CUBA
NEWS The
Miami Herald
Deadly voyage brings prison terms
A Miami federal judge
slapped two Cuban immigrants with maximum
10-year prison terms after their smuggling
journey led to the death of a young boy
on the boat.
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Mar. 21, 2006.
Two Cuban immigrants who captained a smuggling
mission that ended with the drowning of
a young boy received the maximum prison
sentence on Monday -- 10 years.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore hammered
the two men after concluding a six-year
term proposed under federal sentencing guidelines
was not enough punishment for the child's
death in the Oct. 13 illegal crossing of
the Florida Straits.
A lawyer for both Alexander Gil Rodriguez,
25, and Luis Manuel Taboada-Cabrera, 28,
whose relatives sobbed outside the courtroom,
said they will appeal the judge's sentences
for their alien-smuggling convictions. Attorney
Steven Amster said the two Miami men, who
were not charged or convicted of causing
the death of 6-year-old Julian Villasuso,
still faced up to the maximum prison term
because his drowning was a factor in the
judge's sentencing under advisory guidelines.
''They understand their actions led to
this death,'' Amster said, acknowledging
the two men sped off in their go-fast boat
when the U.S. Coast Guard tried to stop
them. "But their actions were not so
egregious to go above what the sentencing
guidelines say.''
The two men had reached plea deals in November,
expecting to receive lighter sentences.
They pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to smuggle
29 Cubans in a 33-foot speedboat that overturned
and claimed the life of the boy, who got
trapped beneath the capsized vessel.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Washington
said he didn't have enough evidence to charge
them with the death of Julian Villasuso.
The boy's death was factored into the sentencing
guidelines, doubling the initially proposed
prison term from three to six years. But
Moore, who as a federal judge has the authority
to go higher than those advisory guidelines,
didn't believe that penalty was sufficient.
''The question is whether the guidelines
adequately take into account the death they
caused,'' Moore said at a hearing in January.
Moore has greater leeway to go above the
federal sentencing guidelines. Those guidelines
had been mandatory until last year, when
the U.S. Supreme Court made them advisory
to maintain their constitutionality.
Still, Moore's stiffer sentences for the
two Miami men would undergo intense scrutiny
on appeal.
The reason: In 2001, Jorge ''Bombino''
Aleman was arrested on charges that he organized
five smuggling runs between late 1999 and
2001 that ferried more than 100 Cubans to
Florida.
A January 2001 voyage resulted in the death
of Cira Rodriguez, a Cuban who is believed
to have died on a small Bahamian cay after
smugglers dumped her and the other passengers
on the island without food and water.
LIFE IN PRISON
The following year, U.S. District Judge
James Lawrence King sentenced the defendant
to life in prison plus five years, overriding
the federal sentencing guidelines that called
for fewer than 13 years.
Then in 2004, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in Atlanta threw out what was
the longest prison term in an alien-smuggling
case, ordering that Aleman be sentenced
within the federal guidelines.
That ruling came down, however, when the
guidelines were still mandatory.
At Monday's sentencing hearing, Taboada-Cabrera
apologized to the judge, community and others.
''I wish to say I'm really repentant about
what happened,'' he told the judge.
Rodriguez did not say anything in court.
Their attorney said the tragic smuggling
trip was not for profit but was rather to
bring over their families. Amster said Rodriguez
had three family members, including his
wife, aboard the speedboat, and that Taboada-Cabrera
was supposed to bring his wife and a daughter
on the voyage.
Amster also said the U.S. Coast Guard may
have played a role in the capsizing of their
speedboat that led to the boy's death.
Coast Guard officials strongly disagreed.
SPEEDBOAT
The alien-smuggling attempt occurred during
the early morning of Oct. 13, when Coast
Guard officials tracked down a Florida-registered
speedboat, carrying the 29 Cubans, about
52 miles south of Key West.
A chase ensued, as the Coast Guard crew
deployed an ''entangling device'' -- or
net -- in front of the speedboat, according
to court papers. Finally, the vessel came
to a stop. Then, numerous people stood up
on board and someone threw an object into
the ocean.
BOAT CAPSIZES
''Water immediately began to flow into
the stern of the vessel, due to the shift
in weight and the excess amount of individuals
on board,'' according to an Immigration
and Customs Enforcement affidavit, causing
the boat to capsize and the passengers to
fall overboard.
Authorities discovered the boy beneath
the boat after rescuers pulled to safety
the other passengers, including the boy's
parents and the smugglers.
Julian's parents and a third passenger
with health problems were allowed into the
United States.
The rest were repatriated to Cuba.
28 Cuban migrants' repatriation likely
A cruise ship that picked
up 28 Cuban migrants over the weekend will
transfer them to a Coast Guard cutter. Another
19 Cubans made it to Sand Key.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Mar. 21, 2006
A Carnival cruise ship was poised Monday
to turn over to the Coast Guard 28 Cuban
migrants it picked up on the high seas,
after having stopped in Galveston, Texas,
over the weekend, Coast Guard officials
said.
Meanwhile, another 19 Cuban migrants made
it to dry land Monday at Sand Key, according
to Border Patrol spokesman Robert Montemayor.
He said 14 were at the Border Patrol office
in Pembroke Pines, and five were taken to
a Miami hospital to be treated for dehydration
and sun exposure.
As for the 28 on the cruise ship, they
most likely will be repatriated to Cuba
unless they can convince U.S. officials
that they face political persecution and
qualify for asylum.
Cuban exile activist Ramón Saúl
Sánchez said the cruise staff was
told by the U.S. government that instead
of turning over the Cubans to immigration
authorities at the Galveston port, they
must transfer them to a Coast Guard cutter
at sea because they do not qualify as "dry
foot.''
Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz confirmed
that the migrants were going to be handed
over to the Coast Guard in the next few
days.
The 25 men and three women from Vertientes
in the Camaguey province left from Playa
La Mula, Sanchez said. They were heading
south, seeking Honduras. The cruise ship
stopped in Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico
before heading to Texas, but none of those
countries wanted to accept the Cuban migrants,
Sanchez said.
''The crew of the ship gathered money and
clothes to help the migrants. They were
very humane,'' Sanchez said.
Diaz said that all cruise ships and commercial
shipping vessels must alert authorities
96 hours in advance when they plan to arrive
at a U.S. port and provide a complete passenger
list. When cruise ship officials say they
are carrying Cuban migrants, the routine
is to have them keep the migrants on board
because they are still deemed ''feet wet,''
Diaz said.
Under the controversial wet foot/dry foot
policy, most Cuban migrants picked up at
sea are repatriated to Cuba, but those who
make it to U.S. terrority can stay. Migrants
of other nationalities are usually repatriated
whether they are caught at sea or on land
-- unless they can show they qualify for
asylum.
Sanchez said the migrants were barred from
talking to the media, legal representatives
or their families while docked at Galveston.
Carnival Cruise lines, which is based in
Miami, referred questions to the Coast Guard.
Diaz said that a cruise ship can sometimes
be considered U.S. territory, but it must
be a U.S.-flagged ship, meaning that it's
registered in the United States. ''There
are no U.S.-flagged cruise ships on the
East Coast as far as I know,'' he said.
In the case of the migrants who made it
ashore, Montemayor said the migrants told
Border Patrol they left from Villa Clara
in Cuba on Thursday on a wooden rowboat,
although the Coast Guard did not find a
rowboat at the scene. He did not know how
many were men, women or if there were children.
Read Miami's Cuban Connection, The Miami
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issues, in the blogs section of the Herald's
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Rooting for Cuba a tough choice for
S. Fla. Exiles
Cheer for Cuba's team
or against it? South Florida's exiles were
torn because of Castro; in the end, Japan
won
By Manny Navarro, mnavarro@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Tue, Mar. 21, 2006
Nelson Cardoso and his friend Carlos Rodriguez
spent Monday night sitting in the back of
La Ayestarán Restaurant off Southwest
Eighth Street and 27th Avenue. The two were
among a group of a dozen Cuban exiles glued
to a big screen TV showing a baseball game
in San Diego.
But this wasn't any ordinary baseball game.
It was Cuba versus Japan in the finals of
the World Baseball Classic. And like Cuban
Americans throughout South Florida, they
were divided over whether to cheer for their
homeland or against Fidel Castro.
Cardoso, 68, left Cuba nearly half a century
ago, driven out by Castro's revolution.
And yet, he bowed his head when Japan took
a 4-0 lead over Cuba in the top of the first
inning, a lead it never relinquished, finally
winning 10-6.
''Cuba is the only Latin country playing,''
Cardoso said. "Regardless of how we
feel about Castro, I have to root for them.''
Cardoso was among 10 fans cheering for
the Cuban team. Rodriguez, also in his 60s,
was one of two cheering against them. He
pumped his fist when Japan took the first-inning
lead. Then, he banged it against the table
when Eduardo Paret homered for Cuba to start
the bottom half of the inning.
''A lot of these guys were singing the
Cuban National Anthem before the game,''
Rodriguez said. "I wish the Cuban players
the best, but the way Cubans like me and
other from Miami see this whole thing is
that this is Castro's team.''
Rodriguez may have been in the minority
at the Miami restaurant, but plenty of South
Florida Cubans shared his sentiment. From
restaurants and bars in Hialeah and Little
Havana to the baseball fields at Tamiami
Park, the sentiment from most Cuban Americans
and exiles was the same: Victory for Cuba
meant victory for Castro.
''I'd say about 80 percent of the Cubans
here [in South Florida] were rooting against
them,'' said Jerry Del Castillo, whose hourlong
local Spanish sports talk radio show, Descarga
Deportiva, on Cadena Azul 1550, was flooded
with phone calls about the World Baseball
Classic for the past month.
"Whether we admit it or not, this
whole tournament has been about politics,
not just sports. The 80 percent who have
wanted to see Cuba lose aren't the people
who left Cuba to better themselves. They
left because [Castro] took everything away
from them.''
No matter what side of the argument exiles
fell on, the topic was discussed passionately,
whether in Spanish, English or a combination
of the two.
Alan Strauss, a co-host on 790 The Ticket's
Dos Amigos, a new sports talk show on Saturday
nights, said discussion of the Cuban baseball
team dominated his show for the better part
of the past few weeks. Callers, he said,
had mixed reactions on whether to root for
the Cubans.
'While a lot of people in the exile community
have taken the stance they have against
Castro, some people have come to realize
it is not the players' faults they're in
the situation they're in,'' Strauss said.
"We talked to [ESPN reporter] Pedro
Gomez last week on the show, who is a Miami-born
guy of Cuban descent. He [wasn't] rooting
for the Cubans outright, but in the end
it's still his heritage, his countrymen.
I think some people have begun to see it
as that.''
Luis Cue, a 39-year-old service manager
at Potamkin Chevrolet in Miami Lakes who
left Cuba when he was 13, said the blood
in his veins simply wouldn't allow him to
root for Japan on Monday.
