Families fight for refugees
U.s. Immigrants Trapped In PrisonFamilies fight for refugeesBahamians jailed winners of visa lottery after boat stalled
Originally posted on February 25, 2006
By Pete Skiba, pskiba@news-press.com & David Plazas, dplazas@news-press.com
Ihovany Hernandez’s Cuban refugee wife sits in a Bahamian prison while he rallies support to get her out.
The island’s government threw Marialis Darias-Mesa, and David Gonzalez-Mejias, both dentists, into prison in April after the boat taking them and 16 other Cuban migrants stalled in Bahamian waters. They were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard and handed over to Bahamian officials.
“She left Cuba to find freedom,” said Hernandez, who came to the U.S. two years ago and settled in Cape Coral. “They have her incarcerated like a common criminal.”
Darias-Mesa and Gonzalez-Mejias had obtained permission several years ago to migrate with their families to the United States. Their families left Cuba, settling in Cape Coral and Tampa. But the two dentists, valued professionals in Cuba, were prevented from making the trip.
Facing miserable conditions at home, the pair decided to sail to the United States, joining 16 other professionals who wanted to leave their homeland.
Hernandez has visited his wife 19 times since she was locked away. He described the conditions in the Bahamian prison as nothing short of horrible.
No water. As many as 400 people crowded together. No clean clothes. No soap. No toothpaste.
On his visits, Hernandez brings his wife supplies.
Hernandez is now pinning his hopes to free his wife on friends and politicians. He’s gathered in his corner U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, R-Fort Myers; Cape Coral businessman Kiko Villalon; Gov. Jeb Bush; and U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami.
All have put word out to the Bahamas that they would like Darias-Mesa and Gonzalez-Mejias released. Mack and Ros-Lehtinen said in a news conference Thursday that unless the Bahamian government acts soon to free them, they would begin pushing Congress for economic sanctions.
“It is horrible that the Bahamian government has chosen to keep legal immigrants to this country apart from their families,” Mack said Friday. “We are going to do our best to free them.”
Darias-Mesa and Gonzalez-Mejias won an American-government sponsored lottery for visas. The annual lottery allows 20,000 Cubans to obtains visas.
But winning a visa marks the winner as against Cuban President Fidel Castro, Hernandez said. The winners become blackballed from work.
Hernandez, a meat market manager, escaped. He now works for DeConte Electric Inc. in Cape Coral as an electrician. His 5-year-old daughter remains in Cuba with her grandparents.
The Cuban government held onto Darias-Mesa and Gonzalez-Mejias because professionals are in short supply in the island nation.
Their attempt to flee by boat landed them in the custody of the Bahamian government, which has an agreement with the Castro government to return Cuban nationals.
Hernandez hopes that with pressure from the U.S. government, the Bahamians will see past that agreement.
“There’s just uncertainty,” Hernandez said. “We’re told they are going to be released, and they don’t release them.”
A Bahamian official said Thursday the government would make a decision soon about whether to send the two dentists back to Cuba or allow them to go to the United States.
Dayami Inda, Gonzalez-Mejias’ wife, lives in Tampa with her 17-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. She left Cuba with them in 2004.
Her husband tried the desperate boat ride because he was not allowed to leave, said Inda, who has not been able to visit her husband.
“It really affected my daughter — she lost a year in school because she is traumatized,” she said.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060225/NEWS0101/602250499/1075
Cubans arrive in bad shape
Cubans arrive in bad shapeMonday, February 27, 2006
A group of 13 Cubans, nine males and four females, that reached Colliers Beach in East End late Wednesday night, appear to have stopped first at Cayman Brac and believed that they had reached Swan Island off the coast of Honduras.
The group have arrived when the United Nations’ spotlight has been turned on the Cayman Islands, regarding the country’s treatment of refugees in the wake of Dr Luis Luarca’s hunger strike.
