original title: Suit by spy’s ex-wife could stop flights to Cuba

All direct U.S. flights to Cuba may be halted if the ex-wife of a Cuban spy wins a lawsuit to garnish money that South Florida charter companies pay in fees to Cuba, lawyers in the case said Monday.

Ira Kurzban, attorney for the charterers, said he filed a motion Monday to dissolve the writs of garnish by Ana Margarita Martinez, and asked U.S. Judge Frederico Moreno for an emergency hearing.

The eight charter companies, all based in South Florida, have stopped making payments to Cuba, he added. “My clients are now in breach of contract, and Cuba can stop them landing any time.”

Martinez’s suit could deal a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to increase people-to-people contacts with Cuba, and force Cuban-Americans to go through third countries to visit the island.

An estimated 200 charter flights to Cuba leave monthly from Miami, New York, and Los Angeles carrying 20,000 passengers, industry experts said. The companies must pay Cuban agencies for landing rights, fuel, ground support, and other services.

Charter-company and Cuban officials met in Havana last week to study the legal situation, and Havana decided to withhold a reaction until it determines how the legal case is moving, said a travel-industry member who declined to comment further because of the sensitivity of the case.

Not a Long Shot

Martinez, the ex-wife of Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, filed the writs on Feb. 19 to seize those funds. Her attorney, Thomas Withrow of Indianapolis, said the move was ``not a sure shot at all, but also not a long shot.’‘

Her writs were the latest twist in the ongoing efforts to collect on the multi-million-dollar judgements that several people have won against Cuba in U.S. courts. Most of the Cuban funds frozen in U.S. accounts since the 1960s already have been paid out.

Martinez said she’s not trying to halt the flights but wants to collect on the $27 million judgement she won against the Cuban government in 2001, for Roque’s marriage to her under false pretenses.

“These writs are not . . . an effort to hurt U.S. businesses or interfere with air travel to Cuba,” she said in a statement. “To the contrary, (they) seem to be the only way to collect a legal debt from the Cuban government. ... America is a country of laws. Those who do wrong here must compensate their victims.”

Roque, a member of the notorious Avispa spy network, returned to Cuba just before Cuba’s 2006 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes that killed four South Florida residents. Martinez later won an annulment of their marriage.

Kurzban said he moved to dismiss the writs because they seek to garnish funds that are due to Havanatour and other companies in Cuba, while Martinez won her judgment only against the Cuban government.

All the suits against Cuba were made possible by U.S. laws approved in 1996 and 2002, which cleared the way for private citizens to sue foreign governments for terrorist acts and helped victims collect judgments against terrorist-designated states such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. Cuba has never defended itself in the U.S. courts.

Terrorist Act

Martinez’s request for the writs alleges she was “a victim of a terrorist act. A Cuban spy married her and used her as cover for his espionage activities.”

Her court filings say she has collected $194,000 through release of frozen Cuban assets, but “nothing more is available through this program.” In 2002, she successfully seized a Cuban crop-duster, valued at about $45,000, flown to Key West by a group of refugees.

Kurzban said eventually the case could affect dozens of other flights, since many U.S. airlines are licensed by the U.S. government to pay Cuba fees for overflying its airspace.

The eight charter companies garnished are Marazul, ABC, C&T, Xael, Wilson International Service, Cuba Travel Services, Airline Brokers, and Gulfstream Air Charter.

(original title: Florida 25: More Than Just an Open Seat)

With the November forecast ominous for Democrats, some factions within the party are watching to see how aggressive the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will be to put Florida’s 25th District seat in play.

Noting the opportunity to poke a big hole in the GOP alliance with Cuban-American voters, many party insiders are openly advocating that the DCCC should invest the effort.

But that’s easier said than done when the party will be devoting almost all of its available resources to protecting Democratic seats.

The South Florida seat opened up when GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart decided to switch districts and run to succeed his brother, retiring Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart .

An early clue as to whether Democrats plan to take an aggressive approach in the heavily Cuban district may soon come in the form of a recruiting announcement.

