get
through,'' Hart said.
Two other South Florida stations were approached,
WSBS-TV 22 and WJAN-TV 41, but neither was
willing to lease the blocks of time Martí
was seeking. Representatives at WSBS-TV
had no comment, and calls to WJAN were not
returned.
HIGHLY RATED
Radio Mambí is one of the highest-rated
radio stations in South Florida and is known
for its strong anti-Castro stance. Popular
Mambí commentator Ninoska Pérez-Castellon
is also a board member and spokeswoman for
the hard-line Cuban Liberty Council.
Mambí is the only Spanish-language
AM station that carries a 50,000-watt signal
through the night and is able to reach Cuba,
Hart said.
Most AM stations reduce their signal at
night when there are fewer listeners.
Hart acknowledged that the Cuban government's
Radio Rebelde transmits on the same frequency
as Mambí -- 710 AM. But he said the
jamming does not block Mambí in all
locations or at all times, and that the
signal gets through, particularly on the
northern coast.
Representatives at Univisión, Mambí's
corporate owner, had no comment.
WPMF-TV is a small, low-power TV affiliate
of the Azteca América network, owned
by Mexico's TV Azteca. The station is carried
on local cable systems, as well as DirecTV
and over the air. It was selected because
it is carried on DirecTV Latin America,
which is pirated in Cuba, Hart said.
Landín and Jorge De Cárdenas,
a marketing consultant to the Office of
Cuba Broadcasting, are former business partners.
State corporate records show De Cárdenas
and Landín were partners in Creative
Developers, a real estate investment company
that dissolved in 1980. They also had a
30-year business relationship, De Cárdenas
said, when Landín sold radio time
to De Cárdenas, then an advertising
executive, to place ads for his clients.
De Cárdenas said a 2003 consultant
report for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting
recommended using radio stations around
the Caribbean to transmit Radio and TV Martí.
That never happened, but the idea remained.
Calls to Pedro Roig, director of the Office
of Cuba Broadcasting, weren't returned Tuesday.
VIOLATION OF LAW
Former Director Herminio San Roman, who
ran the operation from 1997 to 2001, said
the Martís transmitted via a Miami
station, WCMQ, in the late 1980s for several
months. But an attorney for the U.S. Information
Agency found such transmissions violated
the law, he said. He could not provide a
copy of the opinion.
This is not the first time the U.S. government
has contracted U.S.-based radio stations
to air its propaganda, said John Nichols,
associate dean of Pennsylvania State University's
College of Communications.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962,
the government leased time on private radio
stations in South Florida and as far away
as New Orleans to beam Voice of America
into Cuba.
And in September 1987, Radio Mambí
and WQBA-AM La Cubanísima rebroadcast
a Martí interview with Cuban defector
Florentino Azpillaga Lombard after U.S.
officials did not make him available to
U.S. media.
Nichols noted that using the Miami stations
to broadcast overseas violates international
law because they are licensed to serve only
U.S. audiences. Cuba has long complained
to international telecommunications authorities
about the Martís.
''This gives more fuel to the Cuban government's
position,'' he said.
The hearings are almost certain to be politically
charged. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, a longtime
critic of the Martís, said Tuesday
that the transmissions over the Miami stations
appeared to be legally fuzzy.
Tape contradicts Ros-Lehtinen
The director of a documentary
on Fidel Castro says he's awaiting an apology
from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who had accused
him of distorting her comments.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Dec. 20, 2006
WASHINGTON - An Emmy Award-winning documentarian,
angered over Miami Congresswoman Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen's charge that a video in which
she appears to endorse the assassination
of Fidel Castro was altered to make her
look more extreme, is circulating another
version of the video to make his case.
The uncut version of director Dollan Cannell's
video shows Ros-Lehtinen twice welcoming
an attempt on Castro's life.
''Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has made a very serious
accusation against the team who made the
films,'' Cannell said Tuesday. "You
can't get more serious than that in terms
of an accusation of gross professional wrongdoing.
''Her accusation is completely, totally
false,'' he added. "I'd like her to
retract what she said and to apologize.''
Ros-Lehtinen, an ardent Castro opponent,
declined to comment Tuesday on the unedited
tape.
But the Republican lawmaker probably has
not heard the last of her statements that
on video appear to welcome the communist
leader's assassination.
The British documentary 638 Ways to Kill
Castro is to be released on DVD ''around
the New Year,'' Cannell told The Miami Herald
by phone. A broadcast on the Sundance Channel
is also planned.
The five-minute video, which has been posted
on the MiamiHerald.com website, shows Ros-Lehtinen
seated at her desk, listening to an off-mike
question and welcoming the opportunity of
being in a free Cuba "whether that
meant that somebody killed Fidel Castro
or whether somebody toppled his government.''
According to a transcript of the 45-minute
interview released by the filmmakers, the
interviewer compared an opportunity to kill
Castro with one to eliminate Hitler in 1939.
"And I'm just wondering in terms of
Fidel Castro, is there an argument for assassination
or an argument that would have said, maybe
this guy should have been killed or should
be killed?''
''I would never compare any demon to Hitler,''
Ros-Lehtinen responded. "He is in a
special category of hell.''
She then goes on to utter the words that
earlier appeared on a 28-second version
of the interview that made the rounds on
Youtube.com, the video-sharing website,
and has been repeatedly played by TV stations
in Miami.
''I welcome the opportunity of having anyone
assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader
who is oppressing the people,'' Ros-Lehtinen
says in the video clip.
The lawmaker, who will become the ranking
Republican member of the House International
Relations Committee when Congress reconvenes
next month, told The Miami Herald when the
earlier version of the interview appeared
that it was "twisted in a way that
gives the viewer a totally wrong impression.''
''I've said the community has moved on,
that those strategies are not being used
today,'' she said, "but apparently
the filmmakers think we're still in a '60s
mentality.''
The five-minute tape shows her qualifying
her comments by saying that "if they
don't assassinate him and bring him to trial,
I welcome the opportunity to have him meet
a jury of his peers and answer.''
The transcript then moves on to other topics.
The British 75-minute version of 638 Ways
to Kill Castro is touted as a "50-year-long
detective thriller about the man who always
got away.''
The DVD version of the film will include
75 minutes of extra material, including
the interviews with Ros-Lehtinen and former
President Jimmy Carter, who, Cannell says,
has an "entirely honorable role in
this story.''
Those interviews were cut from the UK broadcast
because of time constraints.
''So much story to tell in such a short
time, we decided to focus on people who've
been directly involved in assassination
attempts against Castro,'' Cannell said.
In years past, Castro was the target of
several U.S.-sponsored assassination attempts.
The Ros-Lehtinen interview was conducted
in March, before the July 31 announcement
by the Cuban government that Castro was
sick and was temporarily transfering his
powers to his brother Raúl and a
group of select advisors.
Couple strikes plea deal in Castro 'spy'
case
A couple who worked at Florida
International University pleaded guilty
to reduced charges in a Cuban government
'spy' case.
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Dec. 20, 2006
Almost one year after his arrest jolted
Miami, former Florida International University
professor Carlos Alvarez pleaded guilty
Tuesday to conspiring to be an unregistered
agent who informed on the Cuban exile community
for the communist government of Fidel Castro.
His wife, Elsa, an FIU counselor on leave,
also pleaded guilty in federal court in
Miami to being aware of his illegal activity,
harboring him and failing to disclose it
to authorities.
