ANOTHER COMMUNIST CUBAN LIVING AMONGST SURVIVORS?

http://www.miamiherald.com/457/story/741916.html

The hijacking suspect next door

In 1958, armed Castro sympathizers hijacked a flight from Miami, causing it to crash off Cuba. One suspected hijacker has been living here -- not far from two survivors.

Miami survivor of hijacked Cuban plane tells his story

Osiris Martinez, now living in Miami, recounts the 1958 hijacking of a plane that crashed, killing his wife and three young children.

El Nuevo Herald

Miami survivor of hijacked Cuban plane tells his story

Osiris Martinez, now living in Miami, recounts the 1958 hijacking of a plane that crashed, killing his wife and three young children.

El Nuevo Herald

BY GERARDO REYES, MICHAEL SALLAH AND ALFONSO CHARDY

msallah@MiamiHerald.com

Before the plane slammed into the darkness of the ocean, Omara Gonzalez fixed on an image that has haunted her for 50 years: the hijacker's piercing eyes and white shoes.

''There are things you don't forget,'' she said tearfully of the deadly hijacking that left 14 dead and four wounded. ``I can still see him in those shoes, standing by the [cockpit] door.''

While the Coral Gables woman grapples with images of the crash that changed her life a half century ago, she now confronts a new twist in the disaster: The suspected hijacker is living just miles from her home.

Edmundo Ponce de Leon, who quietly moved to Miami from Cuba in 1994 -- with no barriers to his entry -- is one of the only surviving suspects from the famous hijacking of a Cubana Airlines plane on Nov. 1, 1958.

State Department records obtained by The Miami Herald say the 72-year-old and four others were identified as the armed men in dark fatigues who took over the plane during a flight from Miami to Cuba -- the first international hijacking from U.S. soil.

The plane -- secretly loaded with arms for Fidel Castro's rebels -- crashed off the coast of Cuba while running out of fuel in an event that rocked Miami and Havana. No one was ever charged in the crime.

Ponce de Leon says he was on the airliner that night, but insists he was not among the hijackers. ''I was going on a vacation trip,'' he said in an interview at his home. ``I was just going for a few days.''

But witnesses tracked down after the crash said he was one of the hijackers who later joined the revolutionary forces in Havana, according to State Department records.

His emergence in the case represents a new dilemma in one of the first hijacking investigations in U.S. history.

Though the case was investigated by the FBI and State Department for several weeks, it was never officially closed, records show.

Because Ponce de Leon and other suspected hijackers remained in Cuba after the crash, the U.S. attorney's office concluded they could not be prosecuted because they were outside the jurisdiction of the United States, State Department records indicate.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to say whether the case would be reopened. ''We simply do not comment on whether we plan to open or reopen any investigation,'' said Alicia Valle, special counsel.

The event nearly faded from history until early this year when a dispute erupted between Ponce de Leon and a sister over ownership of their mother's home.

An attorney for the sister pressed to interview survivors about the hijacking, but the case was settled.

Several former federal prosecutors say the case presents legal challenges for the justice system because of due-process protections, but one thing is for certain: There's no statute of limitations on murder.

''You still have real-life survivors,'' said Christopher Bruno, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. ``Just because the years have gone by doesn't mean you just close the books.''

In the days after the crash, the investigation of the hijacking was considered a priority by the FBI and State Department.

The suspects were identified right away, including Ponce de Leon, a U.S. Air Force veteran born in Cuba and raised in New York and Miami, where he attended Edison High School.

The British-built plane was one of many flights connecting Miami and Cuba at the time, when relations between Havana and Washington were normal.

But the situation in Cuba was deteriorating: Castro's rebels were advancing and President Fulgencio Batista seemed ready to relinquish power. On the eve of the flight, an election loomed to choose a presidential successor.

For days, U.S. embassy agents interviewed survivors and witnesses who helped pluck the bodies out of the sea off eastern Cuba.

IDENTIFIED SUSPECT

One of those survivors, Osiris Martinez -- now living in Miami -- identified Ponce de Leon from a photo provided by investigators just five days after the crash, records state.

Martinez, now 81, whose wife and three young children, 2, 4, and 5, died when the plane plunged into the sea, said he was certain during interviews with investigators that Ponce de Leon was one of the armed men who commandeered the turboprob plane.

''There was no doubt,'' he said in an interview with The Herald last week. ``I recognized him right away.''

Martinez, who says he now has a more difficult time recognizing the aging man in the photos, said he and other passengers were in the plane with the hijackers for several hours.

''I saw them when we were on the plane, and I saw them again when they jumped from the plane'' after it broke apart on the water.

Gonzalez, then 16, said she recognized Ponce de Leon from photos shown to her last week by The Herald, including a black-and-white photo from the 1950s and another taken recently. ``I can see his eyes. I'll never forget them as long as I live.''

Gonzalez, whose grandfather died in the crash, said she spent several hours watching the hijackers move down the aisle.

''We were all so panicked,'' she recalled in an interview. ``We didn't know what they were going to do.''

The men, who boarded the Vickers Vicount airliner dressed in street clothes, jumped from their seats about 20 minutes after the plane departed and shouted they were taking over, according to Gonzalez and Martinez.

The hijackers yanked open a floor compartment, pulling out large green canvas bags stuffed with machine guns, handguns and ammunition, Martinez said.

With passengers watching, they stripped down to their underwear and put on olive fatigues and black and red armbands of the July 26th Movement -- Castro's rebel forces.

''They told us not to move,'' recalled Gonzalez, who was sitting near her 9-year-old cousin.

She said the man she recognized as Ponce de Leon was wearing white shoes, standing near the cockpit. ''Not tennis shoes,'' she said. ``White shoes.''

Instead of flying to Varadero -- a resort town on the northern coast -- the plane headed to eastern Cuba, where the rebels were to land at Sierra Cristal to deliver the weapons to Raúl Castro, said Gonzalez and Martinez.

But the hours passed, and darkness set in.

`VOMITING, SCREAMING'

The pilot struggled to find a runway because of the lack of lighting on the mountainous terrain.

The airliner ''kept going up and down and up and down,'' recalled Gonzalez in an interview.

Martinez said all the passengers, including his children, were getting sick. ``They would rev up the motors and the plane would shoot up. The carts and the suitcases would fly to the back of the plane. Everyone was vomiting and screaming.''

At one point, Gonzalez said she overheard a hijacker say they would ``have to kill the pilot.''

''He apparently wasn't doing what they wanted,'' she said in an interview.

Martinez told investigators the pilot tried to land the plane 10 times, but each time, he would pull back in fear of missing the mark.

Shortly after 9 p.m. -- more than four hours after takeoff -- the hijackers ordered the passengers to strap in. ''They said to buckle our seat belts. There was no gas,'' said Martinez in a recent interview.

After slamming into the water, the plane broke into pieces, with some of the passengers still alive in their seats. 'I looked over at my grandfather, who was buckled in, and I heard him say, `Save yourself,' '' Gonzalez said.

She and her young cousin, Luis Sosa, were pulled from the water by a fisherman as they clung to a floating suitcase.

Martinez was pulled from the water by the same fisherman.

HIJACKERS' BODIES

Two of the hijackers died in the crash, their bodies found floating while still clad in fatigues and armbands. Fourteen people died, although news reports initially said 17.

The day after the crash, U.S. Ambassador Earl Smith ordered an investigation by the embassy in Havana, while requesting help from the FBI in Miami.

Citing top Cuban authorities, Miami Herald correspondent George Southworth reported Ponce de Leon was one of the hijackers.