''As much as I didn't want to see the Cubans
win because of Fidel, I've changed my mind
because Cuba is still my country,'' said
Cue, who plays in the Cuban-American League,
an adult men's baseball league in Tamiami
Park. "As much as I hate Castro, Cuba
is a Latin team and I have Latin blood.''
In Cuba Monday night, neighborhood bars
were flooded with fans watching the game
on state TV. In South Florida, the reaction
was more muted. Only a handful of Cuban
fans were on hand as the game was shown
on a large-screen TV at Shula's Steak II
in Miami Lakes.
At Versailles, the famous Cuban restaurant
on Calle Ocho, a manager said not a single
TV set was tuned to the game.
Strauss, the Dos Amigos radio host, said
exiles have been monitoring the tournament
"with a cautious eye from home. . .
This certainly hasn't been like the World
Cup, where you had people from some foreign
countries getting together in pubs to watch
games at the wee hours of the morning.''
Said Del Castillo: "First of all,
if you know anything about Cubans, we're
not going to go out to a sports bar on a
Monday night to see a baseball game. And
we're certainly not going to go out to root
against Cuba. That's just bad.''
Del Castillo, like a lot of South Florida
Cubans, had, in fact, rooted for Cuba to
be excluded from the tournament. And it
nearly happened.
The U.S. Treasury Department initially
banned the Cubans, reasoning that the Castro
government would benefit financially from
the team's participation. Five weeks later,
at the urging of Major League Baseball,
the United States relented. The government
then refused Cuba's request for extra visas
for the team's entourage. Only hours before
the first pitch did Cuba arrive in Puerto
Rico, one of several game sites.
''The sad part is win or lose, the team
has already done enough for Fidel,'' Del
Castillo said before Monday's game was final.
"By beating the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans
and outlasting the Americans, Fidel can
sit there and brag about how his team without
any major-league players was better than
all those millionaires. He can give the
people suffering in Cuba another reason
to believe his [B.S.]. "The saddest
part of this whole thing has been the fact
we're the only people in the world who can't
root for their own country.''
Island newest portal to U.S. for Cubans
A tiny island between
the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico is
becoming the latest way for Cubans to reach
U.S. soil.
By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 18, 2006
SAN JUAN - Soaked and freezing, the Cuban
migrants could see by the light of the moon
as 18-foot waves crashed hard on their small
boats.
''At first, the sea was like a plate. It
looked like it was going to be a tour,''
said Hilda Barbara Iglesias, who paid smugglers
to take her family to U.S. soil last week.
'Then it got dark and ugly. They told us
it would take seven hours, so when it had
been six hours, I thought, 'Just one more
hour.' ''
The Cubans' voyage from the Dominican Republic
-- where many have lived for years -- to
tiny Mona Island actually took nearly 12
hours. The waters were rough, but it was
the destination that counted: 14,000 acres
of deserted natural reserve that is U.S.
territory -- which would allow them to stay
in the United States under the ''wet-foot,
dry-foot'' policy.
Iglesias and her family were one of the
growing hundreds of Cubans turning the Mona
Passage, one of the world's most dangerous
straits, into a new route to America. She
was one of 53 Cubans who have landed on
Mona since Saturday. The number of Cubans
arriving at Mona -- roughly the size of
Weston -- increased five-fold in the past
three years, according to the U.S. Coast
Guard.
In the first three months of this year
alone, at least 155 Cubans have made it
to Mona's shores.
Facing more numerous Coast Guard patrols
that interdict and deport Cubans headed
to Florida, Cubans are increasingly finding
different routes to the United States --
from fraudulent passports in Paraguay to
3,700-mile boat-and-land journeys from Cuba
to Honduras to Guatemala to the Mexico-U.S.
border.
The 90-mile-wide Mona Passage that separates
the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico has
long been favored by smugglers ferrying
illegal Dominican migrants to Puerto Rico,
where they can stay illegally or try to
take a flight to the U.S. mainland.
But Cubans need only go halfway to Puerto
Rico -- to Mona Island, managed by the Puerto
Rico Department of Natural Resources, thanks
to the ''wet-foot, dry-foot'' policy that
guarantees they can stay if they make it
to U.S. soil. And with less risk. If caught
at sea, they are returned to the Dominican
Republic.
''Mona is pure Cuban,'' said Abel Mejía,
Iglesias' husband.
The majority of Cubans using the Mona route
settled legally in the Dominican Republic
some time ago after arriving on tourist
and work visas. One broad Dominican visa
program for Cubans was briefly suspended
in 1992 due to widespread allegations of
payoffs.
HIGH PRICE
Those who want to move on to the United
States now board the small boats, dubbed
yolas, that regularly try to smuggle Dominicans
to Puerto Rico. The price tag, up to $4,000,
is more than double what Dominicans pay.
''They charged us $2,500 each,'' said Ruber
Sosa Lechuga, who arrived on Mona Thursday
with his wife, uncle and 12-year-old son.
"I gave the smugglers a car and some
cash, but I was still short. I gave them
the refrigerator, the stove, the microwave,
a DVD and a TV. I even gave him a hair dryer.
Finally I got to the point where I had nothing
else to offer.''
LURES SMUGGLERS
U.S. officials say the Mona route is attractive
to Cuban smugglers.
''Smugglers are constantly looking for
alternate routes,'' said Iván Ortíz,
spokesman for the U.S. Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement in San Juan. "They
think the chances of getting caught going
from Cuba to Florida are far larger than
from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.
It is definitely becoming a favorite route
for Dominican smugglers.''
U.S. officials warn that the Mona Passage,
a rough body of water that is the meeting
point for the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean,
is not safe for small boats.