If Democratic leaders can persuade former Miami-Dade County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Garcia — who came 6 points shy of defeating Mario Diaz-Balart in 2008 — to leave his job with the Energy Department and take another shot at the 25th district, it will be a sign that House Democrats are very serious about picking up the seat.

Garcia had a meeting with DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) on Monday evening and has also been encouraged by administration officials to take another look at the race.

In an interview last week, Garcia would say only that he’s “very pleased” with his job in the Obama administration.

“That’s what I’m busy doing right now. All the other speculation is speculation,” he said. “I have served my country in many different capacities, and if I am asked to do so by the president I will of course consider” the congressional race.

The DCCC has also reached out to Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who has served Miami-Dade County as state attorney since 1993.

Simon Rosenberg, the president and founder of NDN and a Democrat with past experience working in South Florida, said Garcia would be the best candidate — and that his candidacy would be particularly important, because the race means more to some Democrats than simply picking up a House seat.

“This is not a typical congressional fight right now,” Rosenberg said. “This has implication for control of the most important swing state in American politics. ... The Cuban-American political machine in South Florida was instrumental in giving George Bush the presidency in 2000. To break apart the Republican Cuban machine in South Florida is a national priority for the Democratic Party.”

Garcia, the former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, has the credentials and the contacts to run the kind of campaign that could begin to dismantle the GOP’s longstanding alliance with South Florida’s large Cuban-American community.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE STARTING ON PAGE 2

My husband Dan’s family fled Cuba in September 1960, almost two years after Fidel Castro took power, leaving behind a beautiful, modern home and most of their possessions. His parents, Daniel and Delia Bethencourt, an engineer and architect, had designed and built the house in Havana.

I always found it odd and surprising that no one in the family seemed to know what had happened to their house. The revolution abolished private property, but who was living there? I wanted to visit Cuba, mostly out of curiosity, but learned the hard way that the subject was strictly off-limits. My father-in-law never saw his mother again after he left the country. His anger was relentless. It became clear that we couldn’t visit Cuba without deeply offending him. We couldn’t even talk about it.

But then a mixture of loss and politics opened the door. Dan’s father passed away, and his mother now suffers from Alzheimer’s. Last year, President Obama loosened restrictions on travel to Cuba, making it possible for Cuban-Americans to visit extended family. I discovered that my husband, age 56, still has an aunt and two cousins in Havana, though we knew nothing about them.

I began to e-mail his cousin Noyi, and last summer we applied for visas to visit Cuba, along with our two teenagers.

First Impressions

We arrived at the tiny Jose Martí International Airport in Havana, the scene of dozens of highly emotional reunions. Many Cuban-Americans haven’t seen their close relatives for decades, and there were tears, screams and bear hugs. Dan’s relatives had warned us that they wouldn’t be able to meet us at the airport since they didn’t own a car. Amid all the emotional reunions, that seemed just as well, since we didn’t know them.

Late in the afternoon, we reached the rundown but charming pink home of Dan’s aunt in the Vedado section of Havana. Our newly found relatives quickly embraced us, and we sat down in the spartan living room. Much to my relief, they were all extremely likeable. My husband’s Aunt Noydee, now 82, turned out to have been a professor of biology. Her daughter Noyi studied engineering but now cleans the home of a priest. Her other daughter, Felymary, is an engineer who has taken up painting. Only Felymary’s two children spoke English.

Two days later we set out by taxi to visit Dan’s childhood home, led by Noyi. As we drove, Noyi explained that because Cubans don’t own their homes, few maintain the exteriors, most of which seem to be crumbling. I had read in a travel guide that many Cubans worry that those who fled the country will one day return—and want their houses back. I wondered how the occupants of Dan’s family home would react to our arrival.

Noyi turned out to have only a vague idea of the address. So we walked and walked, searching for the electric tower she and Dan vaguely remembered. Noyi told me that when my husband’s parents fled the country, they hadn’t told the rest of the family they were going. She used to ride her bike around their house, to see if they had returned.