But at the time, no one was able to find him, said Wayne Smith, an embassy diplomat who interviewed survivors.

However, Smith managed to interview a man identified as Ponce de Leon's cousin, Carlos Arias Aguero, who told embassy officials Ponce de Leon ''had been engaged in revolutionary activities in Miami,'' records say.

''He had reason to believe that Edmundo Ponce de Leon might possibly have been one of the gunmen who commandeered the ill-fated Varadero flight,'' the report states.

By then, the three surviving suspects had traveled to the mountains, according to hospital workers interviewed by the embassy.

During an interview at his home last week, Ponce de Leon -- who is now blind in one eye and has a heart condition -- gave a vastly different version of the final hours leading to the crash and how he ended up staying in Cuba.

He said he boarded as a tourist, and in all his years, ``I have never owned a pair of white shoes.''

He said the hijacking took place ''over Cuba'' and not 20 minutes after departing.

He said during the flight to the island, he did not believe the captain was threatened, insisting that most passengers were sympathetic to the rebel cause.

''There was no violence or hostility aboard the plane,'' said Ponce de Leon.

But Gonzalez said she and the other passengers were terrified because the hijackers threatened them with guns and ordered them to sit with their heads between their legs and pillows over their heads.

''I still have nightmares,'' she said.

Martinez said the hijacking ``was an act of terrorism. They were carrying weapons.''

After the crash, Ponce de Leon said he swam with the hijackers to safety and was later ''taken prisoner'' by the rebel forces. One of the suspects: Manuel Fernandez Falcon, who became a top Cuban military commander.

By Jan. 29, 1959, a month after Castro took power, records state that Ponce de Leon was a lieutenant in the revolutionary forces and ``stationed at the Havana Tourist Police Station as second in command.''

Ponce de Leon says he was never an officer, but an interpreter who worked at the police station after the revolution.

He said he stayed in Cuba because he met a woman and decided to get married, and moved back to the United States in 1994 to join his family in Miami.

Though he came to this country as a naturalized U.S. citizen, experts question how he was able to enter without being interrogated about a major hijacking case -- even one from decades earlier.

''That is why you have border alerts,'' said Bruno, the former federal prosecutor. ``If this happened today, there's no way you could come back into the country.''

Federal prosecutors in Miami reviewed the case in early 1959, but declined to prosecute, ''at least for the present,'' because Ponce de Leon and the others were not in the United States, records state.

Ricardo Bascuas, a University of Miami law professor and former federal public defender who reviewed the government documents for The Herald, said the suspects could have been charged without being in the country.

''There were any number of crimes that could have been considered, including murder, assault and possibly even transporting arms,'' he said.

Bruno said one reason to drop a prosecution is because of a lack of evidence, but because sworn statements and supporting evidence existed in the case, a grand jury could have been summoned.

''I would have pursued it,'' said Atlee Wampler III, the U.S. attorney in Miami in the early 1980s. ``Anytime you have people hijacking airlines, you act on that. It's too dangerous.''

James Guilmartin, Miami's U.S. attorney during the investigation, died in 1984.

SHIFT IN CUBA

However, Bruno questioned whether influences beyond the justice system played a role in the outcome of the case. Cuba was in turmoil.

While the United States had diplomatic relations with the fledgling Castro government, ''you have to wonder whether this case was a political hot potato,'' Bruno said.

Many top officials in the State Department were trying to maintain relations with the new leadership. The lone person pushing the case, Earl Smith, the U.S. ambassador and an ardent Castro foe, resigned on Jan. 20, 1959. By the following month, the investigation was suspended, records show.

''You got to think of the time period -- it's right after the revolution,'' Bruno said.

Now, bringing the case to court would present challenges, say legal experts.

''The government knew where he was,'' said Richard Strafer, a Miami criminal attorney. ``The problem is a defendant can make the case there was a delay in due process.''

Gonzalez, who says she remains shattered by the experience, says Ponce de Leon should have been charged then -- and now. ''He has to pay for this,'' she says.

``They destroyed the lives of people. This is the United States of America. If this had been an accident it would be one thing, but this was a hijacking. Babies died.''

Martinez says he was never contacted by federal prosecutors after the crash. ''In all that time, no one came to me,'' he said.

He said he believes Ponce de Leon, with his nagging ailments, ``is paying the price right now. He's fat and old. He's sick. That's his punishment.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/741903.html

OSIRIS MARTINEZ

Cuban hijacking survivor's grief tinged with regret

A man who survived the doomed hijacking has struggled for half a century with pain and regret over the loss of his wife and three young children.

BY GERARDO REYES, ALFONSO CHARDY AND MICHAEL SALLAH

msallah@MiamiHerald.com

When Osiris Martinez broke to the surface of Nipe Bay that night five decades ago, he began to scream for his wife and three children.

There was no answer.

He and his family were among the 20 passengers aboard the Cubana Viscount turboprop that crashed into the water after hijackers seized the plane following takeoff from Miami on a flight to Varadero on Nov. 1, 1958.

He was one of the survivors. Fourteen people died, including his wife and three children, ages 2, 4 and 5.

He heard boat paddles splashing in the water. A man approaching in a canoe asked Martinez to climb aboard, but Martinez couldn't muster the strength. Several of his ribs were broken.

Eventually, Martinez climbed inside, but started convulsing. Suddenly, the boat was in danger of capsizing.

' `We are going to turn over, we are going to turn over,' the man said while I shook out of control and he shined his flashlight on my face,'' Martinez recalled.

The man managed to keep the canoe afloat and eventually reached shore, where two other passengers, Omara Gonzalez, 16, and her 9-year-old cousin Luis Sosa, were resting.

VISIT TO MORGUE

Two days later, with his wounds sutured and his ribs wrapped in bandages, Martinez had to go inside a hospital morgue room and identify his wife's body.

Around the ankle of a severed leg he saw a small chain bearing her name: Betty.

''I recognized her because I had given her a little chain with her name on it,'' he recalled.

Martinez, then 31, said he has lived with the pain of losing his family and regret for not heeding his wife's plea not to move the family to Cuba.

His 25-year-old wife developed an aversion to the island after one of the children nearly died from dysentery contracted during a prior family visit.

But Martinez was able to land a good job in Cuba as an inspector at a paper plant in Cardenas, near Varadero.

He was offered $615 a month -- three times his salary at the paper company where he was working in Tennessee.

NEW START

Though born in Cuba, Martinez said he was unfamiliar with Varadero, a resort town on the island's northern coast. He rented a house and planned to start a new life.

''I called my wife and told her sell or give away our house and bring the children,'' Martinez recalled.

His wife reluctantly agreed, and told him to meet her and the children in Miami. She didn't want to travel to Cuba without her husband.

The children also were not pleased about the move. Martinez said his wife's parents had to drag the screaming children to the plane.

Martinez said the family almost didn't board the Cubana Airlines turboprop at Miami. He said airline employees claimed his immigration papers were not in order. Martinez now suspects airline workers knew of the conspiracy.

''They knew they would endanger an American family and they didn't want children aboard,'' Martinez said.

While there's nothing in the records to prove the claim, U.S. embassy officials in Havana suspected someone from the crew -- possibly a flight attendant -- helped load the plane with the canvas bags of weapons and ammo, records state.

''It is evident that all of this material must have been loaded on plane sometime before departure,'' said a U.S. State Department report.

But the investigation of the crash was suspended in February, 1959, with the suspicions never resolved.

Martinez said in the months after the crash, he struggled to keep his emotions in check.

''I would talk to the pictures of my children,'' he said. ``It was very difficult.''

