Chronicle on Cuba - November 2005

Exile Community

November 1: A federal appeals court jolted Miami with another electrifying ruling in the case of five Cuban men accused of spying for Fidel Castro -- reinstating their original convictions in the 2001 trial. Now the appeals process starts all over again. The Atlanta appellate court must decide whether the five Cuban defendants -- convicted of infiltrating Miami's exile community and trying to pass US military secrets to Havana -- received a fair trial in a community that despises Castro. José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, praised the 11th Circuit's decision to rehear the appeal, saying exile politics did not poison Miami jurors. ''The Cuban-American population is open-minded enough not to exert any type of pressure on jurors,'' he said. (The Miami Herald, 2/11/05)

November 10: Cuban-American ballet dancer, choreographer and artistic director Fernando Bujones died in Miami of complications from malignant melanoma, friends said. He was 50. Bujones, the Miami-born son of Cuban exiles, ranked alongside Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov as one of the top ballet soloist of the third half of the 20th century. For the past three months, the artist had been on sick leave from his job as artistic director of the Orlando Ballet, fighting lung cancer. (EFE, 10/11/05)

November 13: Popular salsa singer Willy Chirino celebrated the 35 th anniversary of his artistic career with a concert in Miami broadcast to Cuba via Radio and TV Martí. Recordings of the artist’s songs are circulated underground on the island and they are even chorused and danced to in street festivities. (El Nuevo Herald, 14/11/05)

November 17: Two Cubans are suing Fidel Castro in Florida for 60 million dollars, claiming they were tortured at a psychiatric hospital on the communist-run island, their lawyers said. Both plaintiffs claim they were tortured at the Mazorra psychiatric hospital in Havana more than 30 years ago. Nilo Jerez, who filed a lawsuit at a Miami court, claimed he was subjected to electroshocks on his testicles, which left him sterile. Belkis Ferro, 51, who filed suit in Tampa, said she was also subjected to electroshocks, and was given injections that made her lose consciousness. Both said the torture sessions were supervised by Eriberto Mederos, a nurse at the hospital. Mederos had migrated to the United States in 1980, and was later found guilty of torture and of hiding his links with Cuba's Communist Party, but he died in 2002, shortly after his trial. (AFP, 17/11/05)

November 21: Santiago Alvarez, a longtime anti-Castro activist and key supporter of exile militant Luis Posada Carriles, was arrested in Miami on federal weapons and passport charges. Alvarez's arrest shocked his friends and many in the exile community who say it was a major propaganda victory for Castro. One Cuban exile group, Vigilia Mambisa, plans to protest Alvarez's arrest outside the federal courthouse in downtown Miami, Mambisa President Miguel Saavedra said. ''Every time Castro complains about something, this government does whatever they have to so that he doesn't get mad,'' Saavedra said. The case against Posada's close associates has the potential to create a political firestorm for the White House, with hardline exile activists vowing to protest and defend Alvarez against what they see as an attack by Castro. ''We are seeing signals that indicate that the administration of President Bush is forgetting the promises they made to the exile community in order to cater to Castro,'' said Cuban American National Foundation President Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernandez. Added Brothers to the Rescue founder Jose Basulto: "This is an action against our community and our people. There is no difference between Bush and Clinton. There is basically one party with two names. The US is falling to a moral low point.'' (The Miami Herald, 21, 22/05)

November 22: The election of US Senator Jon Corzine, a Democrat, to the governor's office in New Jersey has created a rare open seat in the US Senate, and Hispanic groups are agitating for the post to go to US Representative Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat born to Cuban parents. The pro-Menendez campaign is making waves in Miami, where the 51-year-old politician is a familiar face at fundraisers and a reliable bulwark in Congress against efforts to water down the economic embargo against Cuba. Across party lines, Menendez enjoys close ties with South Florida's three Republican Cuban-American Congress members -- attending the May funeral of Rafael Díaz-Balart, patriarch of one of the nation's leading Cuban-American political families. If appointed, Menendez would be the second Cuban-American -- and third Hispanic -- US senator. Republican Mel Martinez, the other Cuban-American, was elected from Florida in 2004. (The Miami Herald, 22/11/05)

November 22: Manuel Vázquez Portal, a recipient of the International Press Freedom Award in 2003, has finally been able to collect the honor personally. Vázquez Portal had been imprisoned as a result of the crackdown on dissidents in March, 2003. He has been living in Miami after the Cuban authorities allowed him to leave the island. (AP, 22/11/05)