The
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has now provided legal recognition of the
fact that the city of Miami is so inflamed with passion against Cuba that it is
unfit as a site for the trial of any case involving Cuba where the defendant is
not in favor of overthrowing the Cuban government. In their decision of
August 9, the three-judge panel of the Court ruled that empaneling an impartial
jury in Miami was “an unreasonable probability because of pervasive community
prejudice." In a 93-page analysis, the judges argued that the Cuban
Five--Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, and René González--could not possibly “obtain a
fair and impartial trial" in that part of Florida, and therefore the Court reversed their convictions and ordered retrial in a
new venue.
The Court quoted a study by Dr. Kendra Brennan, a legal psychologist,
that "characterized the results of a poll of Miami Cuban-Americans as
reflecting `an attitude of a state of war...against Cuba.'"
Citing a study by Florida International University Professor of Sociology and
director of the Cuban Research Institute Dr. Lisandro Pérez, the Court stated
that "the Cubans created a `true ethnic enclave' which exercised strong
economic and political influence...as evidenced by the establishment of major
institutions such as the Cuban American National Foundation...and the election
of numerous Cuban-American public officials" to city, state, and national
office.
The Cuban Five acknowledge that they were in Miami to
monitor Cuban-Americans who carry out terrorist attacks against Cuba. The
Court named some of the "Cuban exile groups of concern to the Cuban
government": Alpha 66, Brigade 2506, Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR),
Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID), Comandos F4, Comandos L, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF),
the Cuban American Military Council, the Ex-Club, Partido
de Unidad Nacional Democrática
(PUND) or the National Democratic Unity Party (NDUP), and United Command for
Liberation (CLU). The Court actually listed terrorist acts by these
groups, including bombing tourist hotels and plotting to assassinate Fidel
Castro.
The Court recorded that, after each attack, Cuba advised the U.S. government of
its investigations and asked Washington "to take action against the groups
operating from inside the United States." However, instead of
arresting terrorists, the FBI in 1998 arrested the Cuban Five who had gathered
information about terrorist plots against Cuba. To this day terrorists
continue to be hailed as heroes in a city permeated by that "pervasive
community prejudice." Is Miami's mayor likely to try to change
the situation? Mayor Manny Díaz is a Cuban-American
lawyer who represented the Miami relatives of Elián
González when they kidnapped the young child from the hospital after his rescue
from the sea and tried to keep him with them in Miami instead of allowing his
Cuban father to take him home to Cuba. The Florida State judiciary system
is riddled with Cuban-Americans, including State Supreme Court Judge Raúl Cantero, former lawyer for
Cuban-American terrorist Orlando Bosch, who now walks free in Miami despite
being labeled a terrorist by the Justice Department back in 1989.
But the pervasive prejudice does not stop at the borders of
Miami or even of Florida. Ronald Reagan knew what he was doing when he
created the Cuban American National Foundation in 1981 as the spearhead of U.S. policy toward Cuba. CANF's late Chairman
Jorge Mas Canosa lobbied Congress in favor of
anti-Cuba laws while unlawfully financing terrorists like Cuban-American Luis
Posada, now seeking not to be deported to Venezuela for trial on charges
of masterminding, with Orlando Bosch, the midair bombing of a civilian
Cuban airliner in 1976, killing all 73 people aboard. Many of
Washington's politicians receive money from the same CANF that financed the
terrorism that Posada bragged about in interviews featured in front-page articles
of The New York Times (July 12 and July 13,
1998). As chairman of CANF, the wealthiest and most influential of the
Cuban right-wing groups in this country, Mas Canosa,
friend of presidents from Reagan to Bill Clinton, engineered the placement of
Cuban-Americans in positions of power that affect our whole country.
Their power continues to expand. For examples: Eduardo Aguirre, who
was director of Homeland Security's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Services, is the new U.S. ambassador to Spain. To succeed him, President
George W. Bush has nominated Emilio González, who was once director of Western
Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council; Mas Canosa's
son and current CANF Chairman Jorge Mas Santos greeted the nomination with praise
of González's "experience as a young refugee from Cuba who came to realize
the American dream." Adolfo Franco is administrator for Latin
America and the Caribbean in the U.S. Agency for International Development
(AID). Carlos Gutiérrez is the Secretary of Commerce, opposed of course
to any commerce with Cuba. There are now four Cuban-American Republicans
from Florida in Congress, the legislative body of our nation: Senator Mel
Martínez and Representatives Ileana Roz-Lehtinen and the two Díaz-Balart
brothers, Lincoln and Mario.
On NBC television, Representative Roz-Lehtinen
once proclaimed that Washington sent troops into Haiti, Panama, and the Persian
Gulf when there was no threat so why does there need to be a threat from Cuba before
Washington does the same to "get tough with Castro"?
Ros-Lehtinen is now campaigning to become chair of the House International
Relations Committee.
Representative Lincoln Díaz-Balart looks back with
nostalgia to the Batista dictatorship when his father was a Senator and his
grandfather was President of the Cuban Senate. Last year he
publicly stated that Washington should consider assassinating Fidel
Castro. On January 25 this man will become vice chair of the powerful
House Rules Committee, which decides whether a bill will go to the floor of the
House, how long it can be debated, and if amendments can be offered. He
will be in position to kill any legislation that would loosen the bans on
travel and trade with Cuba. But his reach will go much further. He
will make decisions that affect all our daily lives from Social Security to the
environment. The "pervasive community prejudice" of Miami is
going national.
***
Historian Jane
Franklin is
the author of Cuba and the U.S. Empire:
A Chronological History.
E-mail Jane Franklin: janefranklin@hotmail.com