East End resident McCarron McLaughlin said he came across this latest group on the road close to where their boat landed in the grassy area near East End Public Beach. The vessel was about fourteen-foot long and five-foot wide and was obviously taking in water, he said.
They were all walking, but in no condition to head back to sea, he thought. One of the Cubans told him that they had been at sea for twelve days and thought that they had arrived in Swan Island, which is located about ninety miles off the coast of Honduras. The Cubans were all sunburned and covered with diesel smut, he said.
“Their faces were black. They almost looked baked. You could see their skin was peeling,” said Mr McLaughlin, who added that he could “get along in Spanish”.
“My heart really goes out to them, being mistreated in their own country. It’s not like here where you can leave on your own terms. The response (here) was horrendous,” he said.
Though an ambulance arrived within twenty-five minutes, the police did not show up for an hour, and immigration some time later.
When Mr McLaughlin found the Cubans, he said that they had American brand peanut butter, sausages and cream crackers, which he knows they could not have purchased in Cuba
“I was going to ask them if someone had bought them something to eat,” he said. A member of the public went to the Royal Reef to get cold water and biscuits for them, and the Cubans used a hose at a construction site nearby to wash off the smut and clean up a little.
“One girl’s feet were so swollen that she looked like she had elephantitis, probably from the boat taking in water. It was a serious infection,” he thought. She was eighteen years old and the youngest woman on board. He learned.
“Some of the guys were contemplating leaving, but they couldn’t because the propeller was broken.” Mr McLaughlin said that when the RCIPS arrived they asked the Cubans for their identification cards.
The police officers then told the Cubans that if they could get diesel and food, that they could just go, and that it was out of their jurisdiction because it was an immigration matter, claimed Mr McLaughlin.
He noted there were two police officers to monitor three districts that night.
Eventually, one hour and forty minutes after he found the Cubans, an immigration officer showed up and interviewed the girl with swollen feet.
“Six Cubans left in the ambulance, and the rest left in the police car, and then I left,” said Mr McLaughlin. He explained that at one point during the incident, he “almost got caught up in an argument” with other members of the public.
He said they had formed some sort of pact never to call the police about Cuban arrivals, but Mr McLaughlin is of the view that, in this case, it was impossible for them to continue their journey.
“If the police had allowed them to leave, I would have intervened,” he said.
Sources on Cayman Brac told Cayman Net News that on Tuesday 21 February, a boat carrying four female and nine male Cubans stopped at Cayman Brac, but were allowed to continue on.
There was no official release on this incident by press time, despite the fact that Net News has made enquiries as to whether this is the same group.
The very brief release for the group that landed on East End stated that the Cubans indicated they were travelling to Honduras when they were forced to land in Grand Cayman because of damage to their vessel’s propellers.
It says, “Six members of the group required immediate medical attention and are now being treated for conditions related to sun exposure and their method of travel. All members of this group are being handled by Immigration officials.”
Net News has been contacted by phone from inside Fairbanks Prison by a Cuban migrant asking for help to apply for political asylum.
Cayman Islands Human Right Committee member Gordon Barlow said, “It’s unthinkable for the Immigration Department or District Administration on the Sister Islands to deny the Cubans direct and unmonitored access to independent advice.
“There should be a system in place whereby the Red Cross or some other suitable NGO is notified when any refugee arrives to ask them if they want to apply for political asylum. They shouldn’t have to rely on immigration to supply them with this information,” said Mr Barlow.
http://www.caymannetnews.com/2006/02/1038/arrive.shtml
Nebraska officials head to Cuba
Nebraska officials head to Cuba
APSunday 26th February, 2006 Posted: 23:11 CIT (04:11 +1 GMT)
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Officials from the US state of Nebraska hope to drum up new business on their third visit to Cuba.
“We don’t have anything ready to be agreed to yet,” said Greg Ibach, director of the state’s agriculture department. “The purpose of this trip is new business.”
It’s not clear if Gov. Dave Heineman will make the trip.
