Chronicle on Cuba - February 2008

Exile Community

February 7: The first large-scale US exhibition of works by the most celebrated Cuban artist of the 20th century, surrealist Wifredo Lam, is an art event of exceptional significance to South Florida. The show, which opens at Miami Art Museum, is a milestone. An attempt by the artist's family a decade ago to bring an exhibit to a Miami museum failed because of perceptions that Lam had supported the Cuban Revolution. But now half the works displayed at MAM are on loan from Miami collectors, some of them Cuban Americans. Lam, a Chinese-AfroCuban who settled in Paris, where he became Picasso's friend and contemporary, had a life of almost cinematic drama: a long, productive interlude in Spain, Italy and France; visa denials from the United States when he tried to leave war-torn Europe; acclaim as an icon who elevated African and Cuban culture to the world stage. “He was all that and more,'' said Eskil Lam, 44, the painter's oldest son, who is in Miami for the show's opening. (The Miami Herald, 7/2/08)

February 10: Miami has changed and the sometimes violent scenes of Cuban exile passion appear to be in the past. That could spell trouble for President George W. Bush's Republican Party in November's general election, opponents and analysts say. As Miami's hardline anti-communist tendencies start to fade, so may the party's once-unassailable grip on congressional seats in south Florida. "There's a generational shift going on," said Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Joe Garcia, who sees a clear trend toward moderation as younger voters and more recent arrivals from Cuba dilute the Cuban American community. Florida has been hardest hit by the current US housing slump. Its sinking economy, sky-high insurance rates, health care and mortgage foreclosures are now of more concern to most voters, including a generation of younger Cuban Americans, than democratic reforms in Cuba, analysts say. "It's really over foreign versus domestic," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "Younger generations, younger Cubans, are very much more influenced by domestic policy than foreign policy," she said. (The Miami Herald, 10/2/08)

February 9: San Francisco-based group CodePink organized a demonstration to urge the government to arrest alleged terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. A dozen protesters demanding the arrest of Luis Posada Carriles were met by more than 100 counterprotesters at a demonstration in front of the Versaillés Cafe in Little Havana, in Miami. The event was the second time in less than a month that the group CodePink had gathered at the famous restaurant, but the demonstrators, separated by Miami police, were peaceful. A skirmish between the two groups broke out at a January 12 rally, when CodePink's truck/float was rushed and members of the group claimed they were physically threatened. The last rally was largely uneventful. The two sides hurled insults, accusations, and the occasional obscene gesture at each other across SW Eighth Street. A dozen members of CodePink occupied the south sidewalk, singing and chanting while waving banners that called Carriles a "terrorist''. Across the street, about 150 members of groups such as Vigilia Mambisa and Alpha 66 joined together in front of Versailles with signs that called CodePink “communists”, and “anti-American” and inferred that the left-wing group was on the payroll of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. (The Miami Herald, 11/2/08)

February 10: Approximately 30 personalities were honoured into the Cuban Sport Hall of Fame during the sixth edition of the event, which took place in the Big Five Club of Miami. The famous Luis Tiant and Orestes "Minie" Miñoso were in attendance. (El Nuevo Herald, 10/2/08)

February 15: Human rights activist Bertha Antúnez Pernet, went into exile in Miami where she said she will continue “the struggle for the democratization of the island and the freedom of political prisoners.” Antúnez Pernet is the sister of former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez), released from prison after serving a 17-year sentence. Antúnez Pernet referred to Cuban prisons as “cemeteries of living men.” (AFP, EFE, 15/2/08)

February 15: Four Cuban dissidents jailed since a harsh crackdown five years ago will be freed and sent to Spain with their families. Miami exile groups welcomed the prisoners' release but noted that the four were forced to leave. ''Unfortunately, these men were not given a chance to stay in their country and be free,'' said Cuban American National Foundation spokeswoman Camila R. Gallardo. "They were given the choice: Go to Spain or stay in jail. This is what they do with the people who oppose them and are effective at opposing them.'' (The Miami Herald, 16/2/08)

