CUBA
NEWS The
Miami Herald
Violence against dissidents up
By Vanessa Arrington, Associated
Press. Posted on Fri, Feb. 10, 2006.
HAVANA - Aggression against Cuban dissidents
by government supporters is on the rise
and becoming more violent, according to
a report released Thursday by a veteran
human rights activist.
Elizardo Sánchez, who heads the
non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human
Rights and National Reconciliation, lists
nearly 30 apparently organized acts of harassment
against dissidents, including verbal abuse,
physical assault and illegal entry to homes.
The acts, which took place in several provinces
across the island, occurred from Jan. 12
to Feb. 7, the report said.
''This is about a repressive, large-scale
operation executed in response to a central
government decision,'' the report said.
''Particularly worrisome is the level of
physical and verbal violence, without precedent
in recent years,'' it said.
There was no immediate reaction by Cuba's
communist government.
In some cases, gangs of government supporters
kept activists from leaving their homes
for several days, according to the report.
One dissident in the eastern province of
Santiago was attacked by two men with steel
bars, while a woman in the central region
of Santa Clara had her finger dislocated
in an assault, the report said.
Pro-government militants have broken into
several dissidents' homes, the report said,
taking items that included books and a fax
machine.
The Havana-based commission called on the
government to stop the acts, saying it was
"totally irresponsible and immoral
to artificially create a climate of political
violence.''
Earlier in the week, wives of political
prisoners known as the ''Ladies in White''
also issued a statement condemning recent
harassment.
U.S.-owned hotel caught in the middle
The U.S.-Cuba confrontation
has involved an American-owned hotel in
Mexico City because of contradictory U.S.
and Mexican laws.
By Jonathan Roeder, Special
to The Miami Herald. Posted on Thu, Feb.
16, 2006.
MEXICO CITY - The venerable Hotel Sheraton
María Isabel is one of the Mexican
capital's oldest five-star hotels, on its
main Reforma Avenue and next to the city's
emblematic Angel of Independence monument.
But these days the hotel also has been
a lightning rod for U.S.-Mexican tensions,
presidential campaign jabs and even complaints
of U.S. violations of Mexico's sovereignty.
The brouhaha started Feb. 4, when the hotel
expelled several Cuban government officials
staying there for a seminar with U.S. energy
executives. U.S. Treasury officials told
the hotel's American owners that they could
be violating U.S. economic sanctions of
the communist-ruled island.
Mexico's Foreign Relations and Tourism
ministries, along with the Consumer Protection
Agency, now say the hotel may have broken
Mexican laws that prohibit discrimination
on the basis of nationality. Fines could
total $500,000.
But it has been the Cuauhtémoc borough,
where the hotel is located, that has been
most vigorous in its actions. Code inspectors
have found a long list of violations at
the hotel, ranging from the absence of required
Braille menus to unlicensed bars and insufficient
emergency exits.
JUST DOING THEIR JOB
Cuauhtémoc chief Virginia Jaramillo
has said her inspectors are only trying
to do their jobs. But Jaramillo, a member
of the left-of-center Democratic Revolution
Party, has also told reporters the inspections
were inspired by "patriotism.''
Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
the party's candidate in presidential elections
set for July, has not mentioned the issue
in his campaign speeches. But his party
has accused conservative President Vicente
Fox of reacting too weakly to the U.S.Treasury
pressures.
''They say that we are scaring off foreign
investment by going against the hotel,''
Jaramillo said. "The first thing this
government should do is defend our national
sovereignty.''
Jeffrey Davidow, former U.S. ambassador
to Mexico and now president of the Institute
of the Americas at the University of California-San
Diego, says that both governments mishandled
the situation.
''This seems to be overzealousness on the
part of the Treasury Department,'' he said.
"But poor management on the part of
the U.S. government should not generate
equal incompetence on the part of the Mexicans
in going after the Sheraton, which is something
of a victim in this.''
He added that threats to close the hotel
were "an abuse of power.''
The Sheraton was recently granted an injunction
blocking any order to close while the hotel
appeals Jaramillo's actions.
BORDER DEBATE
The Foreign Ministry's low-key response
to the Sheraton case contrasts with the
recent and very public volleys between the
Fox administration and current U.S. Ambassador
Tony Garza over drug trafficking and lack
of security on the U.S.-Mexico border.
