Published Friday, November 10, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
Cuban agent eyeing asylum is sent home
Seized in Mexico, he is expelled, put on airplane to his homeland
By Andres Oppenheimer. aoppenheimer@herald.com
A longtime Cuban intelligence agent who was seeking political asylum in
Mexico was put on a plane back to Cuba on Wednesday, hours after being seized on
the street as he was coming out of a meeting with a Mexican official, human
rights groups and government sources said.
Pedro Riera Escalante, a former Cuban consul in Mexico who according to
Mexican officials was a senior officer in Cuba's intelligence service, had been
discussing his asylum
with senior Mexican foreign affairs and Interior Ministry officials over the
past four weeks, officials said.
"This was most likely a trap by the Mexican government,'' said Rafael
Alvarez of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, who
had been contacted by the Cuban asylum-seeker in early September. "His life
is now endangered by this totally illegal extradition procedure.''
Mexico's Interior Ministry issued a communique late Wednesday, saying that
Riera Escalante was "a Cuban who could not prove the legality of his stay
in Mexico'' and was "forced to abandon the national territory.'' It added
that migration agents seized him at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday in Mexico City.
MEXICANS 'SUSPICIOUS'
A senior Mexican official told The Herald late Wednesday that "we were
very suspicious about his behavior. As an intelligence officer, he knew
perfectly well that he had to formally ask for asylum at the migration office,
and he never did it.''
"We suspect he may have been sent by Castro to create a political
scandal if we granted him asylum,'' the senior official said, adding that Riera
Escalante was planning to hold a press conference with human rights groups
today.
SUDDEN ENCOUNTER
According to Edelmiro Castellanos, a Mexico-based Cuban exile journalist
with Radio Martí, the two were coming out of a Sanborn's restaurant in
downtown Mexico City, where they had just met with José Luis Valles, an
official of the Interior Ministry's CISEN intelligence service.
At the meeting, Riera Escalante was told that his petition was going well,
Castellanos said. When they left, six armed men in civilian clothes seized them
on the street, shouting that they were immigration police, and pushed Riera
Escalante into a white van, Castellanos said.
"It was a matter of seconds,'' Castellanos said. "They didn't wear
uniforms and didn't present any IDs. They just knocked us down all of a
sudden.''
HELP FOR ASYLUM
Castellanos said he had introduced Riera Escalante to several Mexican
officials to help him get political asylum. In early September, the two went to
the Foreign Ministry, where they met with Undersecretary Carlos de Icaza and
another official, Daniel Tamayo.
They were told to go to the Interior Ministry, since Riera Escalante could
not request asylum at the Foreign Ministry if he was already in Mexico,
Castellanos said. But the Foreign Ministry officials said the matter would be
resolved favorably, he said.
Days later, Riera Escalante and Castellanos went to the Interior Ministry
and met with several officials, including Valles.
'PERSONAL CONTACTS'
"Riera was fully confident that he would be safe if he put himself in
the hands of the Mexican government,'' Castellanos said. "I told him to
file an official petition, but he said it would be best to first try the
'diplomatic' way, through personal contacts.''
Riera Escalante was Cuba's consul in Mexico between 1988 and 1994, and had
been an officer in Cuba's intelligence services for several decades, according
to Castellanos and Mexican officials. He is listed in the CIA's 1989 "Directory
of Officials of the Republic of Cuba'' as a second secretary at the Cuban
Embassy that year.
RANK OF MAJOR
On Sept. 5, he told officials of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez
human rights group that he had been an intelligence major with Cuba's
Directorate of Intelligence, specializing in "CIA activities against
Mexico,'' said Alvarez, an officer with the Catholic Church-related Mexican
human rights group.
"He told me he knew of many Mexican government officials who had worked
for the CIA, and that he feared reprisals from the Mexican and Cuban
governments,'' Alvarez said.
"Still, he decided to try to do things quietly, through personal
contacts.''
Elián relatives cancel ceremony to recognize attorneys
Cite Kendall Coffey's aiding Democrats' election challenge
By Wilfredo Cancio Isla. El Nuevo Herald.
The Miami relatives of Elián González canceled a Thursday
night ceremony to honor their lawyers after one of them, Kendall Coffey, joined
the legal team helping the Democratic Party challenge the presidential election
in Florida.
"I understand that lawyers take a solemn oath to defend the people, but
I feel betrayed by Mr. Kendall Coffey's actions,'' said family publicist Armando
Gutiérrez.
