CUBA NEWS The Miami Herald 5wx6w

Beatle meets Bolshevism at Havana cultural show

By John Rice, Associated Press. Posted on Fri, Nov. 07, 2003

HAVANA - The 1960s spirit of John Lennon met that of Vladimir Lenin as Cuban President Fidel Castro attended a peace concert that included songs by the late Beatle with strident propaganda films of the era.

About 2,000 people gathered with Castro at a Havana park named for Lennon to hear performances by some of Cuba's top folk-influenced performers -- starting with veteran Silvio Rodrguez, whose enthusiasm for the Beatles helped get him fired from a state job in the 1960s.

That was a time when long hair and a taste for rock music was sometimes a ticket to a state work camp in Cuba.

The island's leaders were tense, having recently beaten off the U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion, and were influenced by straight-laced Stalinist ideology imported from the Soviet Union.

The musical spirit of Lennon eventually won out; recordings of his voice singing Imagine boomed across John Lennon Park as Castro arrived in his customary military uniform -- a reminder that the heirs of Lenin's communist ideology remain firmly in control of Cuba's politics.

Lennon's sister-in-law, Setsuko Ono, announced the donation of several of her sculptures to Cuba and local artist Kcho (pronounced Ka'-cho) covered a Sherman tank in white cloth as a symbol of peace.

Castro himself did not speak at the event, which was a part of the Havana Biennal, one of the most prestigious cultural shows in the Third World. The show lost European this year because of protests over Cuba's imprisonment of 75 dissidents.

A series of 1960s documentaries shown on large screens before Castro's arrival recalled a socialist experience of the Beatles era and the U.S. antiwar movement that didn't quite match the spirit of Lennon's lyric: "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow.''

One showed Cuban troops beating off the Bay of Pigs invasion, accompanied by stirring military music.

Another paid homage to Che Guevara.

A third showed North Vietnamese life under U.S. bombs, including shots of bodies and of U.S. prisoners of war being led away -- mockingly accompanied by the song They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Haaa!

Judge wants Cubans sent to court

Under a federal court ruling, Cuba will be asked to send witnesses to the United States to testify for the defense in a hijacking case.

By CARA BUCKLEY, [emailprotected]. Posted on Sat, Nov. 08, 2003

A federal magistrate has ordered the U.S. government to ask Cuba to let witnesses fly here to testify in an hijacking case -- for the defense.

Cuban government officials and airline workers have come to the United States in the past to testify for prosecutors in skyjacking cases, but lawyers in this case could not recall defense witnesses doing so.

Magistrate Judge John J. O'Sullivan's ruling Wednesday came two months after three defense lawyers said they were thwarted from interviewing key witnesses on the island.

They are defending three of six men accused of hijacking a flight on March 19 from Cuba's Isle of Youth to Key West using kitchen knives and a hatchet. The flight was escorted to Key West by U.S. fighter jets. The 37 engers and crew were unharmed.

Alexis Norneilla Morales, 31, Eduardo Javier Meja Morales, 26, Yainer Olivares Samn, 21, Neudis Infantes Hernndez, 31, Alvenis Arias Izquierdo, 24, and Miakel Guerra Morales, 31, are charged with conspiracy, air piracy and interfering with a flight crew, and face life sentences if convicted.

Three lawyers representing the Cubans said in court papers they flew to Havana on Aug. 26 and planned to visit the Isle of Youth the next day to photograph the crime scene and interview witnesses. Cuban authorities delayed their flight to Nuevo Gerona, the Isle's main city, for nine hours, according to court papers. When the defense lawyers finally arrived, prosecutors, who arrived on a separate flight, had finished their investigation and were leaving.

The defense lawyers said the airport was encircled by black-uniformed troops bearing bayonets, and that they were detained in the VIP lounge for three hours before being sent back to Miami.

WITNESS LIST

In his ruling, O'Sullivan wrote, ''It seems apparent from the defendant's motion that the Cuban government does not intend to allow counsel access to witnesses in Cuba.'' Sullivan ordered the defense to provide a list of witnesses to the U.S. government, which in turn will ask Cuba to produce the witnesses for the trial, set to start Dec. 1 in Key West's federal courthouse.