Mona ''is one of, if not the most, dangerous
passages in the world,'' Ortíz said.
Last year, 34 people died making the trip.
In 2004, 110 people, mostly Dominicans,
were killed.
''A lot of times these yolas are basically
homemade vessels which are delicate. Anything
goes wrong, and that thing is going in the
water.'' said U.S. Coast Guard spokesman
Ricardo Castrodad.
Authorities said the smuggling operations
are run by multimillion dollar criminal
organizations in Santo Domingo, which hire
the captains. Last year, the immigration
agency convicted two Cubans and five Dominicans
for immigrant smuggling. They were sentenced
to a combined 75 years.
''I would never ever have left if I had
known what it would be like,'' Iglesias
said. "I would tell anyone considering
it: Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.''
Once they reach Mona Island, the Cubans
turn themselves in to the handful of park
rangers and biologists who stay there. Rangers
have grown accustomed to bringing extra
towels and shampoo for the refugees who
land on their shores.
''They get here constantly talking about
Fidel this and Fidel that,'' said Sgt. Carlos
Cordero, the island's security supervisor.
"They are surprised to see we are not
like the Cuban or Dominican police, who
go around stopping them, shooting at them
and arresting them.''
Last week, Cordero encountered seven vessels.
'I remember when the guard said to us,
'Don't worry -- you are on free land,' ''
Iglesias said. "What a relief those
words were.''
The migrants usually spend a few days at
a detention center in Aguadilla, Puerto
Rico, and are released to awaiting relatives
or Cuban exile organizations in San Juan.
Both families interviewed this week in
Puerto Rico moved on to Miami, courtesy
of an exile organization in Puerto Rico
that paid their airfare.
'BEST RESULT'
''The fear we went through was not easy,''
said Sosa, now staying at a Little Havana
motel paid for by the Cuban-American National
Foundation. "I suppose the bottom line
is that the illusion for every Cuban is
to leave -- for Haiti, Santo Domingo, China
or wherever. For us, this was the best result:
Santo Domingo to Puerto Rico to Miami.''
Judge signs off on visas in bridge repatriation
case
A group of repatriated
Cubans may soon return after a Miami federal
judge signed off on a new agreement granting
them visas. Cuban leader Fidel Castro will
ultimately decide their future.
By Jay Weaver. jweaver@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 18, 2006.
A Miami federal judge has agreed to a new
deal between the U.S. government and the
legal team for 14 repatriated Cubans so
they can return to the United States in
the wake of their disputed January landing
on an old Florida Keys bridge.
U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno issued
his decision late Thursday, but it remains
up to Cuban leader Fidel Castro to decide
whether to allow the migrants to leave the
island.
The agreement -- citing ''the humanitarian
value'' of resolving the dispute promptly
-- requires the federal government to issue
U.S. visas to the Cubans. But one migrant
who made the journey, Lazaro Jesus Martinez
Jimenez, won't be granted a visa because
he has a criminal history.
In February, Moreno ordered the U.S. government
to make arrangements for the repatriated
Cubans to be brought back to the United
States after the judge ruled they landed
on U.S. soil when they reached an abandoned
bridge in the Florida Keys.
The judge found the Cubans ''were removed
to Cuba illegally'' in January after the
U.S. Coast Guard wrongly concluded the old
Seven Mile Bridge was not connected to the
United States.
Moreno's decision marked the first time
the government had been ordered to allow
Cubans into the United States after they'd
been repatriated to Cuba under the ''wet-foot,
dry-foot'' immigration policy.
Moreno had given the government a March
30 deadline to consider the Cubans' eligibility
to obtain the appropriate federal documents
to enter the United States. But Castro remained
the wild card.
Moreno's geographical finding was a critical
point because under the government's decade-old
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.
The Keys bridge case exploded into a flash
point for the exile community, which used
it to confront the Bush administration's
interpretation of the controversial policy.
The judge's finding only affected the Cubans
who reached the old Seven Mile Bridge --
not the government's overall wet-foot, dry-foot
policy, adopted by the Clinton administration
after a 1994 rafter exodus.
Moreno's latest ruling means his earlier
order is vacated. As part of the deal, the
U.S. Attorney's Office agreed not to appeal
that decision, which could have brought
more legal scrutiny to the wet-foot, dry-foot
policy.
But in the deal reached this week, both
sides still agreed to disagree on the judge's
original finding about the old Keys bridge.
Embargo law due for a tweak, says an
author
Ten years later, the
U.S. government's reluctance to apply the
Helms-Burton Act continues, as does the
debate over the anti-Castro law.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 18, 2006.
WASHINGTON - Ten years after the controversial
Helms-Burton Act tightened the U.S. trade
embargo on Cuba, one of its staunchest supporters
now says that some of its key passages may
need to be changed.
Back in 1996, President Clinton signed
the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity
(Libertad) Act, which provided support for
Cuban dissidents and threatened lawsuits
against foreigners who invested in Cuban
properties seized from U.S. subjects and
businesses.
It also detailed what Cuba needed to do
before the embargo could be lifted: for
instance, when a transition government would
have to hold elections -- within 18 months
-- and who could head that government, not
Fidel Castro or his brother Raúl.
Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart,
who drafted parts of the law, said he's
generally pleased with Helms-Burton because
it took key elements of Cuba policy out
of the president's hands and thereby allowed
the embargo "to survive the second
four years of the Clinton administration.''
But the law also contains unnecessary provisions,
he added. ''Legislating is never a pretty
process,'' he told The Miami Herald.