“That’s it!” Dan said suddenly. At one time, the split-level home must have been an impressive example of modern architecture, but it now seemed completely abandoned. The carport under the house had been closed off with a chain-link fence covered in rags. Noyi volunteered to go knock on the door while the rest of us watched from the street.

Flood of Memories

An elderly woman in a diagonally striped house dress opened the door, just a crack, and a long conversation followed. The woman peered out at us from time to time. Finally Noyi gestured for us to walk up the steps. The woman said she had lived there for almost 50 years and Dan didn’t look familiar. She shook her head vigorously and said a child named Tati had lived there.

“That was my sister’s nickname!” Dan said excitedly in Spanish. “I’m Danielito.”

The door opened a bit wider. “Ahhhh, you were the maldito!” she exclaimed in Spanish, using the term for a little devil. The woman introduced herself as Maria Ordaz and explained that she and her husband had been very close friends of Dan’s parents. Dan’s father had entrusted them with the house, saying the family would return soon. The two men were as close as brothers. Ms. Ordaz’s husband passed away several years ago.

As we entered the house, she explained that nothing had changed since Dan’s family left in 1960. “These were your parents’ chairs. This was your parents’ table, everything is still here,” she said. But the furniture, mostly midcentury modern in style, was now in tatters. The curtains were drawn, making the house very dark.

But to Dan, who had left Cuba at age 7, the house seemed to offer an endless series of illuminations. “Those were the three steps,” he said. “I remember those three steps!” My husband’s Spanish, his first language, was becoming more rapid.

We stayed for an hour, wandering from room to room. Our children, Daniel and Isabel, 18 and 16, were amazed to find a laptop and a poster for Slipknot, an American heavy-metal band, in a bedroom. “It’s the only reminder that we’re in the present,” my son said.

When we were ready to go, Ms. Ordaz seemed shaken. “I always knew you would come back,” she told Dan in Spanish, looking at him very directly. “This is your house. If you want this house, it’s yours.” This was both extremely touching and shocking. How many people would offer you a house they had lived in for almost 50 years? My husband assured her we were just visiting, and we thanked her profusely and left.

A Surreal Feeling

That night, Ms. Ordaz called our hotel to say she had found an old photograph. We returned the next day and she handed us a curled black-and-white picture she had found in the dining room. It shows the first birthday party of Dan’s brother Carlos in 1958. Ms. Ordaz and her husband are among the gathering of family and friends, and they’re all standing against the once-shimmering diamond-patterned wallpaper in the dining room. Dan’s brother, Carlos, is at the center, blowing out the candle on his cake.

Throughout the trip, Dan had become more and more animated, but he never appeared shaken. He said it wasn’t until we returned home and he found more photos of the way the home had looked in his childhood that he really felt his family’s loss.

We placed the two sets of pictures, then and now, side by side. The old photos show a modern split-level house with chestnut trim and two gleaming cars in the carport. The house appears so pristine it could be a real-estate ad from the 1950s. Now, the wood has turned black. The grass has grown over the stone wall in front, hiding it completely.

The impact on my husband seemed more surreal than sentimental.

“I realized the physical being, the life of my parents, is still there. Even their bed is still there,” he said. “It’s as though my childhood history is a museum. That doesn’t happen to people here.”

END

Be sure to see more photos of this Cuban American’s journey back in time to see his childhood home in Vedado Havana Cuba.

Also, you can leave a comment about this article.

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U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a passionate defender and architect of legislation to strengthen the U.S. embargo against Cuba, announced Thursday he won’t seek reelection to Congress.

The Miami Republican made the announcement at a news conference at Florida International University.

Diaz-Balart indicated last summer that he was interested in leaving the House, where he has served since 1992, saying he was ``seriously considering’‘ a request from Gov. Charlie Crist that he consider being appointed—temporarily—to the Senate.