The Alvarezes averted a difficult jury
trial next month on the more serious, previous
charge of being Cuban agents who did not
register with the U.S. government, an offense
that carries up to 10 years in prison.
The plea deals were struck after a judge
decided to allow a major piece of incriminating
evidence at trial -- Carlos Alvarez's ''confession''
last year to the FBI of his collaboration
with Cuban intelligence agents, including
use of a home computer, encrypted disks
and travel to the island.
''The entire case against Dr. Alvarez came
from his own mouth,'' defense lawyer Steven
Chaykin said outside the courthouse. He
argued that his client told FBI agents ''everything
he did'' after they dangled a ''promise''
to leave him alone if he told the truth.
Both Chaykin and Elsa Alvarez's lawyer,
Jane Moscowitz, stressed to reporters that
their clients ''never sought to do any harm
to anyone in this community.'' Chaykin said
his client was simply trying to work toward
lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba through
exchange programs -- an ''idealism'' infused
with ''naiveté'' that ''ensnared''
him in the Cuban intelligence service.
Prosecutors condemned the Alvarezes' felony
activities with Cuba's hostile regime.
''Today's guilty pleas serve as a stark
reminder that there are among us some who,
while enjoying the freedom and liberty our
great nation offers, continue to serve the
interests of another master,'' U.S. Attorney
R. Alexander Acosta said.
The plea agreements, approved by U.S. District
Judge K. Michael Moore, mean that Carlos
Alvarez faces up to five years in prison
and his wife, Elsa, up to three years at
their sentencing, which is set for Feb.
27. Carlos, who has been held at the Miami
Federal Detention Center since his arrest
in January, smiled and blew kisses to a
half-dozen supporters in the courtroom.
His wife, who was released on a $400,000
bond by the judge in June, remained stoic.
Alvarez, 61, was a longtime FIU psychology
professor who formally resigned on Nov.
22, according to a school spokeswoman. His
wife, Elsa, 56, was placed on a leave of
absence without pay on Nov. 3.
The couple, who have five children, had
been on paid administrative leave.
The FBI began targeting the couples' activities
in 2001, when the agency installed a hidden
microphone in the bedroom of their Miami-Dade
home.
In the summer of 2005, two FBI agents picked
up Carlos Alvarez at a local Publix and
took him to a hotel, where he detailed his
''conspiracy'' with Cuban agents.
On Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew
Axelrod, aided by prosecutor Brian Frazier,
depicted the Alvarezes in distinctly different
roles.
Axelrod said Carlos Alvarez's involvement
with the Cuba intelligence service began
in 1977, noting he gathered information
in Miami "on prominent people, community
attitudes, political developments and current
events of interest to the Cuban government.''
Among the exiles under surveillance: FIU
president Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique. He
declined to comment.
Axelrod revealed a web of technology, secrets
and cover-ups that would have been presented
at trial.
''Alvarez received these instructions through
personal meetings, messages written on water-soluble
paper, coded pager messages and encrypted
electronic communications,'' he told the
judge. "The electronic communications
involved shortwave radio messages from the
Cuban intelligence service, which Alvarez
decrypted using a computer disk.''
Alvarez then gathered the requested information
and compiled written reports, which he encrypted
using another computer disk. Alvarez signed
these reports with his code name, "David.''
''Alvarez mailed these reports to various
post office boxes in New York,'' then destroyed
the evidence, Axelrod said.
Communication between Alvarez and his co-conspirators
''ceased'' when the U.S. attorney's office
in Miami charged 10 suspects with espionage
in the so-called Wasp spy case in 1998.
The prosecutor said Elsa Alvarez became
aware of her husband's ''conspiracy'' in
1982. He said her role ''helped conceal
the true nature of his activities'' -- until
July 2005, when she spoke to the FBI.
Elsa Alvarez's lawyer, Moscowitz, said
her client "was very concerned for
Carlos.''
Radio, TV Martí to be aired locally
U.S. audiences will be able
to get news from TV and Radio Martí
via two South Florida stations, despite
a law that generally prohibits distribution
in the United States.
By Christina Hoag, choag@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 19, 2006
Taxpayer-funded TV and Radio Martí
are spending $377,500 to air select programs
on South Florida broadcast stations over
the next six months, using loopholes in
a law that prohibits the propaganda channels
from distribution within the United States.
The deals appear to be the first of their
kind between the Martís and private
commercial stations with mostly U.S. audiences.
The stations -- Univisión's Radio
Mambí 710 AM and WPMF-TV 38, the
Azteca América affiliate owned by
TVC Broadcasting -- technically can reach
Cuba.
The agreements come at a time when Fidel
Castro, Cuba's longtime leader, is thought
to be dying. The Cuban government jams Martí
transmissions directly to the island, but
experts said the signal from a South Florida
AM radio station can get there, very clearly
at night. And WPMF-TV, an over-the-air station,
can be seen by Cubans with satellite dishes.
''It's another method to get our signal
in,'' Pedro Roig, director of the Office
of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs the Martís,
said on Radio Mambí Monday. Roig
estimated that 30,000 Cubans can receive
satellite TV. "It's a decision taken
at the White House.''
Critics, however, noted that a Cuban audience
for either station is only an infinitesimal
fraction of their South Florida audience,
and both stations are clearly aimed at South
Floridians.
''It certainly sounds like it's inconsistent
with the spirit of the federal law,'' said
John Nichols, associate dean of Pennsylvania
State University's College of Communication.
He is a longtime monitor -- and critic --
of the Martís.
Joe García, executive vice president
of the New Democratic Network, said he was
outraged. Radio Mambí, known for
its virulent anti-Castro commentary, is
blocked in Cuba, he said.
''This is a fraud,'' García said.
"This is using taxpayer dollars for
a political payoff to benefit the most Republican
and politically charged radio station in
Miami. They know well that the station isn't
heard in Cuba, because Cuba transmits Radio
Rebelde over the exact same frequency.''
Ninoska Perez, a commentator for Radio
Mambí, declined to talk to The Miami
Herald. Mambí general manager Claudia
Puig did not immediately respond to a request
for comment.
TV and Radio Martí, and other U.S.
government-funded media such as Voice of
America, are prohibited by law from airing
in the United States because their content
is designed for foreign audiences. The Martí
programs -- which include documentaries,
comedies, interviews and talk shows -- are
aimed at balancing the information Cubans
on the island receive from their government,
which restricts press access, with the viewpoints
of the U.S. government.
However, there are exceptions to the prohibition,
said Larry Hart, a spokesman for the Broadcasting
Board of Governors, which oversees the Martís.
''We believe we have the authority to do
this,'' Hart said. He added that the deals
were made after extensive consultation with
the congressional committees overseeing
the Martís.
According to the act governing Radio Martí,
the U.S. government is allowed to lease
time on the AM band to overcome significant
signal-jamming by the Cuban government.
The provision for the TV Martí broadcasts
is far less clear. The Broadcasting Board
of Governors appears to be relying upon
a paragraph in the law that terms dissemination
in the United States illegal unless "such
dissemination is inadvertent.''
Hart likened inadvertent dissemination
to a person in the United States picking
up Radio Martí on a shortwave. However,
in the case of WPMF-TV, South Floridians
are not ''inadvertently'' tuning into the
station, they are the station's main audience.
Hart noted that the law was written before
the advent of new technology, such as satellite
and the Internet.