CONDITIONS
Díaz-Balart says he favors paring
the conditions for lifting the embargo to
three: Cuba must free all political prisoners
and allow exiles to return, opposition political
parties must be legalized, and the government
must declare it will hold democratic elections
"in six months, one year, two years,
three years.''
And what about the rest of Helms-Burton,
including the clause that bars Fidel or
Raúl Castro from heading a transition
government? Díaz-Balart makes it
clear that if Raúl met the three
conditions, he would deal with Raúl.
''That's what I call static,'' Díaz-Balart
said. "I don't care what the name is.
The [real] name is legitimacy.''
If required, Helms-Burton could be changed
''in 72 hours'' to make it easier to lift
the embargo, he added.
The Castro brothers have given no sign
that they would consider Díaz-Balart's
proposals for change. But his remarks nevertheless
have raised some eyebrows among Cuba observers.
Tomas Bilbao, executive director of the
Cuba Study Group, made up of moderate exiles
who back a peaceful transition in Cuba,
said Díaz-Balart's statements were
"a smart change in focus.''
''The congressman recognizes that the all-or-nothing
approach [in Helms-Burton] is an impediment
to bringing about a change,'' said Bilbao,
director of operations for Florida Republican
Sen. Mel Martínez's 2003 campaign.
Clinton signed the controversial Helms-Burton
bill in 1996 amid the indignation that followed
the shootdown by Cuban MiGs just weeks before
of two small planes flown by the Miami-based
Brothers to the Rescue. Four men were killed.
Critics of the law say it limits the role
the U.S. government can play in Cuba after
Castro.
''Giving people reason to believe that
the United States sees itself as the ultimate
arbiter of what happens in Cuba, which government
is good or bad, which government is acceptable
or not, which one is democratic or not .
. . undermines the objective of the U.S.
playing a positive role in promoting a peaceful
democratic transition in Cuba,'' said Richard
Nuccio, a Clinton White House advisor on
Cuba.
LAW'S IMPACT
The Cuban government, which has attacked
the provisions as a galling example of U.S.
interventionism, estimates that Helms-Burton
has cost the island $82 billion in potential
investments. But it also oddly claimed that
the government weathered the law's impacts.
The law was passed when Cuba was opening
itself up to foreign investments for the
first time since the 1950s.
''They tried to score a home run on us,
and we split their bat,'' the newspaper
Juventud Rebelde said on its front page
on March 12, when Helms-Burton turned 10
years old.
Many in the Cuban-American community still
back the legislation, largely drafted by
Roger Noriega and Dan Fisk, then respectively
aides to Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina
and Rep. Dan Brown of Indiana, both Republicans.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican,
said the law put an economic stranglehold
on Castro, brought new attention to rights
abuses in the island and "provided
help for human rights activists and pro-democracy
forces in Cuba.''
Helms-Burton also generated international
protests because it extended the reach of
U.S. courts. Its Title III, which lets U.S.
residents use U.S. courts to sue foreigners
who invest in confiscated U.S. properties
in Cuba, has been consistently waived by
both the Clinton and Bush administration.
Title IV, which strips executives and owners
of foreign companies that invest in Cuba
of their U.S. visas, has been selectively
used, much to the irritation of Cuban-American
lobbyists. The State Department has taken
away visas, or threatened to do so, of Canadian,
Mexican and Jamaican investors, but not
of the more powerful Europeans.
Cuban roots: One man's genealogical
journey grows into a project to save other
family histories
By Ana Veciana-Suarez, aveciana-suarez@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 18, 2006.
It began, as many things do, with a personal
search.
In 1976, Jorge Piñon, then an oil
executive, wanted to know more about his
Cuban-American family's history, so he began
doing research and asking questions of his
parents. Now, 30 years later, Piñon
has amassed a genealogical chart that dates
to the 1600s and has put together an informative
how-to book that can help others do the
same.
He is also helping to launch the Cuban
Family History and Genealogy Project at
the Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami,
where he is now a research associate. The
project will include seminars and workshops
to help Cuban Americans sift through civil
and church archives in Cuba and Spain.
'During our teenage years we hear our parents'
tales, but we don't really listen,'' he
says. "We're not interested in the
old man's stories. But there comes a time
in our lives when we begin asking ourselves
questions: Who am I? Where do I come from?''
For Piñon, the project is as much
about a personal mission as about historical
preservation. The obituary page was his
inspiration.
''I kept reading these notices every day,''
says Piñon, pointing to the death
notices in the Spanish-language El Nuevo
Herald "and I realized that we were
losing an important part of who we are as
a community. What are their stories? What
can they tell us about how they lived and
what they went through?''
Though we live in a digital era where recording
a moment in history is as easy as flipping
a cellphone, Piñon, nonetheless,
worries about the legacy we are leaving
our children. Few of us keep diaries as
our ancestors did, and fewer still actually
write letters, an important fountain of
information for future historians.
''I'm hard pressed to think of a time when
I wrote any of my children a letter,'' says
Piñon, father of four adult children.
"We live in a world of fast communication
and technology. We call and we send e-mails.
So how do we capture our experiences to
leave behind as a legacy?''
The genealogy project, he adds, will do
this through an outreach program to teach
people how to document, in oral and narrative
form, a family's history, stories, rituals
and customs. Workshops are scheduled later
this year at Miami-Dade's public libraries
and at the Little Havana Activity and Nutrition
Centers.
THREE TARGETS
It is aimed at three generations: the abuelitos
who have most of the history stored in memory,
the children who are interested in the information
but don't know how to go about gathering
it, and the grandchildren who may take for
granted the time they have left with older
relatives.