February 18: Bernardo Viera Trejo still remembers that sweltering summer day in 1955, when he and his then-friend Fidel Castro met up shortly after the would-be revolutionary's release from prison. Castro had attempted to overthrow the island's dictator, Fulgencio Batista, with an assault on the Moncada military barracks in southeastern Cuba. He had failed and spent the last two years behind bars. As the two chatted, Viera says Castro drew a map of the doomed attack and signed it for his friend with a flourish. Now, more than half a century later, Viera is selling the map through the Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, the latest in Cuba-related historical documents placed on the auction block. "I believed he was an important person and would become even more so," said Viera, a former journalist who has interviewed luminaries including Ernest Hemingway and Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges. "But Fidel, he couldn't understand why I wanted it." The idea came to Viera after he read about a similar auction Heritage held for a lock of hair snipped from Ernesto "Che" Guevara before his burial in 1967. (AP, 18/2/08)

February 19: In Miami, Florida, the news of Fidel Castro’s resignation to the presidency came as no surprise to Janisset Rivero, the executive director of Cuban Democratic Directorate, a group that works with dissidents in Cuba. "I think there have been preparations taking place for quite a while to assure the crowning of Raúl Castro," she said. "It doesn't mean any change to the system. It doesn't mean there will be freedom for the Cubans. One big dictator is replacing the other. "It will be a big deal when political prisoners are released, when political parties are allowed to organize, when the country stops being ruled by a single party." "For Cuban-Americans it doesn't mean a whole big deal. It's the continuation with a different face. We recognize these are not major changes,'' said Andy Gomez of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies. But Gomez said in Cuba there will be pressure by the younger generation on Raul Castro to make immediate improvements in the basic quality of life,  in terms of housing, food and education. “Today Castro announces the end of the revolution. That doesn't mean it's all over, but that means it allows people to finally begin to move beyond,'' said Joe Garcia, former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and now a Democratic candidate for Congress. (CNN, Sun Sentinel, 19/2/08)

February 19: The Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), a leading anti-Castro exile organization, said Castro's resignation "opens a new chapter in the history of the revolution and the history of the Cuban people." "After 50 years there is no more one-man rule in Cuba because his successors cannot maintain the same power and the same position that he attained during the last 50 years," CANF president Francisco "Pepe" Hernandez said. (Reuters, 19/2/08)

February 19: The resignation of Cuba's ailing president, Fidel Castro, is not expected to have a major impact on Canadian policy of constructive engagement with Cuba. Ismael Sambra, leader of the Cuban Canadian Foundation, said there's nothing "constructive" about the government of Cuba. Sambra, a Cuban –Canadian, was arrested in 1992 for urging Cubans to vote against Castro's government and sentenced to eight years. "The policy of Canada towards Cuba is (…) dialogue, but those guys, they don't understand what the dialogue is," said this construction worker who spend nearly six years in jail before being released in 1998 after Castro gave in to pressure from Ottawa, Amnesty International and the late Pope John Paul. "Anything for that government right now that smells (like) democracy is a conspiracy - is helping the Americans; so with them there is no reasonable dialogue,' he said. Canada co-sponsored a resolution on Cuba's human rights situation for the 14th straight year at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in April 2005. And it has urged Cuban authorities to recognize the rights of freedom of speech, association and the press in the past. However, Sambra says Canada's current policy has done nothing to encourage political changes there. "Canada should condition its trade with Cuba, with the freedom of press, real democratic changes, the freedom of all political prisoners," he said. (Canadian Press, 19/2/08)

February 22: For Taras Domitro, Hayna Gutierrez and Miguel Angel Blanco, everything has changed -- except ballet. Since the three leading dancers with the National Ballet of Cuba made their late night dash for the United States last December, driving across the border from Ontario, Canada, to upstate New York, their lives have concentrated around their art. Where they once lived in Havana, rehearsing at the National Ballet's stately but dilapidated center and touring Europe, Asia, and Latin America, they are now sequestered in the heart of suburban South Florida. They live with Domitro's mother Magaly Suarez in her Pompano Beach home and rehearse every night in her studio, The Art of Classical Ballet, in the Storage Mart strip mall six blocks away. It is a strange but safe launching pad before they vault onto the next stage -- as soloists with the San Francisco Ballet. For now, however, they are focused on their US debut at the Fillmore Miami Beach in Swan Lake with the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami, a small South Florida company co-directed by Suarez and Pedro Pablo Pena. Their future is wide open, but right now all they've got is this small space for the moves they've practiced all their lives. (The Miami Herald, 22/2/08)  

