Chronicle on Cuba - April 2006

Exile Community

April 3: A Cuban exiles’ delegation called on the French government in Paris not to allow “the worst violators” to join the UN Human Rights Council, in reference to Cuba and the new entity that will come into force next June. A high-ranking foreign affairs officer at the French foreign ministry, whose name was not disclosed, met with the activists. Members from MAR for Cuba, Plantados Hasta la Libertad and relatives of political prisoners participated in the meeting. (CubaEncuentro, 4/4/06)

April 3: A radical pro-Castro group prevented Raúl Rivero from giving a conference in Seville. The Cuban poet and journalist, who was going to talk about the absence of freedom of expression on the island, was received by a score of young people calling him “terrorist” and other insulting names. There was no physical aggression, but “the climate was of increasing violence every minute”, said Rivero. In Rivero’s opinion, the incidents were “perfectly organized”. He also pointed out the presence of representatives from the Cuban Consulate, similar to what happened when he attended the International Festival of Poetry in Granada and a group of extremists awaited him where he was going to read his poems with banners calling him a “worm”--, a term used by pro-Castro groups to call those who flee the island. (El Mundo, 4/4/06)

April 4: The Embassy of Cuba in Spain denied that officials from that diplomatic mission or any consular office took part in the boycott of an event in which Cuban poet Raúl Rivero was going to speak. Rivero was released from prison last year thanks to the mediation of the current Spanish government. The University of Seville “strongly condemned” the group of protesters “alien to the University Community” who prevented Rivero from giving his conference. (Europa Press, 4/4/06)

April 6: The Cuban Border Guard opened fire on a boat carrying three men believed to be Cuban-American migrant smugglers -- killing one and wounding another -- in an incident the US State Department called a "deeply disturbing matter.'' The two captured survivors were identified as Rosendo Salgado Castro and Rafael Mesa Fariñas, who hold US passports. Salgado was shot in the leg, according to a knowledgeable official in Havana who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak about the case. ''I read that garbage. I don't think it happened like that,'' Leydi Crespo, the daughter of Salgado's former companion, said from her Miami home. "They decided to shoot at them, just like they did to those Brothers to the Rescue planes. If he was trafficking people or not, you don't shoot them.'' Crespo and her mother, Ana Del Toro, said they have no idea what Salgado was doing near Cuba, and have no knowledge of him being involved in migrant smuggling. Salgado, 41, is an out-of-work truck driver who arrived in Miami in 1995 after a stint at the refugee camps at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. Ninoska Perez Castellon, spokeswoman for the Miami-based Cuban Liberty Council, blamed the communist government, accusing it of tolerating illegal migrant smuggling. "The Cuban government has the authority to let them go in and out," she said. "For anybody to believe that all those people are coming in and out without the government getting a cut is ridiculous." The men face a precarious legal situation, because the Cuban government does not recognize dual citizenship. If the men were born in Cuba -- and Salgado certainly was -- the government there will treat them as Cuban citizens, experts said. "The bottom line is they are subject to the laws of Cuba. The Cubans will use this as an incentive to have others not engage in the same efforts,'' said attorney Mario Cano, who has represented accused smugglers in Miami. (The Miami Herald, AP, 7/4/06)

April 6: Cuban poet and journalist Raul Rivero, the highest-profile political prisoner of the Castro regime's Spring 2003 crackdown on dissent, said the verses collected in his new book were a means of figuratively freeing himself from jail. Released last year for health reasons and currently residing in Spain, he talked with the press about "Vidas y oficios. Los poemas de la cárcel" (Lives and Occupations: Poems from Prison). "It is a book of meditation, written to escape from jail, to get out of that hostile, tense environment I was in," he said. Dreams, escapes or "sweetened rejections" are some of the themes treated in "Lives and Occupations," which Rivero wrote between the spring of 2003 and the winter of 2004, and in which he recreates places "to live awhile and be able to come back later," the author said. Written in a cell where he could "only take six steps in one direction," this book of verse contains scarcely any direct references to his prison surroundings, reflecting the interior world of the poet rather than offering the testimony of a man behind bars. This restorative "escape from reality" finds its counterpoint in the "critical, humorous and ironic" vision that the author gives of himself in the work. He says that it is his "best weapon" against falling into "vanities - the great defect," according to Rivero, of Fidel Castro, whom he considers "a conceited person in love with himself." "Castro's fake superiority and cheap boasting does the country much harm," Rivero said, adding that "in Cuba it's a national catastrophe if a boxer loses" because of the need for greatness and success throughout a society that "is unaware that the revolution failed." (EFE, 6/4/06)