Piñon hopes that his own experience
-- the disinterested teenager who grew up
to be a middle-age genealogy buff -- will
encourage others to collect not only the
names and birth and death dates of their
ancestors but track down the family lore
as well.
''Genealogy, the facts you get from documents,
is really only the skeleton,'' he explains.
"The stories of why and how are the
heart and the muscle and the tendons. That's
why it's so important to talk to relatives,
to find the letters and photos of the abuelitos
and ask them questions about it.''
Piñon arrived here from Cuba in
1960, as a 12-year-old who was regaled with
stories of the island. After graduating
from college, he began working for the oil
industry and moving his young family around
for different postings. By the time he returned
to Miami about three years ago, he figured
it was moving into his 14th house. ''We
were like gypsies,'' he quips.
But during those wanderings, something
happened that would change his perception
of who he was and how his parents had weathered
exile from Cuba. Stationed in New Orleans,
he remembered that his mother had told him
that his great-grandmother had been born
in that city to parents of English and Scottish
descent. Suddenly, what he had once dismissed
as ''tall tales'' became pertinent information.
So he called his parents in Miami and got
some sketchy details. Then he sent off a
form letter to families in the New Orleans
area who bore the same family name, Waugh.
Two months later, he heard back from a man:
"I think we're cousins.''
That initial contact led to a visit and
a search through the attic, where letters
from Piñon's grandmother in Cuba
to her cousins were stored. The letters
proved not only invaluable but also fascinating,
and they recounted quotidian details of
life in Cuba during the 1920s, including
a devastating Caribbean hurricane in 1923
and his mother's asthma.
''I knew I had found a treasure,'' Piñon
recalls. "That's when the genealogy
bug bit me.''
The bug actually became a part-time job
as he tracked his great-grandmother Isabella
Waugh's temporary move to Cuba with her
parents and siblings during the Civil War
and then her eventual meeting and marriage
to Ezequiel Torres, a Spaniard, in 1877.
Slowly he built up an impressive collection
of documents that fleshed out the ''tall
tales'' that his mother had once told. For
example, Isabella's father, Robert Waugh
Scott, was killed during a scrimmage between
the Spanish army and the Cuban rebels during
the Ten Year War in January 1877, while
working for a wealthy sugar baron in Cuba.
Piñon found the death notice in The
New Orleans Times-Picayane.
'GENEALOGY 101'
Piñon eventually used his own experience
to write Research Guide to Cuban Family
History and Genealogy. Though directed at
Cuban-Americans, the first part of the book,
written in English, can also serve as a
primer for other ethnic groups interested
in tracing their family's history since
it lists various websites and research tomes.
It recounts how researching surnames' etymology
can narrow down ancestors' geographic origins,
explains the meaning of a family coat of
arms and, perhaps more important, provides
basic tips on how to get started. Piñon
describes the first few pages as "Genealogy
101.''
The final two-thirds of the book, in Spanish,
lists Cuba's national archives and libraries,
a guide to provincial and municipal governments
on the island and government archives, church
libraries and provincial offices in Spain.
This, Piñon admits, is just a starting
point, and he warns that it takes a certain
amount of perseverance to truly dig into
the past. ''The key to getting documents
in Cuba is to establish contact with the
parish priest because that's where the records
are,'' he explains. "The civil registry
didn't start until the 1900s. The problem
you find, of course, is that there are fewer
priests and they're short-handed.''
For immediate gratification, he recommends
neophyte genealogists begin with their immediate
family by interviewing relatives, recording
key life events and experiences and -- as
he did -- searching for document boxes gathering
dust in someone's attic or closet.
''As Cuban Americans, we're very good at
preserving Cuban history in general -- our
music, our food and our politics,'' Piñon
says. "But do we know who abuelito
is? Do we know how abuelito and abuelita
met? I tell people to start with their parents,
with their own lives. Work as much as you
can with today.''
Lensman's lyrical trip in Cuban countryside
By Elisa Turner, elisaturn@aol.com.
Posted on Thu, Mar. 16, 2006.
Orchestrating shades that range from velvet
black to silvery pewter to egret-feather
white, Florida photographer Clyde Butcher
bucks the bias for color photography by
shooting grand views in black and white.
His current show at Art + Gallery, Florida
and the Cuban Expeditions, takes us back
to the days of superb black-and-white landscape
photography by Ansel Adams in the 1930s
and 1940s. Adams is revered for his majestic
scenes of wilderness in the American West.
Both photographers are known for their
environmental concerns. Butcher has applied
Adams' illustrious example to his own well-known
scenes of Florida's endangered natural landscape,
especially the Everglades.
He shows us scenes of glinting wetlands,
lacy stretches of cypress strands, and cottony
mountains of cumulus clouds. Sometimes he
treads too close to his famous predecessor.
In the show at Art +, it's not hard to
see Butcher's Moonrise, Big Cypress National
Preserve as a rip-off of Adams' Moonrise,
Hernandez, New Mexico of 1941. The artist
may argue that this work is really a homage
to Adams. The heart of this show are photographs
that give us many views of rural Cuba, in
images that aren't as well known as his
scenes of Florida. These show us forests,
rivers, fields and mountains of Cuba's countryside.
It's a view of Cuba that takes us miles
beyond clichéd shots of vintage American
cars crowding streets in Old Havana.
These are images of a Cuban landscape that
Butcher shot in 2002 and 2003. At that time,
he was asked to photograph Cuba by the country's
U.N. ambassador, Luis Gomez-Echeverri, and
Naples businessman John Parke Wright IV.
The request coincided with the United Nations
declaring 2002 as The International Year
of Mountains.