Word is his brother, Mario Diaz-Balart, will run for Lincoln’s seat—a safer Republican district. That would open up Mario’s seat. There’s no clear front runner for that seat, but state Reps. David Rivera and Anitere Flores are running for a state Senate seat that is almost fully contained in the congressional district.

The U.S. government’s Cuba democracy programs are all but paralyzed, facing political, safety and bureaucratic hurdles that critics and backers agree could end up halting their more aggressive features.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which doles out much of the money, has not requested new funding proposals since March, and groups that run the programs complain they have little money left.

Powerful Democrats in Congress are vowing to block the more ``provocative’‘ programs, and the Obama administration is hinting it may halt a key part of the programs that Cuba brands as ``subversive.’‘

``If this continues in the same way, the whole pro-democracy program is going to be dead,’‘ said Frank Calzon, whose Center for a Free Cuba in suburban Washington stopped receiving U.S. funds last year.

Launched during the Clinton administration, the Cuba Democracy Assistance program was expanded under President George W. Bush and Congress in 2008 approved $40 million for the two-year period that ends Sept. 30.

The money goes to non-government organizations and private firms that in turn support dissidents, independent journalists and other peaceful civil society groups and deliver items like books, shortwave radios, computers satellite TV receivers and cellphones.

Some of program’s current problems are bureaucratic, several knowledgeable persons told El Nuevo Herald. Most requested anonymity and declined to comment on the U.S. funds their organizations receive, because of the political sensitivity of the issue.

USAID has been leaderless for the past year, they all agreed. Rajiv Shah, President Barack Obama’s pick to head the agency, was sworn in just this month. Elaine Grigsby, its veteran head of Cuba programs, moved to another post last year. And her replacement was quickly reassigned to Pakistan.

HIGH LEVEL SUPPORT

``Given its sensitive and political nature, the Cuba program needs . . . most importantly, high level support to push the bureaucracy,’‘ said a former Bush administration official. But the bureaucrats’ ``default is to do as little as possible until they know what the White House and the political leadership want.’‘

USAID’s notice requesting new proposals for Cuba programs, initially expected in March, still has not been issued, said the head of a nonprofit that receives U.S. funds.

``We’re going to have to basically pack up and close,’‘ said Frank Hernandez Trujillo of the Miami-based Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia when the last of his USAID money runs out March 31. The group received $6 million since 2005, he said.

And at the State Department, which also handles some of the Cuba funds, Obama appointee Arturo Valenzuela was not sworn in as deputy secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs until November.

The paralysis in the pro-democracy programs, said supporters, comes at a time when Cubans are expressing increasing frustration with the economy and political controls.

``This is the worst possible time for the funds to be frozen, because the civil society movement in Cuba is giving clear signals it is awake,’‘ said Orlando Gutierrez of the Cuban Democratic Directorate in Miami.

Cuban authorities threw the programs into further turmoil Dec. 4, when they arrested USAID subcontractor Alan Gross in Havana. Gross, who remains jail, had been reportedly helping Jewish groups on the island gain ``unfiltered’‘ access to the Internet.

RISKY ASPECTS

Gross’ arrest highlighted the more aggressive and risky aspects of the U.S. programs—the Cuban government makes it a crime to receive U.S. assistance and tightly controls communications equipment—and sparked speculation that Havana will keep him in prison until Washington puts a stop to at least some of the programs.

The arrest already led USAID and the State Department to clamp down on such travel by U.S. contractors and subcontractors, one of the key ways in which goods have been slipped into the island in recent years.

On Dec. 28, the State Department’s Cuba desk sent out an e-mail ``to re-emphasize our recommendation to temporarily defer travel to the island until further notice,’‘ according to a copy obtained by El Nuevo Herald. The e-mail, said recipients, amounted to a stop-travel order.

Florida Republican Sen. George LeMieux said he met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rajiv Shah last month and won their promise to move quickly on the stalled Cuba funds.

