Free Republic

When Miami’s new art museum opened in December, namesake Jorge Perez spoke easily about a once-taboo topic among Cuban-American powerbrokers: his desire to increase artistic exchanges with those on the communist island. Then, this week, billionaire sugar baron Alfonso Fanjul—whose family’s business was seized by Fidel Castro in 1959—spoke publicly for the first time about investing back in Cuba. Both men are among a growing number of powerful South Florida Cuban-American business, civic and political leaders breaking the long-held public line on U.S. relations with Cuba and the Castro government. For all the talk of changing attitudes among second-generation Cuban-Americans...

A federal grand jury handed up a new indictment against Luis Posada Carriles, for the first time linking the Cuban exile militant in a U.S. legal proceeding to a series of 1997 tourist-site bombings in Cuba that killed an Italian national. The superseding indictment from the grand jury in El Paso does not charge Posada, 81, with planting the bombs or plotting the bombings but with lying in an immigration court about his role in the attacks at hotels, bars and restaurants in the Havana area. The perjury counts were added to the previous indictment that accused Posada of lying...

(English-language translation) MIAMI (AFP) - Two months have passed since a photograph of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro greeting Chinese President Hu Jintao was released in mid November as the last known image of the former. The health of Fidel Castro - "enemy number one" to thousands of Cuban exiles who fled to Miami - questions about his long absence, and rumors about his death once again circulated throughout this city, "the other Cuba" as many of the refugees call it. Days ago, during the 50th anniversary of the [Cuban] revolution the always-talkative Fidel led in the largest island of...

The Miami Herald's Meltdown Over Cuba by Paul Crespo Posted Oct 12, 2006 While the Miami Herald's recent front-page attempt to smear 10 decent Miami journalists (including me) who worked on U.S.-government TV Marti broadcasts to Cuba, blew up in its face, the paper's scandal has unmasked more serious concerns. Clearly visible now are the Herald’s arrogance, latent anti-Cuban American bias, and lack of professionalism. When the original Herald story broke September 8, many asked, "With Fidel Castro dying, and his brother Raul struggling to succeed him, why is the Herald doing this now?" That question was even more pressing...

Some exiled Cubans convicted of crimes are afraid that a turnover in Cuba may trigger orders for their deportation. When Miami Cuban exile David Sebastian heard Fidel Castro ceded power, joy and fear gripped him. He was happy for the future of his country, but alarmed about his own future. "I was very concerned for myself," Sebastian, 40, told The Miami Herald. Sebastian, convicted in the 1990s on charges of selling stolen marine equipment, is among the more than 29,000 Cuban exiles who may have no choice but to return to Cuba if there's a leadership change and democracy reigns...

(English-language translation) PONCE - Although it has been decades since they left their country, Cuban exiles today feel the same nostalgia and yearning for their land since the first day. For this reason, they attentively observe from a distance the allegedly temporary relinquishing of power by revolutionary Fidel Castro, following Monday’s announcement that his brother Raúl will take charge of the neighboring island while the former recovers from surgery. Jacinto Vallejo Urgelles and Francisco Sabatier Castro, two Cuban businessmen who left their land separately in 1969, agreed that “change is coming”, as the latter said and went one step further...

MIAMI (AP) - A Cuban exile who helped lead a group that tried for decades to overthrow Cuban President Fidel Castro has died. He was 88. Andres Nazario Sargen, who helped lead the paramilitary group Alpha 66, died late Wednesday of colon cancer, said his daughter, Olguita Nazario. He was diagnosed with the disease 18 months ago but continued working at the group's headquarters until about three weeks ago. "He told everyone, 'I'm fine. I'm fine.' He was so convinced. He never thought he would die," his daughter said. "He convened a meeting for this Saturday at the office." During...