February 22: The early morning charter flight from Miami to Havana looks like a traveling emporium as Cuban exiles carry back items ranging from DVD players to bicycles for friends and relatives in their deprived homeland. In the check-in line at Miami International Airport, three days after long-time leader Fidel Castro said he would retire as president, baggage carts were piled high with bags stuffed with clothes, boxes of electronics, coffee machines and car parts. The abundance of goods -- the result of a small change in Cuban customs regulations brought last year by Castro's younger brother and expected successor, Raul Castro -- could be a sign of things to come. "To get by in Cuba you need to have family here," said a man named Hernandez, 28, a health-care worker who was visiting Cuba for the first time since he left 19 years ago. "It's mostly clothes, medicines, all kinds of stuff you can't find there," said Hernandez, who declined to give his full name. "Underwear. People have no underwear over there." He also was taking a wheelchair for his grandmother. Operators at the airport wrapping travelers' suitcases in protective shrink-wrap were doing brisk business. It was too early to tell the significance of the easing of the rules, said Damian Fernandez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. "There have been ebbs and flows on government control in many spheres. Just because there's an opening now doesn't mean it will be a pattern," he said. "What is clear is that people inside and outside of Cuba have expectations that there is a modicum of an opening. Cubans are demanding it." (Reuters, 22/2/08)

February 23: The large Cuban community in southern Florida has joined in the prayer campaign convened by Archbishop Dionisio Garcia Ibanez of Santiago, Cuba on the occasion of the visit of Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who will visit his archdiocese on February 24. In a letter, Archbishop Garcia said the Archdiocese of Santiago would welcome Cardinal Bertone “as a pilgrim to the Shrine of Our Mother and Patroness, the Virgin of Charity.  It will be a profound moment of prayer.  Young people from neighboring dioceses and from communities in our own archdiocese will join him in praying the Holy Rosary for reconciliation and fraternity between all Cubans.” Therefore, he continued, “I invite all those who cannot be present at the Shrine together with us to join in our prayers and intentions, whether at home with family members and neighbors, in houses of prayer or in churches, by reciting the Rosary or attending Holy Mass.” In Miami, the Cuban Catholic ministry “CRECED” announced that in response to the invitation, hundreds of the faithful “will meet in prayer at the Shrine to Our Lady of Charity in Miami” together with Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Estevez of Miami. (CNA, 23/2/08)

February 24: A Cuban exile group flew to a spot near the Caribbean island where Cuban fighters shot down two of its planes and killed four of its members 12 years ago.  Jose Basulto, 68, who founded Brothers to the Rescue, which flew planes over the Florida Straits looking for rafters and boat people fleeing Cuba, said Cuban air traffic control threatened them but did not intercept their planes. Three Cuban Americans and a Cuban exile, all companions of Basulto, were killed when Cuban government MiGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes near Cuba on February 24, 1996.  "Fidel Castro and Raul Castro gave the orders and (should be) indicted for murder in the United States," said Basulto. Basulto piloted one of the Brothers to the Rescue planes that survived the 1996 shootdown. He was on one of four small planes, carrying about 10 members of Brothers to the Rescue, that marked the anniversary by flying from Opa Locka airport outside Miami to the shootdown site known as Martyrs' Point. One of the planes dropped flowers over the site as a prayer was said for the men who died. "It is and it always was international waters. It was on February 24, 1996, and it is today," said Basulto. "That's where they were shot down." (Reuters, 24/2/08) 

February 24: Andro Nodarse-Leon, a director of the Miami-based and anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation referred to the new leadership in Cuba: "It's unfortunately more of the same coming out of Cuba and no real sign that there is an openness to a changing of the guard or a broader opening to real transition toward having a free and democratic country, which is what Cubans want." Ninoska Perez, a popular Spanish-language radio commentator in Miami and member of the Cuban Liberty Council, an anti-Castro exile group said that, “for those who entertain any ideas that there could be changes with Raul Castro I think this should give them a very good answer." (Reuters, 25/2/08)

February 25: Fidel Castro will continue to have a hand in shaping Cuba's future, but his brother and successor will remain in firm control of the government, Castro's daughter said. "He is still behind the scenes, but Raúl is making the decisions," Alina Fernandez told the press. "No doubt about it." Fernandez, who lives in Florida and has long opposed her father's regime, said her uncle may bring some changes for Cuban business people and foreign relations for the island. "I think he will encourage some foreign investment," Fernandez said. "Small businesses also will be allowed. He wants more commerce with America, and that is what he will get." (CNN, 25/2/08)

