FIU spy case reawakens old mistrust among exiles

Posted on Sun, Feb. 05, 2006

EXILE POLITICS
FIU spy case reawakens old mistrust among exiles
The FIU spy case is stirring up distrust between Cuban exile factions
and also between exiles and island dissidents.
BY OSCAR CORRAL
ocorral@MiamiHerald.com

The case against two Florida International University employees believed
to be supplying Cuba information about South Florida exiles has stirred
up once again the element of political distrust that exists between
exiles on the left and the right.

But it also comes at a time when older exiles are trying to reconcile
that mistrust with faith in a budding dissident movement in Cuba.

The question for exiles of who's trustworthy in the island's opposition,
comprised of people mostly born and raised in the communist system, is
even more complex than whom to trust on this side of the Florida Straits.

The Cuban government has infiltrated some dissident movements aiming to
arrest and discredit its members, and some opposition leaders once
considered authentic voices of dissent against the Castro government
have let down and even betrayed peers and exiles.

Claudia Márquez, 28, an independent journalist who left Cuba last year
and is now living in Puerto Rico, is caught in the middle of this ugly
tension. Her husband, Osvaldo Alfonso Valdez, stunned fellow dissidents
in 2003 when he read a statement in a Cuban court, saying he had been
manipulated by U.S. diplomats in Havana. The Cuban government convicted
75 dissidents in summary trials.

''He betrayed the opposition,'' Márquez said of her husband, who is now
living in Switzerland.

``He was one of the most important witnesses for the government.''

Valdez was deep in the opposition as president of the illegal Liberal
Democratic Party, a leader of the All United Coalition and a member of
the Moderate Opposition's Round Table for Reflection.

''He was a total opposition member, but they broke him,'' Márquez said.
``When one is married and has young children, they use that for
leverage. . . . What they want is to create panic among the dissidents
and the Cuban people.''

The mistrust often goes both ways. One dissident who left Cuba in
December with his wife and two daughters, Israel Morales Arrastia, said
he was so mortified of Miami's political climate that he moved to
Jacksonville.

''I don't have the stomach for Miami,'' said Arrastia, convicted in Cuba
of peligrosidad (behavior the government considers dangerous) and
threatened with a 20-year sentence.

In an incident that occurred during the 2003 dissident crackdown,
opposition leader Elizardo Sánchez was shown in a Cuban government
videotape receiving a medal from state security. Sánchez said he was
trying to get prisoners released and fell into a trap.

FIU Professor Damián Fernández explained that one of the Castro
government's main goals is to create division and distrust among
dissidents because the government fears them. Another important goal for
the communist government: to get exiles to distrust the dissidents so
much that Cuban Americans stop supporting them.

''These people live under tremendous psychological and financial
pressure,'' Fernández said. ``Life is very hard for the legitimate ones.
They operate in a climate of total mistrust, and it's hard to trust and
believe if you operate within that context.''

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