The Miami Herald: The custody battle over a 4-year-old Cuban girlis filled with unusual circumstances.

The Miami Herald

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y07/jul07/25e1.htm

Clinton, Obama spar over meeting Castro, Chávez

One of the biggest dust-ups of the presidential race so far involves a
question about the possibility of talks with with Fidel Castro or Hugo
Chávez.

By Lesley Clark And Oscar Corral. . July 25, 2007.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Clinton seized on Sen. Barack Obama's YouTube
debate assertion that he would meet with anti-American leaders like
Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez as evidence that her top rival isn't ready
for the diplomatic stage.

In one of the sharpest exchanges of the Democratic primary campaign to
date, the two camps traded barbs Tuesday. Obama's camp suggested Clinton
had backtracked on her comments. Clinton, in an Iowa newspaper
interview, called the Illinois senator's comments "irresponsible and
frankly naive.''

Clinton's campaign also dispatched former Clinton Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright to tell reporters during a conference call that
Clinton struck the proper diplomatic tone -- ruling out engagement until
lower-level talks had been completed.

''Without having done the diplomatic spade work, it would not really
prove anything,'' Albright said.

OBAMA RESPONDS

The back-and-forth came as front-runner Clinton seeks to position
herself as best experienced to assume the presidential helm and Obama
looks to present himself as a fresh alternative.

''What she's somehow maintaining is [that] my statement could be
construed as not having asked what the meeting was about,'' Obama told
Iowa's Quad City Times, disputing Clinton. "I didn't say these guys were
going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon.''

The Obama campaign portrayed his words as bold. He countered with a
statement from Anthony Lake, former President Clinton's national
security advisor, who said a "great nation and its president should
never fear negotiating with anyone.

''Sen. Obama rightly said he would be willing to do so as Richard Nixon
did with China and Ronald Reagan did with the Soviet Union,'' Lake said.

Talk of sitting down with Castro is heresy in Miami, and GOP hopeful
Mitt Romney, angling for a slice of the powerful Cuban-American vote,
joined the fray Tuesday by suggesting that Obama "demonstrated a
dangerous naiveté.''

EMERGING VIEWS

Susana Betancourt, 38, a board member and former president of the
Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus, said she felt that the answers
were in tune with the sentiments of a younger generation of Cuban
Americans who believe that a policy of isolation against Cuba has
accomplished little.

But she acknowledged that Clinton's answer was more politically savvy
and would probably be better received in Miami. ''The reasoning behind
his response was well intentioned,'' Betancourt said of Obama.

Ana Navarro, 35, a Miami Republican lobbyist and fundraiser, said
Obama's answer showed a lack of understanding of the Cuba and Venezuela
issues.

''I thought Hillary's answer was smart,'' Navarro said. "I think the
difference between Hillary Clinton's answer and Barack . . . is that
they don't have Bob Menendez whispering in their ear and they haven't
felt the bite of the Cuba issue as Hillary has.''

Menendez, a Cuban American and Democratic senator from New Jersey, is
Hillary Clinton's campaign co-chairman. Bill Clinton encountered several
Cuba-related controversies as president, including the rafter crisis in
1994 and the custody battle over Elián González in 2000.

Clark reported from Washington, Corral from Miami.

Raúl Castro to give Revolution Day speech

By Anita Snow, July 25, 2007.

Cuba announced Wednesday that interim leader Raúl Castro will give this
week's Revolution Day address as the defense minister takes on more of
his older brother Fidel's previous roles and consolidates a caretaker
rule that increasingly looks permanent.

The announcement on the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma
doused the few remaining hopes among Fidel Castro's ardent supporters
that he could make a surprise appearance as the nation's leadership
prepares to celebrate Revolution Day on Thursday.

Fidel Castro made his last public appearance at last year's July 26
celebration. Five days later, the elder Castro stunned the nation by
announcing he had undergone emergency colon surgery and was
provisionally ceding power to Raúl, his designated successor since early
1959.

The celebrations mark the July 26, 1953, armed attack on the Moncada
military barracks in eastern Cuba that launched the revolution. Although
the assault failed, and many militants died, the rebels went on to oust
dictator Fulgencio Batista six years later.