On Radio Mambí Monday morning, Jorge
Luis Hernández, director of broadcast
operations for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting,
said the White House pushed to have the
Martís broadcast using local stations
in Miami.
''The U.S. government has decided that
DirecTV, as of today, is a new way for TV
Martí to broadcast,'' he said.
Under the six-month contracts, Mambí
will earn $182,500 to carry Radio Martí
from midnight to 1 a.m. nightly.
WPMF-TV will earn $195,000 to air TV Martí's
half-hour news programs at 6:30 p.m. and
11 p.m., plus one-minute news briefs from
noon to midnight. WPMF may pick up Saturday
programming as well, said general manager
Enrique Landín.
''We're hoping that Cuba will pick up the
signal on DirecTV and Dish network,'' said
Landín, who is Cuban. "The newscast
is well done. It's not too political and
it's very informative.''
Miami Herald staff writer Oscar Corral
contributed to this report.
Problems dog broadcaster
The most recent analysis
of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting found
some programs have let bias creep in.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 19, 2006
Almost four years ago, an Inspector General's
audit ripped TV and Radio Martí bosses
for improper hiring practices. The director
resigned under a barrage of criticism for
cronyism and patronage. Programming needed
an overhaul to curtail bias, a separate
study concluded.
Miami's powerful Cuban-American congressional
leaders looked to local lawyer Pedro Roig
to turn the operation around.
Today, many of the problems that have dogged
the Martí broadcasters for two decades
remain. A miniscule number of people in
Cuba hear or see the broadcasts. The Office
of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees the
Martí operation, is once again beset
by scandal -- a top executive was indicted
last month on a kickback-for-contracts scheme.
Roig -- who turned in the executive to
investigators -- says his goal has been
to improve and diversify programming by
contracting the best talent available.
''What interests us is professional content.
All these people I see here are magnificent
professionals, and it gives me great pride
to know that we can have people of this
caliber in Radio and TV Martí,''
Roig said. "It's a magnificent rainbow.''
Roig, 66, set out to clean up a government-financed
media operation plagued with low morale,
allegations of cronyism -- but still highly
paid. OCB salaries are higher than those
at other U.S. government-financed media.
One of Roig's first hires: his wife's nephew,
Alberto Mascaro, as chief of staff. His
salary: more than $100,000 a year. Mascaro
had no media management experience.
''I was an international business manager
for a Fortune 500 industrial parts and supply
company,'' he told The Miami Herald.
This year, Roig tapped Luis Zuñiga,
a former political prisoner and the executive
director of the Cuban Liberty Council (CLC),
to run ''special projects.'' Yearly salary:
$100,000. Zuñiga had no media management
experience.
Zuñiga said he is qualified because
he has a bachelor's degree in business from
Florida International University. He also
helped the Cuban American National Foundation
launch a radio show to Cuba -- before he
and a group of hard-liners split because
they felt CANF had gone soft on Fidel Castro.
Roig said several ''very qualified'' people
applied for Zuñiga's position, which
he said posted publicly.
CLC Treasurer Feliciano Foyo said Roig
recruited Zuñiga: "We found
out from Roig, who told us he was interested
in Luis and wanted us to agree with an offer
he had for him.''
A Bay of Pigs veteran and historian, Roig
concedes he lacked media management experience
when got the OCB job in 2003.
Roig sought help from Herbert Levin, a
veteran radio executive who already had
a $5,000, no-bid contract with OCB to help
Radio Martí boost its signal to Cuba.
Levin got that contract three months after
the U.S. Senate confirmed Joaquin Blaya,
his former business partner at Radio Unica,
to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG),
which oversees OCB.
Salvador Lew, OCB's former director, said
Blaya did not sway his decision to give
Levin the original contract. Blaya said
he did not get involved. Levin's company
won subsequent contracts by competitive
bid.
With Roig at the helm, Levin partnered
with Jorge De Cárdenas, a popular
advertising executive convicted on obstruction
of justice charges in the late 1990s in
a Miami corruption case. De Cárdenas
said he and Roig are longtime friends who
have run political campaigns together, but
that their friendship did not help him or
Levin get OCB work.
Roig said he did not tell Levin to hire
De Cárdenas, who has acted as a media
liaison to Roig and interviews new arrivals
from Cuba to help shape programming.
''I paid my dues to society, and I have
a right to make a living,'' De Cárdenas
said. Roig said De Cárdenas does
not need security clearance to enter Martí
headquarters -- as required for employees
and contractors -- because he goes there
as a visitor.
Spanish Radio Productions Inc., owned by
Levin, has received more than $210,000 since
2003 to overhaul programming.
Despite having dozens of U.S.-paid journalists
on staff, OCB has spent about $1 million
since 2001 to contract at least 49 other
news gatherers who also work or freelance
at major media outlets in Miami. Several
have reported on TV and Radio Martí
for their local news organizations.
Joe Garcia -- a former CANF director and
now vice president of the New Democratic
Network, which helps Democrats recruit Hispanic
voters -- said paying local journalists
gives the appearance that OCB is trying
to buy off criticism.
Roig and his predecessor, Lew, say they
hire local journalists to improve programming:
''No one is asked, and it has never been
a point of discussion with anyone to defend
or protect a certain policy viewpoint,''
said Roig, adding that contract journalists
are hired without bidding, based on their
talents.
Lew jokingly said OCB policy had resulted
in contracts going to "half the Miami
phone book.''
OCB's contracts, hiring practices and salary
scale have come under fire for two decades.
In 1985, in a funding debate on the floor
of the U.S. House, critics of Radio Martí
called it a ''gold-plated operation'' for
its lavish salaries.
Roig says he has moved to bring contractor
salaries in line with federal requirements,
reducing payments for half-hour shows to
between $75 and $125 per show. During Lew's
tenure, some contractors earned as much
as $400 an hour.
Bias in some programming persists, though
objectivity overall continues to improve,
according to two recent evaluations by the
International Broadcasting Bureau's Office
of Performance Review.
Program quality reports done this summer
for TV Martí and for Radio Martí
found many news and entertainment shows
met U.S. guidelines for balance and fairness,
but bias and vulgarity crept into some shows,
and selection of guests or contract hosts
seemed out of place for topics covered in
other shows. Quality reports come out every
year or two.
The analysis found one show in particular,
La Oficina del Jefe, which spoofs a decrepit
Fidel Castro, to be funny but sometimes
''vulgar'' and to inordinately poke fun
at the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria.
It also found bias among a few news shows
hosted by contractors.
A presidential advisory board was created
to guide Martí policy and provide
oversight. Yet it has not met in the six
years of Bush's presidency, BBG officials
say, for lack of a quorum.
The nine-member board is supposed to act
as a check and balance for Martí,
but several members say they haven't been
called to meet.
Asked why the board hasn't met, White House
spokesman Blair Jones said in an e-mail:"The
president has concentrated primarily on
putting key personnel in place on the Broadcasting
Board of Governors and the Office of Cuba
Broadcasting and remains focused on empowering
Radio and TV Martí so they are able
to broadcast a message of freedom and democracy
to the Cuban people.''
The U.S. government has a long tradition
of using broadcasting to promote democracy,
most notably in Eastern Europe during the
Cold War with Radio Free Europe. The OCB
and the Washington-based Voice of America
operate as part of the U.S. government,
and not as an independent nonprofit.
