| CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Plan prepared for Cuban exodus
The Bush administration
will build a new facility to detain migrants
in Guantánamo amid stepped-up preparations
for dealing with a post-Castro Cuba.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Fri, Feb. 16, 2007.
WASHINGTON - Concerned about a possible
mass exodus of Cubans, the Department of
Defense plans to spend $18 million to prepare
part of the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo
Bay to shelter interdicted migrants, U.S.
officials told The Miami Herald.
The new installation is needed because
terrorism suspects occupy space on the base
used in past emergencies to hold large numbers
of migrants, Bush administration officials
directly involved said. They note that the
facilities are designed to house people
from any Caribbean nation who attempt to
enter illegally -- not just Cubans.
But they say privately that Fidel Castro's
illness and temporary hand-over of power
to his brother Raúl last summer injected
a renewed sense of urgency into plans to
handle a mass exodus. The administration
quietly requested the funds about a month
ago and Congress has approved it, The Miami
Herald was told.
The officials, who were authorized to speak
on the subject but requested anonymity because
of the sensitive nature of Cuban issues,
say there is no sign a Cuban migration crisis
is brewing, but they acknowledge predicting
one is difficult. The 1980 Mariel boatlift,
which saw 125,000 Cubans arrive in Florida,
began when a group of Cubans tried to storm
the Peruvian embassy in Havana.
BIGGER PLAN
The $18 million initiative is part of a
broader U.S. government effort to prepare
for the death of Castro. The administration
will not say how many migrants it believes
might flee Cuba or even if any will do so,
but one expert warned that up to 500,000
may try to leave the island after Castro's
death.
Top Bush Cabinet officials have met at
least twice since December to review Cuba
contingency plans. On March 7 and 8, the
Department of Homeland Security will lead
an exercise in South Florida involving the
Coast Guard and dozens of federal, state
and local agencies, focused on stopping
U.S. boaters from picking up rafters.
The U.S. Navy base, on the eastern tip
of Cuba, apparently would be used as a shelter
of last resort if the volume of Cubans interdicted
at sea overwhelms the U.S. policy known
as "wet foot/dry foot.''
Under that policy, Cubans who make it to
U.S. territory are allowed to remain. Those
intercepted at sea are interviewed aboard
Coast Guard vessels and most are repatriated
to Cuba. A few who have been found to credibly
risk persecution if returned to Cuba have
been taken to Guantánamo for more
interviews while U.S. officials arrange
for their resettlement in third nations.
U.S. officials refused to say whether the
wet foot/dry foot policy will be changed
in case of an exodus, since such an announcement
might prompt many Cubans to leave.
For years, migrants captured during surges
ended up in tent camps at Guantánamo
on a bluff called Radio Range, on the larger
Windward side of the base.
1994 MIGRATIONS
At the height of the last migration crisis
in 1994, more than 32,000 Cubans and 21,000
Haitians overwhelmed the base in tent cities.
Most of the Cubans were later sent to the
United States. Most of the Haitians were
sent home.
The Pentagon has since built its sprawling
terrorism detention and interrogation center
at the site of the old tent camps, limiting
shelter space. The plan would put them on
the smaller Leeward side, which has an airstrip
but no docks for large ships.
''The capacity to process migrants at Guantánamo
is an integral part of our overall plans
to ensure that any attempted mass migration
in the Caribbean is not successful,'' said
one official, who also declined to be identified.
The official said the new facility is "part
of prudent contingency planning.''
''The U.S. has established avenues for
safe, orderly, legal migration from the
various countries in the Caribbean,'' the
official added. "Any effort to send
people to the United States via unsafe and
illegal means will not succeed.''
The Pentagon already has solicited construction
bids for the new facility. The $18 million
would pay for things like land leveling,
sewage and electrical infrastructure, bathrooms,
dining facilities and administrative offices
to process asylum applications. The installations
will be initially designed to handle about
10,000 migrants, officials say, though more
can be quickly accommodated if needed.
SCENARIOS
Andy Gomez, senior fellow at the University
of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
Studies, says focus groups and other interviews
show many young Cubans are eager to leave.
''If the economic conditions do not get
better, there is the strong possibility
that as many as 500,000 Cubans will want
to leave the island in all directions,''
he says. "The other possibility will
also be a large group of Cubans rushing
the U.S. base in Guantánamo or foreign
embassies in Havana.''
Latin American countries may be reluctant
to take in numerous migrants, he added.
Meanwhile, the Coast Guard is finalizing
plans for an exercise next month that will
involve scores of vessels.