He remembers his wife's final request as she was boarding the plane.

``She said that if something happened and the plane crashed, she didn't want to be buried in Cuba. She wanted her body to be brought to the United States.''

But in the end, Martinez was unable to grant her wish: The lack of refrigeration and the conditions of the bodies prevented shipment to Miami, records stated.

They were buried in Cuba.

Cuba sends Spies to US via Academia

The Miami Herald

Jan. 10, 2006

Suspects led low-profile lives

Accused Cuban spies Carlos and Elsa Alvarez lived low-profile lives in the academic community. Colleagues are shocked at the government's allegations.

BY NOAH BIERMAN, FRANCES ROBLES AND CASEY WOODS

For most of his 44 years in Miami, accused Cuban spy Carlos M. Alvarez has been a quiet academic, seldom joining public causes or speaking out about conditions on the island where he was born.

But in 1991, Alvarez published a personal account of a return trip to Cuba in the opinion page of The Miami Herald. He blamed the island's communist government for responding to hopelessness among Cuba's people ``with ideological rhetoric and actions framed within rigid and anachronistic political schemes.''

Despite that strong criticism, federal agents say Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, have been secretly spying for the Cuban government for decades, using their academic stature as covers.

It's that contradiction that baffles friends and colleagues.

SURPRISED BY ARREST

''I'm shocked that anybody would arrest him. It just can't be anything reasonable,'' said Joan Wynne, an urban education professor who works down the hall from Carlos Alvarez at Florida International University. "Everybody loves Carlos . . . The secretaries love him, the professors love him . . .''

Alvarez, 61, was a lifer at FIU, teaching education classes since 1974 and building a strong friendship with President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique, who attended his bond hearing on Monday. Elsa Alvarez, 55, began working at FIU in 1999 as a counselor in the psychological services department.

Together, the two earn a combined salary of just more than $100,000 from FIU. Carlos Alvarez also earned money over the years teaching diversity workshops in the school district. And he conducted psychological screenings for local police departments.

BORN IN CARDENAS

Carlos Alvarez was born in Cardenas, Cuba, in 1944. When he was 17, he left the island. He earned U.S. citizenship in 1972, while he was a 27-year-old graduate student at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Elsa Alvarez, born in Cuba in 1950, came to Miami after she completed high school, according to an application she filed for FIU employment. She earned her U.S. citizenship in 1979.

The couple married in 1980. Together, they have three children, plus two from Carlos Alvarez's prior marriage. Elsa's parents live with the couple in their large cream-colored home in South Miami.

The family is active in St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church -- the same parish that has held several memorial services for the four downed members of Brothers to the Rescue, considered martyrs in the anti-Castro movement.

Alvarez implied in his Miami Herald account that his 1991 trip to Cuba, for an academic conference, was his first since leaving the island as a teenager. He wrote about the surprise and disappointment of seeing ''a depressing human reality,'' people living with shortages and lack of hope.

''My experience with our academic counterparts was, however, intellectually stimulating and humanly rewarding,'' he wrote. "Most of our discussions were remarkably frank and cordial, even though the perspectives were often diametrically opposite.''

RETURNED MANY TIMES

Since then, Alvarez has returned several times, both with FIU's Cuban Research Institute and with Puentes Cubanos /Cuban Bridges, a group that promotes direct exchanges between the two countries. Alvarez, a psychologist and expert in conflict resolution, gave workshops on Cuban identity in Havana.

''Carlos is an excellent person, a dreamer, who has sought national reconciliation for many years,'' said Maria Cristina Herrera, founder of the Institute of Cuban Studies and its former executive director. ``I'm sick over this.''

He had not traveled under FIU's license in several years, according to Damián Fernández, director of FIU's Cuban Research Institute. And Puentes Cubanos lost its license to travel to Cuba in 2004, after President Bush tightened travel restrictions, according to Silvia Wilhelm, executive director.

Co-workers said Alvarez is a very friendly, religious family man who has been preoccupied with his wife, who has a bone or muscle disease that has required her to request medical leave in recent months.

''My concern is that people tend to be considered guilty before there's any evidence,'' Fernández said. ``These things tend to stick.''

ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE

Citing university policy, FIU put the Alvarezes on administrative leave with pay Monday, the first day of classes for the spring semester. Several supervisors were told to direct questions to FIU's media relations director, Mark Riordan.

Riordan said Alvarez's three classes in the education department were being reassigned. Maidique did not respond to requests for an interview.

Riordan said Alvarez and Maidique have been friends for 25 years, since before Maidique became FIU president. ''He's highly regarded,'' Riordan said of Alvarez. "From what I understand, he's a real gem of a guy.''

Herald staff writers Jay Weaver, Myriam Marquez, Marika Lynch and Scott Hiaasen contributed to this report.

The Miami Herald

Sun, Feb. 03, 2008

Former Cuban spy may lose psychology license

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

Florida's surgeon general has filed a complaint with the state Board of Psychology against Carlos Alvarez, a psychologist and former Florida International University professor convicted of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent for Cuba.

The administrative complaint is being reviewed by the department's attorneys before it goes to the board, said Eulinda Jackson, a spokeswoman for Ana Viamonte Ros, the state surgeon general and Florida health secretary. Viamonte Ros complaint, filed in December, asks the board to consider penalties against Alvarez, including revocation or suspension of his license, limiting of his practice, a fine or a reprimand.

Viamonte Ros told the board in the eight-page complaint that Alvarez violated rules of his profession for being convicted and failing to advise the board of his guilty plea in a timely manner.

Steven Chaykin, Alvarez's attorney, said the complaint will have no impact on his client, because he did not practice psychology.

''Anyone who has a professional license and is convicted of a felony goes through a similar bureaucratic administrative process,'' said Chaykin. ``Though a suspension or revocation of his license is embarrassing, he did absolutely nothing wrong with his license . . . He didn't practice psychology. He did not have patients.''

Over the years, Alvarez taught diversity workshops in school districts and conducted psychological screenings of cadets for the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County police departments.

Alvarez and his wife Elsa, both former FIU academics, apologized at their sentencing hearing Feb. 27 for giving Cuba information on Miami's exile community.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore sentenced Carlos Alvarez to the maximum five-year prison sentence for conspiring to act as an unregistered Cuban agent and Elsa Alvarez to the maximum three years' imprisonment for failing to report her husband's intelligence work.

Viamonte Ros wrote in the complaint that Florida laws require that a psychologist be disciplined if convicted of a crime that relates to the practice of the profession.

''A health care practitioner who manifests such complete and reckless disregard for the law as respondent demonstrated by his activities as an agent of a foreign government cannot be entrusted with the responsibility associated with the practice of psychology,'' Viamonte Ros wrote.

Gov. Charlie Crist named Viamonte Ros, a Cuban American, secretary of the Florida Department of Health in January 2007. In July, she became the first State Surgeon General.

Soon to come....

WESUB will soon begin to post new information and stories concerning Cuba and its government's crimes against humanity...as of now WESUB's efforts will be concentrated on the financial crisis affecting the US and the police state that exists there....STAY TUNED.....

"...I feel even more hate for this tyranny"

Cuban Rocker Critical of Castro Out of Jail, Fined $28

HAVANA — A Cuban punk rocker known for his raunchy lyrics criticizing Fidel Castro was convicted of public disorder Friday, but freed after a court dismissed a more serious "social dangerousness" charge that could have sent him to prison for four years.

Following a two-hour trial, the court ordered Gorki Aguila to pay $28 and released the 39-year-old singer.

"I am very proud of all the people who have supported me, and I feel even more hate for this tyranny," Aguilar told reporters upon his release.