''Radio and TV Martí are more under
the influence of the exile community than
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were
from European emigrés,'' said Ross
Johnson, who ran Radio Free Europe from
1988 to 1991. "Radio Free Europe fought
those battles in the 1950s and established
their distance from the emigrés.''
The exile community consolidated its control
over the Martí operation when Congress
and the Clinton administration, in the run-up
to the 1996 election and under pressure
from CANF founder Jorge Mas Canosa and other
exiles, agreed to move the stations from
Washington to Miami.
The OCB building in Miami-Dade is named
after Mas Canosa.
''It can be negative if it affects the
objectivity of the reporting and keeping
your distance from the story,'' Johnson
said of exile influence.
"It can also affect objectivity if
the emigré community affects who
gets hired and promoted.''
Roig said politics doesn't influence OCB.
"No one has broken the firewall. We
are totally independent.''
Fake money prompts issuance of new bills
in Cuba
In a mission to combat fake
currency, Cuba has introduced a new line
of peso bills with tougher security measures.
By Miami Herald Staff, cuba@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 19, 2006
In line at a Havana currency exchange house
recently, 62-year-old Carlos suddenly saw
the customer in front of him dash out at
top speed as he heard the teller shout,
"Stop, chico! This is a fake!''
''The guy took off running,'' said Carlos,
a newspaper vendor whose last name was withheld
by The Miami Herald for fear of reprisals.
"The guards went after him and probably
wherever he got the counterfeits from.
'SHARP AS A KNIFE'
"No one passes fake bills off on me.
I'm as sharp as a knife with that.''
Responding to increasing reports of false
convertible peso bills in Cuba, the Central
Bank on Monday announced a new series of
bills with enhanced security features. The
bills are worthless anywhere else in the
world, but are the main tender used for
most shopping on the island.
The new bills will include the denomination
in the watermark, adding the value next
to the hidden image of patriot José
Martí.
The back of each bill will also have a
new picture, depending on its value. For
example, the one-peso bill will show a picture
of Martí's combat death; the three-peso
bill, a picture of the 1958 battle of Santa
Clara, in which rebels scored a victory
over Batista's regime; the five-peso bill,
a picture of the protest at Baragua in the
struggle for independence from Spain.
'FATHERLAND OR DEATH!'
The bills maintain the security thread
that reads "Fatherland or death! We
shall overcome!''
The Cuban government first introduced the
convertible peso in 1994, shortly after
legalizing the U.S. dollar. The greenback
was pulled off the market in 2004, making
the so-called ''cuc'' the most widely used
legal tender on the island and the only
way to buy most consumer goods.
It is worth $1.08 but cannot be exchanged
anywhere but in Cuba.
The Cuban government has denounced the
use of fake bills as an exile-driven plot
to destroy the Cuban economy. During a 1999
terrorism trial in Cuba, a self-proclaimed
spy for the Cuban government testified that
a Cuban American National Foundation board
member gave him thousands of fake pesos
to dump on the Cuban economy.
Some stores in Cuba keep a log of shoppers'
names and ID numbers in case a 50-peso or
100-peso bill turns up fake.
''I saw a fake five cuc once given to a
vendor last year,'' said Lorenzo, who works
in a bookstore. "But that is really,
really rare. You're more likely to see a
fake $100 American bill. Our bills are hard
to copy.''
But several waiters, taxi drivers and currency
exchange tellers in Havana said although
counterfeits are uncommon, they pop up sporadically.
'CUBANS KNOW'
''We have gotten fakes, mostly from tourists
who don't know any better,'' said Damián,
a waiter. "Cubans know what to look
for.''
The new bills will circulate alongside
the old ones until the older bills are gradually
withdrawn, Cuba's daily paper Granma reported.
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.
TV and Radio Martí face another
audit
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Mon, Dec. 18, 2006
Inside a heavily guarded, three-story building
in an industrial section of West Miami-Dade,
Radio and TV Martí spent $37 million
this year to crank out news and entertainment
that few Cubans on the communist island
ever hear or see.
U.S. funding has remained generous despite
Cuba's persistent jamming of TV Martí
signals, plummeting numbers of listeners
for Radio Martí and two federal audits
-- in 1999 and 2003 -- that found a repeated
history of cronyism and ''inappropriate
and inadequate'' hiring practices at the
Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees
the operation.
OCB has spent $250 million in the past
10 years to reach Cuban listeners and viewers
-- by far the largest expenditure per listener
or viewer among U.S.-government financed
broadcasts.
''As a taxpayer and as a government official,
the money has not been well spent [on TV
Martí],'' said Otto Reich, former
Undersecretary of State for the Western
Hemisphere, who stressed he supports Radio
and TV Martí's mission because if
the U.S. broadcasts could reach more Cubans,
they could help spark Democratic change.
OCB Director Pedro Roig says TV Martí
turned the corner in August when U.S. flights
resumed, in an attempt to overcome Cuba's
jamming of TV signals.
''I believe in what I'm doing,'' said Roig.
"The best way to help people attain
democracy in Cuba is to give them the information
they need.''
Despite Roig's focus on improving the Martí
operation, OCB faced embarrassing news last
month: Federal prosecutors indicted a senior
TV Martí executive in a kickback-for-contracts
scheme. The Inspector General's Office has
launched a broad look at OCB operations,
searching for fraud, mismanagement and misuse
of taxpayer dollars.
An investigation by The Miami Herald of
OCB spending records obtained through the
Freedom of Information Act found:
o TV Martí spent more than $10 million
this past fiscal year to produce and broadcast
programming unseen by the vast majority
of Cuba's 11 million citizens. A military
plane tasked with trying to counteract Cuba's
jamming of TV Martí was reassigned
to Iraq last year. After about a nine-month
absence, the U.S. contracted a private plane
to fly daily in August, following Cuba's
announcement that strongman Fidel Castro
was ceding power to his brother, Raúl.
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE
Martí administrators offer only
anecdotal evidence that the plane occasionally
penetrates Cuba's aggressive jamming. An
independent survey of viewership conducted
by a government contractor in June 2005
found TV broadcasts reached about 9,000
Cubans -- just one-tenth of one percent
of the island's adult population of 8.9
million on a weekly basis. Results of a
new government-financed survey will be available
in the coming months.
o OCB spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
on its website, but even at the height of
Castro's announcement that he had undergone
surgery, only 388 of the 422,647 hits on
Radio and TV Martí's website that
month came from Cuba, according to Jorge
Luis Hernandez, OCB director of broadcast
operations. In November, martinoticias.com
received 135 hits from Cuba.
OCB bosses admit that few Cubans, except
high-ranking government officials, have
access to satellite broadcasts or broadband
Internet. It is illegal in Cuba to have
an unauthorized satellite antenna. Nor can
most Cubans afford one.
o Even though OCB employed 149 people as
of January -- with an average annual salary
of $79,795 and with 18 of them earning six-figure
salaries -- it spent more than $2 million
of its budget to hire about 200 contractors
to host shows or provide other services,
such as technical support. Among those benefiting
from a lucrative contract is a convicted
felon who is a longtime friend of Roig.
Contractors include at least 49 journalists
and commentators also working for South
Florida Spanish-language media -- among
them Channel 41, Telemundo, Univision and,
until recently, El Nuevo Herald. In all,
OCB spent $11 million on contractors since
2001.