Granma said that about 100,000 people will attend Raúl Castro's speech,
starting early Thursday in the central-eastern provincial capital of
Camaguey. The festivities will be carried live on state television and
radio.

Although the ailing 80-year-old Fidel traditionally has presided over
the annual Revolution Day celebration, Raúl has delivered the key July
26 addresses at least twice, most recently in 1997. Raúl, now 76, was at
his brother's side during the barracks assault and accompanied him and
other surviving attackers to prison.

Freed early under an amnesty the Castro brothers and their band traveled
to Mexico to form a rebel army that later returned to Cuba's eastern
Sierra Maestra mountains to wage a guerrilla war against the Batista
government. The revolution triumphed on Jan. 1, 1959, after Batista fled
the country.

Life on the island has been largely unaltered under a caretaker
government led by Raúl, with the government occasionally issuing videos
and photos documenting Fidel's recovery. Senior officials months ago
stopped insisting that Castro will return to power.

Castro's exact ailment and condition remain state secrets, but he is
believed to suffer from diverticular disease, which causes inflammation
and bleeding of the colon. Castro has acknowledged that at least one of
several surgeries went badly.

Cuban dad forced to leave family at border

When a Cuban man brought his family to the Texas-Mexico border, he was
sure he would be let in to the U.S. He was -- but his Venezuelan wife
and children were detained.

By Alfonso Chardy, . July 25, 2007.

Abel Gómez showed up one day last month at a U.S.-Mexico border crossing
in Texas certain that immigration authorities would let him in, along
with his wife and two children.

As a Cuban refugee, Gómez, 30, was indeed paroled into the United States
under the wet foot/dry foot policy. But his Venezuelan wife Ocdalis, 22,
and their Venezuela-born children -- 2-year-old Abel and 6-year-old
Winnelis -- were immediately put in deportation proceedings in Texas.

Gomez is among the rising number of Cubans arriving via the Mexican
border -- 84 percent of all Cuban migrants came through Mexico,
according to figures released Tuesday by Customs and Border Protection.

Those numbers have been increasing year by year as a result of
intensified Coast Guard interdictions in the Florida Straits.

In fiscal year 2005, 8,994 Cuban migrants arrived in the United States
-- but the majority, 7,267, came in through the Mexican border. In
fiscal year 2006, arrivals reached 10,329, with 8,639 showing up at the
border.

The Gómez case illustrates the increasingly frequent detention of
foreign families under tightened immigration rules post-9/11. Prior to
the terrorist attacks in 2001, undocumented families were generally
released pending resolution of their cases.

But now they are detained to await a ruling by an immigration judge. On
any given day, the government has the capacity to detain more than 600
men, women and children picked up along the border and in major cities,
according to a February report on family detention issued by the Women's
Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration
and Refugee Service.

'DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED'

''I am saddened and deeply disappointed that immigration officials did
not allow my wife and children to be free with me,'' said Gómez, now in
Miami. "I feel anguished about them all the time. I don't know what's
going to happen.''

His Coral Gables immigration attorney, Eduardo Soto, has drafted a
letter to Homeland Security asking that Gómez's wife and children be put
on supervised release pending resolution of the deportation case.

Gómez's case opens a window to the growing number of mixed
Cuban-Venezuelan families fleeing to the United States from Venezuela
where President Hugo Chávez, an ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, is
steering the South American country down a socialist path.

It would have been difficult for Gómez and his family to qualify for
U.S. immigrant visas because they don't have a business or close
relatives in the United States who could sponsor them. Even if they
qualified, the processing of regular immigrant visas in Venezuela could
take years.

Gómez said he considered the possibility of traveling alone to the
United States and then applying to bring his family. But that also could
have taken years and he was fearful that a crisis in U.S.-Venezuelan
relations would cut off travel.

''I didn't want children to grow up under a regime whose president has
said will navigate in the same waters as Cuba,'' Gómez said.

The Gómez family's departure from Venezuela was filled with ironic
parallels. Gómez's family left Cuba for Venezuela largely to escape
Castro's communism. Gómez was 6 when his parents moved to Venezuela. He
settled near Barcelona in eastern Venezuela, where he drove a vehicle
transporting personnel and goods for a local business. His wife cooked
and sold food.

