The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.16           April 21, 1997 
 
 
Miami Rightists Attack Anti-Embargo Activist  

BY ERNIE MAILHOT AND MARGO McCALL
MIAMI - On April 2, rightists who work in the Miami media organized a serious attack on Cuban-American activists opposed to Washington's policies against Cuba. At a news conference called by the Association of Workers of the Cuban Community (ATC) and the Antonio Maceo Brigade, Angel Zayón, a reporter for Spanish-language television Channel 51, had Walfrido Moreno, president of the ATC, arrested for battery.

The news conference presented information on a recent visit to Cuba by Cubans who had left the island on rafts and on another such trip being planned.

Andrés Gómez, who spoke at the event along with Moreno, stated, "There are a considerable number of Cubans who have emigrated who, although they maintain profound contradictions with the Cuban revolutionary process, when confronted with the cruelty and evil of the U.S. politics of aggression against Cuba, make a common cause in opposition to the blockade."

Right-wingers in the Cuban-American community here have been particularly incensed by the recent trip of these rafters to Cuba and also by the March 22 Miami meeting where more than 200 people heard Félix Wilson, the Second Secretary at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C. This was the first meeting since the 1959 revolution where a high level Cuban official spoke before a broad audience in Miami.

At the press conference Zayón and María Montoya, a Channel 23 reporter, repeatedly disrupted the event, accusing the ATC of being financed by the Cuban government and insinuating that the rafters' trip was illegal. They also continually asked whether, as a condition of their visit, the rafters were forced to join the ATC and participate in activities against the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Toward the end of the news conference Gómez said to Zayón, "You manipulate information, distort the facts, ask insidious questions, and sensationalize." Zayón then walked to the front table to pick up his microphone and called Gómez a "traitor, a coward, and not much of a man." The event broke up with Zayón accusing Moreno, who is 80 years old, of jumping up and hitting him and demanding that two plainclothes cops in the room arrest Moreno.

Uniformed cops in squad cars arrived and detained Moreno in his office. Meanwhile, the right-wingers in the press spread rumors of the alleged assault to neighboring business people, who gathered outside the ATC headquarters.

Later, three detectives handcuffed Moreno and paraded him through the hostile crowd to a waiting squad car. Moreno was charged with battery and jailed. He was released that evening on $1,500 bond.

Orlando Collado, from the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba, was among those who attended the press conference. He said the coalition will help defend Moreno and expose the role of the press in this latest attack on the rights of Miamians who oppose Washington's economic blockade of Cuba.  
 
 
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