Gutiérrez had organized and promoted the ceremony, which was to honor
Coffey and the other members of the legal team for Elián's great-uncle Lázaro
González, along with sympathetic community leaders.
Gutiérrez said he cannot conceive how Coffey could aid the same
administration that ordered the raid that removed Elián from Lázaro
González's home in Little Havana on April 22.
"Kendall Coffey was repeatedly deceived by the Clinton-Gore
administration, and he himself was doused with pepper spray,'' the publicist
said in a news release. "After his public statements questioning the
integrity of this administration, I cannot understand how he could work for it.
I find this action incomprehensible and indefensible.''
The night before Election Day, Lázaro González had urged
voters to support George W. Bush because of the raid and the Clinton
administration's role in returning Elián to Cuba.
Coffey, who is meeting in Tallahassee with high-ranking officials of the
Democratic Party, did not return several phone calls. He is expected to
participate in any lawsuits the party might file for alleged irregularities in
the state's electoral process.
"I am very surprised by this news because it's difficult to recognize
betrayal,'' Lázaro González said. "It's a rotten thing to
do.''
According to Gutiérrez, many of the people who were to be honored at
the ceremony phoned him to express their displeasure at Coffey's action. Lawyer
Manny Díaz said he "was devastated by the news,'' Gutiérrez
said.
Both lawyers are partners in Coffey, Diaz & O'Naghten. Díaz
declined comment.
A check for $100,000 from the Elián González Defense Trust
Fund was issued Thursday and will be donated to the League Against Cancer, Gutiérrez
said.
Cuba assails Miami's 'mafia'
Herald Staff Report
It's the Miami Cubans' fault.
At least that's what the Havana daily Granma, official organ of Cuba's
Communist Party, said Thursday about Florida's poll problems.
In a lengthy, unsigned editorial, the newspaper blamed "the
Cuban-American terrorist mafia'' in Miami for the present situation throughout
the state.
Titled Electoral fraud in Florida: A banana republic, the editorial
described a Cuban-American community so "thirsty for revenge'' for the
repatriation in June of 6-year-old rafter Elián González that "it
considered itself empowered to decide who would be the president of the United
States.''
Clinton says 1996 incident undercut plan to weaken Castro
Posted at 7:00 p.m. EST Thursday, November 9, 2000
WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- President Clinton says his administration could have
done more to undermine communism in Cuba were it not for the changed political
climate after the 1996 shooting down of two unarmed Miami-based planes by Cuban
MiG's.
Clinton recalled in an interview with Telemundo, a Spanish-language
television station, that the attack on the aircraft in international airspace
prompted Congress to approve legislation to tighten sanctions against Cuba.
"I signed it. But it tied the hands of the executive so much that it's
hard for us to use the full panoply of pressures we had,'' Clinton said.
He said in the Saturday interview that it was a "great mistake'' for
the Congress to put the president in a position where he can't promote positive
change in Cuba.
"The Congress believes the only way it can show it's anti-Castro is to
make sure that the president has no leverage,'' he said.
Clinton said the 1996 legislation, sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.,
and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., undercut a 1992 law that, among other provisions,
opened the way for more people-to-people contacts between Cubans and Americans.
"I think we could have done a lot more for the dissident movement in
Cuba because we would have been in a position to have carrots and sticks in
return for openness and change, and we could have supported them,'' he said.
He said the ability of Americans to travel to Cuba has been further limited
by legislation approved recently by Congress as part of an agriculture bill.
He said the bill allows sales of food and medicine to Cuba but a prohibition
on financing means there won't be any such sales.
"The real purpose of the bill was to further restrict the ability of
Americans to travel to Cuba and have person to person contact. I think that's a
mistake,'' Clinton said.
He added: "I am disappointed that Castro is still in power. I am
disappointed that democracy has not been restored to Cuba. I am glad that we
have had a very tough line these last eight years.''
The best way to achieve a transition, he said, is to "get in there and
find the people in Cuba that are promoting democracy, that are promoting free
markets, that are promoting freedom of speech, that are politically opposed to
the communist regime, and find ways to support them.
"And find ways to give power to just ordinary people doing all kinds of
things that are inconsistent with a total communist dictatorship.''
He added that he does not believe the Cuban system is sustainable without
Castro.
"He can't last forever,'' he said, adding that he hopes change will
come to Cuba before Castro dies.
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