COMMENTARY

Cuban sentiments remain strong

by Gregory Tejeda
United Press International

Wednesday, July 7, 2004

While many Cuban exiles are upset with new rules making it more difficult for them to visit relatives who remain in Cuba, it should not be mistaken in any way as support for the communist government that has run the Caribbean island nation since 1959.

Some Cubans are more than capable of holding a 45-year-and-still-counting grudge against Fidel Castro.

One of those people is 95-year-old Elvira de la Vega Glen, who plans to sue Club Med for what she believes is the resort chain's cooperation with Castro to steal land from her.

Literally, no such thing happened.

But de la Vega is one of the Cuban exiles who fled her homeland in the early 1960s when the Castro government aligned itself with the Soviet Union and began confiscating private property from its wealthier citizens as part of an effort to achieve equal distribution amongst the general population.

De la Vega lost beachfront property that later was developed into a 337-room luxury resort that from 1997-2003 was operated by Club Med as the Varadero. Madrid-based Grupo Pinero bought the resort last year.

Her lawsuit, expected to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Miami, contends that U.S. laws against doing business with the Castro government should apply because Club Med also operates the Sandpiper resort in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

"My family could not believe that a respected company like Club Med would get so deeply involved with the Castro regime just to make money off of our land," she said. "I was especially mad because Club Med spends so much energy trying to get my friends and neighbors to come to their resorts, both in Florida and the Caribbean.

"They just cannot have it both ways," said de la Vega. They "either do business with Castro or with the United States, but not both."

While the State Department is investigating Club Med to determine if its involvement in the Varadero violates U.S. law, no one seriously expects de la Vega to get her land back.

Even getting financial compensation is a long shot, because Paris-based Club Med is likely to argue that the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act only applies to U.S.-based companies.

But the point of actions such as de la Vega's lawsuit is more to embarrass Club Med by making public their ties to, and cooperation with, the Castro government -- which never would have approved such a "decadent" luxury resort unless it were getting a significant cut of the profits.

It also helps that the attorneys involved in pursuing the case through the legal system include people who are devoted to the anti-Castro cause.

One law firm involved in the suit is Miami-based Podhurst Orseck, which represented the families of Cuban exile pilots who were killed Feb. 22, 1996, when their airplanes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force after straying into airspace over Havana as part of reputed rescue missions of people trying to flee Castro for a new life in the United States.

The lawsuit -- just the latest action in the Cuban-exile grudge against Castro -- is meant to erase the dollar signs that many U.S. companies want to see when they think about Cuba and its potential as a prime market for U.S.-grown foods and U.S.-made goods.

It is part of a strategy to starve out the Castro government by depriving it of foreign finances. That also is the same motivation behind new federal policies that took effect last week -- only to cause an outcry from the Cuban exile community in Florida.

Under the new rules, people who can document they have parents, children or spouses in Cuba will be allowed to legally travel to the island to visit them only once every three years.

Other people will be forbidden to travel to Cuba under any circumstances.

Even Cuban-Americans will not be allowed to visit Cuba to have contact with other types of relatives, including aunts, uncles and cousins.

Previously, U.S. residents wishing to visit Cuba (mainly students on short cultural-exchange trips) were forced to venture into Mexico or Canada before they could catch a direct flight to Havana and had to comply with limits on how much U.S. currency they could spend in Cuba.

Now, even that activity is illegal.

Only the hardest of anti-Castro hardliners back this policy. A newly created group calling itself the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights says the new policy is cruel and anti-family.

They want President Bush to repeal the new restrictions, and The New York Times reported an increase in activity last month at Miami's airport among people rushing to make one last trip to Cuba before the new rules take effect.

"We find it particularly ironic that in the name of freedom for Cuba, the freedom of Cuban Americans to travel and to maintain normal family relations are being trampled," said Silvia Wilhelm, the commission's executive director.

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