CUBA NEWS The Miami Herald 5wx6w

Chicken sale to Cuba a beginning

A load of 1.5 million pounds of poultry bound for Cuba is an encouraging sign to port officials and trade advocates.

By Mitch Stacy, Associated Press. Nov. 14, 2003

TAMPA - A trade consultant hopes a load of frozen chicken bound for Cuba on Friday will be the first of regular monthly food shipments from the Port of Tampa to the island nation.

The 1.5 million pounds of poultry transported by Caribe Services could mark the beginning of the first regular Tampa-to-Cuba cargo shipments since the United States installed a trade embargo more than four decades ago, said Daniel J. Fernandez, president of U.S.-Cuba Trade Consultants.

Cuba has bought more than $460 million in American goods in the two years since a law legalized the direct sales of farm products to the communist nation.

Most of those shipments originated from other ports, including Jacksonville and Gulfport, Miss.

BOXED CARGO

''This venture will represent the first time Tampa's federal waterways will be consistently used to transport commodities (to Cuba) in over 42 years,'' Fernandez said Thursday as a crane moved the boxed cargo onto the freighter H.F. Salhman.

''That is -- in my estimation -- huge,'' he said. "And it's a beginning.''

He said the monthly shipments from the government-owned Port of Tampa could have an economic impact on the area of $100,000 per month and open up the market to Tampa Bay area businesses.

The chicken deal was brokered by Fernandez and Michael Mauricio of Florida Produce of Hillsborough County Inc. with Cuban food import company Alimport.

FOOD SHOW

Mauricio was among representatives of 71 American firms who displayed their wares at a food show in Havana last week.

He said he hopes to start shipping fruits and vegetables to Cuba from the Port of Tampa, allowing him to save money by moving his products into town by rail instead of semi truck to other ports.

''It's time for us to take advantage of something we have not done, and that is to recognize that there is an ability for us to export more than we are out of our own port,'' Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Frank said. "And it means we can use producers who are in the area. ...This means jobs for people and it means money in our economy.''

TRAVEL BAN

The announcement comes as Congress is trying to open Cuba to American travelers, a move that goes against both White House efforts to enforce a travel ban and the U.S. policy of isolating the communist country.

On Wednesday, though, negotiators working on the 2004 funding bill for the Treasury Department bowed to the wishes of President Bush by agreeing to eliminate a clause meant to let Americans travel more freely to the Caribbean island.

That move drew criticism from the Cuban government.

Veto threat halts effort to ease Cuba sanctions

By Frank Davies And Nancy San Martin. [emailprotected]. Nov. 14, 2003

WASHINGTON - Bowing to a veto threat from President Bush, Republican leaders in Congress have killed an effort to ease U.S. sanctions on Cuba for the fourth year in a row, despite the wide the measure enjoyed on Capitol Hill.

The decision, made at a late-night meeting Wednesday, quietly to kill a measure that would have effectively lifted the ban on travel to Cuba overrode strong anti-ban votes in the House and Senate this fall but left foes of U.S. policy on Cuba frustrated, angry and scrambling for a new strategy.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and key House Republicans told other of a House-Senate conference committee at the meeting that the provision to end the ban, part of a $90 billion Treasury-Transportation spending bill, had to come out.

Given Bush's warning that he would veto any change in the embargo on Cuba, ''there is no alternative other than to remove the Cuba travel provision'' from the bill, Shelby said.

LEADERS AGREED

Staff who worked on the issue said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Tex., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., ed the decision to strip the Cuba provision from the bill before the conference committee even met.

The decision was made even though the Senate had voted 59-36 and the House 227-188 on virtually identically worded measures denying the Treasury Department any funds to enforce the travel ban, which applies mostly to tourist trips.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican who lobbied Frist hard on the issue, along with Reps. Lincoln and Mario Daz-Balart, credited DeLay with killing the language.

