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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Freed dissident ponders his future
Cuban dissident writer
Raúl Rivero, who was released from
prison last week less than two years into
a 20-year sentence, said he looks forward
to a much-needed vacation.
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press. Posted on Sun, Dec. 05, 2004.
HAVANA - After three intense days of visits,
telephone calls and scores of media interviews
that followed his prison release, all writer
Raúl Rivero wants to do now is wander
through the noisy, cobble-stoned streets
of his beloved Havana Vieja.
''I just want to walk,'' Rivero told The
Associated Press on Friday night in his
walk-up apartment, winding up what he said
he hoped would be the last of innumerable
interviews after his surprise release Wednesday.
GREAT NOSTALGIA
During his 20 months behind bars, Rivero
said he longed for the familiar streets
with their music and chatter just as he
missed them in the 1980s while he was a
Moscow correspondent for the news agency
Prensa Latina.
''I've never wanted to leave,'' the 59-year-old
dissident writer and poet said in his book-lined
living room while consuming cigarettes and
thick Cuban coffee served by his wife of
15 years, Blanca Reyes.
Now, freed less than two years into what
was a 20-year sentence, Rivero is pondering
his options. The mayor of the Spanish city
of Granada has invited him to visit for
a year. His daughter Cristina wants him
to meet his 6-month-old granddaughter Maya
in the United States. There is the book
he's writing about his prison experiences.
And a poetry book, and maybe a novel detailing
the economic hardships of 1990s Cuba.
''What I really need is a vacation,'' he
said. "I haven't been able to travel
outside Cuba almost 15 years.''
Rivero is the best known of six dissidents
Cuba's government released from prison last
week, all among a group of 75 independent
journalists, opposition politicians and
other activists rounded up in March 2003.
Charged with working with the U.S. government
to undermine Fidel Castro's communist system,
the dissidents received terms ranging from
six to 28 years. The activists and U.S.
officials denied the charges.
Rivero said he was surprised along with
everyone else last week when he walked free
with five other ailing dissidents. Rivero
has early emphysema and a cyst on his kidney,
but the others' health problems were generally
more serious.
'DIPLOMATIC GESTURE'
Another seven of the 75 were released for
medical reasons in recent months, bringing
to 13 the total of those freed from the
original group. Another 62 remain imprisoned.
''Starting this all over again without
knowing what will happen seems crazy,''
Rivero said of his journalism work here.
"I'm not really asking a lot, just
to work normally.''
Export rules may get tighter
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Fri, Dec. 03, 2004.
WASHINGTON - U.S. food and agricultural
products sold to Cuba may soon be barred
from leaving American ports until Havana
makes the cash payments required by law
-- a change that could disrupt the multimillion-dollar
business, industry experts said Thursday.
''From a logistical standpoint, the change
is unpleasant but workable. Might Cuba decrease
purchases to show its displeasure? Perhaps,''
said John Kavulich, head of a U.S. group
that monitors business between the two countries.
Since the U.S. sales to the communist nation
began in 2001, Havana has paid most of the
$714 million in purchases after the cargo
arrived in Cuba. But Bush administration
officials are reviewing the law to determine
if payments must occur before the shipments
leave the United States.
''We expect to issue guidance in the near
future,'' said Molly Millerwise, a Treasury
spokeswoman. "We're working with our
counterparts to clarify the policy for shipping
agricultural goods to Cuba.''
Sales of U.S. food and agricultural products
to Cuba are allowed under a 2000 law, known
as TSREEA, that requires American sellers
to receive cash payments, a move designed
to prevent Havana from establishing credit
lines with U.S. firms. The law allows Cuba
a 72-hour window to make the payment.
But it's not clear whether the cash-in-advance
provision means payment in advance of the
shipment or in advance of obtaining possession
of the cargo, referred to as "cash
against documents.''
Some banks have delayed crediting the Cuban
payments to the accounts of U.S. exporters
because of concerns about possible violations
of the U.S. legislation, said officials
at the Treasury and State departments.
''We want to comply with the law,'' said
a State Department official from the Bureau
of Western Hemisphere Affairs, which is
pushing to change the current system. "We
need to do what the law says. We have to
get everyone on the U.S. government on the
same page.''
Officials at the Cuban Interests Section
in Washington could not be reached for comment.