A 2003 Inspector General audit of OCB found
cronyism in hiring and an overreliance on
local journalists -- the latter left experienced
Martí journalists idle for chunks
of their day, which contributed to sagging
employee morale, raised security concerns
and wasted taxpayers' money. Roig said he
did end some contracts, while adding others,
and also has moved some projects in-house.
UNPAID JOURNALISTS
o Independent journalists in Cuba who provide
10 to 40 percent of Radio Martí's
news programming on any given day are not
paid. The reason: to protect Cuban journalists
from being charged as ''mercenaries'' and
imprisoned by the communist government.
Yet U.S.-financed Radio Free Asia, which
broadcasts into communist countries, such
as China, pays its freelance reporters,
even though they, too, face ''grave repercussions''
from the governments they cover, said RFA
spokeswoman Sarah Jackson-Han.
''No one wants to talk about money, but
we deserve to get paid for the work we do,''
said Jaime Leygonier, an independent journalist
in Cuba who reports for Radio Martí.
"To take the economic anguish away
from the opposition is huge. I see it not
as money, but as ammunition, as though we
were in a war and our supporters were throwing
us bullets.''
Even Radio and TV Martí's defenders
in the Bush administration and Congress
have questioned spending millions to produce
TV programs that Cuba systematically blocks.
''It was like a bone that was thrown at
the Cuban-American community to pretend
that there was this TV Martí operation
with studios and interviews and programs
going to Cuba,'' said Reich, who made his
comments before the daily plane flights
began in August to transmit broadcasts.
LIMITED REACH
For months, TV Martí broadcast only
from a Spanish satellite of limited reach
because the plane was reassigned to Iraq.
That plane had replaced a blimp destroyed
off the Florida Keys by a hurricane in 2005.
Current flights are trying to overcome Cuba's
jamming in Havana and central and western
Cuba of TV Martí signals for five
hours every night.
Under Roig, viewership has continued to
plunge -- just one of 1,500 Cubans polled
by the government in 2005 said they were
able to see TV Martí -- and radio's
weekly audience has dropped from 1.7 percent
of Cuba's adult population in 2003 to 1.2
percent last year. Broadcasting Board of
Governors spokesman Joe O'Connell said the
drop was not "statistically significant.''
GAUGING INFLUENCE
Gauging the broadcasts' influence in Cuba
remains a challenge. Cubans reached by phone
may be reluctant to admit they see or hear
the broadcasts, fearing retribution from
the communist government.
The Herald contacted 10 random Cuban households
in December and found no one willing to
admit they hear Radio Martí or get
the TV signal.
''I don't get that here. We don't listen
to that stuff in this house,'' said Maylen,
who lives in Holguin. She declined to give
her last name.
However, 10 dissidents contacted in Havana
said they hear Radio Martí, mostly
on shortwave radio, and that the Cuban government's
jamming has grown worse since August.
TV reception remains virtually nonexistent,
they said, even with the U.S. flights --
unless they watch the TV programming on
the Internet site of the U.S. Interests
Section in Havana.
''Up to now, I have not been able to see
TV Martí, but Radio Martí
you can catch,'' human rights activist Elizardo
Sanchez said Friday by telephone from Havana.
"The country is listening.''
Dissidents said Radio Martí fulfills
a critical role.
''The government has kidnapped the media,''
said Laura Pollan of Havana. "We need
other points of views so we can make our
own analysis of what's going on in the world
and here.''
The stagnant, if not slipping, audience
numbers worry OCB's defenders as a new,
Democrat-controlled Congress may try to
cut the budget.
OCB leaders have taken to local airwaves
to defend Martí's mission -- and
its budget -- at a critical juncture when
Castro is said to be on his death bed.
Hernandez -- a former city of Miami spokesman
-- was on a Miami Cuban radio station recently
warning that critics in Washington would
try to slash the Martí budget. He
called the OCB's $37 million budget "a
drop in the Pacific Ocean.''
Attempting to show that a growing number
of Cubans can watch TV Martí, he
produced taped calls with unidentified dissidents
and others who spoke about Martí-produced
shows they had seen or heard in Cuba.
'IMPORTANT ROLE'
U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart did
not answer a reporter's question Friday
about whether the U.S. government can do
anything more to improve Martí operations,
instead saying the broadcasts play an important
role.
''Radio and TV Martí will play a
significant role in providing the Cuban
people with vital information on the pro-democracy
movement's efforts throughout the island
to bring about democratic change,'' Díaz-Balart
said in an e-mail through a spokeswoman.
Records show that in 2005 Radio Martí
-- which is best heard on shortwave radio
that bypasses Cuba's jamming -- spent about
250 times more money to reach a listener
in Cuba than the U.S. spent to reach listeners
through Middle East Broadcasting Networks,
Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty.
For TV Martí, reaching a viewer
was 1,500 times more expensive than for
those other U.S. broadcasters.
Despite transmitting challenges and ghost
broadcasts, Roig doubled the number of TV
shows this year, and some of TV and Radio
Martí's contractors' hours were extended,
he said -- all in an effort to broaden the
appeal of programming to a younger and more
diverse Cuban audience.
He has added lifestyle and comedy shows
to the mix of news, sports and political
analysis -- and produced shows offering
opinions by more Afro-Cubans living on the
island or abroad.
''We always thought the [plane] was going
to come back,'' Roig said. 'And what do
you say? What do you do with your employees
-- send them home? . . . When I saw that
situation, I said, 'Let's prepare for the
daily plane flights.' ''
Miami Herald staff writers Gladys Amador,
Alfonso Chardy and Breanne Gilpatrick contributed
to this report.
Analysis finds bias in TV, Radio Martí
programs
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Mon, Dec. 18, 2006
Almost four years ago, an Inspector General's
audit ripped TV and Radio Martí bosses
for improper hiring practices. The director
resigned under a barrage of criticism for
cronyism and patronage. Programming needed
an overhaul to curtail bias, a separate
study concluded.
Miami's powerful Cuban-American congressional
leaders looked to local lawyer Pedro Roig
to turn the operation around.
Today, many of the problems that have dogged
the Martí broadcasters for two decades
remain. A miniscule number of people in
Cuba hear or see the broadcasts. The Office
of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees the
Martí operation, is once again beset
by scandal -- a top executive was indicted
last month on a kickback-for-contracts scheme.
Roig -- who turned in the executive to
investigators -- says his goal has been
to improve and diversify programming by
contracting the best talent available.
''What interests us is professional content.
All these people I see here are magnificent
professionals, and it gives me great pride
to know that we can have people of this
caliber in Radio and TV Martí,''
Roig said. "It's a magnificent rainbow.''
Roig, 66, set out to clean up a government-financed
media operation beset with low morale, allegations
of cronyism -- but still highly paid. OCB
salaries are higher than those at other
U.S. government-financed media.
One of Roig's first hires: his wife's nephew,
Alberto Mascaro, as chief of staff. His
salary: more than $100,000 a year. Mascaro
had no media management experience.
''I was an international business manager
for a Fortune 500 industrial parts and supply
company,'' he told The Miami Herald.
This year, Roig tapped Luis Zuñiga,
a former political prisoner and the executive
director of the Cuban Liberty Council (CLC),
to run ''special projects.'' Yearly salary:
$100,000. Zuñiga had no media management
experience.
Zuñiga said he is qualified because
he has a bachelor's degree in business from
Florida International University. He also
helped the Cuban American National Foundation
launch a radio show to Cuba -- before he
and a group of hard-liners split because
they felt CANF had gone soft on Fidel Castro.
