Elian Strike Closes Little Havana ( FCF organized 30 block march on Miami Beach)

 Elian Strike Closes Little Havana

By Martha Irvine
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 25, 2000; 9:34 p.m. EDT

A group of demonstrators dressed in black marched through Miami Beach to express their pain.

MIAMI –– Workers stayed home, students skipped school and businesses closed Tuesday as Cuban-Americans called a general strike that shut down Little Havana but barely slowed the rest of the city.

The protest over the Elian Gonzalez case brought honking cars and Cuban flags to the same streets where fires and violence broke out Saturday after armed federal agents grabbed the 6-year-old Cuban boy in a pre-dawn raid.

Except for a few coffee stands, the neighborhood's vibrant business community shut down on a hot, sunny day, while hundreds of protesters gathered on street corners or drove their cars in long, honking caravans through the streets.

"We are in mourning," said Angelo Gutierrez, 70. "I will buy nothing today."

The rest of the Miami metropolitan area went on with its day. Scattered businesses closed their doors and the morning traffic in the city was lighter than usual. The airport and Port of Miami suffered no difficulties, officials said.

Only two airport porters didn't show for work Tuesday, said supervisor Ileana Casasola. "I'm Cuban," she said. "I'd love to go support my people, but the problem is the airport is a busy place."

Many tourists didn't know of the strike. "They're causing more problems than they're solving," said Cleveland tourist Jackie Miller, breakfasting on South Beach. "Frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing about it."

Police said protests stayed peaceful, though two people were arrested for disorderly conduct. "We're hoping that ... this indeed is a day of reflection and contemplation and mourning as the Cuban exiles have called for," said Lt. Bill Schwartz.

Big businesses like American Airlines, which has 9,000 Miami-based employees, reported no staff shortages. At The Miami Herald, no reporters took the day off, though several support staff took vacation days at the paper and its Spanish-language daily, El Nuevo Herald, said Robin Reiter, vice president of human resources.

Larger corporations closed some operations – seven Publix supermarkets shut their doors, and a McDonald's in Little Havana closed, leaving its flag at half-staff.

Sony canceled its "Evening of Showcases," which featured singer Gloria Estefan, who supported Elian's Miami relatives, and other Latin music stars. The event was part of the festivities surrounding the Billboard Latin Music Conference and Awards that kicked off Tuesday in Miami.

Baseball players and coaches around the major leagues skipped games Tuesday night in protest. Tampa Bay's Jose Canseco was the most prominent player to sit out, joining six Florida Marlins, two San Francisco Giants and New York Mets shortstop Rey Ordonez. Several coaches joined them.

Florida third baseman Mike Lowell, pitchers Alex Fernandez and Vladimir Nunez – all of Cuban descent – decided to sit out. Dominican teammates Antonio Alfonseca, Jesus Sanchez and Danny Bautista joined them in a show of support.

Scattered effects of the strike could be felt throughout the county. The predominantly Hispanic city of Sweetwater kept going on a skeleton staff of mostly department heads, said Mayor Jose "Pepe" Diaz.

"We have to keep the city open for the public, but I do believe in the cause and I do stand with them," Diaz said.

In Hialeah, a city with a big Cuban population, the shopping district bustled.

However, one impromptu street protest protest several miles southwest of Little Havana grew to 300 by midday. A caravan of cars numbered at least 100. Spanish-language radio announced the names of businesses that closed and those that stayed open.

By early evening, about 130 protesters gathered outside the Freedom Tower, a former Customs building in downtown Miami where many Cubans entered the United States in the 1960s. They waved flags and signs and chanted "Libertad" as basketball fans streamed into the American Airlines Arena for a Miami Heat playoff game.

Across Biscayne Bay in Miami Beach, tourists lined up with cameras as about a thousand people – many of them wearing black clothing and electrical tape over their mouths – quietly walked 30 blocks from the trendy South Beach area to the city's Holocaust museum and back.

"We want international tourists to see what we are feeling," said John Suarez, a Florida International University student who helped organize the procession.

School officials said they had no information on attendance by students of teachers. But bank teller Dora Irizarry, whose bank shut down, took her two boys out of school, and they said many other students did the same.

She brought them to the home of Elian's Miami relatives for the first time. The Cuban-American community held months of protests outside the house in hopes of keeping the boy here.

"This is horrible, horrible. I don't have words," she said. "It's important for them to see this. It's important for them to know what freedom is about."

Down the street at the closed Zagami's Market, a Cuban flag hung over the store sign. Below hung a handwritten sign that read: "Clinton a traitor. Shame on you."

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On the Net: Miami-Dade County: http://www.co.miami-dade.fl.us

Free Cuba Foundation: http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/

© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

Free Cuba Foundation's non-violent call for justice

Published Monday, December 28, 1998, in the Miami Herald
FREE CUBA FOUNDATION

---

Join our silent call for justice

``Justice does not help those who slumber but helps only those who are vigilant.''-- Mahatma Gandhi

IN A FEW DAYS the world will be marking the 40th anniversary of the systematic denial of human rights and basic human dignity in Cuba. The 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was observed in Cuba by beatings and arrests of dissidents and human-rights activists leading up to and on the anniversary itself.