Butcher attended an environmental conference
on mountainous habitats, held in the Sierra
Maestra mountains of eastern Cuba. It was
a meeting to draw conservationists from
the Americas and the Caribbean.
Just as Adams helped people understand
the raw beauty of the American West, so
Butcher gives us a lyrical view of Cuba's
natural treasures. He captures the silvery,
silken stream of plunging waterfalls in
Salto el Rocio. In Caballete de Casa (A
House Easel) he shows a panorama of mountains
rising from fields, dusted with clouds and
seen through a scattering of royal palms'
slender trunks.
The filigree of a tree fern becomes a self-conscious,
fan-shaped focal point in Ancient Tree Fern,
a work that shows how the over-zealous Butcher
can occasionally slip from the grand to
grandiose.
Cuban team doctor manages to stay in
game
Cuba's team doctor once
dreamed of playing baseball, but his father
-- Fidel Castro -- had other ideas for his
future. Today, he serves his country and
the game he loves.
By Kevin Baxter, kbaxter@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Mon, Mar. 13, 2006.
SAN JUAN - The boy wanted to be a baseball
player. And he showed some promise at it,
too, starting at third base for his college
squad while prepping for a shot at Cuba's
powerful national team.
''He was a decent player at the university
level,'' said Fernando Arango, coordinator
of Latin American scouting for the Milwaukee
Brewers. "He wasn't bad.''
But the boy's father wanted him to be a
doctor. And when your dad is Fidel Castro,
it's probably a good idea to do what his
says. Especially when the two choices he
gives you are entering medical school or
entering the Cuban army to go fight in Angola.
''Baseball,'' Arango said with a chuckle,
"wasn't an option.''
So Antonio Castro SotodelValle became an
orthopedic surgeon -- then would end up
making Cuba's national team anyway, as the
team doctor.
''I'm very satisfied with what I've done,''
Castro said Sunday, standing in the tunnel
leading from the dugout to the team clubhouse
minutes before Cuba's second-round game
in the World Baseball Classic. "No
matter what your profession, to be the doctor
or to just work with the national team of
your country, for a sport that means so
much, that's something to be proud of.''
Castro, 37, is one of five sons born to
the Cuban president and Dalia SotodelValle,
a former schoolteacher and his wife of more
than 30 years. But because Fidel Castro
has insisted his family stay out of view,
Antonio -- or Tony to the players -- is
the only one of the five with a visible
public job.
A staff physician at an orthopedic hospital
in Havana, Castro was added to the national
team's medical staff six years ago and has
worked multisport events such as the 2003
Pan American Games and the 2004 Athens Olympics
as well as with the baseball team.
And though the Cubans don't advertise his
presence, they don't keep him hidden either
-- not that they could, anyway.
Dressed Sunday in the same khaki pants
and red polo shirt as the other team doctors,
Castro stands out nonetheless, his self-deprecating
sense of humor and ready smile offering
a stark contrast to dour seriousness enveloping
the rest of the 65-person Cuban delegation.
In San Juan, Castro has signed autographs
-- making him perhaps the only team doctor
ever asked for an autograph -- and bantered
with fans before games. Sunday he was often
the first man off the Cuban bench to congratulate
players as they came off the field, wrapping
an arm around pitcher Yadel Marti when he
was pulled from the game in the fifth inning,
then high-fiving team captain Eduardo Paret
after he scored a sixth-inning run.
The cheerleading, he explained, was not
just the team, but for his country as well.
Which is the same way he approaches his
job.
''I am a child of Cuba, a product of our
system. A product formed by the revolution
and by the country,'' he said. "And
this team is from the country, from the
revolution.
"For the Cuban people there's nothing
separated, there's nothing personal.''
Aging band dreams of revolt
Militants vow to help
a Cuban insurrection, but a new poll shows
that most Cuban Americans don't support
them.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 11, 2006.
Bombs and assassination attempts, guns
and raids defined the struggle for a free
Cuba for decades to small groups of Cuban
exiles who thought politics and embargoes
would get them nowhere.
Today, their numbers ravaged by death,
old age and even apathy, the old militants
are trying to kickstart La Causa one last
time. Recently, a few Cuban exiles, mostly
in their 60s and 70s, held a news conference
to vow support for an insurrection in Cuba
and to aid it through any means necessary.
At least one of the men has since pulled
out, calling the talk about violence "stupidity.''
Thirteen years ago, an exile-led insurgency
on the island would have been welcome by
almost three of every four Cuban exiles
in South Florida. But today, fighting words
ring hollow to the vast majority of Cuban
Americans.
A new poll, skewed toward older Cuban exiles,
no less, finds that only one-third of South
Florida's Cubans support a U.S. military
strike on the island.
The militant cause has seen several of
its leaders jailed or die. Andres Nazario
Sargen, leader of Alpha 66, died in 2004.
Luis Posada Carriles was detained by the
federal government in Miami, and his biggest
supporter, Santiago Alvarez, is facing federal
weapons charges.
Yet the handful of mostly retirement-age
men who met recently at the Municipios de
Cuba building in Little Havana to call for
an insurgency on the island say they aren't
giving up.
''As a Cuban, I support any attempt to
overthrow the tyrannical government Castro
has put there,'' said Jose Dionisio Suárez,
who served seven years in prison for his
role in the assassination of Chilean diplomat
Orlando Letelier in the 1970s.
The FBI's Miami office is unaware of any
plans by these men to support a Cuban-led
insurrection, said FBI spokeswoman Judy
Orihuela.