Residents of Miami, Florida are remembering Ronald Reagan as an anti-communism champion who helped to end leftist regimes in Nicaragua and Grenada, and bring Cuban-exiles into the mainstream of U.S. politics. Little has changed at La Esquina de Tejas, the small restaurant in the heart of Miami's Little Havana, where Ronald Reagan captured the hearts of Cuban exiles when he dined here in 1983. Wearing a traditional Cuban linen guayabera shirt, Mr. Reagan greeted restaurant patrons 20 years ago by shouting, "Cuba si, Castro no!" as he ate a heaping plate of roast chicken, black beans and rice, sweet plantains,...

VARADERO, Cuba -- Sitting in the shade of a coconut palm, Jackie Haddad points to the aqua waves rolling ashore to explain why she and her husband returned to Cuba for the fourth year in a row. "It's so beautiful -- we're stressed, and we want to relax," said the Canadian lingerie manufacturer. "And you get more for your money here." Rumbling overhead, a vintage 1930s prop plane worthy of an Indiana Jones movie is the lone reminder that the Haddads are lounging in a land frozen in time and forbidden to most Americans. For years, travelers like the Haddads...

The Rev. Pedro Cartaya remembers July 26, 1953, as the day that changed his life. He was 16, a student at Colegio de Belen in Havana — the alma mater of Fidel Castro. It was a Sunday and he had just gotten home from the movies when he heard that Castro and a band of followers had attacked the second largest military stronghold of dictator Fulgencio Batista. The raid was daring and bold — and unsuccessful. Castro didn't even go inside the barracks, running away instead after realizing his plan failed miserably. Most of his loyalists, though, were captured, then...

(English-language translation) Some 3,456 persons of Cuban origin living in Puerto Rico voted in favor of [drafting] a Constitution of a Free Nation of Cuba in exile, out of 3,508 who attended the Refe-Cuba held yesterday in Pedrín Zorrilla Coliseum. A similar number of voters supported the establishment of a commission that will work towards the constitution of such a nation. Organizers look forward to repeating the event in United States cities such as Miami, New York, and Chicago and [the State of ] New Jersey, as well as other countries where there is a large presence of Cuban exiles...

Blacks of a Lesser GodBy Myles KantorFrontPageMagazine.com | April 18, 2003 “It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money,” the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass said in the winter of 1860.The occasion was a speech in Boston’s Music Hall.  A mob had broken up an anti-slavery meeting there a week before, and Douglass rose in defense of free speech:"No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the...

April 17 marks the 42nd anniversary of the Bay of Pigs, where approximately 1,500 Cuban exiles attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro’s totalitarian regime. To discuss this event is Victor Triay, a history professor at Middlesex Community College in Connecticut and author of “Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506.” When, by whom, and why was the operation that became the Bay of Pigs conceived? The source of the invasion had numerous starting points. There were a large number of Cubans conspiring against Castro from very early on, with new groups joining the cause daily. These groups ranged from...

MIAMI -- Deep in south Miami-Dade County, a group of people dress up in camouflage, pack high-powered weapons and train for a possible armed invasion of Cuba. They are members of Comandos F-4, a Cuban exile organization that thinks armed action is the only way to bring change to Cuba. It is one of the last paramilitary groups still training in the United States since the heyday of such organizations in the 1960s and 1970s, when bombings and armed incursions into Cuba were common occurrences. Since then, a number of the former militants have died and others have laid down...

Contacts: Jesús Permuy, Unidad Cubana Tel.: 305-3796088 Fax: 305-3796698 / Dr. Luis A. Figueroa, Unidad Cubana Tel.: 305-4420303 Miami FL Judge Garzón urged to probe Spanish investors in Cuba Unidad Cubana, a federation of Cuban organizations in exile, denounces the system of "slave workers" and "serfdom" which the regime rents to foreigners.

ELIZABETH, N.J., April 17, 2001 — As they steamed toward the coast of Cuba in April, 1961, they were young, confident and idealistic, driven by dreams of ousting Fidel Castro and emboldened by the backing of the U.S. government. Forty years later, Castro still holds sway in Havana, and the surviving members of Brigade 2506 still live in exile, their anger and sense of betrayal as palpable as ever. “WE FELT CONFIDENT because we had the word of the United States,” recalled Eliecer Grave de Peralta, who stormed Giron Beach near the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, along...