It is sad to note how far the Cuban government has sunk. It was 50 years ago that the Cuban delegation, representing a democratic and constitutional republic, wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The members recognized that this document would have been ``accepted by that generous spirit who was the apostle of our independence: Jose Marti, the hero who -- as he turned his homeland into a nation -- gave us forever this generous rule: `With everyone, and for the good of everyone.' ''

Last Dec. 10 a spiritual heir of the 1948 Cuban delegation held up copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the New Testament and was knocked down and dragged away by Cuban police. Today the mere support of those principles enunciated by the Cuban delegation in 1948 leads to beatings, arrests, and in some cases, deaths.

We shall raise here a silent call for justice. We shall use petitions, silent vigils, and fasts to raise the issue of justice for those who no longer can speak. We will not forget those innocents who died at the hands of the Cuban government such as:

 On Dec. 22, 1997, Sebastian Arcos Bergnes died of a cancer that was allowed to spread until terminal while he sat with violent criminals in a Cuban prison cell. His crime was being a human-rights activist and the vice-president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.

 On March 29, 1997, Joachim Lovschall, a 26-year-old Dane studying Spanish at the University of Havana, was shot to death by Cuban state-security agents while crossing a street in Havana. Nearly two years later no disciplinary or lawful investigation of the guard who killed Lovschall has begun despite Denmark's official protests.

 On Feb. 24, 1996, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, Carlos Costa, and Pablo Morales where blown out of the sky over the Florida Straits while searching for Cuban rafters in international waters. The Cuban pilots responsible for the shootdown have yet to face justice for their actions.

 On July 13, 1994, an estimated 41 men, women, and children were drowned by agents of the Cuban government for the sole crime of exercising their right to leave Cuba. The Cuban government has not held a proper investigation, brought those responsible to justice, or recovered the bodies of the victims and returned them to their families.

We call on all people of goodwill to join our silent call for justice. Let others know of these travesties.

We have embraced the principle of nonviolence, and we seek the truth as our ends. Gandhi said:

``Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer, and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.''

We call on people everywhere who share our passion for justice to join us. Nearly a year ago we signed an Accord for Democracy in which the final line quoted Marti's noble sentiment: ``With everyone, and for the good of everyone.''

Let us work so that in Cuba once again this will become a reality and not just a noble sentiment.

Susana Mendiola
Chairwoman,

Viviana Mendiola
Vice President,

Marco J. Alonso
Treasurer,

John Suarez
Coordinator,
Free Cuba Foundation
Florida International University

Copyright © 1998 The Miami Herald 

Silent vigil for justice for the victims of the July 13, 1994 "13 de marzo" tugboat massacre

Free Cuba Foundation, community remember "13 de Marzo" victims

BY CATHY REYES
The Beacon

Staff Writer

On July 13, 1994, at least 41 men, women and children died in the "13 de Marzo" Massacre. Yesterday, approximately 25 individuals from The Free Cuba Foundation and the FIU community attended a five-minute silent call for justice to remember those victims.

"Four years ago on early July 13, 1994, the tugboat "13 de Marzo" was attacked by agents of the Cuban government," said John Suarez, member of The Free Cuba Foundation. "They repeatedly rammed the tug, used high pressure water hoses on the victims and sank the ship seven miles off the coast of Havana, Cuba."

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the pleas of the women and children on the deck of the tug "13 de Marzo" did nothing to stop the attack. The boat sank with 23 dead children. Many people perished because the jets of water directed at everyone on deck forced them to seek refuge in the engine room. The survivors also affirmed that the crews of the four Cuban government boats were dressed in civilian clothes and that they did not help them when they were sinking.

According to Susana Stefek, who left Cuba 32 years ago, "it is important for all of us to participate in this remembrance because the more people we have, the bigger the force to obtain what we want, which is the liberty of Cuba. Cuba Libre for everyone."

This year, for the first time, the pictures of the victims of the "13 de Marzo" Massacre were published.

"We must remember those who died at the hands of Castro's inhumane regime," said Jose Raul Carro, former president of The Free Cuba Foundation.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the damages caused by the illegal acts committed by the Cuban State are the following: irreparable physical harm, consisting of the deaths of the 41 people shipwrecked on the tug "13 de Marzo"; the emotional and psychological distress inflicted on the relatives of the victims and survivors, consisting of emotional suffering due to the loss of loved ones, the trauma caused by the incident; the impossibility of recovering the bodies for proper burial; the knowledge that they did not receive justice, i.e., that the deaths caused by Cuban State employees remain unpunished; and physical damage, consisting of the loss of income and indirect damages.