Jorge Moreno, a Miami resident and third generation Cuban exile, is in front of the camera with the video starting in Little Havana talking about his heritage and planned trip to Cuba. The camera follows him from the Miami airport to the Jose Marti airport in Havana where his journey through daily life in Havana gives the viewer an excellent look into life in Cuba.

The video has generated over 140 comments which are worth reading if you found this video to be interesting. I wanted to post this video so Havana Journal readers can get a good perspective about Cuban Americans and life in Cuba.

Fifty-one years after a hijacked airliner plunged into the dark waters of a Cuban bay, killing 14 people onboard, the man who has been portrayed as the lead suspect now living in Miami will not be prosecuted under federal law, unless new evidence emerges.

Citing the passage of time and fading evidence, the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami said Thursday it will not be able to make a case against Edmundo Ponce de León in what was the first international hijacking from the United States.

``The allegations in this matter are more than 50 years old. Unfortunately, after a thorough review of the facts and the law as it existed at the time, this matter will remain dormant unless new evidence surfaces,’‘ said Alicia Valle, special counsel to the U.S. attorney.

The prosecutor’s decision closes the chapter of the deadliest hijacking of the 1950s, when five men in green fatigues took over a Cubana Airlines turboprop shortly after it took off from Miami.

Although the case is closed, feelings remain raw.

``This is another way to help Fidel Castro who was the ultimate mastermind of this tragedy,’‘ said Omara González, who survived the crash.

Another survivor was Cuban engineer Osiris Martínez, who lost his wife and three children in the crash.

Martínez, 82, said Thursday that he is again suffering from the depression he experienced at the time of his loss. He didn’t want to talk about the legal case.

``I overcame the resentment. I wouldn’t forgive [Ponce de León] and I won’t forget him. They planned it, but it all came direct from Fidel. Nobody did anything without his approval, least of all that,’‘ said Martínez, who lives in Miami.

The plane, which left Miami on the afternoon of Nov. 1, 1958, with weapons secretly stored in the cargo compartment for Castro’s rebels, fell into the Bay of Nipe, in northeastern Cuba, after the pilot attempted an emergency landing on a short runway of the Preston sugar mill.

El Nuevo Herald established last year that Ponce de León lived in Miami. And the newspaper obtained State Department documents that identified him as one of the plane’s hijackers.

González, the survivor, and relatives of Ponce de León, including his sister, said that the Cuban American, a former U.S. Air Force cargo handler, was one of the five hijackers.

``He was proud of it,’‘ said Solange Ponce de León, a cousin, who met with Edmundo a few weeks after the event. ``He told us he had hijacked the plane. I promised myself that someday after my father died, I would tell what I know.’‘

Christopher Bruno, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, faulted the Miami prosecutors for not interviewing the victims as well as other witnesses.

``Because [Solange’s] statement was an admission of [Ponce de Léon’s] criminal conduct . . . it was incumbent upon the government to question that person to find out what else she knew,’‘ Bruno said. ``Where is a will, there is a way.’‘

Ponce de León, 73, denied the allegations last year and told reporters from El Nuevo Herald and The Miami Herald that he was just another passenger in the plane and was traveling to Varadero Beach for a weekend of relaxation.

Ponce de León managed to swim ashore with another suspect. A third man, identified in State Department documents as a hijacker, also survived.

Ponce de León could not be reached Thursday. His telephone has been disconnected.

Ponce de León arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1994. On the island, he had held various official posts since the revolution.

At the request of the State Department, the FBI initiated an investigation immediately after the hijacking, but State Department archives show that federal prosecutors in Miami suspended the investigation three months later, after declaring that Ponce de León and the others were in Cuba, outside U.S. jurisdiction.

Lawyers and prosecutors consulted last year split on the possibility that charges might be brought against Ponce de León and the other suspects.

Others felt that the absence of a law against aerial hijacking at the time could block the effort to bring about charges.

Richard Strafer, a Miami criminal lawyer who is an expert on appeals, said that the charges should have been made in 1994.