Though Gómez became a naturalized Venezuelan, he kept his original Cuban
birth certificate and had a Cuban passport on arrival at the U.S. border.

Under U.S. law, Cubans and immediate family members -- even if they are
not Cuban -- generally qualify for permanent residence under the Cuban
Adjustment Act. But the law only applies if the entire family has been
paroled or admitted into the country.

Ocdalis and the children are considered stopped at the border awaiting
admission.

LONG JOURNEY

The Gómez family began planning their journey north about a year ago.
They boarded a plane to Mexico City on June 9. Two days later, they
caught a plane to the border and once there took a cab to the
international bridge between Reynosa, Mexico, and McAllen, Texas.

''I told the immigration officer that I was seeking asylum for my family
and myself and that I was a Cuban,'' Gómez said.

Gómez was shocked when officers said his wife and children would not be
allowed in.

Hours later, Ocdalis and the children were transported to the T. Don
Hutto Residential Center near Austin, one of two Homeland Security
detention facilities for undocumented migrant families.

Obama, Edwards say they would meet with Castro, Chávez

By Beth Reinhard, . July 23, 2007.

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards
suggested Monday that they would meet with two leaders who top South
Florida's most-hated list: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

During a nationally televised debate, Obama responded to a hypothetical
question: "Would you be willing to meet separately, without
precondition, during the first year of your administration, in
Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela,
Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

The senator from Illinois responded: "I would, and the reason is this:
the notion that somehow not talking to countries is somehow punishing
them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this
administration, is ridiculous.''

"Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to
the Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil
empire, and the reason is because they understood that we may not trust
them, that they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we
have the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.''

He added: "And I think it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.''

The Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, disagreed with her leading
rival: "I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries
during my first year. . .I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes
and don't want to make a situation even worse, but I certainly agree
that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad
word by this administration.''

The question was then posed to Edwards, who said, "Yes, I think Senator
Clinton is right, though. Before that meeting takes place, we need to do
the work, the diplomacy to make sure the meeting is not going to be used
for propaganda purposes.''

Edwards' campaign has previously decried Chávez's repressive policies.
Edwards has campaigned with actor Danny Glover, who has embraced the
Venezuelan president.

In 2000, Edwards was quoted as saying: "I support sanctions that target
Fidel Castro's regime but help the innocent Cuban people, allowing trade
for food and medical supplies that help ease the horrible burdens they
suffer.''

Obama also opposes ending the embargo, campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki
said after the debate.

''He is willing to talk to the highest levels of the Cuba government if
it advances our national interests,'' she said in an e-mail.

The question about Castro and Chávez came from Stephen Sorta of Diamond
Bar, Calif., via YouTube video in the first-of-its-kind debate. He said
on CNN after the debate that he was ''pleased'' by Obama's response.

But CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said, "Obama looked inexperienced
and naive. . .It was a very big win for (Clinton) on that question.''

The Republican candidates for president will field questions from makers
of YouTube videos on Sept. 17, in a debate in St. Petersburg
co-sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida. Questions can be
submitted to www.rpof.org.

Brazil-Cuba rivalry heats up at Pan American Games

July 23, 2007.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- (AP) -- A scuffle between Brazilian and Cuban
fans at the judo games forced the hasty departure of Brazil's sports
minister, Orlando Silva, in the latest flare-up in the nations' rivalry
at the Pan American Games on Sunday.

Home fans were upset after a judge gave Cuban Sheila Espinosa the
victory over Brazil's Erika Miranda in the under 52-kilogram (114-pound)
women's final.

The fans began booing and throwing plastic cups and other objects at the
judge and Espinosa. At the same time, an altercation began in the stands
after fans were upset with the celebration of members of the Cuban
delegation, which included former athletes such as volleyballer Regla
Torres.

Brazil's former Olympic champion Aurelio Miguel, a commentator for a
local TV station, also got involved in the melee.

No punches were thrown, but security guards intervened and removed the
Cubans from the site for their safety.

The competition was delayed for about an hour because of the scuffle,
and the crowed booed the announcement of the medal ceremonies.

At the end, fighters and delegation members from both nations got
together and shook hands.