Roig said several ''very qualified'' people
applied for Zuñiga's position, which
he said posted publicly.
CLC Treasurer Feliciano Foyo said Roig
recruited Zuñiga: "We found
out from Roig, who told us he was interested
in Luis and wanted us to agree with an offer
he had for him.''
A Bay of Pigs veteran and historian, Roig
concedes he lacked media management experience
when got the OCB job in 2003.
Roig sought help from Herbert Levin, a
veteran radio executive who already had
a $5,000, no-bid contract with OCB to help
Radio Martí boost its signal to Cuba.
Levin got that contract three months after
the U.S. Senate confirmed Joaquin Blaya,
his former business partner at Radio Unica,
to the Broadcasting Board of Governors,
which oversees OCB.
Salvador Lew, OCB's former director, said
Blaya did not sway his decision to give
Levin the original contract. Blaya said
he did not get involved. Levin's company
won subsequent contracts by competitive
bid.
With Roig at the helm, Levin partnered
with Jorge De Cárdenas, a popular
advertising executive convicted on obstruction
of justice charges in the late 1990s in
a Miami corruption case. De Cárdenas
said he and Roig are longtime friends who
have run political campaigns together, but
that their friendship did not help him or
Levin get OCB work.
Roig said he did not tell Levin to hire
De Cárdenas, who has acted as a media
liaison to Roig and interviews new arrivals
from Cuba to help shape programming.
''I paid my dues to society, and I have
a right to make a living,'' De Cárdenas
said. Roig said De Cárdenas does
not need security clearance to enter Martí
headquarters -- as required for employees
and contractors -- because he goes there
as a visitor.
Spanish Radio Productions Inc., owned by
Levin, has received more than $210,000 since
2003 to overhaul programming.
Despite having dozens of U.S.-paid journalists
on staff, OCB has spent about $1 million
since 2001 to contract at least 49 other
news gatherers who also work or freelance
at major media outlets in Miami. Several
have reported on TV and Radio Martí
for their local news organizations.
Joe Garcia -- a former CANF chairman and
now vice president of the New Democratic
Network, which helps Democrats recruit Hispanic
voters -- said paying local journalists
gives the appearance that OCB is trying
to buy off criticism.
Roig and his predecessors, Lew, say they
hire local journalists to improve programming:
''No one is asked, and it has never been
a point of discussion with anyone to defend
or protect a certain policy viewpoint,''
said Roig, adding that contract journalists
are hired without bidding, based on their
talents.
Lew jokingly said OCB policy had resulted
in contracts going to "half the Miami
phone book.''
OCB's contracts, hiring practices and salary
scale have come under fire for two decades.
In 1985, in a funding debate on the floor
of the U.S. House, critics of Radio Martí
called it a ''gold-plated operation'' for
its lavish salaries.
Roig says he has moved to bring contractor
salaries in line with federal requirements,
reducing payments for half-hour shows to
between $75 and $125 per show. During Lew's
tenure, some contractors earned as much
as $400 an hour.
Bias in some programming persists, though
objectivity overall continues to improve,
according to two recent evaluations by the
International Broadcasting Bureau's Office
of Performance Review.
Program quality reports done this summer
for TV Martí and for Radio Martí
found many news and entertainment shows
met U.S. guidelines for balance and fairness,
but bias and vulgarity crept into some shows,
and the selection of guests or contract
hosts seemed out of place for topics covered
in other shows. Quality reports are published
every year or two.
The analysis found one show in particular,
La Oficina del Jefe, which spoofs a decrepit
Fidel Castro, to be funny but sometimes
''vulgar'' and to inordinately poke fun
at the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria.
It also found bias among a few news shows
hosted by contractors.
OCB has a presidential advisory board,
which was created to guide Martí
policy and provide oversight. Yet it has
not met in the six years of Bush's presidency,
White House officials say, for lack of a
quorum.
The nine-member board is supposed to act
as a checks and balance for Martí,
but several board members say they haven't
been called to meet. Robert McKinney, 80,
a former radio station owner and current
member of OCB's advisory board, said the
board could provide helpful programming
advice now that Castro has ceded power to
his brother Raúl.
''It's been disappointing,'' he said.
Asked why the board hasn't met, White House
spokesman Blair Jones said in an e-mail:"The
President has concentrated primarily on
putting key personnel in place on the Broadcasting
Board of Governors and the Office of Cuba
Broadcasting and remains focused on empowering
Radio and TV Martí so they are able
to broadcast a message of freedom and democracy
to the Cuban people.''
The U.S. government has a long tradition
of using broadcasting to promote democracy,
most notably in Eastern Europe during the
Cold War with Radio Free Europe. The OCB
and the Washington-based Voice of America
operate as part of the U.S. government,
and not as an independent nonprofit. Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia,
and Middle East Broadcasting Networks all
operate as nonprofits with public funds,
but independent of federal government control.
''Radio and TV Martí are more under
the influence of the exile community than
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were
from European emigrés,'' said Ross
Johnson, who ran Radio Free Europe from
1988 to 1991, as the Cold War ended. "Radio
Free Europe fought those battles in the
1950s and established their distance from
the emigrés.''
The exile community consolidated its control
over the Martí operation when Congress
and the Clinton administration, in the run-up
to the 1996 election and under pressure
from CANF founder Jorge Mas Canosa and other
exiles, agreed to move the stations from
Washington to Miami. The OCB building in
Miami-Dade is named after Mas Canosa.
''It can be negative if it affects the
objectivity of the reporting and keeping
your distance from the story,'' Johnson
said of exile influence. "It can also
affect objectivity if the emigré
community affects who gets hired and promoted.''
Roig said politics don't influence OCB.
"No one has broken the firewall. We
are totally independent.''
Migrants say Cuba is slow to issue exit
visas
A group of Cuban migrants
talks about their successful trip back to
Florida on a homemade boat -- almost a year
after they were repatriated because they
had landed on an old bridge.
By Elias E. Lopez, elopez@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 17, 2006
Reunited and relieved.
That summed up the sentiments of a group
of Cuban migrants who went before a cluster
of microphones and television cameras Saturday
to talk about their successful journey to
U.S. soil -- nearly a year after the U.S.
government had returned them to Cuba in
a controversial decision that angered many
in Miami's Cuban exile community.
''We're very happy to be here,'' said Marino
Hernández, 42. "We were never
afraid, we just decided to do it.''
Hernández was among nine Cuban migrants
who made it to shore in a homemade boat
on Friday. The group landed in the Florida
Keys, just south of the Seven Mile Bridge.
Hernandez and 14-year-old Osmiel were reunited
with Mariela Conesa, of Hialeah, who had
not seen her husband and son in almost nine
years.
''He's already a man,'' said Conesa, 36,
rubbing her son's shoulders at the press
conference. "He's braver than I ever
was.''
The reunification of the family brought
to an end a long odyssey that began in the
predawn hours of Jan. 4 when Hernández
and Osmiel first landed on a piling of the
Old Flagler Bridge near Marathon with 13
other Cubans.
What they didn't realize is that they and
the others would become entwined in an immigration
debate centered around the wet-foot/dry-foot
policy, which was adopted in 1994 by the
Clinton administration to deal with the
Cuban rafter exodus.
