Chronicle on Cuba - January 2008

Exile Community

January 1: Cuban ballet master and choreographer Alberto Julio Rayneri Alonso has died. He was 90. Alonso died of heart failure at North Florida Regional Medical Center, said an official at Santa Fe Community College, where he was the master artist in residence. Mr. Alonso had lived in Gainesville since receiving political asylum in the United States in 1993. He joined Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville as master artist in residence and resident choreographer for the Dance Theater of Santa Fe. He was best known for his 1967 work "Carmen Suite,'' the only Bolshoi Ballet ever commissioned by a non-Russian. Born in 1917 in Havana, Alonso gained international acclaim in 1935 when he emerged as the first notable Cuban male dancer while performing for the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. After touring the world as principal dancer, he returned to Cuba in 1940 to begin his career as a choreographer and co-director of the National Ballet of Cuba, together with his brother, Cuban maitre and choreographer Fernando. In September 2007, Santa Fe Community College produced “Dance of My Heart,” a documentary chronicling Mr. Alonso’s career and contributions as a solo artist, choreographer and instructor. The documentary was shown in Gainesville and at the Edmonton International Film Festival in Canada. Mr. Alonso was married first to the Ballets Russes dancer Alexandra Denisova; then to Elena del Cueto, a Cuban dancer. He is survived by his wife for 44 years, the Cuban dancer and actress Sonia Calero, his children and grandchildren. (Sun Sentinel, The New York Times, Juventud Rebelde, 2,7/1/08)

January 1: After more than a decade of painstaking research by two Cuban exiles with the non-profit group Cuba Archive, for the first time their results are available in a searchable database on the Web. The Truth and Memory Project database was launched on January 1, thanks to a $52,000 grant from Freedom House, an advocacy organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt. ''This is one more way to shed light on something a lot of people do not know about,'' said Jorge A. García Mas, who arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1999. "The first thing I did was to look for my family's names. How is it not going to hurt to see their names on there?'' García lost several members of his family in July 1994, when the tugboat “13 de Marzo”, loaded with would-be refugees, was rammed and sank. The database includes García's son, four in-laws, five nieces and nephews, and three cousins. It also chronicles the deaths of people shot by firing squad, killed in prison, drowned at sea, killed by terrorist bombs and other causes. ''The nature of the crimes is horrifying,'' said Maria Werlau, executive director of Cuba Archive. 'You don't need to say anything. You don't need to editorialize. Here it is. It's like that news network that says: `We report it. You decide.'' (The Miami Herald, 4/1/08)

January 3: The new president of Texas A&M University is the first woman and first Hispanic to hold the job. Elsa Murano, a former A&M administrator who fled Cuba as a child, was the only finalist for the post and named by the A&M system's Board of Regents. "I am grateful to live in a country that has provided so many opportunities, including the great honor to serve as president of Texas A&M University," she said. Murano was the vice chancellor and dean of A&M's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Before that, she was undersecretary for food safety at the US Department of Agriculture from 2001 to 2004. Murano, 48, fled Cuba with her family in the early 1960s. Born in Havana, she and her family lived in several Latin American countries before moving to Miami. (AP, 3/1/08)

January 6: Former Cuban General Rafael del Pino wrote a pair of articles in Spanish-language newspapers in Miami calling for a thaw in US-Cuba relations. That prompted a hostile backlash from prominent members of Miami's Cuban exile community, known for its virulent hatred of Castro. Del Pino has responded with a federal lawsuit seeking thousands of dollars in damages for what he claims is a campaign by Little Havana notables to silence him by using popular Spanish-language television and radio stations to unjustly criticize him. Del Pino even claims he was threatened with a mob lynching on one radio program. The targets of the lawsuit, including leaders of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association and Spanish-language network Univision Communications Inc., say the claims of threats are overstated and that they have a free-speech right to criticize del Pino's views.  When Del Pino defected to the US in 1987 by flying a twin-engine Cessna to Key West, it was hailed by US President Ronald Reagan's administration as one of the greatest intelligence coups in the long Cold War against Fidel Castro. At the time, del Pino was the highest-ranking Cuban military officer to defect to the US -- following a career as a fighter pilot he had been deputy chief of staff of Cuba's armed forces, and had been awarded as a Bay of Pigs Hero. (AP, 6/1/08)