The Pan Ams organizing committee said in a statement that it ''regrets
the incidents occurred Sunday'' and asked for an investigation.

In an earlier Brazil-Cuba final, Yanet Bermoy defeated Brazil's Daniela
Polzin in the under-48 kilograms (106 pounds) women's class.

''I was surprised with the boos at the medal ceremony,'' said Yosmani
Pike, who took silver to Argentina's Miguel Albarracin in the men's
under 60 kilograms (132 pounds) class. "The Brazilian people's opinion
does not matter, the medal is mine.''

On Thursday, Brazilian fans were angered after a judo judge, reportedly
born in Cuba and a naturalized American, awarded Cuba's Oscar Brayson a
disputed victory over Brazilian Joao Gabriel Schlittler.

Brazilians have been turned off by Cuba since the latter upset the home
side in a thrilling women's volleyball final on Thursday, and some Cuban
players provoked the local crowd after the medal ceremonies.

On Friday, Cuba defeated Brazil 6-5 in the women's water polo
bronze-medal match, keeping the Brazilians from reaching the podium for
the first time since the event began being played in 1999 in Winnipeg.

The next day, Cuban cyclist Yumari Gonzalez won the women's road race
and prompted complaints from Brazilian athletes who accused the Cuban
team of pushing them.

Brazil has beaten Cuba in the finals of women's beach volleyball and
women's handball without incident, but on Sunday, Cuban Mariela Gonzalez
beat Brazilians Marcia Narloch and Sirlene Pinho in the women's marathon.

Unusual issues define Cuban girl's custody battle

The custody battle over a 4-year-old Cuban girl is filled with unusual
circumstances.

By Carol Marbin Miller, . July 21, 2007.

His 4-year-old daughter needs to go to the bathroom. In a public park.
He doesn't want to let her go alone. But he doesn't want to go into a
women's restroom, or take the girl into the men's room.

Fathers face such predicaments every day. But to this man, it's more
like a test, and he can't afford to fail. A child welfare caseworker,
who will help decide whether he's fit to rear the girl, is watching. The
entire visit is being videotaped.

To complicate matters, he's a Cuban national whose country has spent
almost a half-century telling tales about the evils of American life.
He's been in Miami six weeks. His daughter barely knows him.

''Of course I know what to do with my child,'' he said in Spanish at a
court hearing this week, "but in my country.''

The case, which held its first public hearing Wednesday after a year of
closed-door sessions, is filled with cultural nuances and political
overtones.

At the center of the dispute: a girl whose caseworker says cries at
night, gnashes her teeth, and sneaks into her Cuban-American foster
parents' bed out of fear she will be taken from them. At age 4, her only
memories are those of the well-heeled Coral Gables family that has
raised her for more than a year.

The names of the girl, her father, and her caregivers are not being
revealed in this article to protect her privacy.

The picture of the girl emerging in court is that of a happy, even
precocious child who has never doubted that her caregivers, and their
children, are her real family.

She goes bike riding with them. She attends summer camp. She is
petrified her life will be upended.

''She does not want to go to Cuba,'' said psychologist Miguel Firpi, who
is working with the girl. "She becomes very, very hyper. She grinds her
teeth at night. She wakes up with nightmares.''

Said Julio Vigil, another psychologist in the case: "When [her birth
father] tries to give her a kiss, most of the time she rejects it.''

Anita Bock, who oversaw Miami-Dade's child welfare programs in the
1990s, said heart-wrenching custody battles are not rare, though they
are seldom easy.

This dispute, however, includes some real curveballs:

o A Department of Children & Families lawyer, Rebecca Kapusta, told the
judge the state would not be asking to terminate the father's rights to
his daughter -- an action akin to the ''death penalty'' in custody
disputes -- and that the father had been given a ''reunification case
plan'' that would allow him to regain custody.