On Heineman’s first trip to Cuba, in August, the Cubans agreed to buy $30 million worth of Nebraska agriculture products.
On a second trip, in November, Heineman returned with contracts for the purchases.
Nebraska has sent dry edible beans, soybeans and wheat to Cuba, Ibach said.
http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews.cgi?ID=1011328
Schools face ban on trips to Cuba
Posted on Tue, Feb. 28, 2006
LEGISLATIVE BILLSchools face ban on trips to Cuba
A South Florida legislator’s proposal would restrict state-run universities from travel to Cuba and other ‘terrorist states,’ but some academics have dismissed it as a grab for political attention.BY OSCAR CORRAL AND NOAH BIERMANocorral@MiamiHerald.com
State Rep. David Rivera wants to make it impossible for state-run colleges and universities to sponsor or promote trips to Cuba, even for legitimate research — a move slammed by several professors as an attack on academic freedom.
Rivera said the recent arrests of Florida International University professor Carlos M. Alvarez and his wife, Elsa, an FIU counselor — both accused of being agents for Cuba for more than two decades — compelled the Cuban-American legislator to draft the bill. Carlos Alvarez mostly traveled to Cuba as a facilitator for a group not affiliated with FIU.
”The FIU spy case vividly demonstrates the security risks associated with state employees traveling to terrorist countries,” Rivera said. “The integrity of the university and the entire university community is undermined by this activity. My bill simply seeks to protect higher education from the threat of espionage activities.”
FIU professor Lisandro Perez, who has traveled to Cuba often for research, called Rivera’s bill “political demagoguery.”
”He [Rivera] wants to build a career using the Cuba topic, which you can always count on here locally to grab people’s emotions,” Perez said. “This is just a blatant effort on his part to get some political limelight.”
The bill would specifically prohibit colleges and universities from using any state funds, as well as private donations and grants, to “implement, organize, direct, coordinate, or administer activities related to or involving travel to a terrorist state.”
The proposal uses the U.S. State Department list to define terrorist states, including Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Since 1988, FIU has prohibited using state money for Cuba travel, said the school’s interim provost, Ronald Berkman. Instead, professors use grants. ”I think when people travel for bona fide research activity that they are not undermining the integrity of the university,” Berkman said.
University administrators and professors said the proposal has a chilling effect that injects politics into research and attacks academic freedom. ”It’s a bad idea for politicians to get involved in areas of research and free inquiry. There are plenty of laws on the books against subversive activity,” said James J. Sheehan, a Stanford University history professor and former president of the American Historical Association. “Visiting a place, studying a place, speaking freely about a place — these are things that are really essential for a democracy to work.”
PRESSURE ON ACADEMIA
Professors who study in politically sensitive areas such as the Middle East have been under increasing pressure after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Sheehan said. Such restrictions, while intended to harm totalitarian regimes, can undermine democratic values, said Sheehan, not speaking for the association.
Professors who have traveled to Cuba for research also criticized the bill.
University of Florida Professor Terry McCoy, an expert in Latin American Studies, who traveled to Cuba in 1996 to research the marine environment, said the bill is counterproductive.
”The post-Castro era is getting closer,” McCoy said. “It’s going to happen probably within the next five and certainly within the next ten years. And that’s going to be an unstable time. It would be in [America's] interest to have institutional academic relationships in place.”
Further curtailing academic travel to Cuba could lead to a vacuum in knowledge, and therefore bad decision-making, said Loyola Marymount Professor Fernando Guerra, a Mexican-American professor in Los Angeles who has traveled to Cuba to research its housing. Guerra concluded Havana had the poorest housing stock of eight cities he researched in the hemisphere, a result of bad governmental policy.
”This is not about how to do good research or inform people, this is about symbolic politics,” Guerra said of Rivera’s bill. “People say they are against the Castro regime and would like to punish it, but there are many other ways of doing that. I think something like this helps make people more sympathetic to Castro.”