Most of the U.S. business deals with Cuba
have been conducted as ''cash against documents''
transactions, meaning Cuba must pay for
the shipments within 72 hours of arrival
there, and the goods cannot be unloaded
until payment is confirmed by the banks.
Cuba has generally complied with the 72-hour
payment requirement, making for a fairly
smooth operation.
But the proposals to change the system
have raised concerns that they could jeopardize
a profitable arrangement. Over the past
two years, the United States has become
a significant supplier of food and agricultural
products for Cuba. The island ranks as the
22nd-largest export market for those types
of goods.
Industry experts said that while a change
would affect the vast majority of the U.S.-Cuba
transactions, it would only impact a small
number of U.S. corporations.
Some members of Congress who oppose trade
and travel restrictions on Cuba criticized
the Bush administration's move to tighten
the sales transactions.
''This is the most shortsighted, convoluted
thing I've ever heard,'' Rep. Jo Ann Emerson,
R-Mo, said. "This will have an enormous
impact because obviously it can't just apply
to Cuba.''
Emerson joined 14 other legislators in
a bipartisan letter sent to Treasury Secretary
John Snow on Nov. 22, saying any tightening
of the trade rules "would defy the
will of the Congress to allow cash trade
in agricultural products with Cuba.''
Herald staff writer Pablo
Bachelet contributed to this report.
Dissidents say five releases not a sign
of change in Cuba
Cuban authorities have
little tolerance for dissent, despite the
release of some government opponents, activists
said.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Thu, Dec. 02, 2004.
Cuban dissidents Wednesday complained of
continuing harassment and unjust arrests
despite this week's release of five government
critics from a group of 75 jailed last year.
''The persecution on the part of the government
has continued and, in fact, has gotten worse,''
one Havana activist told The Herald in a
telephone interview. "It is a tenacious
and persistent war.''
Cuban authorities habitually detain and
interrogate government opponents, intimidate
them with surveillance operations and often
threaten them with long prison terms.
The release of five jailed dissidents on
Monday and Tuesday, including renowned writer
Raúl Rivero, received international
attention. And expectations of more paroles
were raised Wednesday with the transfer
of more than a dozen other activists from
prisons to a prison hospital in Havana.
All of the releases so far came after poor
health assessments at the same facility.
CHECKED OUT
Among those reportedly undergoing medical
checkups at the Combinado del Este prison
were Oscar Elías Biscet, an outspoken
physician who has been detained numerous
times, and Héctor Palacios, a veteran
opposition party leader.
But even as the releases were celebrated,
the U.S. State Department reported that
at least 11 other dissidents were thrown
in jail in recent months.
''There have been a series of arrests during
the course of the year,'' a department official
said. "The regime does not get a bonus
card for releasing people who should have
never been incarcerated.''
Cuba's jails contain an estimated 300 political
prisoners, including 80 deemed by Amnesty
International to be ''prisoners of conscience''
-- peaceful activists incarcerated for their
political beliefs or background. That means
Cuba has the highest number of such prisoners
in the Western Hemisphere.
On Nov. 1, Alexander Santos Hernández,
29, began serving a six-month sentence on
a ''disobedience'' conviction. His apparent
crime was collecting signatures to force
a referendum on democratic reforms.
The August arrest at his home in the western
province of Holguin came after the referendum
drive's leader, Oswaldo Payá, visited
Santos.
TROUBLE BEGAN
''After Payá's visit, authorities
began trouble for the young man,'' said
Ernesto Martini Fonseca, 36, of the Havana-based
Christian Liberation Movement, which is
spearheading the referendum effort known
as the Varela Project. "The government
is letting out some and keeping others.
''This is very difficult,'' Martini said.
"Those who have been released are in
very poor health, some even facing possible
death. But despite all that, the opposition
movement continues to grow with new people.''
Last year's arrests of 75 dissidents received
worldwide condemnation. The dissidents were
accused of collaborating with U.S. diplomats
in Havana to undermine Fidel Castro's communist
government and received sentences of up
to 28 years.
This week's releases are widely viewed
as a move by Castro's government to mend
relations with the European Union, which
is in the process of reviewing its sanctions
on Cuba because of the island's human rights
record.
''A change of tactic on the part of Europeans
to end the pressure now, before everybody
is released, is a mistake,'' said the State
Department official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity. "It will dishearten the
opposition and will embolden and give force
to the hard-liners of the regime.''
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