Cuba turns U.S.-expelled envoy into national hero

March 3, 2000
Web posted at: 5:35 p.m. EST (2235 GMT)

HAVANA (Reuters) -- Cuba's ruling Communist Party hailed Friday expelled Cuban diplomat Jose Imperatori as a national hero whose "anti-imperialist" stance was a crucial victory in the battle to bring home boat-boy Elian Gonzalez.

But the world was left puzzled at a five-day hunger-strike in Ottawa that became an awkward episode in already delicate Cuba-Canada ties, and did not achieve its aim of forcing Washington to retract or prove spy claims against Imperatori.

"The heroic homecoming was something of a face-saving exercise by Cuba, and, of course, an attempt to link the issue firmly with the Elian issue which the Cubans do not want anyone to lose focus on," a Western diplomat in Havana said.

Other analysts said Cuba was trying to push the United States against the wall in a flare-up -- over the spy charges, and the Elian custody battle -- President Fidel Castro is convinced he will win and believes is earning world sympathy.

State TV showed over-and-over again Imperatori's homecoming when he was showered with patriotic praise and effusively hugged by Castro at a welcome ceremony at Havana airport.

"The fatherland welcomed Imperatori home. In Fidel's embrace, he received the embrace of all Cubans," Communist Party daily trumpeted on its front page.

Inside Granma, a picture spread showed Imperatori hugging a Cuban flag inside a plane amid a jubilant crowd of children, arts' personalities, and officials, who made the nine-hour round trip from Havana to Ottawa to pick him up Thursday.

"You can be sure that I am not the only hero in this country, nor do I believe I have done anything heroic," a wan- looking Imperatori, 46, told reporters in Havana. "All our people have done it together, and together we will go onward to the final victory."

The patriotic fervor was too much for some of the Cuban reporters who accompanied Imperatori on his journey back from Ottawa. "Emotion clouds the sight, and after following minute- by-minute the events of almost nine glorious hours, we cannot say exactly what time we touched Cuban soil," Juana Carrasco, of Cuba's second state daily Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) wrote at the start of her front-page report on the subject.

Among the delegation greeting Imperatori in Havana were the family of 6-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian, at the center of a bitter tug-of-love between his Cuban and U.S. relatives that has also pitted Castro against his arch-enemies among Florida's anti-communist Cuban-American groups.

Havana says U.S. claims Imperatori collaborated with an alleged Cuban spy in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) are groundless. "There cannot be any proof of something that does not exist," Castro said.

The Imperatori affair was, Cuba alleges, a ploy to damage attempts to bring back Elian by discrediting the INS after it had ruled in favor of the boy's return to his father here. He was picked up at sea off Florida on Nov. 25 after a capsize that killed his mother and 10 other illegal Cuban migrants.

Imperatori denied he had been involved in spying and refused to obey an expulsion order. But he was forcibly deported to Canada at the weekend, where he held a hunger strike to protest the U.S. measure and refused to leave Ottawa after a two-day transit visa expired.

That stance puzzled many, who wondered why Cuba was apparently dragging Canada into its latest flareup with the United States. Canada was relieved at Thursday's end of a standoff which had put extra strain on already souring relations between Ottawa and Havana.

Canada opposes U.S. economic sanctions on Cuba, but has been critical of Castro's treatment of local dissidents.

Havana said Imperatori ended his hunger strike after reaching "a reasonable and satisfactory settlement" which maximized his chances of returning to the United States to clear his name. It did not elaborate.

The latest of daily "Free Elian!" events was set for later Friday in Havana, this time a televised round-table on "counter-revolutionary activity aimed at destroying the Revolution."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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