Posted on 07/29/2002 12:53:50 PM PDT by kattracks
July 29— MIAMI (Reuters) - A Cuban former deputy foreign minister and one-time aide to Defense Minister Raul Castro has defected to the United States, saying he did not want to be another laborer on President Fidel Castro's "farm."
Alcibiades Hidalgo, 56, was quoted by El Nuevo Herald as saying he had been sidelined from senior positions in Cuba for years and was working at the state-run newspaper Trabajadores when he left last week.
Joe Garcia, a leader of the Cuban American National Foundation, an exile group, on Monday confirmed Hidalgo's defection.
Garcia said that whatever Hidalgo's past, which might arouse negative feelings among some Cuban Americans, the former government official was just now one more Cuban among the many who come to the United States.
"We welcome him and move forward," Garcia said.
El Nuevo Herald said Hidalgo reached Florida last Thursday on a raft that sank just yards from the Florida Keys. The newspaper quoted him as saying he had requested political asylum, although he was likely to be allowed to stay anyway, even if he were not formally granted that status.
"I have decided not to be one more peon on Dr. Castro's farm," Hidalgo told El Nuevo Herald in an interview published on Sunday. Castro, a lawyer by training, was referred to as "Dr. Castro" in the early years after he took power in 1959.
'CONDEMNED TO MEDIOCRITY'
Garcia said Hidalgo was once chief of staff in the office of Raul Castro, Castro's younger brother and No. 2 in the Cuban Communist Party, who is also the president's designated successor.
A former member of the Communist Party's Central Committee, Hidalgo was a negotiator for Cuba in talks on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola in the late 1980s. Over more than a decade, Havana sent tens of thousands of soldiers to help Angola's Marxist government fight a rebel army, supported and supplied by the United States and South Africa.
Ten years ago Hidalgo was appointed Havana's ambassador to the United Nations and his star apparently faded.
"For the last eight years I have been condemned to the mediocrity of the national press, obliged to work at Trabajadores and with no other option," he told El Nuevo Herald. "I say obliged as I was warned that I would never get another kind of work and had to stay there."
He said he believed he was marginalized partly because of his role on Angola. "I think Fidel Castro has not forgiven the delegation that negotiated the withdrawal from Angola."
Hidalgo said Castro called all the shots in decision making and described a younger generation of officials around him as "kids who Fidel plays with," saying they could be elevated or dumped at Castro's whim.
He noted as one example Roberto Robaina, a former Communist youth leader who served as foreign minister from 1993 until he was abruptly dismissed three years ago.
Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.
Yeah, it's really hard cheese to be part of the proletariat in Cuba.
There is also the third possibility, just perhaps he was "sent"...
My thoughts exactly.
I will bet your last dollar that FBI, and others will keep a close eye on the gentleman for some time.
Yes, but no. "Still", but only for maybe another 30 months. Any takers?
Yeah... I'm waiting to see it hit the fan if Hillary doesn't get nominated/elected Prez...
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