Academics say federal restrictions on Cuba travel are already hard to overcome.
”If the aim of the sponsors of the legislation is principally Cuba, it’s hard to see what there is about the federal legislation which is not sufficient for the folks in Florida,” said Jonathan Knight, director of the American Association of University Professors’ program in academic freedom and tenure.
Rivera proposed a similar bill two years ago, but it died in the Senate. House speaker-elect Marco Rubio said he supports more restrictions.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13978070.htm
Human-rights panel reform falls short
Posted on Tue, Feb. 28, 2006
Human-rights panel reform falls shortOUR OPINION: U.N. PLAN DOES LITTLE TO SEPARATE WOLVES FROM THE SHEEP
The United Nations plan to reform its discredited Human Rights Commission is a major disappointment. The heart of the matter comes down to a need for genuine improvement in the quality of the panel’s membership, but this proposal does little to separate the wolves from the sheep. If the United Nations wants to have any credibility whatsoever when it comes to human rights, it must come up with a better plan.
Commission a farce
Secretary General Kofi Annan deserves credit for realizing that the existing Human Rights Commission has become a farce, what with major human-rights violators such as Cuba and Sudan on the panel. The problem is, the proposed changes will prove no hindrance to membership by these countries.
Mr. Annan tried to make the best of the reform plan unveiled last week by saying that ”there are enough good elements on this to build on.” That’s hardly a strong endorsement. When the reform plan was outlined one year ago, it required that countries be elected by a two-thirds majority, a tougher standard than the existing rule that permits selection by a simple majority of those voting. Instead, the new draft would require a majority of all General Assembly members — 96 votes. That’s better than the existing rule but not as good as the two-thirds plan and hardly an obstacle to membership.
It makes no sense to allow Cuba to have any role in protecting the human rights of the international community when it violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a daily basis. Under the current draft, any country that can make a backroom deal for votes can win a seat. The draft merely asks that U.N. members ”take into consideration” the human-rights record of the candidate country, without obliging them to abide by conventional human-rights standards.
The proposal contains just enough concessions to attract the support of legitimate human-rights organizations, such as Amnesty International. These include a declaration that council members uphold high standards of human rights and cooperate with the council. In theory, that would rule out Cuba and other human-rights outlaws, but that leaves it up to the council to enforce the rules against other member nations — an iffy proposition.
Compromises allowed
The chance to reform the rights panel comes along only once in a generation. Getting this far hasn’t been easy, and, yes, compromises must be made. But human-rights supporters must ensure that cosmetic changes don’t take the steam out of the drive to make a clean break with the past. This opportunity is the best chance for meaningful change that we are likely to have for a long time. It must not be allowed to slip away.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/13977989.htm
Press Group Condemns Cuba’s Ongoing Harassment of Journalists
27 February 2006Press Group Condemns Cuba’s Ongoing Harassment of Journalists
Jailed journalists lack adequate medical treatment, Committee to Protect Journalists says
By Eric GreenWashington File Staff Writer
Washington — A global press advocacy group has reiterated its condemnation of the regime of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for continuing to harass independent journalists in Cuba and for failing to provide adequate medical treatment for those journalists who have been imprisoned.
In a February 24 statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said “it is outrageous that Cuba, which jails more journalists than any other country in the world except China, should continue to harass journalists even after they have left prison.”
CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said Cuba now has 24 journalists behind bars “solely for exercising their right to free expression,” adding: “Some of them are not receiving the medical treatment that they need. We call on the authorities to release these 24 prisoners immediately and to stop harassing all journalists.”
The CPJ cited the case of Jorge Olivera Castillo as an example of the Castro regime’s mistreatment of independent journalists. The CPJ said the journalist was released from jail in December 2004 on medical parole, but on February 21 a Havana municipal court ordered him to work at a state-controlled office that the court would select. Olivera said he was barred from attending public gatherings and from leaving Havana.