''He has been a wizard at making sure understood that the president would veto the hard work they put into this bill,'' Ros-Lehtinen said of Frist. "And this demonstrates the muscle the president has in Congress.''

Bush has steadily threatened to veto any measure that would ease U.S. sanctions on the communist-ruled island, and instead ordered stricter enforcement of the travel ban and the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

SOME OPPOSITION

Several Congress spoke out against the decision Wednesday, but no formal vote was taken by the conference committee, which was evenly divided by the Cuba issue. Many were more concerned with other sections of the spending bill on Amtrak subsidies, highway funds and pension provisions.

Though the result came as no surprise, many opponents of the U.S. embargo were angered by the tactics used to block the measure.

''There is something out of whack with how the Cuba language was removed,'' complained Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. "It was stripped by staffers even before of the committee formally met. There was no vote taken. Poof, it just disappeared into the congressional ether.''

Several Congress grumbled that on the Cuba issue, presidential politics -- and the need for Bush to win Cuban-American votes in Florida and New Jersey next year -- trumped other issues.

''We will never have a rational Cuba policy as long as presidential campaigns are perceived to end in Florida,'' said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who sponsored the end of the ban in the House.

In Havana, the Cuban government criticized the decision. The Ministry of Foreign Relations issued a statement saying that GOP leaders and anti-Castro activists in Miami were "violating the rules and regulations established by the Congress itself.''

U.S. travel to Cuba is mostly limited to Cuban Americans, humanitarian and educational groups and journalists. Backers of the travel ban say that any easing of restrictions would funnel more tourist dollars to a repressive government without helping average Cubans.

Opponents of the travel ban say it is anachronistic and a failure. They also say that more U.S. visitors traveling to the island and more s between Americans and Cubans will help the Cuban people. Those pushing to change the policy are running out of options for this session of Congress, due to end this month. A separate bill to end the travel ban, sponsored by Enzi and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., ed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week on a 13-5 vote, but floor action soon is unlikely.

Jody Frisch, director of USA Engage, a coalition of 600 companies, agricultural and trade groups, predicted that for the Enzi-Baucus bill would grow next year.

''We remain as committed as ever,'' Frisch said.

But not everyone was convinced the latest setback would refuel efforts to chip away at the embargo.

''We don't have a lot of time left to play a game with the istration,'' because this session of Congress will end soon, said Chris Garza, trade specialist for the American Farm Bureau.

''Next year becomes very difficult to do anything on Cuba because it's an election year,'' Garza added.

Teacher facing trip penalty lobbies against Cuba ban

A teacher who donated Bibles in Cuba faces a $10,000 fine for an apparently illegal trip, personalizing the travel ban as Congress wrestles with the issue.

By Frank [emailprotected]. Nov. 13, 2003

WASHINGTON - Joni Scott, a teacher at a Christian academy in Indiana, does not seem a likely foe of Bush istration policy on Cuba as she lobbies Capitol Hill against the ban on travel to the island. But Scott, 43, a Republican who teaches classes on ''godly women'' to Christians, faces a $10,000 fine from the Treasury Department for violating the ban after her church group gave away hundreds of Bibles during an unlicensed trip to Cuba four years ago.

''I thought that was what our country was about -- to be able to travel freely so we can bring the Gospel into the homes of people,'' said Scott, who has also distributed Bibles in Russia and Mexico.

The Bush istration is fighting off a determined effort by majorities in both the House and Senate to end the enforcement of the travel ban. President Bush has instead ordered the Treasury and Homeland Security departments to step up enforcement efforts against illegal trips.

CUBA PROVISION

Wednesday night, a House-Senate conference committee began consideration of a $90 billion Treasury-Transportation spending bill with a provision that would bar using funds on enforcing the ban.

Scott's presence on Capitol Hill is a reminder that many Americans with different motivations -- religious, political and business -- want to be able to travel freely to Cuba.

But Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that weakens U.S. sanctions on Cuba. One member of the conference committee, Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., predicted late Wednesday that the Cuba provision would be stripped from the final bill, even though both houses voted to end the ban in nearly identical language.

Advocacy groups such as the Center for International Policy, which brought Scott to the Capitol, and some business groups are finding that Republicans who oppose the ban -- including 19 in the Senate -- are torn. They want access to Cuba but don't want to embarrass Bush.

RECEIVES HELP

''This trip has been an eye-opener,'' said Scott, of Kirklin, Ind. Some GOP staff were "honest enough to say they were sympathetic but realistic -- that they can't afford a veto.''

Scott did get some help in her effort to fend off the fine from Treasury. Several senators said they will the Office of Foreign Assets Control in Treasury on her behalf.

''This action by OFAC is simply absurd,'' Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., wrote the agency. "The agency is supposed to be tracking down the source of terrorist financing, not chasing down a well-meaning citizen who went to Cuba to distribute Bibles.''

Scott ed a church trip to Cuba in November 1999 when a pastor assured her that it fell into the humanitarian or religious exceptions allowed under the travel ban. But the group, which traveled through Canada to Cuba, apparently never applied to Treasury for the required license.

Scott's problems began when she itted to a Customs official on her return that she had been in Cuba. She was asked to fill out a questionnaire about the trip, but she never did.

''That was a mistake not to do that, but to receive this [notice] four years later is quite a shock,'' Scott said. She would not identify the pastor or church group, saying she was worried they might receive similar threats of fines.

A Treasury Department spokeswoman said the OFAC sent Scott a ''prepenalty notice'' in September, warning of the impending fine, because she did not respond to the request for more information in 1999. ''We will be reaching out to her to get more information,'' Treasury spokeswoman Tara Bradshaw said.

Scott said she does not regret the trip to Cuba.

''I will always one tall man who kissed the Bible when he received it,'' she recalled. ''There were wonderful people who attended baptisms by candlelight and flashlight in small groups, worried about the authorities. "I don't think the travel ban is hurting [Fidel] Castro,'' she added. "But I know it's hurting me.''

Carlos Manuel Arteaga / Aide to '50s Cuban vice president

By Luisa Yanez. [emailprotected]. Nov. 13, 2003.

Carlos Manuel Arteaga Vilat, the right-hand man of one of Cuba's vice presidents and later a recruiter of Miami exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion, died of cardiac arrest Tuesday, family said. He was 93.

Arteaga, a longtime North Bay Village resident, was also the father of Tere A. Zubizarreta, president and CEO of Miami-based Zubi Advertising, one of the top Hispanic agencies in the country.

''My grandfather was the family patriarch,'' said Michelle Zubizarreta, chief istrative officer of Zubi. "He is the one who taught all of us how to laugh, how to be good friends and, of course, our work ethic.''

In Cuba, Arteaga had been an influential man, serving as the personal secretary of Vice President Gustavo Cuervo Rubio, who served under President Fulgencio Batista. On the eve of 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista government, Arteaga was forced into exile.

In Miami, he was quickly ed by his wife and two daughters and found work in the sugar industry working for the Fanjul family as a warehouse manager for the Talisman Sugar Corp. in Palm Beach County.

Since his family had settled in Miami, Arteaga decided to commute.

''He would get up at 4 a.m. every morning and drive to a local cafeteria to pick up other Cuban exiles who commuted to the sugar plant, then make the two or three hour drive,'' his granddaughter said. "He would then leave the plant at 3 p.m., drop everyone back at the cafeteria and come home. He did this for 30 years; so you see what I mean about the work ethic?''

Jesus Amado, a Miami ant who met Arteaga in Cuba in the mid-1950s through their government work, re Arteaga played a key role in the launching of the Bay of Pigs, the 1961 U.S.-backed invasion of the island aimed at overthrowing Castro.