The fine is big money in a country where nearly everyone, Aguila included, works for the state and takes home an average of $19.50 per month.

But Aguila would have faced far more severe punishment had he been convicted of "social dangerousness," which the government defines as violating "communist morality." That charge is often used to detain would-be offenders before they have a chance to commit a crime.

Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation took the unusual step of attending the trial — which was open to Aguila's father and band mates as well as about 10 of his supporters, but closed to reporters.

"The prosecution asked for a fine," said Sanchez, whose group is not recognized but largely tolerated by Cuba's communist government. "Fortunately, there will be no more time in prison."

Aguila was arrested Monday as his band, Porno para Ricardo, rehearsed at the modest Havana apartment he shares with his father. The case sparked international outcry but caused little stir on the island, where the band has only a small but devoted following.

Aguila was previously arrested in 2005 on drug charges that he says were fabricated because authorities objected to his music.

Founded 10 years ago, the band — whose name means "Porno for Ricardo" — is known for ridiculing the communist system, especially Castro, 82 and ailing, and his younger brother Raul, who became president in February. Its songs at one time were broadcast on state radio and TV, but the group was later banned and has resorted to small, occasional concerts in underground venues.

With long and wild curly black hair and healthy stubble, Aguila grinned and waved to supporters as officers loaded him in a police cruiser and drove him home. He will be allowed to pay his fine over time.

Aguila said Cuban authorities "want to teach me a lesson every chance they get," but were shocked by the international uproar. "There were a lot of repercussions, and they were very afraid."

Sanchez said Friday before the trial that the "dangerousness" charge usually results in jail time for people who have not committed any crime.

"Because of 'social dangerousness,' thousands and thousands of Cubans are in prison," he said.

Band Guitarist Ciro Diaz said authorities told Aguila's state-assigned attorney he was arrested for being "an anti-social."

"His lawyer said he talked to the prosecutors, and that a judge told them this was a political trial," Diaz said outside the courthouse. "That this was about an undesirable in the neighborhood who made songs with lyrics against the system, against Fidel and everything else."

Diaz said he and a friend were roughed up and arrested by state agents the previous night after they held up a handwritten sign reading "Gorki" at an open-air concert by legendary Cuban singer Pablo Milanes. He said they were treated for minor injuries and then interrogated for hours before being released without charge.

Gathered outside the courthouse before the trial were human rights observers from the Canadian and Dutch embassies, as well as an official from the U.S. Interests Section.

Blogger Yoani Sanchez — who has won international acclaim for her criticism of the government — was granted access to the trial, which she called "an inquisition."

"It's a message to all those who have not yet dared to criticize things but were thinking about it," she said.

GOVERNMENTS OUGHT NOT BE WITHOUT CENSORS AND WHERE THE PRESS IS FREE NONE EVER WILL

Cuban Newspaper Pushes Beyond Party Line
by Tom Gjelten
Tom Gjelten/NPR
In an unprecedented move, reporters at Cuba's Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) are being encouraged to investigate what's not working in their country.

The newspaper recently ran a three-part series on Cuba's agricultural sector — and why, despite all its farmland, the country has to import so much food.
Read part 1 of Juventud Rebelde's series on Cuban agriculture (in Spanish).

All Things Considered, May 28, 2008 · In Cuba, the daily newspapers are all owned and run by the government or the Communist Party. For years, speeches by Fidel Castro were splashed across Page 1, and barely a critical word was published. But Fidel's brother Raul, who has taken over as president, is now allowing more debate in the Cuban press, and one party-affiliated newspaper is rising to the challenge.
Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) was founded in 1965 as the newspaper of the Communist Youth movement in Cuba. Throughout its existence, the publication mostly has featured whatever dreary "news" party leaders wanted published.
But in recent months, Juventud Rebelde reporters have been encouraged to think like journalists and investigate what's not working in their country.

The newspaper recently ran a critical three-part series on Cuban agriculture. Reporter Dora Perez and a colleague spent weeks talking to farmers and farm workers across the country. They wanted to find out why Cuba, with all its rich farmland, has to import so much food.

"[We heard] nothing but complaints," Perez says. "Our report was very critical. We're bad in agriculture, and we have to say so."
Three months later, Perez followed up with another investigative series, this one on education in Cuba. She found out that many Cuban parents were so unhappy with the quality of their kids' schooling that they were hiring private tutors — something once unthinkable here.

An Unprecedented Approach

For years, Fidel Castro told Cubans that their problems were the result of the U.S. trade embargo, the loss of Soviet aid or globalization: There was always an excuse. But Herminio Camacho, deputy editor of Juventud Rebelde, says it's time for Cuba to acknowledge its own failings.

"These articles aim at raising people's awareness," Camacho says. "People need to know that things don't have to be like this here. We're bringing up problems that can't be blamed on our shortages, or on outside forces, or the embargo, or the world situation."

For a Cuban communist newspaper, this editorial approach is unprecedented. Phil Peters, a Cuba analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank, is impressed by what he has seen in Juventud Rebelde over the past two years — even though the scope is limited and the paper is still under government control.

"You now have Cuban journalists actually going out and documenting facts and contradicting official versions of the facts," Peters says.
In one notable example, Juventud Rebelde reporters determined that Cuban authorities were grossly underreporting the number of unemployed youth, especially in the countryside. In one province, they found it was 18 times higher than what the government claimed.

Habits Hard to Break as Journalists Seek Independence

Such stories are still the exception in Juventud Rebelde, not the norm. More common are the stories that simply quote government functionaries uncritically. Editor Camacho says he and his reporters are still finding their way.

"We've made progress, but we have a ways to go, because our reporters have been conditioned to think in a certain way," he says. "They have inertia in their thinking. This kind of journalism we're trying to do is hard for us. Throughout our whole lives, we've done it in a different way."

In an effort to break old journalistic habits, Camacho and his fellow editors have eliminated the beat structure at Juventud Rebelde. Reporters now are generalists, not specialists.

"Journalists who take charge of one particular issue can lose their broader vision," Camacho explains. "They develop a close relationship with whoever they're covering, because they see them day after day. It makes it harder to be critical. In order to do this kind of journalism, we had to change that structure."

Stopping Short of Challenging Communist Tenets

What's notable is that Camacho is thinking like a newspaper editor in a democratic society and not as a propaganda boss, which is the role editors in communist countries have more typically played.
His paper stops well short of challenging the ideology of Cuban communism. But for a party organ even to raise sensitive questions could have unforeseeable consequences in a tightly controlled totalitarian state. Some of the paper's recent reporting touches on key elements of the socialist system, such as the state-owned companies that now control every aspect of economic life in Cuba.
"Their reporters went out and documented that a lot of the state enterprises just do not work," notes Peters of the Lexington Institute. "[They found] that there's no functioning supply system and that the enterprises actually exploit and cheat Cuban consumers. It was unbelievable."
Peters, who has been reading the Cuban press for years, says such reporting never appeared during the time Fidel Castro ruled Cuba.
"If Fidel Castro talked about these state enterprises, they were paragons of socialist virtue," Peters says. "It was, 'This is what we live for.' He would always contrast [Cuban] state enterprises with the exploitations that occur in capitalist societies."

