You got to be crazy to want to normalize relations:
"Graying Cold War fugitives spawn potential Cuba-US tension" by Michael Weissenstein and Curt Anderson, Associated Press December 25, 2014
HAVANA — For decades some of America’s most-wanted fugitives made new lives for themselves in Cuba, marrying, having children, and becoming fixtures of their modest Havana neighborhoods as their cases went mostly forgotten at home.
Granted political asylum by then-President Fidel Castro, they became players in his government’s outreach to American minorities and leftists, giving talks about Cuba’s merits to sympathetic visitors, medical students, and reporters from the United States.
Last week’s stunning reconciliation between the United States and Cuba has returned these relics of the Cold War to the headlines, transforming them into a potential source of tension in the new era of detente between the two nations.
The dozens of men and woman wanted by the United States range from quotidian Medicaid fraud suspects to black militants and Puerto Rican nationalists with major bounties on their heads.
They include Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. Now known as Assata Shakur, she was convicted in 1977 of killing a New Jersey state trooper and was sentenced to life in prison. She escaped, and wound up in Cuba in the 1980s. Like other fugitives with political asylum here, she was living so openly in Havana that her number was listed in the phone book.
‘‘I came and it was like a whole new world,’’ she told the director of a 1997 documentary. ‘‘This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in my life. Everything is so lush, so green, so ripe.’’
Life for Shakur changed as US authorities raised the price on her head. The reward offered by the FBI and the New Jersey State Police for information leading to her capture now stands at $2 million, and members of the once close-knit community of black militants living in Cuba say their only contact with Shakur these days is an occasional unexpected but friendly phone call.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, is urging President Obama to demand Shakur’s return before restoring full relations with Cuba, saying, ‘‘These thugs in Cuba have given her political asylum for 30 years. It’s unacceptable.’’
The Obama administration says it will push for return of the fugitives, but Cuba made clear Monday that extraditing Shakur and others with political asylum was off the table.
‘‘Every nation has sovereign and legitimate rights to grant political asylum to people it considers to have been persecuted,’’ the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s head of North American affairs, Josefina Vidal, said.
She noted that the United States has repeatedly refused to return suspects wanted in Cuba for crimes including murder, kidnapping, and terrorism. The most infuriating for Cubans is the case of Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted by Venezuela and Cuba for alleged involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, one of the worst terror attacks in the Western Hemisphere before Sept. 11, 2001.
Posada Carriles has been living in the United States since 2005, and US officials have steadfastly refused to turn him over.
Related: CIA in Cuba
Didn't somebody once say something about harboring terrorists?
Another FBI most-wanted fugitive, Victor Manuel Gerena, has been on the top 10 list since 1984 and long been suspected of living in Cuba. Gerena is accused of playing the key role in a 1983 Connecticut armored car depot robbery that netted about $7 million, at the time the largest cash heist in US history.
It was committed by militants advocating Puerto Rican independence from the United States, a goal long been pushed by Fidel Castro.
Other fugitives included culprits in a wave of air hijackings in the 1970s and ’80s. Many were jailed but allowed to remain in Cuba after serving their time.
Cuba has recently returned more people accused of committing crimes in the United States without political overtones. Last year, the Cubans refused asylum to a Florida couple accused of kidnapping their children from their grandparents and sailing to Havana.
In 2008, Cuba deported Leonard Auerbach to face charges in California that he had sexually abused a Costa Rican girl.
David S. Weinstein, a former Miami federal prosecutor, said that without a fully functioning extradition treaty, US authorities must depend on Cuba to simply refuse entry to fugitives or kick them out.
‘‘Right now it’s more of an expulsion,’’ Weinstein said. ‘‘The Cubans say, ‘You’re persona non grata. Get out of our country.’ ’’
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Related: Cold War Fallout From Cuba
Here's more:
"Raul Castro says detente won’t change Cuba’s politics" by Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press December 21, 2014
HAVANA — Three men who served long US prison terms for spying received a standing ovation in Cuba’s Parliament on Saturday, shaking their fists in victory as President Raul Castro declared that detente with Washington won’t change the communist system he leads.
The last imprisoned members of the ‘‘Cuban Five’’ spy ring — Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, and Gerardo Hernandez — were freed last week in a sweeping deal that included the liberation of American contractor Alan Gross and a Cuban who had spied for the United States from their jail cells in Cuba.
The prisoner release was a first step toward the restoration of full diplomatic ties and a loosening of US trade and travel restrictions.
President Obama said efforts at engagement rather than isolation should encourage reform in Cuba’s one-party system and centrally planned economy.
Castro rejected that idea in his address to the twice-annual meeting of the National Assembly, saying ‘‘we must not expect that in order for relations with the United States to improve, Cuba will abandon the ideas that it has struggled for.’’
Also digging in their heels Saturday were some Cuban exiles in Miami who had called for a mass protest against plans to normalize relations with the Castro government.
About 200 people showed up before the speeches began, most of them older Cuban-Americans, and some expressed deep disappointment at the turnout.
At the Parliament in Havana, Castro expressed gratitude to Obama for the ‘‘just decision’’ to release the men who spied on anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida in the 1990s and who have long been regarded as heroes in Cuba.
Seated behind the three was Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban rafter at the center of a bitter custody battle in 2000 between relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba.
The president closed his speech with ‘‘Viva Fidel!’’ in reference to his older brother, who has not been seen nor heard from since the historic development was announced on Wednesday, provoking speculation about his health and whereabouts.