For months, Garza has been calling on Mexico
to step up security on the border. Mexico
has bristled at the criticism, saying that
border security is the responsibility of
both sides.
''In recent months, the level of rhetoric
on both sides has gone up too high,'' Davidow
said. "I think the Fox government,
if they are trying to tamp this particular
issue down, they're doing the right thing.
Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.''
Meanwhile, the hotel and its more than
600 employees face an uncertain future,
and the U.S. business community in Mexico
is concerned.
Larry Rubin, head of the American Chamber
of Commerce in Mexico, which represents
93 percent of U.S. investment here, said
that a special workshop is being organized
to advise companies on how to comply with
U.S. sanctions on Cuba.
''This is an issue where, if they follow
Mexican law, they can be prosecuted in the
States, and if they follow U.S. law here
in Mexico, they'll certainly be prosecuted
by the Mexican authorities,'' Rubin said.
"It's a very difficult situation for
businesses here, and in particular U.S.
businesses.''
Spy-case study criticized for bias
Analysts said a professor's
study in the 'Cuban Five' case could have
been compromised by his sympathy for Castro.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Mon, Feb. 13, 2006.
A retired Florida International University
psychology professor's admiration for Fidel
Castro could have compromised the findings
of a study he conducted that helped overturn
the conviction of five Cubans accused of
spying for the communist government, legal
analysts told The Miami Herald.
The study, by FIU Professor Emeritus Gary
P. Moran, concluded that Miami was so saturated
with hate for Castro that the five defendants
could not have received a fair trial. None
of the jury members was Cuban American or
of Cuban descent.
''Castro is a complicated world figure,''
Moran said in a phone interview Thursday
night. "I think he is a very sincere
man. I admire greatly how he has managed
to survive with this great Satan [the United
States] as his enemy. The U.S. government,
which I don't have any respect for, has
obviously been doing everything in its power
to crush this man, but they haven't been
able to do so.''
Moran's sympathy for the Cuban president,
whose 47-year regime has been widely condemned
by numerous human-rights groups for imprisoning
political dissidents, could bring into question
the credibility of his study, legal experts
said. His study was cited heavily by the
11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last
year when a three-judge panel overturned
the 2001 verdict against the five Cubans,
who remain in prison awaiting a new trial.
Oral arguments in the case will take place
Tuesday before the appellate court in Atlanta,
where lawyers for the five Cubans are expected
to argue that their clients were denied
a fair trial.
The design of Moran's poll and its conclusions
troubled Rutgers University Professor Cliff
Zukin, president of the American Association
for Public Opinion Research, the top organization
in the country on surveys and polling. Zukin,
who reviewed a copy of the poll obtained
by The Miami Herald, said it appears that
Moran's apparent opinions in favor of Castro
seeped into his poll, which Zukin said used
leading questions and flawed methodology
that reflect bias.
''My concerns in question-wording are that
the survey seems to be leading,'' Zukin
said in an interview Sunday. Also, he said,
"the first eight questions that come
before the ninth question should come after
it. . . . It's really pretty biasing. All
those items are very one-sided. They are
all anti-Castro and framed in the same way
so an agreed statement would be anti-Castro.''
Zukin said that pollsters with strong opinions
can conduct impartial surveys but that in
Moran's case, his opinion "shows up
in the work product.''
Linda Mills, professor of social work,
law and public policy at New York University,
said prosecutors in the spy case should
present Moran's statements as new evidence.
''If I was a lawyer in this case, I'd be
saying that new evidence has come to light
and that, in fact, he has this personal
bias, and we want to know whether or not
that influenced the research,'' Mills said.
Moran said it is ''absolutely not true''
that his feelings about Castro were reflected
in his poll or may have influenced conclusions
he drew from the data. ''I'm not ashamed
of my opinion that Fidel Castro is a serious
Cuban patriot, doing his best for the Cuban
people,'' Moran said in a telephone interview
Sunday. "I have a lot more respect
for him than I do for Bush and Cheney, who
are outright liars.''
Moran wrote later in an e-mail to The Miami
Herald that the first eight questions of
his poll, "while occasionally somewhat
leading, are the language used on talk radio
and the goal is to see just how pervasive
this prejudice is.''