Fidel Castro Expresses Displeasure

Indeed, Fidel Castro apparently doesn't much like the pro-reform ideas aired recently in Juventud Rebelde and a few other media. In a newspaper column published last month under the title "Do Not Make Concessions to Enemy Ideology," Castro lashed out at critics of Cuban socialism. "People must be very careful with everything they say," he warned.
Castro, whose mental and physical condition remains a mystery, said he was responding to a comment in one of Cuba's media outlets. He didn't say which one, and Juventud Rebelde editor Camacho says he got immediately nervous it was his paper.
"I'll admit it," Camacho says, "the first reaction I had was to worry. This was Fidel pointing his finger at someone. He's not president of the country anymore, but we still see him as the leader of the revolution."
In discussing Castro's commentary, Camacho was noticeably uncomfortable, speaking slowly and stopping several times to choose his words carefully. For nearly 50 years, Fidel Castro has been all-powerful in Cuba, able on his own authority to squash careers or send people to prison for the rest of their lives.
"For us, a criticism from Fidel is …" Camacho begins, but he does not finish the sentence. "It's more than just the fear. Among other things, we feel in some way like we must be violating his wishes."
Following Castro's critical column, Camacho says he and his fellow editors resolved to be more "responsible." A fully reported article on the shortcomings of the economic reform program was not published.

Despite Skeptics, Paper Forges Ahead with New Direction

Some writers who have broken their ties with the government are skeptical that Juventud Rebelde can be much of a force for change. Independent journalist Reinaldo Escobar, who writes an opposition blog in Cuba, says he is impressed by some of the reporters working at the paper. But he does not see them as allies in the fight for democracy and free expression in Cuba.
"Any professionally aware journalist could write something that coincides with what I'm saying, but they wouldn't be doing so intentionally," he explains. Escobar is working deliberately for political change in Cuba. The Juventud Rebelde reporters are just trying to be journalists.
Shortly after Perez wrote her series on education in Cuba, she got a congratulatory e-mail from Adelaida Fernandez, a prominent Cuban writer. Fernandez had delivered a highly critical speech on Cuban education at a convention of Cuban writers and artists, and in her opening words she cited the Juventud Rebelde stories by Perez.
"I was very proud," Perez says. "One of the best things about being a journalist is when you know that what you write actually reaches people and moves them." It was hardly a radical thought, but coming from a reporter at a Communist Party newspaper in Havana, it was noteworthy.

A DANGEROUS OLD MAN

A Mercenary and Dangerous Old Man By Leonel Alberto Pérez Belette Guilleuma Alfredo Rodriguez at his home in Havana / photo of the author Click on a photo to enlarge Havana (May 2008 – Cubanet) Members of the political police harassed an 80 year old opponent in his own home to prevent him from blemishing the festivities of the first of May. Alfredo Guilleuma Rodriguez has become a "danger" for the authorities of the state. So much so that the State decided to place to two police officers and a member of the Committee of Defense of the Revolution (CDR) on his doorstep with the objective to stop him from leaving his dwelling on May Day.

According to him, he was told that he would not be able to leave while the parade was being performed. In spite of their threats, the elder was not scared because he needed to leave to find something for his grandson’s breakfast. After an exchange of words, in which he was branded a mercenary, the authorities were limited to following him to where he was going. Earlier, the leader of the police sector had already notified him that he was not going to permit him to moved around freely.

Why are they so infuriated with a grandfather that still needs a cane to travel? Guilleuma Rodriguez has spent his life fighting against tyrannies and as a true revolutionary. He fought against Hatchet, then against Batista and now against the ones in charge of Cuba.

Before the arrival of Fidel Castro to power, Guilleuma belonged to the revolutionary directorate of March 13th Movement, to the Triple A Movement of the Authentic Party led by Aureliano Sánchez Arango and Dr. Carlos Prío Socarrás. Later he became involved in the July 26th Movement. It almost cost him his life on several occasions, especially after the first failed attack against the dictator Fulgencio Batista on 5th Avenue in Havana. Two traitors betrayed the group by leaking that the weapons were hidden in a hotel in the Caballo Blanco (White Horse) neighborhood, and the tyrant, once notified, deviated from his habitual route. The friends of Guilleuma that were there were Julián Ortega Thorny, Osvaldo Díaz Sources, Abelardo Rodriguez Melero, the Galecian Lavandero ( a Commander from the Spanish Civil War), Arístides Viera (Mengolo), Sergio González (The Healer), the brothers Montalvo and Machado Amejeiras. Due to a setback, he did not participate in the Presidential Palace robbery on March 13, 1957, and therefore could not participate in the prison break where Lavandero died. Instead, he became a prisoner in the Castle of the Prince, in the Bureau of Intelligence (BI), in the 17 station in the Mariano neighborhood and in the ninth police station directed by Esteban Ventura.

After 1959, he chose to be a simple waiter at the Hotel Riviera. In 1990, the aging Alfredo retired from his work life and his odyssey began.

“I was born fighting” he says “against the contradictions of the political system imposed upon this country, but even by then these contradictions were insurmountable and they are intensifying every day.”

Little by little he became a dissident and later part of the opposition. Already at his age, he says that he had nothing to lose; all he could want for his children and his grandson was for them to not have to give in before any such tyranny.

He joined the Cuban Liberal Movement (MLC) directed by Pedro Ordoñez, who today lives in exile. He confronted the figureheads of the state to commemorate the International Day of the Human Rights, in the park Villalón, in 2007, and in 2008; occasions where he was placed under arrest. Later, he began supporting the Ladies in White. Various “acts of repudiation” have been carried out against him, but the majority of the neighbors have already refused to participate in such things. The political police offered him a job helping to pack bags in one of the “divisas” (foreign currencies) shops close to his house; work for which they would pay him some convertible 20 pesos a month, and, more the point, that would maintain his pension. All of this in exchange for renouncing his opposing activities.

The state tried to brand Alfredo Guilleuma as a "mercenary being paid by the Yankees" for defending Cuban’s civil rights and their dreams of social justice. This alleged mercenary is an old man with a young spirit that lives in extreme poverty in a room that includes his bathroom, kitchen and a barbecue in rundown building in Vedado. His only incomes are the 202 pesos from his retirement pension. From that he has to pay 57 pesos a month - after buying the only ‘luxury’ item in his home, his refrigerator, on credit, his part of the electricity and his other services. In the end, this does not leave him enough to eat and to dress himself.

To top it off, he is responsible for raising his grandson, after his son was threatened with being put in jail for the crime of being "socially dangerous" for not working for the State.

WITH CELL PHONES NOW LEGAL IN CUBA....THIS PRISONER CAN'T MAKE A PHONE CALL

this is the translation of the call a prisoner made to a human rights activist:

MAY 20, 2008:
SPEAKING: JUAN CARLOS GONZALEZ LEIVA ATTEMPTS TO INTERVIEW JOSE DANIEL FERRER GARCIA WHO IS IN PRISON IN CUBA

THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSLATED TEXT OF THE PHONE CALL AND MR. FERRER GARCIA'S ATTEMPTS TO SPEAK TO GONZALEZ LEIVA

WE REPUDIATE VIOLENCE AND HATE AND CALL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE...THOSE OF US WHO FIND OURSELVES IN PRISON DEFENDING ALL RIGHTS....NO....WHAT??

DANIEL FERRER (DF) AT THIS POINT IS INTERRUPTED BY AN OFFICIAL (A GUARD) AS HE SPEAKS TO GONZALEZ LEIVA (GL):


DF: THERE IS AN "OFFICIAL" HERE WHO IS POSSIBLY NEW HERE AND IS PLAYING THE JOKER AND DOESN'T WANT ME TO READ OUT LOUD. ARE YOU RECORDING ME?

