Chronicle on Cuba - June 2008

Exile Community

June 11: Despite the freedom Jorge enjoyed and the ability to earn a better living as a school custodian in Miami Beach, Jorge returned to Cuba in 2002 to face a government that mistrusted him, a year of probation and friends who assume he is a member of the intelligence service. He said he is one of a growing number of émigrés who after years of living abroad yearn for the sounds and familiarity of home. Andy Gomez, senior provost at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said cases of returnees are isolated. Twenty years ago, it was virtually unheard of. ''Some people left loved ones behind and just miss them. Others just can't psychologically adjust to a free society,'' Gomez said. "The longer you live in that system, the more difficult it is to break the psychological barrier. "You are trapped in two systems, so what do you do? You revert to the old.'' Katrin Hansing, associate director of Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute, said that in the dozen years she lived in Cuba, she met about nine people who had returned from living abroad. Most did so because they longed for a sense of community and could not fit into the South Florida rat race, she said. ''There is a tremendous pressure to come here and make it; to go back is seen as failure,'' Hansing said. "When they go back, they keep a very low profile in Cuba. It breaks the myth that people come here and find bliss. Neither place is paradise.'' If the Cuban government made the process easier, Hansing said, more probably would return. (The Miami Herald, 11/6/08)

June 11: The influential Cuban American National Foundation is asking President George W. Bush to reverse a regulatory change that makes it harder for exiles to send money to dissidents on the communist-ruled island. CANF leader Jorge Mas Santos said in a letter to Bush that his organization had received more than a dozen reports from pro-democracy activists inside Cuba and relatives of political prisoners who say they are no longer receiving funds from the exile groups licensed by the US Treasury Department to provide such support. The Treasury Department is responsible for enforcing the economic embargo Washington imposed on Cuba in 1962. The interruption in funding for dissidents seems to be the result of a recent adjustment initiated by the administration to tighten even more the regulations regarding the sending of cash remittances to Cuba, Mas Santos said. Implementation of even stricter regulations on the sending of money to Cuba's internal opposition is out of place for an administration that trumpets its support for the dissidents, CANF's chairman said. [CANF Letter to President Bush] (EFE, 11/6/08)

June 17: Four Cuban exile groups asked the European Union (EU) to maintain its current diplomatic sanctions against the Government of Cuba until democratic change is brought about in the Caribbean island and human rights are respected. The statement is signed by writer and president of the Cuban Liberal Union, Carlos Alberto Montaner; Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat of the Cuban Democratic Directorate; Sylvia Iriondo of Mothers and Women Against Repression in Cuba (M.A.R for Cuba) and Angel De Fana from ‘Plantados’ until Freedom and Democracy in Cuba. (EFE, 17/6/08)

June 18: Cuban exile writer Raul Rivero said in Madrid that "nothing can be expected" from the Cuban government because recent changes on the communist-ruled island only benefit "the stratosphere" of society while the masses continue suffering. Rivero, who has lived in Spain since he was freed from a Cuban prison in 2005, participated in the presentation of the book "Disidentes de Cuba: Las voces que Castro no ha podido silenciar" (Dissidents of Cuba: The voices Castro hasn't been able to silence) by Spaniards Carles Llorens and Claudia Pujol. The work is a series of interviews with key members of the opposition both on and outside the island, including Vladimiro Roca, Alexis Crianza, Laura Pollan, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Oswaldo Paya and Rivero himself. In an event held at the Casa de America in Madrid, the Cuban poet and journalist said that the work of Llorens and Pujol was necessary because it offers a vision of the true range of Cuban politics, which contradicts Havana's contention that Cuban opposition figures are "employees of the US government." (EFE, 18/6/08)

June 18: There's a split between older and younger Cuban Americans on whether exiles should be allowed to travel more often to visit relatives on the communist island, according to new polls commissioned by a group seeking better US-Cuba relations. The polls released by the Foundation for Normalization of US-Cuba Relations, a group formed in 2006, show that a majority of registered voters in the hotly contested 21st and 25th congressional districts support unfettered exile Cuba travel and money remittances to the island. Voters in both districts are less likely to support a candidate who favors travel and money restrictions, the polls indicate, though the gap is not sufficient to overcome the polls' margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. Another 11 percent of those polled were undecided. (The Miami Herald, 19/6/08)

June 20: Summoning a time of political upheaval in Miami, a great-uncle of Elián González plans to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago. One day before the expected Democratic nominee addresses a conference of mayors in Miami, Delfín González will hold a news conference outside the Little Havana home where Elián lived with relatives for several months in 2000. At issue are foreign-policy advisor Greg Craig, who represented Elián's father in the custody battle with the Miami relatives, and legal advisor Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential search committee who was deputy attorney general when the 6-year-old boy was seized by federal agents and returned to Cuba. ''We're going to express opposition to Barack Obama's visit to Miami, and explain how we're opposed to him having individuals on his campaign who were associated with Elián's seizure in 2000,'' González said. "Some wounds are so deep that they do not heal over time, such as taking a child and sealing his fate to a communist dictatorship.'' (The Miami Herald, 20/6/08)

June 22: The increasing number of Cubans moving to Phoenix, Arizona, is surprising considering that for nearly five decades hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing Fidel Castro's regime have migrated mostly to one place: Miami. The Cubans are adding to the diversity of Phoenix's already large Latino population, the vast majority of which is tied to Mexico. Many of the Cuban newcomers are being resettled in Phoenix by humanitarian organizations because Miami is over saturated with immigrants. "Phoenix has a more affordable cost of living compared to Miami. Also, it's easier to find a job," said Joanne Morales, resettlement director for Catholic Charities in Phoenix, which has resettled the majority of Cuban immigrants in the Valley. Others are crossing the US-Mexico border and then coming to Phoenix after paying smugglers to help them evade tighter security off the Florida coast. The Phoenix area now has the 11th-largest Cuban population in the US outside of Florida. The ranking is based on census data that estimated that there were about 4,200 Cubans. Those who work with Cuban immigrants, however, believe the actual number is much higher. Linda McAllister, who works with Cubans as part of the International Rescue Committee in Phoenix, estimates that as many as 10,000 Cubans now live in the Phoenix area, though they are not concentrated in a single area. (The Arizona Republic, 22/6/08)

June 25: The president of the Cuban American National Foundation strenuously denied allegations in a Mexico City newspaper that linked the Miami group to a drug trafficking cartel and Cuban migrant smuggling. Francisco ''Pepe'' Hernández, the CANF president, told the press that the story was likely ''disinformation'' planted by the Cuban government to discredit the Miami organization. In its June 23 edition, La Jornada quoted sources close to a federal investigation in Mexico as saying Mexican prosecutors had information connecting CANF to the Gulf Cartel, one of the most powerful in Mexico, and a network of paid assassins known as Zetas. In one specific allegation, La Jornada quoted the sources as saying that two men now in detention in Mexico -- Nairobi Claro and Noriel Veloz -- told investigators they belonged to CANF. ''The story is ridiculous,'' said Hernández. He added that neither Claro nor Veloz had ever belonged to the foundation or had had any contact with the group. ''We did a very thorough search of our records and found absolutely no connection to these men,'' Hernández said. He noted that La Jornada never called the foundation before publication of the story to verify if Claro and Veloz belonged to the group. (The Miami Herald, 25/6/08)