Cuban defectors choosing Tampa over Miami

Posted on Sunday, 09.09.12

Life in exile

Cuban defectors choosing Tampa over Miami

Hoping to avoid the anti-Castro maelstrom in Miami — and spies for the
regime — some important expats are choosing to live in Tampa.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

TAMPA -- One was a senior Cuban government official who handled more
than $700 million in U.S. imports in one year. Another is the son of a
top Cuban army general. And then there's the daughter of the island's
powerful vice president.

All three defected and became part of a little-known trend among Cubans
who escape their communist-ruled country and settle in Tampa, a city
with strong historical ties to the island but not a major focus of
current Cuban expatriate life.

Why Tampa?

To avoid Miami's anti-Castro cauldron, analysts say. But also because
the defectors are less likely to be recognized on the streets and
because Miami has many knowledgeable FBI agents — and too many Castro spies.

"They certainly can have a softer landing in this area," said Ralph
Fernandez, a Cuban-American lawyer in Tampa who said he knows of five
mid- to high-level government officials living here whose defections in
recent months have not been made public.

Miami immigration lawyer Wilfredo Allen said his Tampa office was
contacted by half a dozen middle-ranking Cuban military officers and
government officials for help with their legal status over the past
three years.

Fernandez and other Cubans in Tampa agree that the total number of
recent defectors living in the city of 346,000 people is high but
unknowable because many of them are in hiding or keeping low profiles
for various reasons.

The same refrain

Former Cuban navy commander Armelio Pavon, who has lived in Tampa since
he deserted in 1994, said he hears the same refrain from both defectors
and regular Cubans arriving recently in his city.

"They say they left Cuba, so why would they want to continue in that
intensely Cuban atmosphere that is Miami," Pavon said. "They prefer to
stay away, because they want to keep their distance from that mess that
Miami can be."

One example is Glenda Murillo, 24, daughter of Vice President Marino
Murillo, a member of the Communist Party's politburo in charge of
economic reforms. She defected last month and turned up at the Tampa
home of an aunt, Idania Diaz, who said Murillo has a boyfriend in
Hialeah but will settle in Tampa "because it's more peaceful here."

Others have stronger reasons for staying out of Miami, like the former
Interior Ministry captain who served in "confrontation," which monitors
dissidents, in a provincial city before he defected in 2009, lived in
Tampa for a year and then moved to Las Vegas.

"Look, I never hurt anyone, never hit anyone, nothing. But I was known
in town as an officer in confrontation, and I don't want to run into a
neighbor on Eighth Street or Hialeah," he said, asking for anonymity out
of concern for his safety.

Fernandez added that some of the recent defectors may have other reasons
for trying to live secretly in Tampa and far from Miami — especially
those who may be sought by Cuban intelligence agents.

Pedro Alvarez, 69, was under investigation in Havana on corruption
charges when he became one of the highest-ranking government officials
to defect in recent years. Reported in February to be living in Tampa,
he had headed Alimport, the government agency that imports food —
including $711 million worth of U.S. products in 2008.

Pavon, considered to be the highest-ranking Cuban navy officer to
defect, said he believes Cuban spies in South Florida still try to keep
track of his whereabouts even today. And when his wife visited her
hometown in Cuba in 2009, friendly neighbors warned her that state
security agents were watching her.

On the lookout

Miami has too many Cuban intelligence agents who are on the lookout for
people like Alvarez, Fernandez said, and too many exiles so intent on
doing business with the island that they could be easily tempted to
report to Havana on any interesting new arrivals.

What's more, the Miami office of the FBI, the agency in charge of
debriefing Cuban defectors and spotting its spies, is widely viewed as
being more experienced in island affairs than the Tampa office,
according to U.S. intelligence community analysts.

"The FBI in Miami is sharp, all business. But they are under a lot of
pressure because of the large Cuban intelligence presence there. Tampa
is also smart, but friendlier," said one South Florida anti-Castro
activist who has dealt with both on Cuba defectors.

Also keeping low profiles in Tampa and elsewhere are defectors whose
membership in Cuba's Communist Party or Communist Youth, government jobs
or family relations with senior government officials could complicate
their U.S. immigration status, Allen noted.

Defectors are asked about those sorts of links during their initial
interviews with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. Some may
not reveal them, afraid they will be detained for further questioning
instead of being immediately paroled. But the questions can come up
again when they try to adjust their status from parolees to U.S. residents.

Allen said three recent Cuban arrivals living in the Fort Myers area
sought his counsel on their status adjustments, but did not hire him
when he started asking too many questions about their work and
memberships in Cuba.

And if the defectors keep a low enough profile, and above all make no
public statements even hinting at any criticism of the Cuban government,
they may win a Havana permission to return to the island to visit relatives.

Pedro Alvarez and Glenda Murillo have made no public statements. Neither
has Ernesto Andollo, the son of a top Cuban army general, found to be
living in Tampa in July after he posted a Facebook photo of himself
"strangling" a wax museum figure of Fidel Castro.

Also reported to be living quietly in Tampa is a nephew of Ramon Castro,
older brother of Fidel and Raúl Castro. A brother of one of Raúl
Castro's sons-in-law and a former girlfriend of one of Fidel Castro's
sons are living in Naples.

Although Tampa has a long history of ties to the island that go back to
the 1800s and the cigar industry here, the city today does not have much
of a Cuban presence. The 2010 census showed the Tampa Bay area had
65,000 residents who called themselves Cuban.

No Little Havana

Tampa has avenues named Habana and Republica de Cuba, but no
neighborhood so densely packed with Cubans that it's known as Little Havana.

What it does have are two key U.S. military headquarters within the
MacDill Air Force Base — Central Command, in charge of all operations in
the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan; and the Special
Operations Command, in charge of all elite units, such as Seal Teams and
Green Berets, anywhere in the world.

An official in the George W. Bush administration who was regularly
briefed on Cuba intelligence operations said that's why U.S. security
agencies have been particularly concerned about the presence of island
defectors in the Tampa area.

"Any increase in the number of Cubans living near any U.S. military
facility is cause for concern," said the official, who asked to remain
unidentified, "specially if they had high-level jobs in the government
or were members of the [Communist] Party."

Nearly 100 suspicious Cubans were spotted settling near U.S. military
installations in the late 1990s, he added, and one of them applied for a
job as an air traffic controller in an Air Force base in North Carolina.

One of the five Cuban spies convicted in a Miami trial in 2001, Ramon
Labañino, was living in Tampa and reporting to Havana on airplanes
landing and taking off from MacDill before he arrived in Miami,
according to trial evidence.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/08/v-fullstory/2992589/cuban-defectors-choosing-tampa.html