Under the policy, Cuban migrants who reach
U.S. soil are allowed to stay and apply
for residency, but those intercepted at
sea are generally returned to Cuba.
Federal officials determined that the bridge,
not connected to land, was a structure and
not part of U.S. territory.
As a result, the Cubans were repatriated,
setting off a legal battle. The migrants
ultimately won the fight earlier this year,
when a federal judge found that the U.S.
government erred and that the bridge was
part of the United States.
Since the judge's decision, U.S. and Cuban
officials have been negotiating the return
of the migrants. But some of the migrants
who arrived Friday said they saw no choice
but to attempt the journey again because
they claimed the Cuban government was dragging
its feet in providing them exit permits.
''The Cuban government forced us to do
it,'' said Tomás Perdomo, a Cuban
dissident. "I wanted to come the legal
way.''
''This is a testimony of the tragedy of
the Cuban people,'' added Ramón Saúl
Sánchez, who heads Movimiento Democracia,
which organized the news conference and
provided the migrants with attorneys.
Several members of the group who reached
the Keys in January are still in Cuba, including
Elizabeth Hernández, her husband
Yunior Alexis Blanco and their 3-year-old
son.
''We're very happy that they made it,''
said Elizabeth Hernández in a telephone
conversation from her home in San Francisco,
a small town in Cuba's Matanzas province.
"Now we're hopeful that the Cuban government
would expedite our permits . . . because
I know how dangerous is the sea and we think
it's logical to wait and not to risk the
life of our son.''
Life as Castro's daughter-in-law
Idalmis Menéndez,
who now lives in Spain, provides a rare
and sometimes surprising up-close view of
life in Fidel's household.
By Lisa Abend, Special to
The Miami Herald. Posted on Sun, Dec. 17,
2006
BARCELONA, Spain - Idalmis Menéndez
can't help but smile when she recalls meeting
her first husband.
Visiting an aunt on the outskirts of Havana,
she was startled when a young man appeared
in the patio, smelling of fresh dough and
tomato sauce. ''He told me he was a pizza
maker,'' she giggles. "And that he
adored my hair. It was love at first sight.''
Menéndez quickly learned his name
was Alex, but it took awhile before she
found out he'd been joking about the pizza.
And a couple of weeks passed before she
discovered his real identity.
''We were in his car,'' Menéndez
recalls, 'and he said, 'I'm Fidel Castro's
son.' ''
Twelve years later Menéndez, 34,
still takes pleasure in recalling her days
with Alex, but her memory is now tinged
with anger and resentment. As girlfriend,
and then wife to Castro's son, she would
be among the privileged few with access
to the comandante's famously secretive personal
life. But the lively, outspoken woman says
she also was subjected to intense pressure
and near-Machiavellian manipulation.
In an interview with The Miami Herald,
she provided a rare and sometimes surprising
up-close view of life in the Castro household
-- a warm Fidel and his strong-willed wife,
Dalia Sotodelvalle, and the well-off children
of his brother, Raúl Castro.
FIRST MEETING
The Havana daughter of a chemist and former
schoolteacher, Menéndez studied computer
science, took an office job and, at 22,
was living at home when she met Alex, then
31, on her aunt's patio in 1994.
Even today, it's easy to see what attracted
Alex. Stylishly dressed for this interview
in a form-fitting jacket, her thick black
hair running midway down her back, Menéndez
today gives the impression of someone who
speaks her mind clearly and convincingly,
without mincing words or exaggerating.
The second-oldest child in the Castro family,
Alex is not particularly good-looking --
his family refers to him as El Gordito (an
affectionate term roughly translated as
''little fat one'') -- and when Menéndez
met him, his personal life was complicated.
He was estranged from, but still married
to, his first wife, and he had a mistress.
Menéndez was smitten nonetheless.
Because Menéndez lived at home,
and Alex's first wife Miriam was still living
at the Castro compound, the two at first
spent a lot of time in Alex's car. Within
a few months, however, space in an apartment
that Alex's brother Antonio kept for his
girlfriend opened, and the two moved in
there together. The couple also frequently
spent weekends at the Castro vacation home
in the beach town of Varadero, although
never when Fidel himself was around.
To avoid Fidel was Menéndez's decision.
In fact, Alex often invited her on family
fishing trips with his father, but she always
declined because she was unwilling to curb
her opinions.
''I was critical of many things that were
being done in our country,'' she says, "and
I knew that if I went, I would have to bite
my tongue, which would take a lot of work.''
'I JUST LOST IT'
She gave in after her grandfather fell
gravely ill with tuberculosis, and Alex
accompanied her to visit him at the hospital.
She was horrified by the conditions there.
''They didn't even have light bulbs,''
she says. "But they had two photos
of Fidel and Raúl on the wall. I
just lost it.''
Alex chastised her and said not all of
Cuba's problems were Fidel's fault. He challenged
her to meet his father and see for herself.
She agreed, and Menéndez finally
met Fidel at the wedding of one of Alex's
four full brothers. Fidel has three other
children by different partners.
''Fidel came in after the bride because
he's more important,'' she says. "But
he came right over to me and introduced
himself very warmly.''
At the reception, the two talked at length,
and Castro invited her to come live with
Alex at Fidel's house. But she still had
reservations about moving to the compound.
'I told him, 'My family is very revolutionary,
but there are many things I don't like about
the revolution, and I've spoken badly of
you. I have friends in Miami, and I'm not
going to give them up for anything in the
world.' ''
Fidel praised her honesty and said there
would be no problem as long as she set limits
and didn't publicly discuss ''our things,''
says Menéndez. "He told me that
by tomorrow he wanted to see me in the house
. . . So I went, had lunch, and my life
with them began.''
In November of 1995 she moved into the
Castro family home in the sprawling, heavily
guarded compound, known as Punto Cero, in
the western Havana neighborhood of Siboney
-- a compound that few Cubans, and even
fewer outsiders, have ever visited.
Three of the sons lived with Fidel and
Dalia in the four-bedroom main house, an
L-shaped structure made up of two houses
built by wealthy Cuban families before the
Castro revolution's 1959 victory. The houses
were abandoned by their owners when they
flew abroad afterward and then linked when
Fidel moved in, according to Cuban defectors
who have been there. The two other sons
lived in smaller buildings within the compound.
Although the family lived better than most
Cubans, Menéndez said, conditions
at the house were hardly luxurious.
'My friends would say, 'Oh, you live in
a house with a swimming pool, you eat meat
every day,' '' she says. But when she and
Alex got married, workers "built him
a room on top of the garage. He's a big
guy, and he barely fit between the bed and
wall. That is not luxury.''
Alex bought his own car, an old white Pontiac,
with money he earned from his job as a computer
programmer. But the first time Menéndez
saw him undressed, she says, "he had
holes in his underwear. That is not what
you expect of a president's son.''
That kind of paradox helps explain Menéndez's
own complicated attitude toward Fidel. She
takes issue with some of Fidel's decisions,
but not all: She also criticizes U.S. policy
toward Cuba, for example. And overall, she
admires Fidel's work ethic and dedication
to his principles.
She recognizes that her nuanced attitude
may not be welcome among Cuban exiles in
Miami. Nevertheless, she hopes to be heard,
and Spanish-language media officials in
Miami say they are negotiating to fly Menéndez
to Florida to appear on shows.
Menéndez also doubts that Fidel
really has the nearly $1 billion fortune
that Forbes magazine recently reported.
