By Juan O. Tamayo
El Nuevo Herald
Posted: 9:18 a.m. Wednesday, April 7, 2010
A Cuban dissident who came to Miami in 2005, and was blocked when he
tried to return to the island legally to resume his activism, apparently
drowned during an attempt to sneak back aboard a boat, friends said Tuesday.
Adrián Leiva, about 52, had long demanded the Cuban government allow its
people to leave and return as they wished, arguing in a recent
videotaped presentation that migration was "a dagger plunged into the
heart of the Cuban nation.'
He told friends he planned to slip back into Cuba by boat on March 22,
and his sister Eva was told by Cuban officials Monday that he had
drowned, said Miguel Saludes, a long-time friend. Three other Cubans
dropped off by the boat were detained by Cuban border guards.
Cases of Cubans who try to return to the island illegally are believed
to be rare, though not unheard of, because the country's security forces
are relatively efficient at spotting unauthorized people on the island.
"This is tragic,' said Saludes, who described Leiva as a moderate who
demanded the release of all political prisoners in Cuba but opposed the
U.S. embargo and believed Raúl Castro would carry out economic reforms.
A video of Leiva at a November seminar in Mexico City showed him saying
that Cuba uses migration as "a Cuban labor company abroad.'
Activism history
Leiva had been active in the dissident movement since 1996, as an
independent journalist and fellow of the Christian Liberation Movement
headed by Oswaldo Payá, according to Saludes. He had worked in a Cuban
food enterprise, but was demoted to the position of breadmaker for his
activism.
He left Cuba with his wife in 2005, saying he was not abandoning the
country, only accompanying her while she studied in the United States.
But they divorced about a year later, Saludes said, and he began trying
to move back to Cuba.
"He said that his stay here had lost its purpose with his divorce,' said
Saludes, adding that Leiva's desire to return was driven not by
disappointment with South Florida but a desire to resume his activism in
Cuba.
Going back
Leiva returned legally in 2008 on a three-month visitor's permit from
Cuba, but was picked up by authorities and put aboard a flight back to
Miami after the permit expired, according to Saludes.
He tried it again last April, but was blocked at Miami International
Airport when Cuban government officials notified the flight charterer
that he was not authorized to re-enter the island, Saludes added.
Leiva recently began telling friends that he had found a boat that would
drop him off in Cuba, between Havana and Matanzas to the east, for just
the cost of the gasoline, his friend said.
"To the surprise of all of Adrián's friends, on the morning of the 23rd,
we learned of his departure, approximately between 9 and 10 the previous
night,' Saludes said.
Leiva's relatives in Cuba were notified of his planned return, he added,
but they heard nothing until Monday, when his sister asked State
Security officials if they knew anything and was told that a body in a
morgue fit his description.
Morgue officials told her Leiva had drowned during an effort to return,
Eva told Saludes.
Leiva was buried Tuesday, with heavily armed Cuban security forces
guarding the ceremony, Saludes said.
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