A new poll shows that one-third of South
Florida's Cubans still hold out hope for
a U.S. military invasion of the communist
island. When asked what action they would
like to see the U.S. government pursue ''to
bring about a free and democratic Cuba,''
33 percent chose ''military strike to eliminate
the dictator;'' 30 percent chose ''tightening
the embargo;'' and 7 percent said ''increasing
support to dissidents,'' among other choices.
Rob Daves, vice president and president-elect
of the American Association for Public Opinion
Research, said he would be cautious about
drawing conclusions from the results.
''The questions and response categories
do have some words with social baggage attached
to them,'' he said, referring specifically
to words such as ''dictator,'' ''free''
and ''democratic,'' which have strong negative
and positive social connotations attached
to them.
One of the researchers, Jessica Lavariega
Monforti, a political science professor
at the University of Texas-Pan American
said the wording used in her poll, which
has a margin of error of plus or minus four
percentage points, is consistent with how
the community refers to issues.
The poll, funded mostly by the University
of California system, interviewed 600 Cubans
and Cuban-Americans from Miami-Dade County
in mid-February. Almost nine in 10 are registered
voters, and 47 percent of the voters polled
said they were 60 or older.
Nevertheless, the survey shows that support
for a military strike has dropped drastically
since 1993, when a poll conducted by Florida
International University found that 73 percent
of South Florida Cubans favored military
action by exiles and 60 percent supported
a U.S. military strike.
Many exile leaders today denounce militancy
against Castro, saying other means must
be employed.
''We are totally committed to nonviolence,
and we think it's the only way to go,''
said Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of the
Cuba Study Group, adding that he supports
Cubans on the island who resist human rights
abuses through civil disobedience.
Likewise, Alfredo Mesa, executive director
of the Cuban American National Foundation,
denounced the insurgency strategy, saying
such announcements can reflect badly on
the whole exile community.
''It's very easy to announce these things
when you are living outside of Cuba, but
it's the wrong message at the wrong time.
And it's very unfortunate,'' Mesa said.
"I don't question their love for Cuba,
but I call to question their judgment.''
Tony Calatayud, a conservative Spanish-language
radio show host who signed the statement
backing insurrection, said the committee
was formed to continue the ''belligerence''
against Fidel Castro's regime.
''We ask our brothers on the island to
rise up and rebel in their country and liquidate
the tyranny,'' Calatayud said.
Another co-signer, Tony Esquivel, said
an insurrection is already afoot on the
island.
A few days after the meeting, however,
Esquivel said his group, Revolutionary Recovery
Movement, withdrew from the effort because
members disagreed with the means to promote
change. ''We can't get involved in that
stupidity,'' Esquivel said. "You don't
say those things from American territory.''
Of all the groups that signed, perhaps
none of them troubles the Cuban government
more than Commandos F-4, which has been
denounced often by the Cuban government
for acts of terror. The group's leader,
Rodolfo Frometa, said the commandos have
already infiltrated Cuba.
He said members of his group have conducted
various acts of sabotage over the past several
years, including posting anti-Castro pamphlets
on the island, blowing up buses, and an
attempted assassination of Juan Pablo Roque,
a Cuban under indictment in the United States
for allegedly infiltrating the organization
Brothers to the Rescue.
The Cuban Interests Section in Washington
did not respond to requests for an interview.
Frometa, who served time in a U.S. prison
in the 1990s for trying to buy surface-to-air
missiles, hired a cameraman recently to
videotape Commandos F-4 simulating the capture
of Fidel and Raul Castro. In the video,
which Frometa said was shot in South Florida,
about a dozen commandos dressed in fatigues
and wielding semi-automatic weapons can
be seen storming a shack, where men dressed
to look like the Castro brothers are captured.
In the last scene of the 15-minute video,
Frometa yells at the Fidel Castro look-alike,
calling him ''dog'' and asking him why he
killed Frometa's son and brother. As Frometa
played the video for a Herald reporter,
he smiled in triumph as Castro's character
kneels in defeat before him.
''Castro says I'm the biggest terrorist
in the United States,'' Frometa said. "But
if one day I have to go to prison or be
killed for a free Cuba, it's well worth
it.''
Martinez calls Cuba policy 'immoral,'
urges changes
Sen. Mel Martinez proposed
bringing Cuban migrants to land before determining
asylum claims.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 11, 2006.
As the Bush administration reviews the
controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy,
U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said Friday the best
solution would be to bring all Cuban migrants
to land and then determine if they can migrate
to the United States or go back to the island.
''You bring them to land . . . everybody's
dry-foot, and then you deal with them in
a fair and open way,'' Martinez said at
a news conference at the Biltmore Hotel.
"I think that the human rights violations
that are seen in Cuba make it immoral for
us to be repatriating Cubans the way we
are doing now.''
It's crucial for the government to undertake
reforms to U.S.-Cuba migration policy to
make it more humanitarian and to serve the
interests of the United States, he said.
The United States should avoid another embarrassing
Cuba migration episode, he said, such as
the one that took place in January when
15 Cuban migrants found on an old bridge
in the Florida Keys were sent back to Cuba
because the Coast Guard decided that the
unattached bridge did not constitute dry
land.
''There has to be a solution to the problem,''
he said.
The Cubans should be brought on shore so
that they can have access to some legal
representation, Martinez said, because "it's
just not working on the high seas.''
Martinez had just attended a closed-door
meeting with other Miami politicians and
leaders on immigration reform.
Martinez was invited to, but was not able
to attend, a meeting earlier this week in
Washington between Bush administration officials
and Cuban-American representatives to discuss
ways to reform the controversial wet-foot,
dry-foot policy.
Miami Herald staff writer Alfonso Chardy
contributed to this report.
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