''What if this all ends?'' she recalls
him saying. "Nothing of this is mine;
it all belongs to the state. What my children
will get after I go is what the revolution
gives them as thanks for my being president.
But I will leave nothing to them.''
Menéndez and Alex married in 1997.
She wore a white wedding gown given to her
by a French friend. Fidel wore his traditional
olive green uniform to the reception.
In most ways, life at Punto Cero was simple.
Fidel often had breakfast in his pajamas,
and he enjoyed the stuffed turkey the cook
would prepare for birthdays and other celebrations.
One of his great pleasures was playing with
his granddaughter Adali, Alex's child from
his first marriage.
He also liked conversations with Menéndez.
''Even when we disagreed, he liked talking,
because he could tell that I was being sincere
with him,'' she says.
One argument erupted when Castro learned
that Menéndez had left her government
office job to work in tourism -- where she
could earn needed U.S. dollars.
'I said to him, 'Look, I have food every
day, a glass of milk every day, because
you give it to me. But my family doesn't
have milk. You don't know what it's like
out there.' He listened to me, and he said
I was right.''
That openness from Fidel is one reason
that Menéndez still feels affection
for the man who ruled Cuba for 47 years
until he became ill in July and turned over
power to Raúl.
'He is egotistical. If he didn't like something,
he would pound the table and say, 'Coño,
what the hell is this?' But we had a good
relationship. He was always affectionate
with me.''
RAUL'S HOUSE
Menéndez's respect does not extend
to Raúl and his family, who apparently
did not live the same relatively austere
life that Fidel's family did. Once, she
saw how Raúl's children lived.
Fidel's five boys and their wives were
in Varadero and went to visit the house
where Raúl's children were staying.
Most of the Varadero houses now used by
senior Cuban government officials were seized
when their owners left the country after
1959.
''It was a splendid house, with a lot of
servants. A maid was serving them breakfast,''
she recalled. "You couldn't help but
notice that they had a different standard
of living. Their father permits it.''
Menéndez says the two brothers are
not personally close.
''Politically, yes,'' she says, "but
not as a family. They don't even get together
at the end of the year; they never sit down
to share a meal. Raúl's children
hide from Fidel because they don't want
him to see how they live.''
DALIA'S PRICEY TASTES
Menéndez saves her harshest criticism,
however, for Dalia, Fidel's companion of
40 years, whom she describes as demanding
that her sons and their wives live austerely
while she enjoys some luxuries.
''When Fidel was around,'' says Menéndez,
"Dalia would dress in simple clothes
made by a seamstress. But at night, when
he would leave, she would put on expensive
suits and Chanel perfume.''
Although she and Alex, while staying with
them on one of Fidel's fishing boats --
he is reported to have several large pleasure
crafts at his disposal -- once overheard
the two having sex, ''they never kissed
or hugged'' in public. And they would argue
heatedly. Says Menéndez, "He
would call her a liar.''
Menéndez agrees with that assessment
of Dalia, who has stayed far out of public
view. The first mention of her in The Miami
Herald was in 1993 -- 25 years after she
gave birth to her first child with Fidel.
"Dalia is very manipulative. She couldn't
be first lady like she wanted; Fidel forced
her into a secondary role . . . So she looked
for her own world to run, and that world
is controlling her kids and their wives.''
From the beginning, the relationship was
frosty. At their first meeting, at a sailing
regatta in Cuba, Dalia refused to take off
her sunglasses when she was presented to
Menéndez. She commented acerbically
on the latter's youth.
Recalling Dalia's jealousy, Menéndez
describes an occasion when she wore a nice
dress for Sunday dinner and Castro complimented
her. ''Afterwards,'' she says, 'Dalia pulled
me aside and said, 'I didn't know you were
going to get so dressed up . . . From now
on, you have to tell me what you're going
to wear.' ''
A MISCARRIAGE
But Menéndez says Dalia's worst
manipulation may have come when she told
her mother-in-law that she suspected she
was pregnant. The next day, when Menéndez
went to a clinic, her regular gynecologist
had been replaced by another doctor. The
new physician gave her some pills, telling
her that the medicine -- harmless if she
was pregnant -- would induce menstruation
if she wasn't.
The pills caused her to miscarry. When
she went back to the clinic for a checkup,
a nurse took Menéndez aside and told
her that if she wanted to have children
with Alex, she shouldn't return to that
clinic. Menéndez believes that her
mother-in-law arranged for the doctor to
induce the abortion.
'Dalia never wanted [her sons'] families
to grow,'' she says.
Although Menéndez says she eventually
discovered that Alex was being unfaithful,
she places a good deal of the blame for
their eventual breakup on Dalia.
Dalia was especially unhappy with her efforts
to persuade Alex to meet a daughter from
a previous relationship. ''She used all
her means to go after me,'' says Menéndez,
"and things started to add up.''
When Dalia prohibited Menéndez from
decorating the kitchen in her and Alex's
apartment with tiles because they were ''too
luxurious,'' Menéndez complained
bitterly in a phone chat with her aunt.
The call was recorded at Dalia's orders,
and the tape given to Fidel.
Dalia used the tape to turn Fidel against
Menéndez. "He said he was very
disappointed in me and that he didn't want
to see me for awhile.''
Dalia then prohibited Alex and Menéndez
from eating meals with the family and from
doing their laundry at Punto Cero. She cut
Alex's gasoline allowance and put the two
on food rations. For Alex, it proved too
much.
''One day, he told me there was too much
going on with his family,'' she said. 'He
drove me to my parents' house and left me
there.'' When Menéndez tried to retrieve
her things from the Castro compound, she
was turned away.
Even that didn't completely end her relationship
with Alex. For a while, he spent nights
with her at her parent's home. But eventually
she realized the indignity of the situation,
and she divorced him in 2000.
Menéndez then tried to leave Cuba
but found herself stymied by immigration
officials until Alex intervened on her behalf.
These days, she lives in a town outside
Barcelona, Spain, with her new Spanish husband
and their 20-month-old son. Two Cuban exiles
once close to the Castro family confirmed
Menéndez had been married to Alex.
REMAINS ANXIOUS
Today, Menéndez speaks with the
determined air of someone who has come forward
after a long silence. She recently granted
an interview to the Spanish TV program Donde
Estás, Corazón?, in part because
she knew that her story would garner the
most interest before Castro dies and in
part because she finally felt free enough
to speak.
Although she says she doesn't fear the
consequences of speaking out, she clearly
remains anxious about the Cuban government's
long reach. She refuses to conduct interviews
by phone, worried both that her lines may
be tapped and that she cannot assess the
interviewer by voice alone.
Although she occasionally communicates
with Alex, her only access to Fidel now
is through television. The latest images
of the Cuban leader -- wearing a jogging
suit and looking frail -- made her cry.
''I never thought I'd see him looking ridiculous,''
she says.
She has no reliable information on the
ailment that has kept Fidel away from public
events since July 26, and she believes that
someone needs to tell the truth about his
health.
"From what I've heard from the family
members with whom I'm in contact, he's still
alive. But he owes the Cuban people an explanation.
To not tell them what is happening is one
more display of his lack of respect.''
And while she believes that Fidel did good
things for Cuba, that doesn't prevent her
from offering him advice.
"Fidel was always obsessed with the
threat of imperialism, and he thought he
could do the thinking for 11 million Cubans.
But he can't. He should have listened to
the voice of his people.''
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