But when asked by the judge what was the state's ''goal'' for the girl,
Kapusta said the state wanted the girl to live with the caregivers in a
"permanent guardianship.''

o The presiding judge's desire to protect the girl -- and the Miami
community -- from details of the case was so strong she closed all
hearings to the public and issued a gag order prohibiting insiders from
talking. The judge even threatened to jail courtroom participants who
violated her secrecy order. After The Miami Herald filed a complaint, an
appeals court forced the hearings open.

o For months, the U.S. State Department refused to grant the birth
father permission to enter the country to fight for custody -- until the
Miami judge pushed to get him a visa. Yet in court, DCF has accused him
of ''abandoning'' his daughter because he didn't arrive sooner.

o A psychologist recently insisted that the Cuban man tell his daughter,
with whom he's had only supervised visits, that he is her father. When
the news made her yell and cry, a caseworker complained the father's
visits were emotionally harmful.

Following the harrowing visit, the caseworker, Maria Zamora, said she
asked the child why she appeared so angry. ''She told me she only had
one father, and it's [the caregiver],'' Zamora said.

On the drive home from the visit, psychologist Firpi said, the girl tore
up a toy her father had given her.

The girl, who has been described in court as mature and insightful,
entered the country legally in March 2005 with her mother and older
brother -- who has a different father.

The tug-of-war began that year when the girl's mother was hospitalized
after a suicide attempt. The Gables family, given formal custody by DCF,
decided they wanted to adopt both kids, and neither the children's
mother nor the boy's father objected.

The girl's father, however, refused to surrender his rights. After a
protracted battle with the State Department -- which Circuit Judge Jeri
B. Cohen, who presides over the case, said she helped resolve -- the
father was allowed into the country about six weeks ago.

Hearings in the case have been closed to the public for a year.
Wednesday's, the first that was open, unleashed hostilities among all
parties, with red faces, finger-jabbing and shouting.

Some people have drawn parallels to the Elián González case, but the
difference is that the girl's case has gone to child welfare court,
while Elián's did not.

The key issue before the judge is the father's fitness to care for his
daughter, and lawyers with both DCF and the Miami Guardian-ad-Litem
Program have visited Cuba to observe the father and his living
conditions and interview family and neighbors.

Sources say child welfare administrators view such visits with a
jaundiced eye, fearing they are manipulated by the Cuban government.

For the most part, a parent who has committed no egregious offense, such
as severe physical abuse, is given a ''case plan'' with tasks he or she
must complete in order to gain custody. The ''goal'' of the case plan
typically is the reunification of parent and child.

But the DCF's stated goal in court Wednesday of permanent guardianship
for the Gables family seems to conflict with the agency's decision to
offer the birth father a chance to win back his daughter, several
observers said.

Bock, who oversaw foster care in Miami, said her former agency's
reunification plan might be "a fiction.''

''If there is no credible evidence this father has abandoned his child,
either at birth or later in life, and no evidence he abused the child,
there ought to be a sincere effort at reunification,'' she said.

In 1995, in one of Miami's most controversial cases, Bock overruled
caseworkers and lawyers and asked a judge to allow the relatives of
''Baby J'' to adopt her, and foster mother Kathryn Reiter, who had cared
for the girl for two years, absconded with her for 25 days before
surrendering.

''These cases are very complicated,'' said Bock, a lawyer who is now
deputy clerk of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. "The emotions
on either side are so raw.''

Jess McDonald, who headed the Illinois Department of Children & Family
Services before retiring in 2003, said Illinois caseworkers occasionally
would require parents to complete plans they knew were impossible.

''You have to wonder if the case plan is really a case plan, or just a
series of hoops unrelated to correcting any conditions'' the father may
have, McDonald said. "Let's see if we can prove the guy can't jump
through the hoops.''

''I wonder if it isn't, in fact, a little bit of a setup,'' McDonald added.

Andrew Lagomasino, the Cuban father's therapist, described DCF's actions
in the case in precisely the same language in court Wednesday: ''It is a
setup for failure,'' he said.

''It's wonderful that so much attention is being paid to the anguish of
this child,'' Lagomasino said. "But I don't see any attention being paid
to a father who did nothing wrong but could lose custody of his child.''

If ban were eased, U.S. exports to Cuba could double, report says

By Pablo Bachelet, . July 19, 2007.

WASHINGTON -- Lifting U.S. trade and travel restrictions on Cuba could
boost agricultural exports to the island by between $175 million and
$350 million per year, a U.S. government report released Thursday concludes.