Moran was handpicked by attorneys for one
of the five spy-case defendants, Luis Medina,
to conduct his survey, according to the
appellate court decision.
''Medina explained that the traditional
methodology for addressing pretrial publicity
was not appropriate and proposed that Florida
International University psychology professor
Gary Patrick Moran conduct a telephone poll
with a sample of 300 people,'' the appellate
court wrote. "The district court granted
the motion.''
''Usually the courts would not allow someone
who had some kind of interest, like a strongly
held view, to be the expert to do the study,''
said New York University legal-psychology
professor Tom Tyler.
In the first trial, the judge discounted
Moran's study because, among other reasons,
questions were characterized in non-neutral
terms, the sample was too small, and several
questions were ambiguous, according to the
appellate court decision.
Moran's survey results showed that 69 percent
of all respondents and 74 percent of Hispanic
respondents were ''prejudiced against persons
charged with engaging in the activities
named in the indictment,'' the court noted.
'A significant number, 57 percent of Hispanic
respondents and 39.6 percent of all respondents,
indicated that, 'because of their feelings
and opinions about Castro's government,'
they 'would find it difficult to be a fair
and impartial juror in a trial of alleged
Cuban spies,' '' the appellate court wrote,
citing Moran's survey.
Zukin said those findings were reached
from flawed research. He also said it seems
that Moran calculated the response rate
incorrectly, to reflect a higher rate.
When told that Zukin considered some of
his poll questions leading, Moran said that
''some probably are, to some degree. It
depends on your standards.'' But he added
that in polling on change-of-venue cases,
he has to strike a balance with questions
that some academics might view as leading.
Moran also said he helped psychology professor
Carlos M. Alvarez, arrested in January for
allegedly being a Cuban agent and relaying
information about the Cuban-American community
to Havana, get his job at FIU in the 1970s.
Moran said Cuban exiles "have seized
upon Alvarez to try to resurrect their own
paranoia.''
''These people [Cuban exiles] have already
put me and Carlos Alvarez in the Red Wasp
-- that's how crazy they are,'' Moran said
in Sunday's interview.
Last month, U.S. authorities accused Alvarez,
61, and his wife, Elsa Prieto Alvarez, 55,
of operating as covert agents for Cuba for
decades. U.S. prosecutors said that Carlos
Alvarez, an associate professor at FIU,
had spied for Cuba since 1977 and that his
wife, a psychology counselor at the university,
had done so since 1982. The Alvarezes have
pleaded not guilty.
''It may well be technically a crime not
to record yourself as an operative of a
foreign government,'' Moran said of the
Alvarez case. 'But I can't see that he's
committed any crimes at all. But every time
I hear his name mentioned by any Cubans,
they say, "I hope they burn him.' ''
Miami Herald researcher Monika Z. Leal
contributed to this report.
Cuban spy case nears crucial point
The long-running legal
drama involving the convictions of five
Cuban men accused of spying for Fidel Castro's
government may be close to its end in an
Atlanta courtroom.
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Mon, Feb. 13, 2006.
To many Cuban exiles, the five Cubans accused
of spying for the Castro government were
convicted in 2001 by a fair and impartial
federal jury in Miami.
But to Cuban government supporters in the
United States and around the world, the
men are political prisoners who were merely
defending their country against attacks
by U.S.-based exile groups opposed to Cuban
leader Fidel Castro.
Now lawyers for the accused Cuban spies
will argue before 12 federal appellate court
judges in Atlanta on Tuesday that their
clients did not receive a fair trial five
years ago in Miami because the community
was saturated with anti-Castro sentiment.
The appeals court has issued mixed opinions.
In August, a three-judge panel overturned
the original convictions, ruling in favor
of the Cuban defendants. Two months later,
the full court threw out that decision and
agreed to hear the appeals case all over
again.
Tuesday's oral arguments are being held
just 10 days before the 10th anniversary
of the Cuban government's shootdown of two
Brothers to the Rescue planes over international
waters -- killing three Cuban Americans
and one Cuban exile. One of the accused
spies was convicted of conspiring to commit
murder for his alleged role in the 1996
attack by Cuban Air Force fighters.
