Word: cubans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...plantados, thought to number up to several hundred in a total Cuban prisoner population of 7,000, refuse to wear the yellow uniforms made especially for them as badges of dishonor, so prison officials do not issue them any clothing. For 17 years, said the Rev. Humberto Noble Alexander, a Seventh-day Adventist who was jailed in 1962, many plantados "wore nothing but underwear we made ourselves from bed sheets." Noble's crime: sermonizing from his pulpit about Lucifer (a reference to Castro) seducing and deceiving the angels (the Cuban people). Once, anticipating a prison visit by foreign delegations...
...Andres Vargas Gomez, 69, a poet and a former diplomat who is the grandson of General Maximo Gomez, the architect of Cuban independence. Imprisoned by Castro in 1961, Vargas last week was reunited at Dulles with his wife Maria, a college teacher in Miami he had not seen for 24 years. (Vargas was not in prison at the time of the release but was being held on the island.) Invited by Jesse Jackson to join an airport news conference, Vargas took issue with Jackson's self-described peace offensive. Said he: "We don't want a peace that...
...Jose Rolando Otero Sabatier, 66, a former tilemaker who was a popular figure in the Cuban labor movement. Otero was arrested in 1964 while plotting a national uprising under the banner of the Cuban National Liberation Army. He kissed miniature Cuban and American flags on his arrival in Miami and looked a bit bewildered as a throng of 250 people cheered him. Said he: "After 20 years, I didn't recognize some of my family. I was surprised to see the grandchildren are bigger than...
...Daniel Conde Freire, 43, a farmer with a second-grade education, imprisoned in 1963 for speaking out against the Castro regime. Said he: "My main aspiration is to take all of the political prisoners out of Cuban jails and reunite them with their families." Grateful though he was for his release, Conde said of Jackson, "He's making politics, he's looking for votes...
...Little Havana, the staunchly anti-Castro, Cuban-American neighborhood on Miami's southwest side, many supported Jackson's effort on purely pragmatic grounds. As one freed prisoner's relative put it, "Those people complaining about Jackson don't have relatives in prison. They don't care." More typical was the view of Banker Luis Lauredo, who had given Jackson a list of political prisoners in advance of the Havana trip. Said Lauredo: "I will stand up anywhere and tell Jackson publicly, 'Thank you for freeing the prisoners. But in the very next breath...