Lawyers welcomed the ruling because they say the Cuban government has been quick to provide its own employees as prosecution witnesses but not Cuban civilians for the defense.

''We're extremely pleased that we may actually have an opportunity to remedy the interference with our fact-finding and discovery process, should the Cuban government wish to give full faith and credit to the request of the U.S. government, as ordered by court,'' said Mario S. Cano, the court-appointed attorney for one of the hijack suspects.

It is not known if Cuba will comply with the ruling. The Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C., could not be reached Friday.

Prosecutors at the U.S. attorneys office declined to comment on how this ruling might impact their case.

EXECUTED

The March 19 incident was closely followed by a second plane hijacking and a botched ferry hijacking, which prompted the Cuban government to accuse the United States of encouraging the crimes by being too lenient on hijackers. Three men involved in the ferry incident were executed soon after by a Cuban firing squad, stirring an international outcry.

Adermis Wilson Gonzlez, 34, who hijacked the second plane using fake ceramic grenades, was found guilty of air piracy in a Key West court in July. He was sentenced to 20 years.

OK's Cuba travel

A Senate committee approves yet another measure that would ease U.S. restrictions on visits to Cuba.

By NANCY SAN MARTIN, [emailprotected]. Posted on Fri, Nov. 07, 2003

A new bill that would repeal the U.S. ban on tourist travel to Cuba was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, highlighting the widening gap between lawmakers who oppose U.S. sanctions and a Bush istration bent on keeping them.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, spearheaded by Sens. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., would prohibit the president from restricting travel to Cuba except in case of war. It was approved by a 13-5 vote.

An amendment intended to sabotage the bill was earlier rejected by the committee. Proposed by Florida Democrat Bill Nelson and others, the amendment would have eased the travel restrictions if Cuba met certain conditions, including the release of all 75 dissidents arrested in March.

Lawmakers on opposing sides of U.S.-Cuba policy also flexed their political muscles over a measure, approved by the House and Senate but now before a conference committee, to deny the Treasury Department funds to enforce the travel ban.

That provision is part of a $90 billion spending bill for the Transportation and Treasury departments. The conference committee is expected to send a compromise version back to the House and Senate for a final vote by the end of the month.

In a letter Thursday to conference committee leaders, anti-embargo senators threatened to use all ''parliamentary options available'' if the language weakening the travel ban is erased from the compromise version.

Those options include a filibuster and other delay tactics that would keep the spending bill bottled up in Congress.

Florida's Cuban-American lawmakers, meanwhile, met with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, to urge the anti-travel ban language be stripped from the compromise version.

President Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that would ease U.S. sanctions on Cuba, but the thinly veiled threat of a filibuster on a critical spending bill raised the stakes in the fight over Cuba policy.

''It's taken the debate up 10 notches,'' Miami Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a telephone interview. "It will be a battle of the wills.''

Rep. Lincoln Daz-Balart called a Bush veto an ''atom bomb'' but said: "We're trying to win the battle with conventional weapons and not with the veto.''

U.S. travel to Cuba is mostly restricted to humanitarian and educational groups, journalists and Cuban Americans. About 160,000 Americans traveled legally to Cuba in 2001, about half of them Cuban Americans, according to the Treasury Department. Thousands more go illegally each year as tourists, traveling through third countries.

I was sexually abused by priest, exile says

An Archdiocese of Miami priest cleared of two past sexual abuse complaints faces a new claim that he molested a boatlift refugee at a Coral Gables church.

By Jay Weaver. [emailprotected]. Posted on Fri, Nov. 07, 2003

A Cuban exile on Thursday accused a veteran Catholic priest of sexual abuse 23 years ago at a Coral Gables church where he was living after arriving from Cuba on the Mariel boatlift.

The alleged victim said in a lawsuit the Rev. Alvaro Guichard promised him a car and a job in exchange for sex. At the time Guichard was a priest at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables.

''It is hard for me to talk about this . . . I have lived with this problem for many years without telling my family or anybody,'' the alleged victim, 39, said Thursday at his attorney's office in Hollywood.