GL: YES YES YES

DF: THIS GUY IS BEING THE IMPERTINENT ONE, BUT THIS ISN'T GONNA BE THE SAME AS THEY'RE USED TO IN OTHER OCCASSIONS...CALL SECURITY CALL WHOEVER...I'M NOT MOVING FROM HERE UNTIL I FINISH THIS CALL/RECORDING AND FROM HERE I WILL NOT MOVE AND IF YOU PULL ME THE PHONE COMES WITH ME...GO GET WHOM YOU WILL...AND DOWN WITH THE DICTATORSHIP, DOWN WITH COMMUNISM, DOWN WITH FIDEL AND LONG LIVE CUBA FREE!

DF: YOU ARE NOT TAKING MY PHONE....YOU'RE NOT PASSING ME FROM THIS POINT....PERMISSION! NOTHING! PERMISSION? NOTHING!
AIN'T NOTHING DOING! GO GET WHO YOU WANT. I AM TIED TO THIS PHONE. TO GET ME MOVING FROM HERE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO KILL ME!

(GUARD IS HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND ARGUING WITH DF)

GUARD: NO MAN, NO ONE'S GONNA KILL YOU.

DF: OVER MY DEAD BODY ARE YOU GETTING ME OUT OF HERE

GUARD: WE'RE NOT GOING TO KILL YOU.

DF: I'M NOT LETTING GO OF THIS PHONE. THIS IS MY LIFE MY FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.NO ONE TAKES THAT AWAY FROM ME.

GUARD: NO BUT BY THE PHONE....

DF: BY PHONE WHAT? I'VE BEEN IN PRISON FIVE YEARS SPEAKING THE TRUTH ABOUT (CUBAN) PRISONS AND I AM GOING TO CONTINUE SPEAKING ABOUT THEM. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE NEW IN THIS PRISON OR IF YOU CAME FROM THE PLANET MARS. BUT I'M JOSE DANIEL FERRER GARCIA (indistinct) WILL CONTINUE TO STATE VIA TELEPHONE WHAT GOES ON IN PRISON IN CUBA.

GUARD: ...ANOTHER PLANET

DF: I'M PRETTY SURE...BUT FROM THIS POINT I WILL NOT LET GO OF THIS PHONE...YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO KILL ME TO TAKE THIS PHONE FROM ME

GUARD: NO MAN, THERE IS NO NEED IN KILLING YOU

DF: NO, BUT YOU'LL DO SOMETHING, I DON'T KNOW BUT I DO KNOW I WILL MAINTAIN THIS PHONE IN MY HAND. I AM NOT LETTING GO OF THIS PHONE

GL: THAT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO WITH THESE TYRANTS DANIEL

DF: indistinct.....NO, THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GET REINFORCEMENTS I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO

GL: DON'T LET THEM COUNT THIS TIME AGAINST YOU

DF: NO I HAVEN'T BEGUN TO SPEAK YET...IT'S 25 MINUTES TO SAY WHAT I AM GOING TO SAY...WHAT I WANT TO SAY. OF COURSE I WON'T LET IT COUNT...I HAVEN'T BEGUN TO READ YET. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO SILENCE JOSE DANIEL, THAT'S KILLING HIM

GUARD: WE WON'T KILL YOU YOU GOT 25 MINUTES ONLY. (indistinct) FINE. BUT LISTEN TO ME

DF: I WON'T LISTEN TO YOU

GL: TELL HIM THAT YOU'LL LISTEN AFTER YOU FINISH SPEAKING. TELL HIM TO GET LOST

INDISTINCT...

SOME OTHER MAN INTERRUPTS AND STATED "I'VE BEEN INFORMED OF THIS SITUATION..."

DF: HE (THE GUARD) SHOULD HAVE NEVER COME...THERE ARE TWO (PERSONS?) THAT ARE DESIGNATED TO GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO USE THE PHONE...IF (HE?) DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT THE RIGHT TO ALLOW ME TO SPEAK TO SAY WHAT I WANT TO SAY, WHAT I THINK, FEEL, NO? IF HE DOESN'T KNOW IT LET HIM FIND OUT...

ANOTHER MAN SPEAKS IN THE BACKGROUND.

DF: I WILL STAY HERE WITH YOU. I WON'T LET GO OF THIS PHONE AND I AM NOT GOING WITH YOU.

GUARD: indistinct YOU HAVE TO LET GO!

DF: NO! FROM HERE I AM NOT MOVING UNTIL I USE MY 25 MINUTES WILL NOT LEAVE...IN WHAT I FIND CONVENIENT... I WON'T LEAVE

GUARD: HANG UP THE PHONE

DF: I WON'T HANG UP THE PHONE...YOU WILL NOT PUT HANDCUFFS ON ME...YOU WILL NOT PUT HANDCUFFS ON ME...YOU WILL NOT.. DOWN WITH THE DICTATORSHIP!...DOWN WITH COMMUNISM!....YOU....


AT THIS POINT DANIEL'S PHONE WAS TAKEN FROM HIM AND HE WAS BEATEN MERCILESSLY BY THE GUARD

THERE HAVE BEEN HUNDREDS OF ACTS OF REPUDIATION AGAINST PEACEFUL ANTI-GOVERNMENT ACTIVISTS SINCE JAN 2008 IN CUBA

Guantánamo, Cuba. May 20, 2008. Cuban Democratic Directorate. Political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer García, held at Guantánamo Provincial Prison, was attacked by guards as he attempted to give a firsthand report on prison conditions to activist Juan Carlos González Leiva. The guard attempted to cut the prisoner’s telephone connection, producing a confrontation during which Ferrer shouted slogans against the dictatorship and in favor of freedom for Cuba. The connection cut off abruptly.

Ferrer García subsequently managed to reestablish communication and explained what had happened: “They took the telephone from my arms by force, they started to twist my arms around to my back. They twisted them in such a way that my wrists are… and great pain in my shoulders. They nearly stuck my twisted arms to the nape of my neck. Then they threw me to the ground and dragged me all along the ground in that position. I do not know how my arms did not break.”

Ferrer García added that they had taken him to the prison’s command office, and that he was subsequently able to return to the telephone. Just as he was explaining this to González Leiva, he was once again interrupted by the same guard, who abruptly cut the connection. Before they drew him away from the telephone, Ferrer García said that if he were not allowed to use the telephone, he would become plantado, or assume a rebellious and absolutely uncooperative attitude in protest.

"If there is another issue with the telephone, there will be no understanding. I will begin my protest anew then. Juan Carlos, are you listening to me? I will call you in 10 minutes. If I do not call you, José Daniel is in solitary confinement or José Daniel was beaten to death, because as long as José Daniel has his way of thinking, no one will violate his rights.”

González Leiva, who transmitted the dramatic recording abroad, stated that “it is necessary… that this recording be spread around the whole world. These are the changes that the Cuban government is carrying out.”

González Leiva added that “the European Union [and] the international community have meetings coming up, and the measures imposed against Fidel Castro’s dictatorship, in this case the Castro brothers’, Raul Castro’s, should not be suspended, should not be removed. This is what is happening: repression of freedom of expression, repression of the right of Cubans to express themselves both in a prison, and on the outside, the largest prison of all.”

....AND JUST WHO IS THE U.N.'S MAJOR FUNDER?

March 21, 2008

Secret Pacts
Juan González Febles
March 2008

HAVANA, Cuba, (wwww.cubanet.org) - The Cuban government has recently promoted its decision to sign a series of pacts with the United Nations. The commitments covered are in areas as sensitive as can be - civil law, along with political, cultural and social rights. The most extraordinary thing about this event was that nothing has been spread around regarding what these documents mean inside Cuba. As a result, the people don’t know what the Cuban government has signed and how it will affect them.