Relatives of the shootdown victims plan
to attend Tuesday's hearing before the entire
11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta
to show their support for the 2001 convictions
of the five Cubans, now serving lengthy
federal prison sentences.
''We felt this is something we should do,''
said Maggie Alejandre Khuly, whose brother,
Armando Alejandre Jr., was one of the four
Brothers pilots killed on Feb. 24, 1996.
"It's something that matters very much
to us.''
The other Brothers to the Rescue victims
were Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña
and Pablo Morales. The exile organization
conducted humanitarian missions over the
Florida Straits and leafleted Cuba.
Since last summer, Khuly and other victims'
relatives have been on an emotional yo-yo,
thanks to the Atlanta appellate court's
two rulings in the highly publicized case.
In August, a three-judge panel of that
court tossed out the convictions of the
five accused Cuban spies, finding that the
volatile mix of Miami's anti-Castro political
climate and intense media coverage made
a fair trial an impossibility in the city.
In its 93-page opinion, the court found
the six-month trial was inundated with news
coverage and public protests from jury selection
through the verdict -- all in the aftermath
of the U.S. government's controversial decision
to return 6-year-old rafter Elián
González to Cuba.
'PERFECT STORM'
''A new trial was mandated by the perfect
storm created when the surge of pervasive
community sentiment and extensive publicity
both before and during the trial merged
with the improper prosecutorial references,''
the three-judge panel said.
Suddenly, the Cuban Five convictions were
overturned, suggesting a new trial would
have to be held outside Miami.
But then in November -- after Miami federal
prosecutors challenged that decision --
a majority of the appellate court issued
another jolt. They reinstated the convictions,
setting the stage for Tuesday's hearing
before the entire 12-member court.
The appeal revolves around a handful of
legal matters, but the dispute essentially
boils down to one question: Did U.S. District
Judge Joan Lenard conduct a fair trial after
denying the defendants' request that the
case be held outside Miami?
On Tuesday, the defendants' lawyers and
federal prosecutors will have 20 minutes
each to answer that question.
They will likely focus on a few key issues
-- zeroing in on a court-approved, pretrial
survey of 300 Miami-Dade voters by Florida
International University professor Gary
Moran. It showed widespread community prejudice
toward the five Cuban defendants.
''[T]he Moran survey was clear support
for the intuitively expected premise that
a community heavily affected by a massive
exile population would be hostile to agents
of the very government from which the population
was in exile,'' argued one of the Cuban
Five's lawyers, Philip Horowitz, in an appellate
brief.
"Moran's survey -- with the support
of substantial underlying data and additional
comparative polling studies -- showed that
the entirety of the Miami community, both
exile and non-exile, was affected by abiding
anti-Castro animus.''
But the U.S. Attorney's Office sharply
disagreed with that view.
''The government urged [before trial] that
little weight be given to Moran's conclusions,''
according to an appellate brief filed by
Miami federal prosecutors. "It noted
Moran's stereotyping and sweeping prejudgment
of the community.''
Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, whose office
prosecuted the so-called ''Wasp Network''
spy case during his tenure, defended Lenard's
handling of jury selection. He noted that
none of the 12 jurors was of Cuban descent.
''She allowed extensive questioning during
jury selection; she allowed the defense
to have additional strikes of potential
jurors; she questioned the jury constantly
about any contacts with the media,'' Lewis
said. "The [Atlanta] appellate panel,
unwisely, superjudged the way she conducted
the trial.''
The six-month trial ended with the five
defendants' convictions in June 2001.
Gerardo Hernández, Ramón
Labañino and Antonio Guerrero all
received life sentences from Lenard. Hernández
was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder
stemming from the 1996 shootdown of the
Brothers to the Rescue's planes.
René González, a pilot accused
of faking his defection to insinuate himself
into the Brothers' exile organization, was
sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fernando
González, no relation, was sentenced
to 19 years for trying to infiltrate the
offices of Cuban-American politicians and
shadowing prominent exiles.
The defendants have drawn support from
around the globe with the help of the National
Committee to Free the Cuban Five, a San
Francisco-based advocacy group. It manages
a website, www.freethecubanfive.org, and
organized a worldwide letter-writing campaign.
