U.S.-EL SALVADOR
Cuban romance still haunts Obama nominee for ambassador
The nominated ambassador to El Salvador has sparked controversy because
of her ex-boyfriend's ties to Cuban diplomats.
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Senate Republicans are determined to block a Democratic Party activist's
nomination as ambassador to El Salvador because of questions about a
long-ago boyfriend who had contacts with Cuban diplomats, congressional
staffers say.
The FBI cleared Mari Carmen Aponte when the issue of the boyfriend,
Cuban-born businessman Roberto Tamayo, first became public after
President Bill Clinton nominated her as ambassador to the Dominican
Republic in 1998.
Aponte withdrew from that nomination after Senate Republicans vowed to
ask tough questions about Tamayo. They had dated from 1982 to 1994 and
attended social functions with Cuban diplomats in Washington, D.C.
Her Obama administration nomination to the El Salvador job was approved
by the Senate Foreign Relations committee April 27, with 10 Democrats
endorsing her -- including Cuban-American Sen. Bob Menendez of New
Jersey -- and eight Republicans voting no.
But the Republicans will put a hold on her nomination when it comes up
in the full Senate, meaning it will need 60 votes for confirmation
unless they lift the hold, said congressional staffers who asked for
anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the topic.
``This is clearly a controversial nomination. It was controversial the
last time she was nominated, in a different administration,'' the
committee's top Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, said during
last month's vote.
The panel's Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC., had asked to
look at Aponte's full FBI file and a reputed confidential memo on
Tamayo's Cuban connections written during her 1998 nomination. Democrats
countered that no such memo exists, and that by tradition only one
member from each party is allowed to read the full files of nominees.
Menendez strongly defended Aponte during the April 27 vote, according to
The Cable, a Washington-based foreign policy website.
``If I thought that, after having reviewed the file, that Miss Aponte
would be a security risk to the United States in any context, but
particularly in the context of the Castro regime . . . I would oppose
her. But that is simply not the case,'' he was quoted as saying.
Cuban intelligence defector Florentino Aspillaga alleged in a 1993
newspaper article that Havana's spies were trying to recruit Aponte
through Tamayo, but gave no details. FBI agents later revealed that
Tamayo was in fact passing them information on his contacts with the
Cuban diplomats in Washington.
The Puerto Rico-born Aponte, 63, has acknowledged that she and Tamayo
attended some social functions with Cuban diplomats but insisted that
she never became aware of any attempt to recruit her.
Aponte has been a longtime Hispanic community activist in Washington,
working in the Department of Housing and Urban Development under
President Jimmy Carter, volunteering in the Clinton White House in 1993
and later raising campaign funds for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
when she ran for Senate.
She has served on the board of directors of the National Council of La
Raza and as president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, and was
executive director 2001-2004 of the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs
Administration in Washington, a liaison between the island's government
and U.S. federal and state agencies.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/09/1620438/cuban-romance-still-haunts-obama.html
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