Cuba has been a signatory of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights since 1948. Nevertheless, there are hundreds of activists imprisoned for defending the letter and the spirit of this document. Furthermore, neither the Cuban state controlled media, nor any government officials, have clarified what impact the singing these new agreements will have on daily life on the island.

The new pacts seem like censored material or for future censorship. Perhaps we find ourselves in the dawn of another new wave of arrests classified as "fraternal beat-downs" for trying to bring to light what the Cuban government has agreed to and hidden from the public. Officially, the government has not said a word about the content of what was signed and this in itself is very significant.

Journalist Rose Miriam Elizalde conducted an interview with one of the youths that quizzed the President of the National Assembly, which was published in Granma’s digital edition. Nothing was in the tabloid version available to the people, not even a mention of the topic. All appeared normal in the government’s handling and obscuring of the truth.

In another instance, the decree allowing the sale of an extensive range of electric goods to the population, including computers and cell phones, was also realized only in the digital form of Granma for foreigners. It pretended that the people, denied free access to internet, would remained in the dark about this, like so much other information. However, less than 48 hours after the government made a calculated proclamation about this new measures, the people were already making comments on the streets. The best one being why "do these people hide the ball?”

The answer is simple. The government knows that it wasn’t the promotion of perestroika that put an end to communism in the old Soviet Union. What finished it was glasnost, period. It is exactly this type of informational transparency that the Castrist regime fears.

The first thing that should be required from the Cuban government, through the pressure from those European external factors that are accompanying the Cuban regime in its difficult process of transition to a more adequate form of government, is simply transparency. These forces say loud and clear that the people have the right to know. We refer to "European external factors," because the regime does not respect the Cuban people. Also, as a result of the unfeasibility of the government’s economic direction, it has placed itself in the difficult and shameful position of having to accept what never they would have accepted in the past. All for the sake of preserving support for the future and potential leaders that are holding up their absurd system.

The secret pacts should stop being secret and the "liberalizing measures" that the government adopts should be given to the population in due time and in the right form, the immediacy is required everywhere. There should be no restrictions on access to such information.

The students of the University of Computer Sciences (UCI) and of the 'Brothers Martínez Tamayo' School of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, who download internet works of this type, read them and distribute them among themselves, have an incentive to question like friends the next bureaucrat visiting them.

The secret internet users that check websites with Cuban themes, who download, print and distribute the "hottest" pieces point towards future demands. We have already had enough of the excessive secrecy and of the secret agreements being made behind the backs of the people. Now is the moment for transparency.

Translation by Scott Hudson (People in need)

ALLEGED U.S. CRIMINALS HARBORED IN CUBA

Aging U.S. fugitives live as exiles in Cuban neighborhoods

Aging U.S. fugitives live as exiles in Cuban neighborhoods
Alleged criminals aging, miss U.S. they left behind
Ray Sanchez | Direct from Havana
May 18, 2008
HAVANA

Nearly four decades after allegedly killing a New Mexico state trooper
and fleeing to Cuba, Charlie Hill lives on the outskirts of the capital
in a tiny apartment with a backed-up toilet. He gets by on a ration card
and a $10 monthly state stipend.

The 58-year-old grandfather and avowed black separatist listens to South
Florida AM radio stations that reach across the straits for news and
sports scores. Phrases from the turbulent 1960s, like "right on," pepper
his speech.

Hill is among 70 fugitives from American justice who live as ordinary
citizens in Cuba, where the revolutionary government welcomed many as
militants and political activists who faced persecution in the United
States. Cuba's government has refused almost all requests for their
return but, in 2006, said "it would no longer provide safe haven to new
U.S. fugitives entering Cuba," according to the State Department.

Still, time, not the law, is catching up with the U.S. fugitives. One of
the most notorious was Robert Vesco, an American businessman
investigated in the 1970s for stealing more than $200 million from a
Swiss mutual fund company. Rather than face charges, Vesco moved around
Latin America before settling in Cuba in the 1980s.

Burial records at Havana's Colon Cemetery show a 71-year-old man with
the same name and birth date as Vesco died on Nov. 23 from lung cancer
and was buried the next day in a private plot. His demise was not known,
even among other American fugitives, until recent press reports.

Hill is among a handful of holdovers who arrived in the 1960s and 1970s,
an era when revolution and violent activism was romanticized, and
hijacking planes to Cuba was a common escape for radicals seeking
refuge. To them, Vesco was another kind of outlaw.

"Vesco was running from the law because he stole money," Hill said.
"When you are a revolutionary you're in exile and you still continue
your struggle as best you can. I'm an exile."

American fugitives in Cuba include black separatists, Black Panthers and
Puerto Rican independence militants. To American law enforcement, they
are cop killers, bank robbers and common criminals. Some fugitives
speculate their future on the island could end if Cuba tries to work out
a prisoner exchange for the so-called Cuban Five — Cuban nationals
imprisoned for spying in America.

"I don't want that, but hey man, if it happened, I would have to go
down, brother," Hill said.

Wayne Smith, who once served as America's top diplomat in Havana,
dismissed the idea of a prisoner swap.

"I think the Cuban government might be interested, but I don't think it
would really happen," he said. "The U.S. government would be very
reluctant to get into that."

At least one fugitive, Joanne Chesimard, a black nationalist who fled to
Cuba after escaping from a U.S. prison in 1979, has gone into hiding on
the island. She has a $1 million bounty on her head for killing a New
Jersey state trooper in 1973.

Chesimard now goes by the name Assata Shakur. She once listed her number
in the Havana phone book, but now fears that bounty hunters may try to
snatch her, according to a friend who has not seen Shakur in more than a
year.

For its part, Cuba accuses the United States of harboring one of the
island's most-wanted men. Authorities want the United States to hand
over anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative
and alleged mastermind of the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. All
73 passengers on board were killed. Venezuela, where the downed plane
originated, also has requested his extradition.

Posada Carriles, who was held on immigration charges but freed from a
federal prison in Texas a year ago, also is suspected of plotting a
series of Havana hotel bombings in the late 1990s. Hundreds of
Cuban-Americans honored the exile this month with a sold-out gala in
Miami, where he now lives.

In Cuba, Hill longs for the life he left behind.

"I miss apple pie and sweet potato pie, man," he said. "I miss watching
football. But that doesn't mean I regret being a revolutionary and doing
what I did."

Hill escaped to Cuba in 1971 after a state trooper stopped him and two
other members of a black separatist group outside Albuquerque, N.M. They
were transporting arms and explosives. One of the suspects shot the
trooper, Robert Rosenbloom, in the throat, killing him. The men forced
their way into the Albuquerque airport and hijacked an airliner to Cuba.

Hill's accomplices both died in Cuba: Ralph Goodwin drowned at a beach
outside Havana decades ago; Michael Finney died of throat cancer in 2005.

Asked if he expected to return to America, Hill said: "Maybe in a coffin."

Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flrndcubanotebook0518sbmay18,0,1724996.column

WE MUST GUARD AGAINST THE FIDEL CASTRO WITHIN EACH OF US

Right-wing Cuban exiles attack journalist in Miami from Carlos Miller on Vimeo.

CROSSES THAT REMEMBER

Posted on Thu, Feb. 14, 2008

Crosses honor anti-Castro dead

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

Forty-six years later, José Crúz says he still vividly remembers the dreaded sound of the firing squads that executed thousands of Fidel Castro opponents in the early years of the Cuban revolution.

'I can still hear the firing squad commanders yelling `ready, aim, fire!' and then, just before the volley, the defiant cries of the victims, 'Long live Christ the King!' and 'Long live free Cuba!,' '' said Crúz, 71, a former Cuban political prisoner.