January 7: In 1999, a Cuban family fled to the United States on a vintage Antonov-2 Colt biplane, landing safely in Key West. Cuban American artist Xavier Cortada donated that Antonov-2 Colt biplane to Florida International University. Cortada painted a representation of freedom on half of the biplane and purposely left the other half in the same condition as when it arrived in Miami. One of the main reasons Cortada donated the plane is because of the large number of Cuban students and faculty at FIU. Cortada hopes that Cuban students look at the plane and reflect on their history and non-Cuban students look at the plane and learn something. "I created this exhibit in order for my parents, grandparents and all other Cuban exiles to not fade from memory," Cortada said on his Web site. Cortada is known for his philanthropic endeavors involving the Cuban community. He received the prestigious Millennium International Volunteer Award from the US Department of State and USA Today in 2000. In February of 2000 Cortada was invited to meet Pope John Paul II in Rome. (The Beacon, 1/7/08)

January 8: Cuban essayist, teacher and historian Luis Aguilar León was remembered by diverse personalities of the Cuban exile community as an intellectual who helped educate the new generations of academicians in the United States. Aguilar León, also known as Lundi, died on January 5. Born in Manzanillo, he founded in 1959 the Christian Democratic Movement (MDC), which was immediately banned by Fidel Castro’s government. On May 13, 1960, he published in the newspaper Prensa Libre his article “The time for unanimity," a biting and visionary critique of the totalitarianism threatening to take over Cuba. The next day, a revolutionary committee asked for the arrest and execution by firing squad of the article’s author and the newspaper was closed down. Aguilar León went into exile that same year. (EER, 8/1/08)

January 11: In Madrid a two-day discussion took place on homosexuality in Cuba and the repression that sexual minorities had undergone because of the island's communist regime. Posters for the conference bore Che Guevara's well-known picture along with the rainbow colours of the gay Pride flag. Writer Zoe Valdes believes this "would have greatly irritated" Che. "Che and his ideal of the new man was the ideal of the macho man, which rejects everything that has gathered us here," Valdes said. "In explaining Cuba's recent history it is important to remember that behind a political issue there's a sexual issue," Valdes said, including the repressed homosexuality of regime leaders. Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, who has been Cuba's acting president since Fidel fell ill in July 2006, has been accused of being a closeted homosexual. Poet Leon de la Hoz said that many people on the island refer to him as "the little Chinese man with the sad eyes," a reference to his supposed repressed homosexuality. The two-day discussion began with presentations about Cuban poet Jose Mario, an important 20th Century figure in the country, who suffered in Cuban labour camps as Castro's regime 're-educated' homosexuals. Gays were incarcerated in Military Units to Aid Production (UMAPs) between 1965 and 1968. (Pink News, 11/1/08)

January 12: Protesters demanding the arrest of Luis Posada Carriles called off a planned demonstration in the Little Havana neighborhood after they were confronted by supporters of the anti-Castro Cuban militant. A group of women from the anti-war group CODEPINK had planned to discuss with reporters their campaign against Posada, who is free after a judge dismissed the government's charges that he lied to investigators in a bid to become a naturalized US citizen. About 15 CODEPINK activists were met in front of a Little Havana restaurant by some 200 supporters of Posada, who is wanted by the Cuban and Venezuelan government on charges that he plotted the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner while in Caracas. Several of the Posada supporters charged at the activists' truck, which carried a photo of Posada and a sign reading "Wanted by the FBI: Luis Posada Carriles for terrorism." Some people tried to tear down the poster, while others shouted insults. Supporters of Posada say he is a hero for his fight against communism and Cuban President Fidel Castro "Posada Carriles is no terrorist. The terrorist is Fidel Castro," said Rene Vidal. (The Miami Herald, 14/1/08)

January 12: The tears welled in his eyes as “Minnie” Miñoso leaned against a rail in the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and talked about an honor that he was to receive later in the night. It was a few hours before Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso was to step onto the stage across the street inside The Gem Theater to accept The Jackie Robinson Legacy Award, a tribute to Miñoso's lifetime of work on behalf of baseball. "This is something beautiful," he said. "I wanna thank everyone who was involved in making this kind of decision." Miñoso was appreciative that people had thought enough of him and his work to give him an honor that bore the name of the man who had, 61 years earlier, opened doors to the Major Leagues for blacks and Latinos to enter. The Robinson Legacy Award celebrates Miñoso's lifetime of promoting baseball. In that role, Miñoso joined Yogi Berra, the late Buck O'Neil and Bob Feller, iconic figures whose ties to the game stretched back into the 1940s, as an ambassador for the game. He learned the game on the rock-hard, unmanicured fields in pre-Castro Cuba. He then fled Cuba to cast his lot in America. (MLB.Com, 12/1/08)

