Cuban Baptists released from jail

Cuban Baptists released from jail
By Bob Allen
Published: October 19, 2009

LAKELAND, Fla. (ABP) -- Two Cuban Baptist leaders held two weeks while
authorities investigated what they regarded suspicious economic activity
have reportedly been released from jail.
Rubén Ortiz-Columbié

Rubén Ortiz-Columbié, 68, and Francisco "Pancho" Garcia-Ruiz, 46, were
arrested Oct. 3 by agents of Cuba's National Revolutionary Police as
they entered the province of Guantanamo to deliver financial aid to
churches. They were detained in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba
while authorities investigated the source and destination of currency
worth $4,000 they were carrying at the time of their arrest.

Ray Johnson, coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of
Florida, said he received a call Oct. 17 from the son of one of the
captives, Ruben Ortiz, pastor of First Hispanic Baptist Church in
Deltona, Fla., saying they were released without formal charge. Ortiz
could not be reached for comment.

The Florida CBF entered into a partnership with the Eastern Cuba Baptist
Convention in 2008. Ortiz-Columbié, former general office manager of the
Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention and long-time teacher at the Baptist
Seminary of Eastern Cuba, now volunteers as the convention's coordinator
for special projects. Garcia directs the convention's teen department.

The Florida CBF has so far collected and transferred $7,000 to fund
ministry projects in Cuba. First Hispanic Baptist Church in Deltona has
been sending money to the island on a regular basis since 2001.

Sources in Cuba said it is unlikely the men were targeted for religious
activity but probably aroused suspicion by carrying around such a large
amount of cash. The U.S. State Department estimates Cuba's per capita
income at $4,200 a year with an average monthly salary of $17.

Ned Walsh, a former Baptist minister and current executive director of
Habitat for Humanity of Johnston County in Smithfield, N.C., recently
returned from a trip to Cuba. He said government officials are
particularly wary of money coming from Florida.
Pancho Garcia-Ruiz

Opposition there to Cuban leader Fidel Castro is strong, especially
among Miami's large population of Cuban exiles. Also, Walsh said, some
evangelical groups in the United States are openly hostile to Castro and
thereby viewed in Cuba as capable of supporting activities the
government would deem subversive.

Walsh compared it to the suspicion that would likely greet Muslim clergy
bringing a large sum of money to a mosque in the U.S. from Iraq.

Cuban Baptists have always been politically diverse but those
differences have intensified of late as shortages and lack of
opportunity have weakened support for the revolution and citizens
increasingly say they would like greater freedoms.

One Baptist pastor in Cuba said recently he was forced out of a Baptist
convention for condemning rapprochement of Baptist hierarchy with Raul
Castro, who succeeded his brother as Cuba's president in 2008.

Other Baptists believe they fare better by getting along with the
government. Walsh said a pastor with the Fraternity of Baptist Churches
in Cuba pointed him toward a landscape hit by a hurricane. Massive oak
trees that once stood there were gone, but the palm trees remained. The
reason, the pastor told Walsh, is the palm trees were able to bend.

--Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

The Baptist Standard :: The Newsmagazine of Texas Baptists - Cuban
Baptists released from jail (20 October 2009)
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