``That should have been done 15 years ago, when [Ponce de León] arrived in this country,’‘ he said. ``If the government had the evidence, that type of evidence, then that’s the time when [the charges] should have been made.’‘

Miami Herald staff writer Michael Sallah contributed to this report.

Mr. Claver-Carone of CapitolHillCubans.com posted this article today:

Profit$ in Anti-Sanctions Advocacy?

Are anti-sanctions lobbyists, activists and interest groups profiting from their advocacy?

Last week, U.S. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana and U.S. Congressman Howard Berman of California wrote an opinion editorial in the Miami Herald calling for the unconditional lifting of tourism-travel sanctions towards Castro’s Cuba.

On the very same day, the price of the Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund (CUBA) jumped 4%. This fund holds about 100 companies—both foreign and U.S. based—that should benefit economically (in conjunction with the Castro regime) from the lifting of tourism-travel sanctions.

Coincidence?

Perhaps.

Regardless—for the sake of transparency—we call on Public Campaign to conduct an investigation into the fund’s investors and issue a report on any potential profiting by lobbyists, activists and interest groups that oppose sanctions.

END

Really Mr. Claver-Carone? You gave tens of thousands of US Cuba PAC money to US House Representatives to influence their vote and said you were proud to exercise your rights and now you make this argument?

First you have no proof or even any reason to think that any of these people even own stock in CUBA and you have no proof or any reason to think that their actions to allow Americans the freedom of travel gives them any financial gain. Unlike all the Cuban Americans in Miami who get millions of dollars per year from the US government from USAID and grants for Radio Marti and the like. Not to mention the power that the ros-lehtinen’s and diaz-balarts get from having Fidel in power.

PLEASE. CapitolHillCubans.com is the Granma of the Right Wing.

This is typical propaganda… when you are caught, blame your enemy.

Mr. Claver-Carone is a very dangerous man to American freedoms.

See MauricioClaver-Carone.com for more information.

By David Adams | TampaBay.com

We all know how Cuba excites passions in political debates from Miami to Tampa.

Thursday night, Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican, and Naples cattleman John Parke Wright IV locked horns over United States policy toward Cuba in a debate held in the wood-paneled enclave of downtown Tampa’s University Club.

Rivera, a rising Cuban American political star, voiced the unbending attitudes of Miami’s hard-line exile community — no normalization of relations until democratic elections are held and the political prisoners are freed. Wright, who travels to the island frequently selling bull semen to his counterparts in Cuba’s anemic agricultural sector, called for an immediate end to the 47-year-old embargo. It’s not working, he said, and it’s hurting Florida.

The rhetoric of the debate, organized by Tampa Bay Council of World Affairs & Commerce, wasn’t that surprising. What was surprising was the apparent unanimity of support for Wright’s side. In the middle of a deep recession, a roomful of business people, a number of them with Cuban ties, expressed little patience for a state legislator whose one-note foreign policy seems to be holding Florida’s faltering economy hostage.

“Prior to 1960, over 50 percent of the Port of Tampa’s trade was with Cuba,” Wright said. “Cuba has been cut off by our heavy hand, for almost 50 years.”

Florida’s phosphate fertilizer and livestock industries are poised to capitalize on Cuba’s need to regenerate its food production, he pointed out. He also invited Rivera to help revive the Hav-a-Tampa cigar factory in Tampa, which closed recently with a loss of 495 jobs. Why not let Tampa import Cuban tobacco, he said.

Don’t be fooled, Rivera says. Doing business with Cuba won’t help ordinary Cubans. “There’s only one business in Cuba, It’s called Castro Inc.”

Rivera has a point. Almost everyone in Cuba works for the state, and salaries don’t cover basic needs, despite free health care and education. Private enterprise is only permitted in a tiny sector of the economy — roadside car tire repairs, private taxis and a handful of small, family-run restaurants and bed and breakfast lodgings — but it is strictly licensed and subject to all kind of restrictions, as well as heavy taxes.