The group has championed several causes
-- from immediate release of the incarcerated
men to a protest of the U.S. government's
denial of visas for the wives of two prisoners,
Gerardo Hernández and René
González.
SEEKING PUBLICITY
After Tuesday's oral arguments, the committee
plans a press conference near the courthouse
in Atlanta to attract attention to its global
campaign to "Free the Five.''
''We believe they will never be able to
get a fair trial in Miami because they are
accused of being agents for the Cuban government,''
said Alicia Jrapko, spokeswoman for the
committee.
''We believe the government never proved
its case at trial,'' she said. "We
believe they were trying to defend their
country against terrorist attacks. They
were not spies. They were infiltrating those
[exile] groups to prevent future terrorist
actions.''
Walesa warns exiles about power vacuum
In Miami to offer lessons
about Poland's transition to democracy two
decades ago, Lech Walesa tells Cuban exiles
they should prepare for the worst.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Fri, Feb. 10, 2006.
Former Polish President and Nobel Peace
Prize laureate Lech Walesa, the electrician
whose working-man heroics helped bring down
communism in Eastern Europe, expressed a
humor-laden dose of solidarity with Miami's
Cuban exile community Thursday.
Walesa told the powerhouse crowd of about
200 -- which included mayors and Miami-Dade
county commissioners, along with Emilio
Estefan, Florida House Speaker-elect Marco
Rubio and Brothers to the Rescue founder
Jose Basulto -- that Cubans here and Cuba
must be ready for a worst-case scenario
after Fidel Castro.
''You should be prepared for when it happens,
with well-structured ideas of what to do,
because there could be anarchy,'' he said
through a translator. "Anarchy is worse
than anything else.''
Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement,
led a nonviolent revolt against Poland's
communist system in the 1980s. He said the
labor-union led movement was fueled in no
small part by the rise of Pope John Paul
II, a Polish priest named to the Catholic
Church's top post in the late 1970s, giving
hope to Poland's largely Catholic populace.
Walesa seemed to take a shot at the U.S.
government's attempts to bring freedom and
democracy to Cuba after 47 years of Castro's
rule, even hinting that Cuba is still communist
by design.
''I start thinking that many Americans
want to keep Cuba as a museum of Marxism
in this hemisphere and that's why it has
lasted so long,'' he said at the breakfast
hosted by Miami Dade College at Miami's
Biscayne Bay Marriott.
'I AM A REVOLUTIONARY'
To prepare the audience for his unorthodox
views, Walesa announced a disclaimer: ''If
someone doesn't like what I say, well, understand
that I am a revolutionary.'' The theme of
his speech was the need for ''moral politics''
in a global economy.
Walesa, whose silver hair and mustache
are just a shade lighter than they were
in the 1980s, is in Miami with his wife
and daughter, for several events planned
through Monday. The former electrician may
not have the intellectual polish of other
former Eastern European leaders who fought
off communism. Nevertheless, Walesa is known
for holding to his convictions in the face
of Soviet oppression.
On the electronic billboard recently erected
by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana,
for instance, one of the ''freedom'' blurbs
that Cubans could read was a quote from
Walesa: "Deep faith eliminates fear''.
In his speech Thursday -- and answering
questions from the audience and reporters
later -- Walesa offered few specifics for
a transition to democracy in Cuba.
Instead, he focused on the need for "moral
politics.''
He acknowledged that the United States
is a military and economic powerhouse, but
said ''there is something that is missing,
moral politics.'' He said that one of the
biggest problems facing the world is that
it is now at the mercy of globalization
but is still using "old systems.''
'OUR DRAMA'
''Our drama is that we have new times but
are still thinking in the old way,'' he
said.
Speaking of Castro, he said, "I feel
Castro has already lost, and if he had some
honor or courage, he would step aside.''
Asked whether the tight U.S. travel restrictions
that prevent Americans from going to Cuba
were helping or hurting attempts to democratize
the island, Walesa dodged the question:
"I see both issues and both sides.''
Walesa will be at the University of Miami
on Monday to address a panel about the examples
Poland's transition can give Cubans.
''There is a lesson to be learned from
Poland,'' said UM Professor Jaime Suchlicki,
who heads the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies. "In Poland three factors coalesced:
Solidarity and its labor movement, the Catholic
church and U.S. support.''
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