''He did a lot of recruiting out of his own house,'' Amado said. Thousands of Cuban exiles, most recruited from Miami, took part in the mission.

Widowed twice, Arteaga is survived by daughters Tere Zubizarreta and Annie Arteaga Slatkoff; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

A 10:30 a.m. Mass will be held today at Saint Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 900 SW 26th Rd.

Burial will follow at Graceland Memorial Park, 4580 SW Eighth St.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to La Liga Contra el Cncer or the United Way of Miami-Dade.

'Anna in the Tropics' shines on Broadway

By Christine Dolen, [emailprotected]. Nov. 17, 2003

Anna in the Tropics, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play born in New Theatre's tiny space in Coral Gables, has made it to the biggest stage in all of American theater.

Broadway's Royale Theatre, where Nilo Cruz's heady mixture of poetic language, vanished tradition and aching ion opened on Sunday evening, is now home to a work that, whatever its fate with New York critics and audiences, will forever have the distinction of being the first play to win drama's highest honor for a Latino playwright -- the Cuban-American Cruz, who spent his formative years and discovered his ion for writing in Miami.

This high-profile production of Cruz's play about Cuban-American cigar-makers in Ybor City on the eve of the Great Depression was put together in September at the McCarter Theatre Center in nearby Princeton, N.J. The entire cast of that production, including marquee name Jimmy Smits, has come with it to Broadway. Yet it's obvious, the strong reviews Anna got in Princeton notwithstanding, that the actors and director Emily Mann have continued their work on the play.

On Broadway, Anna in the Tropics is warmer, more vibrant, more detailed than it was in Princeton. The actors have added more flourishes to their performances, taking them up a notch or three to match the scale of the larger, more traditional Royale.

At times, though, they edge a little too close stylistically to telenovela territory. Anna in the Tropics has always had its share of organic, character-driven humor to counterbalance the emotional turbulence and loss that flow through the play.

But if you stood outside the Royale on Friday evening during one of the show's official press performances, you'd think Cruz had written a Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy. It's appropriate to laugh when younger daughter Marela (Vanessa Aspillaga) is gushing over the factory's handsome new lector Juan Julian (Smits); it's excruciating to hear laughter when the second act begins with Juan Julian and Marela's married sister Conchita (Daphne Rubin-Vega) making adulterous love on the factory floor. That moment is supposed to be thrilling and ionate, not something that elicits hoots and guffaws, and it's a sign that Anna has been tweaked too much.

Even so, the power of Cruz's beautiful, image-filled language sings in the words of actors who obviously connect with it, adore it and understand its musical nuances.

As the lector who reads to the cigar-makers and alters their lives, Smits is sweetly seductive, matinee-idol handsome in a tropical white suit, a man who rides the ion of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina to a different tragic ending.

The other men -- John Ortiz as Conchita's cheating husband Palomo, Victor Argo as the depressed factory owner Santiago, David Zayas as his volatile half-brother Chech -- rant and charm and cajole, holding their own against the play's strong women.

And those women -- Aspillaga as the fleshy, dreamily girlish Marela; Rubin-Vega as the wounded, risk-taking Conchita; Priscilla Lopez as their mother Ofelia, a steely but womanly Cuban matriarch -- all deserve Tony Award consideration.

The production's design, from Robert Brill's spare but exquisite set to Peter Kaczorowski's lighting (with its suggestions of tropical heat and shuttered windows) to the powerful scene-connecting thrum of a solo guitar, serves as a powerful but unobtrusive frame surrounding the artistry of Cruz's vivid, inspired linguistic pictures.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Anna in the Tropics, Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Nilo Cruz.
WHERE: Royale Theatre, 242 W. 45th St., New York.
WHEN: 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday (Tuesday performances change to 7 p.m. beginning Jan. 5).
HOW MUCH: $46.25-$81.25.
TICKETS: 800-432-7250 or www.telecharge.com.

PRINTER FRIENDLY