The executive orders Obama announced Wednesday can clear the way for limited exports to Cuba and freer travel by specific categories of Americans such as academics and artists, but he acknowledged his need to work with Congress to end the decades-old embargo Cuba blames for the dire condition of its infrastructure and economy.
Castro reminded Cubans that the embargo remains in place, particularly limits on international financial transactions. Cuba contends such limits reduce its access to credit and international investment.
‘‘An important step has been taken, but the essential thing remains, the end of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, which has grown in recent years particularly in terms of financial transactions,’’ Castro said.
He confirmed he would attend the Summit of Americas in Panama in April, where he is expected to have further discussions with Obama.
His address to the National Assembly follows surprise announcements by both presidents Wednesday that Cuba and the United States will reopen embassies and exchange ambassadors for the first time in more than 50 years.
The agreement included the exchange of the three prisoners, convicted in 2001, for a Cuban who had been imprisoned on the island for nearly 20 years for spying on behalf of the CIA. Gross had been held in Cuba for five years for illegally importing restricted communications equipment.
Two members of the Cuban Five, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, had already been released by the United States. As part of Wednesday’s exchange, Cuba released 53 other prisoners.
Late Friday, Cuban state television showed four of the Cuban Five celebrating their reunion by singing together during a private party in Havana.
Their release angered the protesters in Miami. Two women held up a sign saying ‘‘Imprison Americans and get three spies and an embassy.’’
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"US protesters oppose more ties with Cuba, but politics shifting" by Rachel La Corte, Associated Press December 21, 2014
MIAMI — Waving flags and chanting ‘‘Obama, traitor,’’ anti-Castro protesters gathered Saturday in a Little Havana park in a show of opposition to the president’s plan to normalize relations with Cuba.
More than 200 people listened to speeches, and many carried Cuban and American flags. Some speakers emphasized unity of the Cuban-American community and said there is no generational divide, even though most in the crowd were older.
Others blasted President Obama. ‘‘The worst infamy is the pretext he used: He says it’s to help the Cuban people,’’ Lincoln Diaz Balart said to chuckles.
Several chants rang out among protesters: ‘‘No more flights to Cuba!’’ “Viva Cuba libre!’’ and ‘‘Freedom for all the political prisoners.’’
Some protesters expressed disappointment with demonstration turnouts since the announcement last week of renewed US-Cuba ties.
‘‘The mentality is, ‘Hey, we’re going to be able to buy Cuban cigars and rum.’ Well, it’s not a happy thing for us,’’ said Armando Merino, 68, who was born in Cuba and came to the United States at age 14. ‘‘I’m here because for the Cuban people, my family in Cuba, they are not able to protest.’’
They are coming soon.
Irene Oria, 71, came to protest with her husband, Giordano, 77. Of Obama’s announcement on thawing relations, she said, ‘‘It’s not the time to do it this way.’’
‘‘With the Castros? No, I’m sorry,’’ Oria said, adding that the conditions that fueled her decision to leave Cuba at age 24 still exist.
Freddy Suastegui, 31, of Miami, listened to speeches with his family. He said the latest decisions disregard the work being done to promote change in Cuba.
‘‘What diplomacy is going to happen if the Castros aren’t promising anything and we’re going to go ahead and infuse them with more cash?’’ he said. ‘‘That just makes the regime stronger and the people weaker.’’
Miami is no stranger to protests from the Cuban community. Of the estimated 2 million Cubans living in the United States, the majority resides in South Florida and many remain closely attuned to developments on the island.
For decades, it was a truism of the politics in Florida that anything less than a hard-line stance against Fidel Castro was a sure way to lose a race for office. But this is far from certain now.
As a whole, Cuban-Americans make up a much smaller percentage of Florida’s Hispanic population than they did 15 years ago. And while Obama’s overtures to Cuba have angered older Cuban-Americans, especially first- and second-generation exiles, younger ones aren’t as likely to vote on this issue alone.
Some suggest that Obama’s new overtures are a political gambit aimed at cracking the Cuban-American community’s longtime support for the GOP.
‘‘They want to bring Cuban-Americans over to what they view as a Hispanic bloc that supports Democrats,’’ said former Florida Republican Senator George LeMieux. ‘‘If you end the tensions with Cuba, if that’s their goal, then I think they believe that they will end some of the reason why Cuban-Americans have been affiliated with the Republican Party.’’
In 2000, thousands of Cubans in Florida took to the streets after federal agents seized Elian Gonzalez in a prolonged international custody dispute and returned him to Cuba. The protesters set bonfires in the road and stopped traffic. Police responded in riot gear with tear gas and made more than 350 arrests.
Hundreds paraded through the streets of Little Havana when Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother Raul in 2006.
And in 2010, Cuban-born singer Gloria Estefan led tens of thousands in support of the Ladies in White, a group of Cuban mothers and wives of 75 dissidents arrested in the 2003 government crackdown there.
But protests and parades have become smaller and more sporadic.
‘‘I think there are a lot of people sitting on the sidelines, tired,’’ said Andy Gomez, a Cuba expert and retired University of Miami professor.
Democratic pollster David Beattie believes it has become politically safe in Florida to change America’s Cuba policy.
‘‘They just don’t understand the point of a policy that they didn’t connect with,’’ Beattie said of the younger generation of voters. ‘‘It’s in some ways politics catching up with where the state is as a whole.’’
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The Cuban people keep waiting
Cubans will keep waiting for progress
No sense waiting to post this.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
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More immigrants coming here means more Democratic voters, doesn't it?