April 10: A fishing boat filled with 43 Haitians, a Jamaican and a Cuban landed at Broward's Hillsboro Beach. The Haitians and Jamaican are likely to be sent home; the Cuban is likely to stay. The stark differences in US immigration policy came into the spotlight again as more than two dozen Haitian leaders and their allies revived protests about what they say is an unfair and even racist policy. ''In the case of Haitians, it's very unfortunate that things suggest that they are being discriminated against because of the color of their skin,'' said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, a Cuban refugee activist. Others were more blunt about the TPS program, calling it "racist.'' (The Miami Herald, 11/4/06)

April 10: A federal civil suit alleging human rights violations by the Cuban government has been dismissed because the four Cuban plaintiffs lacked jurisdiction. US District Judge Alan S. Gold in Miami ruled the people who sued had not sufficiently established allegiance to the US, which would have allowed review by American courts. The nine-page decision said the plaintiffs did not qualify to sue under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows foreign nationals to bring civil suits against their governments in the US in the absence of sovereign immunity under other federal laws. The four plaintiffs — two imprisoned Cuban citizens and two of their relatives now living in the US — won a clerk's default judgment in US District Court in 2004 because the Cuban government did not respond to the suit, its standard approach to US lawsuits. The ruling is flawed, but the plaintiffs are unsure if they will appeal, their lawyer Paul Orfanedes, director of litigation for Washington-based Judicial Watch, said. The Cubans claimed the Cuban government, the Cuban military and several top government officials, including Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, committed crimes against humanity by imprisoning and torturing people who oppose Castro's rule. (Miami Daily Business Review, 11/4/06)

April 19: A Cuban exile arrested for stashing more than 1,000 guns in his suburban Upland, California home told federal authorities the weapons were for a quasi-military group bent on overthrowing Fidel Castro, but police officials said that may be a cover story for his black-market gun ring. Federal agents found hundreds of additional firearms as well as hand grenades during a follow-up search of the upscale San Bernardino County home of Robert Ferro, a retired Army Special Forces officer, adding to the 875 guns confiscated on April 14. Ferro told federal investigators that he was a member of the anti-Castro group Alpha 66, "a militant group who collectively desire to overthrow Fidel Castro and liberate the country of Cuba," according to an affidavit filed in federal court by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent Keith Krolczyk. (Los Angeles Times, 20/4/06)

April 20: A Cuban exile arrested in California with a huge cache of weapons is not a member of the militant group Alpha 66 as he claims, Alpha 66 leader Ernesto Diaz said. Robert Ferro, 61, was arrested after authorities raided his Upland home in Southern California and found more than 1,000 weapons, including assault rifles, machine guns and live grenades. Ferro told investigators that he was a member of Alpha 66 ''a militant group who collectively desire to overthrow Fidel Castro and liberate the country of Cuba,'' according to an affidavit filed in federal court by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Diaz disputed Ferro's account. ''He is not a member of Alpha 66, nor does Alpha 66 have any knowledge of who this person is,'' Diaz said. Diaz said he suspects that Ferro could be part of a Cuban government plot to discredit Alpha 66. ''I don't discount the possibility that it's a campaign from the Cuban government to compromise Alpha 66,'' Diaz said. "At these moments, Alpha is being respectful of US laws, and our training camps are within the guidelines of US laws.'' "We don't have records of Robert Ferro; we know nothing of that person," said Mario Estevez, press secretary of Alpha 66 in Miami. "We have 50,000 members, maybe more, and most of our members are in Cuba. Robert Ferro is not a member of our organization," Estevez said. (The Miami Herald, EFE, 20/4/06)