The $350 million figure would be more than double current agricultural
exports to the island.

Opponents of U.S. policy seized on the conclusions to argue that the
Bush administration needs to ease the restrictions in order to benefit
U.S. exporters.

''It's clearly time for Congress to curb the overzealous trade embargo
on Cuba, so that American ranchers and farmers can benefit to the tune
of over $300 million a year,'' said Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus,
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade issues.

The committee requested the study by the U.S. International Trade
Commission (ITC), an independent agency that reviews trade matters. The
report is one of the most complete of its kind, with nine investigators
conducting scores of interviews, including some in Cuba.

The report cautions that projections are difficult to make because of
"data limitations and the nonmarket aspects of Cuban purchasing decisions.''

It notes that agricultural goods are imported by the state trading
agency Alimport, which considers both commercial and ''noncommercial
factors'' when making its purchasing decisions, including diversifying
suppliers and "strengthening strategic geopolitical relations.''

So the study provides a range of $176 million to $350 million for
additional Cuban purchases.

The 180-page report also estimates lifting travel restrictions would
mean between 550,000 and one million U.S. citizens would travel to Cuba
annually, against 170,000 that did so in 2005, most of them Cuban Americans.

U.S. commodity exports to Cuba were permitted in 2000 and the United
States quickly became Cuba's biggest supplier of foodstuff, although
farm state lawmakers like Baucus, who has proposed legislation to ease
sanctions, argue that U.S. sales could be much higher.

The biggest gains would be for fresh fruits and vegetables, milk powder,
processed foods and certain meats, ITC investigators concluded.

Cuba: We're not to blame for visa holdups

July 19, 2007.

HAVANA -- (AP) -- A top Foreign Ministry official on Wednesday rejected
U.S. charges that the island's government was to blame for Washington's
inability to meet its annual 20,000-visa quota for Cubans seeking to
leave the island.

America's failure to meet the quota will likely encourage more illegal
immigration to the United States, Josefina Vidal, director of the
Foreign Ministry's North American Department, told The Associated Press.

''The Foreign Ministry categorically rejects the affirmation by the U.S.
Interests Section that we are obstructing the work of that office,''
Vidal said in an interview.

She dismissed complaints by the U.S. Interests Section -- the American
mission here -- that Cuba had failed to authorize essential personnel
and materials. Washington's failure to meet its annual quota of 20,000
visas by Sept. 30 would be a ''very grave violation'' of migration
accords between the two countries, Vidal said.

The two countries signed accords in 1994 to halt a mass exodus of
U.S.-bound Cubans by sea, agreeing to work toward safe and orderly
migration of Cubans wanting to emigrate to the United States. The United
States said it would process a minimum of 20,000 emigration visas for
Cubans in an effort to prevent such dangerous sea journeys.

Washington said Tuesday it will not be able to meet the quota by the end
of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, complaining Havana has not authorized
the necessary U.S. personnel needed to process the visas and do other
work at the American mission. Cuba's Foreign Ministry said that through
June 30, only 10,724 Cubans had been granted visas.

On Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also said
that for more than a year Cuba has held up 28 shipping containers filled
with "essential supplies and materials necessary for the safe and timely
operation of the U.S. Interests Section.''

Vidal countered that 18 of the 20 positions for American officials
assigned to ensuring adherence to the migration accords are currently
filled and that visas for the other two are being processed. Cuba this
year also granted visas to eight temporary U.S. workers assigned to
migration related tasks, Vidal added.

''Cuban authorities have granted all of the visas requested by the
[U.S.] Department of State for officials designated by the U.S.
Interests Section to work on the implementation of the migration
accords,'' Vidal said.

Vidal said Cuba allowed the American mission to import more than 88 tons
of goods last year and had additionally authorized "numerous approvals
for the importation of materials for the remodeling of the consular
offices.''

As for the containers still held up, she said, ''we have the sovereign
right to deny the importation of materials that are not for the official
use of the U.S. Interests Section.'' She said Cuba believed that some
containers held goods "for subversive work in support of the
counterrevolution in flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention.''

Cuba and the United States have not had diplomatic relations in more
than four decades but maintain interests sections in lieu of full
embassies to issue visas and handle other consular functions.



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