Guichard was reinstated in August as pastor of St. Francis de Sales Church in Miami Beach after the Archdiocese of Miami cleared him of two earlier sexual abuse complaints. Guichard had been suspended for 15 months.

Guichard, who has served as an archdiocesan priest for 30 years, adamantly denied the allegations in an interview in his parish office. ''It's fiction, false and lies,'' Guichard, 63, said. "The new allegations are as ridiculous as the other ones.''

The alleged victim was not identified in the lawsuit. The suit was filed against the Miami archdiocese, claiming it knew of past sexual abuse claims against Guichard and failed to take steps to protect the alleged victim.

''I want him [Guichard] to be removed from the church -- to be removed permanently,'' the alleged victim said.

He said he never reported the alleged abuse to police or church authorities because he was alone, young and afraid. The recent flurry of sexual abuse complaints against numerous priests convinced him, he said, to come forward.

Guichard's reinstatement followed a lawsuit filed last year against him and the Rev. Ricardo Castellanos by Jose A. Currais Jr., a former Miami altar boy who alleged they sexually abused him when he was between 14 and 16 in the early 1970s. The abuse allegedly occurred at a Miami Catholic high school and two parishes, including the Little Flower.

A suit making similar allegations against the two priests was filed earlier by the parents of a deceased former Little Flower altar boy, Miguel Chinchilla.

The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office, after a preliminary investigation, decided not to file charges against Guichard and Castellanos in both cases because the statute of limitations had expired.

FLORIDA'S LAW

Under Florida law, sexual assault charges involving minors between 12 and 18 must be filed within four years of the alleged crime.

While there are no criminal charges stemming from the alleged abuse involving Currais and Chinchilla, the lawsuits have survived efforts to have them dismissed and are proceeding.

Castellanos remains on istrative leave as pastor of San Isidro Church in Pompano Beach because an archdiocesan investigative committee has not completed its probe.

After Thursday's sexual abuse allegation, the Miami archdiocese said it will follow its policy and notify Miami-Dade prosecutors, offer the alleged victim counseling and conduct an internal investigation.

The date of the alleged abuse of the Mariel boatlift refugee would put it beyond the statute of limitations.

According to archdiocesan policy, a Catholic lay committee consisting of a medical doctor, psychiatrist, civil lawyer, canon lawyer and clergy representative will first determine whether the latest allegation against Guichard is credible.

''If the allegations are deemed credible, the archbishop will place the priest on istrative leave,'' said archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.

After a more thorough investigation, Archbishop John C. Favalora would make a final determination about whether Guichard could return to parish work or be removed from the ministry.

Jeffrey Herman, attorney for the alleged victim, believes the archdiocese made a mistake in reinstating Guichard. ''It seems to me the archdiocese rushed to reinstate Guichard too quickly,'' he said.

After arriving in South Florida in 1980, the alleged victim was placed in a dormitory for refugee boys at Little Flower, which Guichard had ed in 1973 after fleeing Cuba years earlier.

The alleged victim lived at Little Flower's dorm with about 30 other migrant boys for a little more than a month. The suit claims Guichard used to go from bed to bed tucking in the boys.

''I don't know why he picked me out of the rest,'' the man said at his attorney's office. "But I think I was his favorite.''

UNABLE TO ANSWER

Weeping, he was unable to answer a question about the alleged abuse.

But, according to his suit, Guichard brought the alleged victim to his bedroom in the rectory at the Little Flower. The priest told the 15-year-old to watch TV while he went to the bathroom. Guichard, the suit says, emerged from the bathroom naked.

He told the alleged victim that he "could have a better life and promised to help [him] get a car and job if [he] permitted Guichard to have sex with him.''

The suit alleges that Guichard asked the teen to perform oral sex on him and at another time the priest performed oral sex the teen.

The alleged victim said he was later placed with a foster parent. His mother arrived here from Cuba in 1981. He said he has kept the secret from her, too.

''Nobody in my family knows,'' said the plaintiff, adding that his past has affected his relationship with his wife and two daughters. "I haven't been able to get any therapy because I can't afford it.''

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