During the debate, moderated by Jack Harris, the morning talk show host with WFLA-AM Radio, Rivera and Wright fielded questions from a panel of journalists, including this reporter, as well as the audience, which directed all its questions at Rivera.

Why keep the embargo when most Cuban-Americans don’t support it any more, asked Alexis Muellner, editor of the Tampa Bay Business Journal. He cited a recent opinion poll that found 41 percent of Cuban Americans do not support the embargo, against only 40 percent who are in favor of keeping it.

Rivera dismissed the poll as lacking “empirical” veracity, even though it was conducted by a leading pollster and merely confirmed several other recent polls.

When it comes to Cuba, why can’t we put jobs first and communism second, as we happily seem to be able to do in China and Vietnam, a member of the audience asked.

Rivera sought to back up his arguments by noting that Cuba is on a official blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation made by the Department of State. While that remains true, most experts, including officials at the Pentagon, have long argued that Cuba’s removal from that list was way overdue.

“Cuba is not a terrorist nation,” Wright argued. “It’s a great tourist destination.”

Rivera held up the cause of Cuba’s 206 political prisoners as a reason for not relaxing U.S. policy. But his argument that the embargo is the proper punishment for human rights violations fell flat. Many of the political dissidents in Cuba do not support the embargo.

Toward the end, Rivera began to lose his composure under the barrage of pointed questions. But, he remained gracious. Wright was “misguided” but “well-intentioned,” he conceded.

But as Florida’s economic crisis deepens, these days it’s an open question as to who is more misguided on Cuba.

Contact David Adams at dadams@sptimes.com.

(original title: Judge: Cuba must pay $27.5M for jailing journalist)

MIAMI — A federal judge ordered the Cuban government and the ruling Communist Party on Wednesday to pay $27.5 million in damages to the mother of a journalist jailed since a 2003 crackdown on dissent.

U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold ruled in the case of Omar Rodriguez Saludes, who is serving a 27-year sentence in Cuban prisons that the judge described as “deplorable and degrading” in his 13-page order.

“During his imprisonment, he has been beaten, starved, given poor food, placed in solitary confinement and deprived of medical treatment,” Gold wrote, quoting from allegations in the lawsuit. “I have no doubt that the acts of the Cuban government are intended to oppress those in Cuba who seek to freely voice their opinions.”

The judge said the family deserved to be compensated for “the intentional infliction of emotional distress” it has endured because of the son’s mistreatment by Cuba.

The lawsuit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows non-U.S. citizens access to courts to challenge violations of international laws or treaties.

The ruling awards $25 million in punitive damages against the Cuban Communist Party and $2.5 million in compensatory damages against the government of President Raul Castro.

Attorney Pedro Martinez-Fraga, who represents the jailed journalist’s mother, said the case sets important legal precedents by finding the Cuban Communist Party is inseparable from the government and by issuing damages for the family of a living person.

“A very, very strong message is being sent about how Cuban damages are going to be awarded in the future in federal court, or any court,” Martinez-Fraga said.

Olivia Saludes, the mother who filed the lawsuit six years ago, did not immediately return a telephone message at her home in Monticello, Kentucky. Gold’s ruling said Cuban authorities have not permitted her Cuban-born son to call her and denied her visa applications.

No one representing Cuba ever responded to the lawsuit, leading Gold in 2008 to issue a default judgment. Officials at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington did not immediately respond to a telephone call and an e-mail seeking comment.

The Vienna-based International Press Institute, a group dedicated to press freedom and freedom of expression, reported in July that Rodriguez Saludes was serving the longest sentence of 22 independent journalists currently jailed in Cuba. The 2003 crackdown led to the arrests of 79 Cuban critics, pro-democracy activists and other dissidents, according to IPI.

There have been many similar judgments against Cuba over the years. Collecting damages, when it happens at all, can take years and many more court battles involving Cuban assets held by U.S. entities or overseas.

Saludes attorney Martinez-Fraga said one potential source is people in the U.S. who owe debts to Cuba.

“I am extremely optimistic about satisfying the judgment,” he said.