Olivera was sentenced in March 2003 to 18 years in prison during Castro’s massive crackdown on the independent media.
Another case involved imprisoned journalist José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández, who has complained that he was suffering from severe stomach problems. The CPJ said he had seen the prison doctor but has not received adequate follow-up medical attention. Izquierdo was detained during the 2003 crackdown on independent journalists and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
In another case of journalist intimidation, according to CPJ, independent journalist Roberto Santana Rodríguez was summoned to a police station in Havana on February 13 and questioned about his work. The CPJ said an officer showed Santana a file containing articles he wrote in 2005. Santana said he was threatened with jail if he did not stop working as a journalist.
The CPJ and other global press advocacy groups repeatedly have condemned Castro’s regime for its mistreatment of journalists. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, for example, said January 31 that it is “dismayed and outraged” by the Cuban government’s “continuing harassment of independent journalists.”
In a letter to the European Union, Reporters Without Borders said independent journalists in Cuba are unable to work freely or defend themselves against the Cuban government’s “state repression.” (See related article.)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has joined the global community’s denunciations of the Castro regime’s treatment of journalists, issued a December 2005 statement that called for a speedy transition to democracy in the Caribbean nation.
Rice said that although the United States is prepared to assist Cubans’ efforts to create a democratic society in their homeland, “a genuine transition to political and economic freedom must be led by the people of Cuba.” (See related article.)
The repression of Cuba’s independent journalists also is documented in the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices — 2004. Released February 28, 2005, the report says Castro’s regime strictly censors news and information and limits the distribution of foreign publications. The Cuba section of the report is available on the State Department Web site.
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=February&x=20060227131400AEneerG0.7177698&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
Presiding Bishop Griswold visits Cuba
Presiding Bishop Griswold visits CubaThe origin of the Episcopal Church in Cuba can be found in the visit in 1871 of Bishop Whittle of the Episcopal Church of the United States
Monday, February 27, 2006Spero News
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold visited Cuba on a five-day visit to Cuba last February 24. Griswold was hosted by La Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba, a diocese governed by a Metropolitan Council in matters of faith and order.
Council members of the Diocese of Cuba include the Primate of Canada, the Archbishop of the West Indies, and the President Bishop of the Episcopal Church’s newest Province, the Anglican Church of the Central American Region.
Griswold was accompanied by Alex Baumgarten, international policy analyst in the Office of Government Relations; Barbara Braver, the Presiding Bishop’s assistant for communication; Brian Grieves, director of Peace and Justice Ministries; Juan Marquez, Latin America and Caribbean partnerships officer in the Office of Anglican and Global Relations; and Bob Williams, director of communication.
The origin of the Episcopal Church in Cuba can be found in the visit in 1871 of Bishop Whittle of the Episcopal Church of the United States. On his way to Haiti, Whittle stopped off at Havana, which was in the grip of an epidemic at the time.
Whittle was disturbed by the lack of spiritual comfort available for the dying, the number of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church being too few to offer adequate support.
Out of this experience, on his return to the United States, he persuaded the Episcopal Church to send missionaries to Cuba.
The Cuban church separated from the Episcopal Church in 1967 due to political tensions with the United States. With about 10,000 Anglicans out of a population of 11.4 million, the church currently consists of about 45 churches and 25 clergy
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2700
Aun no desaparece sequia en Cuba
Posted on Mon, Feb. 27, 2006
Aún no desaparece sequía en CubaAssociated Press
LA HABANA – Camagüey, la provincia cubana cuyo territorio atravesó los déficit más intensos de falta de agua durante los pasados años, continúa en el 2006 con las mismas carencias pese a las lluvias de la temporada de huracanes que sólo aliviaron la situación.
“La sequía no es cosa del pasado”, advirtió el lunes un titular a página completa de periódico oficial Granma, con un reporte sobre el fenómeno climatológico que afectó a miles persona especialmente en el oriente de la nación caribeña.