Rear Adm. David Kunkel, head of the Coast
Guard's South East District, is in charge
of coordinating interdiction efforts among
many agencies, including the U.S. Navy and
Miami-Dade Police.
''We would be concerned with boaters leaving
from South Florida marinas to potentially
increase the problem,'' said Jim Watson,
chief of staff of the South East District.
He said ''deterrent elements'' would be
tested.
Miami Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario
Diaz-Balart, who have been briefed on preparations,
could not be reached for comment.
Miami Herald staff writer Carol Rosenberg
contributed to this report
Castro's son: Fidel's recovery 'satisfactory'
Posted on Thu, Feb. 15,
2007
HAVANA - (AP) -- Fidel Castro's eldest
son and namesake said Thursday his father's
comeback from intestinal surgery has been
''satisfactory'' and that he could eventually
recover completely.
''As Raúl said officially, as well
as other leaders: his state of health is
progressing in a satisfactory and sustained
manner,'' Fidel Castro Diaz Balart told
reporters.
Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother and
the 75-year-old defense minister, has been
acting president since his 80-year-old sibling
stepped aside more than six months ago to
recover from the surgery.
''That's the same perception that I have,''
the 56-year-old known as ''Fidelito'' said
on the sidelines of an international book
fair. "We believe that bit by bit,
comrade Fidel will achieve total recovery.
That's the hope of the Cuban people and
the revolutionaries of the world.''
The bearded revolutionary's brothers Raúl
and Ramón, 82, said separately last
week that Castro was recovering well. Raúl
added that his brother was exercising and
frequently using the telephone.
Cuban officials have denied U.S. government
reports that Fidel suffered from cancer.
A Spanish newspaper reported last month
that he had diverticular disease, a weakening
of the walls of the colon.
On Jan. 30, Havana's communist government
released a new video of Castro looking stronger
than in previous images as he met with Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez.
Did Cuba really find Ché's remains?
Cuba said it found the
remains of revolutionary leader 'Ché'
Guevara in Bolivia 10 years ago. Now a magazine
article has challenged the statement.
From Miami Herald staff
and wire reports. Posted on Wed, Feb. 14,
2007.
A story in a Spanish-Mexican magazine has
challenged Cuba's claim that it found the
long-missing remains of revolutionary hero
Ernesto ''Ché'' Guevara in Bolivia
in 1997.
Guevara was leading a guerrilla force when
he was captured and executed in 1967 by
Bolivian army troops assisted by CIA operatives.
The remains found in 1997 are now in a mausoleum
in the Cuban city of Santa Clara.
The Letras Libres magazine reported in
this month's edition that there were several
inconsistencies in the identification of
the remains recovered in 1997 by a team
of Cuban forensic experts from an unmarked
grave in Vallegrande, where Guevara's body
was last seen.
DISSECTING EVIDENCE
According to the report, the remains included
a shirt and a belt, supposedly Guevara's,
which could not have been his, and a container
of tobacco that did not match the description
of the container he was known to have had.
The report said Cuban leader Fidel Castro
pushed the search team to find remains before
October 1997 -- the 30th anniversary of
Guevara's death -- "in order to distract
the Cuban people from their pressing hardships
and to relaunch the country's revolutionary
fervor.''
The Cuban search team included three geophysical
engineers, a forensic anthropologist, an
archaeologist and a historian, and was led
by the director of the Havana Forensic Medicine
Institute, Jorge González,
Letras Libres said the Cubans' identification
of Guevara's remains was endorsed by a forensic
team from Argentina, which gave it greater
credibility, and was carried out with ''the
suspicious complicity of a commission picked
by the Bolivian government to supervise
the operation,'' led by the former ambassador
to Havana, Franklin Anaya.
DENTAL RECORDS
Guevara's identification, according to
the official Cuban version, was based on
dental records and the fact that the recovered
skeleton had no hands. The guerrilla leader's
hands were amputated by the army after his
execution.
A Miami Herald report in 1997 also cast
some doubt on the Cubans' findings.
Gustavo Villoldo, a Cuban exile and CIA
operative who was advising the Bolivian
troops hunting Guevara, told the newspaper
that he personally supervised the secret
burial of Guevara and two other guerrillas
in an unmarked grave.
But the Cuban search team that claimed
to have found Guevara's remains said it
found six other bodies in the same grave.
Villoldo, who still lives in South Florida,
was quoted in the Herald story as saying
that he had no reason to doubt the Cuban
search team indeed had dug up Guevara's
remains -- though he remained mystified
by the seven bodies found.
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