February 25: Many Cuban Americans are growing weary of the US government's attempts to isolate Cuba, a hard-line stance that militant Cuban exiles have largely dictated for the last four decades, and has yet to yield any real changes there. Instead, Cuban Americans increasingly favor a post-Cold War policy that tries to foment democracy by freeing up travel to the island and defrosting diplomatic relations with its leaders. "Why are we pursuing a policy with Cuba that has not worked anywhere in the world?" said Carlos A. Saladrigas, a prominent Miami businessman. He co-founded an organization called the Cuba Study Group that's trying to convince Washington that a "silent majority" of Cuban Americans favors a more moderate path. Florida International University, which has been polling Cuban American attitudes here since 1991, found last year that nearly two-thirds want a dialogue with the Cuban government, compared with 40% when the poll started 16 years ago. More than 55% supported unrestricted travel to Cuba. Though most Cuban Americans still back the US economic embargo of Cuba, support is steadily shrinking. The university survey found that 57.5% wanted to continue the embargo, the lowest number since the poll began. The changing views are playing out in congressional contests in South Florida, where two Cuban American Democrats are challenging the Republican Diaz-Balart brothers, scions of a powerful and strongly anti-Castro exile family, who have helped craft US Cuba policy for years. (The Miami Herald, 25/2/08)

February 26: Cuban exiles have traditionally been a safe vote for Republican presidential candidates in the key battleground state of Florida, but in a potential boon to Democratic hopeful Barack Obama, many now agree with his call for lifting some sanctions against Cuba. The exile community has pressured successive US administrations to take a hardline stance against Cuba's communist regime, but travel and money transfer restrictions imposed by President George W. Bush in 2004 have frustrated many Cuban Americans. Cuba's seamless power transfer from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul has fueled a debate about whether it is time to change US policy toward the island after a nearly 50-year-old embargo failed to bring down the regime. Obama, who has called US policy on Cuba a "failure," proposes lifting the travel and remittance restrictions as a first step toward changing relations with Cuba. "When I lived in Cuba, they didn't let me leave the country," said Jose, a Bank of America employee who arrived here from Havana five years ago, who gave only his first name. "Now that I live in Miami, they don't let me go there. The two governments seem the same." "I think Barack Obama is right," he said. "It's time to show the United States is different and can help Cuba change little by little, although I don't know if it will be possible with Raul Castro." (The Miami Herald, 26/2/08)

February 26: To the generation of Cuban exiles that has spent almost half a century dreaming of the day Fidel Castro left power, decisions taken on February 24 came as a cruel disappointment. While the legendary revolutionary leader finally stepped down as head of state, the communist government he set up maintains its grip on a calm and stable Cuba. With no sign of a fundamental policy shift in Havana , Washington is also continuing the economic embargo introduced by John F. Kennedy. Still, that balance may be about to shift, with an American presidential election due this year and economic and social pressures for a changed relationship building up within the US. Growing US interest in trade with Cuba, a more general move away from ideological “regime change” based approaches to foreign policy and, perhaps above all, growing moderation within the 1.4 million-strong Cuban-American community all make an altered approach likely. “The current type of tightening hurts the individual victims more than it damages the government,” says José Basulto, a veteran of the disastrous 1961 US-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, and founder of Brothers to the Rescue, a programme to save refugees attempting the perilous sea crossing between Cuba and the US. “It has done more damage to the cause than anyone else. Revenge hurts the people of Cuba more than the government, Basulto said.” “There isn’t really an embargo; the embargo is a straw man,” says Joe Garcia, who campaigned to keep the embargo when he was executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and who is now a congressional candidate in South Florida for the Democrats. Even the old guard is shifting its position. Many have become frustrated by the lack of progress. “These guys are getting too old to carry a gun,” says Alfredo Duran, a Cuban-American lawyer. Santiago Marti­nez, a recent migrant who works as a building inspector in Miami, calls the policy disastrous. “My mum, my dad, my aunt are all in Cuba and theoretically I can’t send them much help.” Scrapping the embargo would “take the ideological support away” from the regime and “would be very demoralising”, he argues. (The Financial Times, 26/2/08)