He was among a dozen volunteers who on Thursday worked late into the night setting up neat rows of 10,000 white foam crosses -- a symbolic ''war cemetery'' in south Miami-Dade evoking the memory of people who have died at sea or been killed by firing squad as a result of actions blamed on the Cuban government.

The sixth annual Cuban Memorial ''honoring victims of the Castro regime'' will formally open Friday and be on display to the public until Sunday at Tamiami Park, 11201 SW 24th St.

Organizers plan a news conference and ceremony at noon Friday to dedicate the memorial. Visitors can walk among the crosses, each bearing a name, from noon to 9 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

No one knows for sure how many people have died as a result of the Cuban communist government's direct or indirect actions, but some exile activists include those who were executed, those who have died attempting to leave Cuba by crossing the Florida Straits or those who have been killed in action fighting the Cuban government or who died in prison.

The nonprofit group Cuba Archive, www.cubaarchive.org, has documented 9,074 cases of people who have died fighting against the regime or trying to escape the island since the Cuban revolution in 1959. Maria Werlau, the group's executive director, said many more people have died but their deaths have yet to be documented. New names are added to the database all the time, she said.

Other experts cite higher estimates but that's because they include more than 11,000 Cuban soldiers killed in foreign deployments ordered by Castro such as in Angola, and higher estimates of Cuban migrants drowned at sea.

The number of Castro foes executed by firing squads has been estimated at more than 4,000 by the Cuba Archive program.

Emilio Solernou, one of the Tamiami Park memorial organizers, said the crosses his group has put on display bear the names of verified deaths as a result of executions, or who have died in prison or attempting to cross the Florida Straits.

Crúz, a former anti-Castro militant in Havana in the 1960s, was locked up for 18 years as a political prisoner. He was 24. He remembers an intensification of executions at the infamous La Cabaña prison in Havana immediately after the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

''One evening I heard eight executions and another evening nine,'' Crúz recalled as he set up crosses at Tamiami Park. ``It was horrible. I heard the discharge of several rifles and then the single coup de grace shot each time.''

THE CRIMES OF FIDEL CASTRO

Here are some of the statements made in this video and its captions:

“Those who sing to Fidel despite everything”

“Attorney “Human Rights Defender” goes to Cuba to sing Happy Birthday to Caribbean Jackal”

“We remind Gutierrez the savage crimes of the totalitarian dictator that has been in power for over half a century”

Deaths attributed to Fidel Castro:

More than 5700 executed with or without trial

More than 2000 dead in prison

More than 2000 disappeared

In the exterior of Cuba, in wars, more than 13,000 dead in Africa, Latin America, Granada and the Middle East

The dead during the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961

Feb 24 1996 4 killed in Brothers to the Rescue Airplane peaceful missions looking for rafters

Escapees: more than 77,000

Castro’s government according to testimony of a rafter, would drop sacks of sand from helicopters on fleeing rafters in hopes of inundating the rafters and causing them to drown

One man who testifies at the White Crosses Display commemorating the deaths of those who lived under the Castro regimes, states: ‘Of 20 person imprisoned they were shot by firing squad’; another woman testifies that her mother spent 8 years in prison….the list goes on…

Castro’s government never informs family members when an execution will be carried out nor where the person is buried

Castro isn’t responsible just for the deaths of 100,000 Cubans, but also responsible for training terrorists and guerrilleros (warriors) responsible for thousands of deaths in Latin American and Africa

President of El Salvador (until 2004), Francisco Flores Perez speaks about Fidel Castro’s murder machine…”Therefore…it is totally intolerable that you involved in the deaths of so many Salvadorians that you trained many to kill Salvadorians…that is absolutely intolerable…”

In Peru the Truth Commission estimates that more than 70,000 deaths in Peru can be attributed to Cuba’s interventionist policies

The guerrillas of Colombia trained by Cuba, have resulted in more than 200,000 deaths in Colombia

The list goes on:

Nicaragua, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala, Bolivia, and others

The Cuban government, directly and indirectly, has caused approximately more than half a million human deaths...all ignored by the world and the press

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

DESOLATION

Catching a cold in Cuba
Trip to beautiful island offers harsh lessons about shortages of medicine, food and transportation

By SALLY MELCHER JARVIS, Correspondent
Sunday News

Published: Dec 30, 2007 12:08 AM EST

HAVANA, CUBA - It wasn't much of a cold; just the kind that would get better by itself in a week. In the meantime it was a nuisance with a cough and stuffy nose. A little over-the-counter remedy would help.

It was November 2007. We were in Havana, the capital of Cuba, with a humanitarian group organized by the North Museum of Natural History & Science. Our role was to bring medical and school supplies in our suitcases. Americans are allowed in Cuba; they aren't permitted to spend any money there. We prepaid for our trip including every meal and tip.

There were no over-the-counter remedies to be had. I asked the guide what Cubans did if they had a cold. The guide said that a Cuban would go to the doctor — a visit free of charge — who would write a prescription for aspirin. However, there would be no way to fill the prescription.

We visited a pharmacy later in the trip. Behind the counter five well-dressed Cuban women waited to serve, but the shelves were empty. The only items in sight were the monthly ration of sanitary napkins, 10 permitted per Cuban woman per month.

I then understood the value of the over-the-counter medical supplies we had brought to a Catholic charity.

It was like being in a dream where two different things can happen at the same time. We were in a two-tier system: one for the privileged (tourists, for example) and the other for those who lived and worked in socialist Cuba.

Our luxurious state-owned hotel was closed to Cubans, except for those who worked there. A Cuban could not even come in for a meal.

There were two levels of money. One, the CUC, was used by foreign tourists and convertible to other currencies. The other, the peso, was for Cubans, and worth 5 percent of the "better" currency.

There were two levels of stores, one that took pesos and another that took CUC money. The peso stores had very little to sell. The stores for CUC money were marginally better. Even a modest chain store in the United States could outshine the "better" store.

There certainly were no traffic jams. With few privately owned cars and limited public transportation, many people rely on hitchhiking. In one five-mile stretch of a major highway I counted 20 people hoping for rides. In the same five-mile stretch the traffic consisted of one taxi, one bus, one pedestrian, two horse-drawn carts, three motorcycles, seven cars, 11 bicycles and 13 pickup trucks. This included both sides of the four-lane highway. About 15 percent are 1950s-era American cars still using leaded gas.

Coupons are given out each month for food such as coffee and rice. The coupons run out after two weeks, so it is necessary to buy food with the monthly salary. Food at the farmers' market is expensive. So if a person does not use the coffee ration, that coffee is traded for something else

On balance, we saw no people sleeping in doorways. We learned that there was 95 percent literacy. There was no rent to pay, no medical insurance needed — but no aspirin.

Cuba is a beautiful country with limestone soil as rich as Lancaster County and a mild climate year-round. The people are friendly, well-dressed and polite. Havana is a stunning Spanish colonial city with tree-lined plazas and colonnaded homes. If only the windows were not patched, the pillars rotted and the faded walls stained with mildew. The government has restored a number of homes, but the overall effect is one of decay.

The decay and lack of merchandise are blamed on the American embargo, in place since 1960. One wall poster in a cigar factory called the American embargo "genocide." Our country's story in Cuba is not an admirable one. Still, I wondered if a socialist government in 50 years could not come up with something better for its people.

It was depressing to see attractive and intelligent people restricted and denied opportunity in such an appealing land only 90 miles away from our country.

The accident of birth has put me in a free country and I have never been so grateful.