La carencia de agua se extendió de manera dramática en todo el país en el periodo 2002-2004.
“Hoy la provincia (de Camagüey, a 700 kilómetros de la capital) se encuentra en régimen de sequía severa”, agregó el reporte.
Gracias a las tormentas que acompañaron a los fuertes huracanes sobre todo en octubre del 2005, los 52 embalses del territorio camagüeyano están al 40% de su capacidad tras haber llegado a disminuir al 17%, explicó el rotativo.
Además, 12 presas de la región destinadas al abasto directo de la población están al 34% de sus posibilidades.
Según el rotativo se emprendieron acciones constructivas en plantas de bombeo, la perforación de unos 4.000 pozos y hasta la activación de fábricas de pienso para alimentación de los animales, pues Camagüey tiene como uno de sus rubros principales la ganadería.
Una reciente investigación del Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidráulicos (INRH) a escala nacional determinó que en Cuba llueve 133 milímetros menos que 46 años atrás.
Publicado la semana pasada, el informe indicó que entre 1961 y 2000 se precipitaron anualmente 1.335 milímetros contra los 1.468 milímetros de cada 12 meses entre 1931 y 1960.
Las más afectadas son las provincias orientales, confirmó.
Peor aún, según las del INRH el 60% del agua bombeada se pierde en salideros por cañerías en mal estado, a lo que debe sumarse la falta de conciencia en la población para ahorrar el líquido vital.
http://www.miami.com/mld/elnuevo/news/world/americas/13974556.htm
Descartan conflicto con Cuba por nuevo organo en ONU
Descartan conflicto con Cuba por nuevo órgano en ONUNatalia Gómez QuinteroEl UniversalLunes 27 de febrero de 2006Nación, página 2
México ve como remota la posibilidad de que surja un nuevo conflicto diplomático con Cuba en materia de derechos humanos en el marco de la conformación del nuevo consejo que sustituya a la Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la ONU.
El embajador Enrique Berruga Filloy, representante permanente de México en la ONU, aseguró lo anterior y reconoció que México impulsó la inclusión de un párrafo en el documento final entregado el jueves pasado, referente a la conformación del nuevo organismo, en el que se especifica que para ser miembro del consejo tiene que cooperar plenamente con el instrumento, ser un Estado con alto estándar de promoción y protección de los derechos humanos y ser objeto de revisión sistemática.
No obstante, Cuba manifestó su inconformidad ante la creación de dicho organismo con el argumento de que Estados Unidos ha manipulado la estructuración del nuevo Consejo.
Berruga Filloy rechazó que el texto haya sido una manipulación de Estados Unidos y aseguró que México sólo pidió congruencia lógica para pertenecer al consejo. “Si desea estar en el consejo se deben aceptar las reglas del juego que uno va a imponer” subrayó el diplomático.
“Las posibilidades de una confrontación con Cuba son remotas porque las condiciones son diferentes van en un sentido de cooperación, y todos los países habremos de pasar por una revisión universal periódica”.
Desde el jueves pasado el documento final que establece cómo sería la conformación del nuevo organismo está sometiéndose a consultas informales para definir el 28 de febrero la conformación del consejo. Sus integrantes serán elegidos por los 191 países que conforman la Asamblea General y bajo el procedimiento de votación de mayoría absoluta, es decir, 50% más uno.
“Cada país antes de votar a favor de otro para que sea miembro del consejo debe tomar en consideración qué tipo de comportamiento tiene con los derechos humanos”, dice el embajador quien informó que luego de haber elegido a los 47 estados integrantes del organismo, los 191 países que conforman la ONU serán sujetos de una revisión universal en materia de derechos humanos.
De aprobarse esta semana la nueva estructura, la Comisión sesionaría por última vez y por dos semanas en el mes de mayo, pero sólo para transferir funciones al nuevo consejo que iniciaría sesiones el 19 de junio.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/135588.html
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