January 15: Florestan Ors fled to South Florida seven months after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba. But unlike many of Cuba's early refugees who are now prosperous citizens, Ors is virtually penniless at 71. And, oddly, undocumented Ors is among a growing number of immigrants who, despite having worked for decades in the United States and paid taxes, are shut out of Social Security and other benefits because they are undocumented. Many are homeless. "I led a relatively normal life before 9/11," Ors said. "But 9/11 ended all that. My life changed radically. Before I was able to work, I had my efficiency and then I became homeless." Ors is among 40 Cubans and Haitians getting help from the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center because they lack immigration papers and can't unlock their Social Security benefits. "I never felt the desire to stay here permanently," Ors explained. "Maybe that's why I never thought about getting a green card. I always tended to see the United States as a temporary place, that eventually I would be returning to Cuba either to fight Fidel Castro or because he had been overthrown and we would be free to go back." (The Miami Herald, 15/1/08) 

January 16: Martha Flores, a popular Spanish-language radio host, will not have to respond to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami charging she violated the rights of a former Cuban general exiled in Miami. US District Judge Ursula Ungaro dismissed the case against Flores filed on behalf of Rafael del Pino. The former general, 67, dramatically defected to the United States with his family in a stolen Cessna in 1987. Del Pino, who is embroiled in a bitter feud with some exiles over his views on negotiating with Cuba, sued Flores and others for ''the harm he has suffered from a series of violent threats and intimidation'' by local television and radio personalities and Bay of Pigs veterans, all with the ''intent of chilling'' his First Amendment Rights, his suit claimed. The judge's 13-page order said Flores expressed an opinion about Del Pino on the air but did not take any action against him. (The Miami Herald, 16/1/08)

January 16: Poet and journalist Raúl Rivero and sociologist Héctor Palacios denounced in Madrid the serious predicament of many Cuban political prisoners. Rivero and Palacios, both members of the group of 75 dissidents imprisoned in 2003, attended at the Madrid Press Association head office the presentation of the latest report of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Conciliation (CCDHRN). [Presentación del Informe de la CCDHRN por Raúl Rivero, video] (EER, 17/1/08)

January 19: A collection of black-and-white photographs of glamorous showgirls, modernist architecture and the revolution are what collector Ramiro Fernandez used for his new book "I Was Cuba." "The book has a reflection of the past, but it also has an optimistic window or viewpoint toward the future," said Fernandez, 56. "I wanted to deal with the revolution but also put that in the past." Fernandez, who moved to Miami from Cuba with his family in 1960, spoke to more than two dozen attendees at a lecture and book signing at the Museum of Arts and Sciences as part of the museum's week of "Great Masters of Cuban Art: 1800-1958." The lecture included a slide show with photos from his book. (Daytona Beach News, 19/1/08)

January 24: At a press conference, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) launched the “Cuban American Voter Guide-Elections 2008”. A CANF press release said “the CANF has been working with all major Presidential campaigns over the course of the last several months to allow Cuban American voters the opportunity to get to know where the candidates stand on Cuba policy”. “All campaigns were provided with a questionnaire and asked to submit a statement reflecting what Cuba policy would look like under their respective Administrations”, the statement added. The guide includes responses, in alphabetical order, from Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. [Cuban American Voter Guide] (EER, CANF, 24,24/1/08)

January 25: While likely to irk those on either extreme — expats and conservatives who equate Castro with Hitler, or those who consider Cuba the embattled last socialist utopia — “Shoot Down” does an admirably evenhanded job examining circumstances that led to two US civilian planes being shot down by Cuban military aircraft 11 years ago. Cristina Khuly's documentary merits exposure, particularly while its hot-button issues have again been warmed to boiling point by Castro's failing health. Four Miami men died in the two planes shot down on February 24, 1996. Three were first-generation Cuban-Americans. Another was a refugee who owed his life to Brothers to the Rescue, for which they all volunteered. (Sun Sentinel, 25/1/08)