BY JANET POST
MIAMI - "We see the recent immigration accord negotiated between the United States and Cuba as positive," stated Andres Gómez at a well-attended press conference here May 9. Gómez is the coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade (BAM), an organization of Cuban-Americans who support the Cuban revolution.

Gómez pointed out approvingly that the agreement "permits the entrance to the U.S. of thousands of Cubans who since last August have been jailed under conditions of extraordinary cruelty in the concentration camps at the military base the U.S. maintains at Guantánamo Bay."

When asked whether he supported the part of the accord that would disallow Cubans automatic entry to the United States, he reminded reporters that since a 1984 agreement allotting 20,000 entry visas annually for Cubans, only a tiny percentage of those have been granted. "This has encouraged the rafters and unsafe travel," he said. "This accord will end the horrible spectacle of Cubans crossing the Florida Straits in make-shift rafts. But this doesn't mean that we're glad that Cubans are not allowed to come to the U.S."

BAM, the Alliance of Workers of the Cuban Community (ATC), the Cuban-American Professionals and Entrepreneurs Association, the Afro-Cuban Culture Rescue organization, and the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba organized the press conference.

Gómez condemned right-wing organizations that encourage rafters. "Why have we never heard any of these counter- revolutionary organizations propose the establishment of an airlift between the two countries," he said. "They are not really concerned about the welfare of Cubans not being allowed to enter the U.S., but they are concerned that the migration agreement is a first step to the normalization of relations."

Gómez demanded that three Cuban-Americans - Reinaldo Aquit, Angel Suárez, and Jorge Valde's, members of the right- wing paramilitary November 30 Movement - caught and arrested while attempting to blow up the headquarters of the ATC Nov. 2, 1994, be charged and tried for terrorism.

As a U.S. Coast Guard cutter carrying 13 Cuban rafters, picked up after the immigration accord was signed, prepared to sail into the port of Cabañas, Cuba, small groups of right- wing Cuban-Americans protested here daily. A May 7 demonstration closed off the road to the Port of Miami for a short time.

Several hundred demonstrators marched in downtown Miami May 8 and 9.

During the lunch hour May 8, demonstrators waving Cuban flags from about 20 cars blocked off toll booths on the Dolphin Expressway, one of the most congested in the city, causing a traffic jam that backed up cars to the Miami Airport.

Five Cuban-Americans, including two professors from Miami Dade Community College, are on a hunger strike outside the offices of the Miami Herald where others joined them to confront publisher David Lawrence following the Herald's editorial supporting the accord as the "least worst" of all alternatives.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home