Replies

Passenger ferry hijacked in Cuba, US sends negotiators*** MIAMI (AFP) - US negotiators headed toward a Cuban ferry drifting in international waters after a group of people seized the boat in Havana forcing the crew to head toward Florida, officials said. The incident came barely a day after a Cuban airliner was hijacked to Florida. "We will send negotiators, they are on their way," said FBI spokeswoman Judy Orijuela said in Miami, adding that the boat was drifting in international waters in the Florida Straits between Cuba and the United States.

The father of one of the crew members said the boat was seized around 1:00 am (0500 GMT) as it was ferrying passengers between various neighborhoods along the Havana bay. "Fifteen or 16 people boarded the boat and forced the crew to head to the open seas," Gilberto Vargas, he told AFP. "Most likely they asked to go to Miami," 350 kilometers (220 miles) away, he said, speaking at the docks, before he was escorted to a police car. ***

Castro Seeks Life Sentences for Dissidents - Trial Today - Where's Jimmy Carter? *** The Cuban government has provided no information about the trials and it was unknown if international journalists would be granted access. Authorities here have accused those arrested of being traitors and mercenaries for the U.S. government. Cuban Parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon said Monday that authorities had sufficient evidence to try the dissidents, adding that most nations had laws "to defend their sovereignty." The crackdown began when Cuban officials criticized the head of the American mission in Havana, James Cason, for his active support of the island's opposition.

Accusations that the detainees engaged in treason and are mercenaries "only show the repressive nature of the Castro regime and its fear of any sign of opposition to its ironclad rule," Roberto Zimmerman, spokesman for the U.S. State Department's Latin America bureau, said in Washington on Wednesday. The Cubans "are being tried for exercising their rights of freedom of expression and association," said Zimmerman.

The roundup followed several years of relative government tolerance for dissidents. During that time, the opposition grew stronger, more organized and more daring. Those arrested included independent journalists, directors of non-governmental libraries, members of opposition political parties and volunteers for the Varela Project, a pro-democracy petition drive.***