"We don't think FIU students know much about this event that occurred four years ago. It is an event that the whole world knows, but it is not as known in FIU," said Xavier Utset, President of The Free Cuba Foundation. 18 years ago, a similar massacre was committed by Castro against Cubans who tried to escape his tyranny.

According to the book, "Cuba: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," on July 6, 1980, Fidel Castro ordered the sinking of a riverboat that had been commandeered by a group of youngsters trying to escape. The orders were carried out with the loss of dozens of innocent lives. The massacre of at least 45 innocent children, women and men on the "XX Aniversario" river boat was dismissed by the Castro regime as a "thwarted illegal exit from the country." The government's version was that the Cuban Navy's Patrol Boats had "accidentally destroyed the 'XX Aniversario' when waves forced the vessels to collide." The same version would be repeated 14 years later after the sinking of the tugboat "13 de Marzo" in which at least 41 children, women and men were killed trying to escape Castro's Cuba.

"This moment of silence is important because the crime that the victims of the tug '13 de Marzo' committed was trying to leave Cuba. They were brutally murdered. International organizations condemned the Cuban government's actions, yet four years later, the bodies of victims have not been recovered nor have they been returned to their families," Suarez said. "Those responsible for the attack and the sinking of the tugboat have not been prosecuted or even investigated. The families have not been compensated in any way for their loss. That's why today we held that circle of silence. It was a silent call for justice."

Cuban dissidents gather in Rome before pope's trip to Cuba | Associated Press

Associated Press, January 17, 1998

Cuban dissidents gather in Rome before pope's trip to Cuba
4.59 p.m. ET (2346 GMT) January 17, 1998

 

ROME (AP) --- Seeking to capitalize on the pope's trip to Cuba, 15 Cuban dissidents gathered in Rome on Saturday to press for greater freedoms in the communist island nation and the release of political prisoners.

The dissidents asked the pontiff to appeal for the respect of human rights and urged Italy's political parties to press for an end to totalitarianism in Cuba.

"The consensus is that in terms of a spiritual reawakening, the pope's visit is very important, and that is ultimately important for the future of the Cuban nation,'' said John Suarez, a spokesman for the meeting sponsored by Cuba Libera (Free Cuba).

Cuba Libera is an Italian organization that promotes human rights in Cuba. It was founded by Gianni Pilo, a Parliament deputy from the conservative Forza Italia party.

"We know that when the pope goes there, there will be 2,000 or 3,000 journalists there, but the exiles won't be,'' he said.

John Paul II leaves Wednesday for a five-day trip to Cuba --- his first to the communist nation.

Among those attending Saturday's gathering were Mario Chanes de Armas, a former comrade of Cuban leader Fidel Castro who spent 30 years in Cuban prisons; Ricardo Bofill, co-founder of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights; Dariel Alarcon Benigno, a former guerrilla companion of Che Guevara; and Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, recently released from 22 years in jail.

When Castro came to Rome a year ago, he was received with acclaim by the Communist Refoundation, an Italian party that provides key support to Italy's center-left government.

Source: http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/romeitaly.html

Siembran árbol en la F.I.U. en recuerdo de los cuatro hermanos al rescate asesinados por Castro

 Diario de las Americas Edicion del 7 de Marzo 1997

Siembran árbol en la F.I.U. en recuerdo de los cuatro hermanos al rescate asesinados por Castro

Por GUILLERMO CABRERA LEIVA 

Al mediodía del jueves tuvo lugar la siembre del flamboyán, en los jardines de la Universidad Internacional de la Florida, en conmemoración del primer aniversario de la muerte de los cuatro jóvenes miembros de Hermanos al Rescate, que ca yeron víctimas de las balas criminales del régimen castrista.

El Rector de la Universidad, Dr. Modesto Maidique, al referirse al árbol como símbolo del recuerdo, exaltó la memoria de los cuatro jóvenes, a quienes calificó de valiosos ejemplos de vidas dedicadas al bien de sus semejantes.

"No podíamos dejar pasar esta fecha tan triste --dijo Maidique-- sin conmemorarla en forma alguna. Este flamboyán, que es un árbol usualmente asociado a Cuba, nos recordará a todos los que estudiamos y trabajamos en la FIU ahora, y en el futuro, la causa por la cual murieron estos jóvenes". 

 

El árbol, plantado a la memoria de Armando Alejandre, hijo, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña y Pablo Morales, se sembró entre los edificios PC y DM en el recinto University Park, donde Alejandre cursó sus estudios, graduándose en 1988 con un título en Humanidades. Junto al árbol aparece una placa con los nombres de los cuatro Hermanos al Rescate, donada por Memorial Plans.

El señor José Basulto, director de Hermanos al Rescate, señaló que no había lugar más adecuado para rendir este homenaje que la Universidad Internacional de la Florida, agregando que la siembra del árbol era una gran idea para evocar la memoria de quienes, con su ejemplo, permanecían vivos en el recuerdo.

Impartió su bendición el Padre Marino, de la parroquia de Santa Agatha.