Chronicle on Cuba - February 2006

Exile Community

February 6: The case against two Florida International University employees believed to be supplying Cuba information about South Florida exiles has stirred up once again the element of political distrust that exists between exiles on the left and the right. The question for exiles of who's trustworthy in the island's opposition, comprised of people mostly born and raised in the communist system, is even more complex than whom to trust on this side of the Florida Straits. FIU Professor Damián Fernández explained that one of the Castro government's main goals is to create division and distrust among dissidents because the government fears them. Another important goal for the communist government: to get exiles to distrust the dissidents so much that Cuban Americans stop supporting them. ''These people live under tremendous psychological and financial pressure,'' Fernández said. ``Life is very hard for the legitimate ones. They operate in a climate of total mistrust, and it's hard to trust and believe if you operate within that context.'' (The Miami Herald, 5/2/06)

February 9: The Democracy Movement has called for picketing in front of the Bahamas Consulate General to protest the brutal treatment of Cuban migrants by Bahamian authorities and the beating, arrests and confiscation of their cameras and videos, against TV reporters from Univision and Telemundo. The pickets demand a thorough investigation on the side of the Bahamian Government of the events that took place on February 7 in Nassau, as well as the documented and well known abuses against Haitian, Cubans and others detained in the Bahamas due to immigration reasons. On February 7, an official of the Defense Forces of the Carmichael Road Detention Center in Bahamas noticed that one of the Cuban detainees had a cellular phone, resulting in a vicious and forceful search. The Cuban detainees were mistreated and beaten. All their properties were broken or confiscated. (Puente Informativo, 9/2/06)

February 15: R epresentatives of the Spiritual Leaders Working Group, Monsignor Agustín Román, Rev. Martín Añorga and Rev. Onell Soto got together to ask the Cuban people to not cooperate with government-organized mobs that harass human rights activists on the island. Dozens of religious leaders of the exile community joined to draft a document titled, "Contra el terror, el civismo" (Against terror, civility). In the document, they manifest their support for those neighbours in Cuba who have shown their solidarity with activists that have been attacked by government-organized mobs. (Puente Informativo, 15/2/06)

February 17: Miami-based organizations that promote armed struggle against Fidel Castro’s regime announced the creation of an aid committee to help an “insurrection in Cuba”. The appeal is part of a statement calling for the firm support of organizations and individuals to accelerate the dismantling of the regime via an uprising from within the island. The signatories to the proposal are Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria (MRR), Congreso Nacional Cubano, Comandos F-4, Comando Nazario Sargén, Fundación Caribe, Junta Militar, Municipio Bayamo and Cubanos Combatientes No Afiliados. (El Miami Herald, 18/2/06)

February 22: Carlos Costa has been dead for 10 years, shot out of the sky along with three other men by Cuban fighter pilots as they flew unarmed airplanes on a humanitarian mission, looking for Cuban rafters in 1996. Costa's parents have preserved his bedroom and his things exactly as they were then. This February 24 marks the 10th anniversary of the Brothers to the Rescue incident, when a Cuban MiG fired missiles at two small airplanes over the Florida Straits, killing three American citizens: Costa, 29; Armando Alejandre, Jr., 45; Mario de la Peña, 24; and U.S. resident Pablo Morales, 29. The shoot-down, which galvanized Miami's Cuban exile community and has set the tone for US-Cuba relations for the last 10 years, still haunts the family members of the victims. They have immersed themselves in a quixotic quest for justice, collecting evidence in hopes the US government will indict Raúl Castro, head of the Cuban armed forces. Cuba maintains that the Brothers' unarmed planes violated its territorial airspace, but the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization concluded the planes were over international waters and the UN Security Council condemned Cuba by a 13-0 vote. (The Miami Herald, 22/2/06)

February 25: The White House and Cuban-American leaders are finalizing the date for a meeting in March to discuss the Cuban migration accords and the controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy. US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the tentative date for the meeting is March 8. White House spokesman Blair Jones did not confirm a date, but said, "We are committed to holding a meeting as soon as possible.'' The White House agreed to meet with Cuban-American leaders to discuss US-Cuba migration policy after a well-known Cuban exile activist went on a hunger strike to protest the repatriation of 15 Cuban migrants who had been found by the Coast Guard standing on the pilings of the old Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys. Cuban-American leaders hoped that the Republican Bush administration would revoke, or at least change, the policy to allow the migrants access to lawyers and contact with family members on humanitarian grounds. (The Miami Herald, 25/2/06)